4. God-Held Souls! Psalm 66:8-12

Text: “O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard: which holdeth (holds, and continues to hold) our soul in life, and suffereth (allows) not our feet to be moved.”

Psalm 66:8-9.

Good morning, God-Held Christian!  So often you, like the author, have perhaps been so overwhelmed by oppositions, dreads, doubts, testings and trials – that you have begun to feel that your Salvation is just about to be lost; that the Lord has abandoned us; that the enemies of our souls were already knocking at, and breaking down, the doors of our faith.

However, just when all hope seemed to be lost – the Lord God sent us deliverance, refreshments; renewal of winning faith, and caused us to rejoice in faithfulness again.  What a blessed Lord and gracious Saviour we have in Christ Jesus!  Amen.

God’s Word is the best encourager of our fallible faith, and our feeble hearts.

“Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, who are KEPT by the power of God through faith unto Salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”  (1 Peter 1:3-5)

The word ‘kept’ in the apostle Peter’s writing - under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit – denotes the same grammatical concept as the word KEEP, as in the Keep of a castle; the strongest, most secure part of a fortified castle building. 

We who are saved by the precious Blood of the Lamb, Christ Jesus, are placed by God in the most secure place, the Keep of the castle of His power.  As such, we are forever God-held souls.  Praise His Name!

“My sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me: and I give unto them Eternal life (not temporal life, but Eternal life!); and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.  My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.  I and My Father are One.”  (John 10:27-30)

If you and I are SAVED by God’s Sovereign grace – we shall be KEPT by God’s grace.  We who are born again have Eternal life NOW!  Praise God for His grace!

“Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ.”  (Philippians 1:6)

Now I challenge all Readers: IF we are, by God’s Spirit, and His gifts of repentance and faith sure we are Eternally SAVED – how can we withhold our heart’s praise of the Lord God Who has blessed us with such a multiplicity of blessings in Christ Jesus?

Verse 8.  “O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard.  Whoever else may sing with bated breath, do you be sure to give full tongue and volume to the song.  Compel unwilling ears to hear the praises of your covenant God.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 284)

The wise man built his house upon the Rock, as the Sunday-school chorus informs us – the Word of God is that Rock, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Eternal Father God. 

The Word: Check out for your own encouragement the mentions in Spirit-inspired Scriptures of the Word of God, and you shall find Spiritual treasures that will assure your very soul.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word was made flesh (the incarnation of God the Son as Jesus Christ), and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”  (John 1;14)

“And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” (John 17:5)

“Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that hey may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world.”  (John 17:24)

“For the Word of God is quick (living) and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (the whole essence of man.)  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in HIS sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”  (Hebrews 4:12-13)

This is THE WORD, Christ Jesus, Who is coming back soon to us, not this time as a meek and lowly lamb, but as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, with all the armies of Heaven to make an end of Christ-rejection, Sodomy, and sin.  “Even so, Come Lord Jesus!”

“And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in Blood: and His Name is called The Word of God.  And the armies which were in Heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.”  (Revelation 19:13-14)

Verse 9.  “Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.  If God has enabled us not only to keep our life, but our position, we are bound to give Him double praise.  Living and standing is the saints’ condition through Divine grace.  Immortal and immovable are those whom God preserves.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 284)

We persevere as Spirit-quickened, Blood-bought children of God, because we are God-held.  It is the Lord God Almighty that does the Eternal holding of the souls He saves.

God-held Christian believers are ALWAYS sorely tried and tested to make us stand strong.

Verse 10.  “For Thou, O God, hast proved us.  God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without trial.  The day may come when we shall make hymns out of our grief and sing all the more sweetly because our mouths have been purified with bitter draughts.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 284)

An army, one has said, can only be called ‘invincible’, AFTER it has fought battles and won.  All Christians serious about serving the Lord Jesus Christ, must be tested continually, to make us strong and faith-filled for the Spiritual Battle.

Verse 12. “…We went through fire and through water.  The fire could not consume us, the waters could not drown us – because the Lord God Jehovah, our Father, would not let them.

Thought: “The greatest danger that befalls man comes whence it should least come, from man himself.  Lions fight not with lions; serpents spend not their venom on serpents; but man is the main suborner of mischief to his own kind.”  T. Adams (1614)