Psalms 66:3

Psalms 66:3-4 says, “Say unto God, How terrible art Thou in Thy works! through the greatness of Thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto Thee. All the earth shall worship Thee, and shall sing unto Thee; they shall sing to Thy name. Selah.”

There is a great contest, a great competition, a great conflict going on in the world. We see it in the rise and fall of nations. It is the struggle for power. All men have some power, the power of free will. But in the end of human history who will be the victor, who will be proven to be the most powerful? It will not be man. It will be God.

Man has a free will. But God has a free will too. Free will comes from God. And this is one of the ways that we are created in the image of God. But God’s will is much stronger than man’s will. You can resist the will of God, you can fight against the will of God, you can oppose the will of God will all your strength, all your intelligence, all your cunning and all your abilities as a man but in the end the final outcome will be that God will win.

A wise person will come to realize this truth and instead of going their own way in life they will go God’s way.

Human beings love a winner. They the love the sports team that wins and they love to give glory to those that have power, to the nation or the ruler of nation that has power and that conquers and that is the victor. The more power they have they more they awe and glorify that person.

No one is more powerful than God, no nation, no army, Psalms 66:3-4 says, “Through the greatness of Thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto Thee. All the earth shall worship Thee.”

One day all the enemies of God will be defeated. One day everyone who opposes truth and righteousness will be broken and dominated and conquered. How will this be done? It will not be done through human effort. It will not be accomplished through the efforts of Christians to evangelize the world. But it will happen purely through God’s great power.

Isaiah 45:22-23, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.”

The last part of Psalms 66:34 says, “They shall sing to Thy name. Selah.”

Do not underestimate the power or the importance of the name of God. Names are important even for humans. Your name identifies who you are. The name of God is not allah. The name of God is Jesus Christ.

There are many many verses in the Bible that emphasis the importance of the name of God. Lets read some of those verses. Acts 4:10-12, “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

Why is the name of Jesus Christ so important? Because there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Philippians 2:6-8, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:”

The name of Jesus is a name which is above every name.

1 John 2:12, I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.”1 John 3:23, “And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment.”

There are many more verses in the New Testament and in the Old Testament that emphasis the importance of the name of God. These verses make it very clear you must believe in the name of Jesus Christ to be saved. These verses make it very clear the name of Jesus Christ is exalted above all other names that means that includes any other names of God given in the Old Testament.

Anyone who says that the name of God is not important is either a false teacher who is trying to butcher the gospel or is a person who absolutely does not know what the Bible says.

Now there is a false teaching that has been going around in which people say that the real name of Jesus is Yoshua and not Jesus Christ. Their argument has to do with languages and Hebrew and the fact Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ is a transliteration from Greek. They also lie and say that part of the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew. This is a lie. History and preserved historical documents prove that all of the New Testament was originally written in Greek. The reason that they make this lie about the New Testament is to try to support their claims about the name Yoshua. They say Yoshua is the Hebrew name and that Jesus was a Jew so His name really was Yoshua. This is wrong. Yoshua and Jesus are not the same name. Yoshua is not a transliteration of the Greek. The Gospel of Matthew was not originally written in Hebrew like the rest of the New Testament it was written in Greek. Do not be deceived by their teachings.

The name of God is Jesus Christ. There is no other name in heaven or earth by which men must be saved. This false teaching about Jesus is simply an attack on the gospel. It is a lie of the devil to mislead and deceive people into not believing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We live in a time there are just more and more and more false teachings. There are more lies and false teachings now than there were in the Apostle Paul’s day. People lie all the time, they lie about history, they lie about archeology, they lie about the Hebrew and the Greek texts. They love lies. Their lies sound very intellectual. And if you do not learn to think for yourself, if you do not seek the truth with all your heart you will be misled. It doesn’t matter how logical their explanations sound the fact is these teachings are simply teachings in which people are denying the name of God.

The other things these people do who teach this lie against the name of Jesus is that some of them act as though the Hebrew is better than the Greek. The Hebrew is not better than the Greek language anymore than the Greek language is better than the Hebrew. God used both languages: Hebrew for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament. Language is not some sort of obstacle or stumbling block for God. God created language. God created all languages and God uses all languages to present His truth.

If a person wanted to argue about the issue of God’s name, it is very easy to prove the truth just using historical archeological documents. The Oldest New Testament Texts that exist are not even in Hebrew they are in Greek. This fact itself suggests that the New Testament was written in Greek. In addition to this the majority of ancient New Testament manuscripts are written in the koine Greek not in other languages. Therefore Historical archeology supports the truth that the name of God is Jesus not Yoshua.

By using their reasoning and arguments we could look at the Old Testament which was written originally written in Hebrew and would look at translations of the Old Testament such as the Septuagint which is a Greek translation and we could find ancient manuscripts that is ancient Greek manuscript translations of the Old Testament. Some of them many be dated older than some Hebrew texts but that does not mean that the Old Testament was originally written in Greek. It means nothing of the kind. There are plenty of ancient Hebrew Old Testament texts to suggest that the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew.

In addition to this the argument that because the disciples of Jesus were Jewish means that they must have written in Hebrew is not a valid argument. It is very common knowledge that in the society of the Roman empire aside from the native language that each conquered territory of the Roman empire spake there were two other languages the Latin which is the language of the Romans and the Koine Greek. The word Koine means common. It is called common Greek but the common, average citizens of the Empire used it. Because in the time before the Roman Empire when Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world the Greek languaged became the common language. And during the time of the Roman Empire it was still used.

It is simply an outright lie to say that parts of the New Testament were originally written in Hebrew. The people teaching this know it’s a lie. There is absolutely no historical or archeological evidence to support this.

These false teachers in the world with their degrees hide behind their intellectualism and they use their education to try to make those who are not educated in Hebrew and Greek, or in History and archeology feel as though some how because they have degrees or have studied languages, they try to use the weight of their education to give credit to their false teachings. Just because people have degrees does not mean they are teaching the truth.

Philippians 2:10-11 says, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” It’s the name of Jesus Christ at which every knee is going to bow there is no other name given. Anyone who says other wise is lying, is believing a lie, is teaching a lie and God will judge them for it.

Psalms 66:5-7, “Come and see the works of God: He is terrible in His doing toward the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot: there did we rejoice in Him. He ruleth by His power for ever; His eyes behold the nations: let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah.”

God is all powerful and so of course God does great and mighty works. One of the great miracles which God did for the children of Israel is mentioned here. When God freed the children of Israel from 400 years of slavery, He also delivered them from Pharaohs army by parting the waters of the Red Sea so that they could cross safely.

This was a great miracle that God did. And God reminded the children of Israel of this miracle many times in the Old Testament. It is a miracle that God wants all of His children to remember for many reasons.

It is a great illustration both of deliverance and salvation. God is all powerful and He can deliver us from any circumstances if He desires. Sometimes God does intervene in the natural course of human events to accomplish His will. The Bible is filled with examples of Him doing so. And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Psalms 66:8-9, “O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard: Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.”

There are many reasons to say good things about God, many reasons to praise Him. In these verses two reasons are mentioned. The first is because God, “holdeth our soul in life.” God is the life giver. Life comes from God and life is precious. As a Christian we have no need to fear death or to worry about how long we might live on this earth because we know that God will keep us alive to serve Him until our purpose and work on this earth is done.

The second reason given in these verses to praise God is because God, “suffereth not our feet to be moved.” To not be moved means to not shake or to not fall. Life has many challenges, many sufferings, many disappointments and many heart aches. The storms of life that come our way and the events which are beyond are control which often happen are things which can easily break a person down and destroy them.

Jesus gave a parable in the Gospel of Matthew in which He said in Matthew 7:24-27, “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

There is great power in the words and promises of God. There is the power to make your mind and spirit strong. And there is the great hope of the gospel as an anchor for the soul. If you put your trust in God and in His promises you will be able to survive any tragedy, any sorrow, any evil that comes your way. All it takes is to cling to the promises of God, promises such as Romans 8:28 which says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

Life is short and even though you have the free will to go whichever way you want in life it would be wise to remember that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is LORD. One day you will have to give and account to God of your life. If you have never turned from your sins to Jesus then please do so today. Today is the day of salvation. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved.

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