God is...GREAT
Notes
Transcript
Preliminary
Preliminary
I want to invite you to Psalm 93 this morning
My Dad, when we were younger - and he was stretching and yawning would sometimes say something like… “I’d stretch a mile if I didn’t have to walk back”
A Grandma was retelling about her son and grandson’s visit to a majestic national forest. They hiked and hiked through several miles of trees and climbed many hills and were just plain wore out.
That evening as they were getting ready for bed the dad asked the son - “What was your favorite thing we saw today”
and the unfiltered completely honest answer of the grandson was, “The car after our hike”
Perhaps you have been ready for the car by the time our Bible Studies are over as I have been taking you on some insurmountable mountains.
My goal in this Bible study has not been to show off knowledge, or to give you information it has been and is by God’s help and direction either help you discover more about God who is Real, Always,
Or to rediscover.
and today I want to look at His Greatness -
We need God’s help and grace to even try to approach such a subject - lets begin with prayer...
PRAY
Father open our eyes We would See YOU
Most of all GLORIFY YOUR NAME HERE TODAY
We’ll be looking at a couple of Psalms today but will start with Psalm 93
You know our concept of God directly impacts our spiritual growth and development.
Now you don’t have to know all of the theology -
You don’t have to know all the terms
You don’t have to take a theology course
But if your concept of God is following the culture of this world - then it is progressively shrinking.
Dr. Yocum a tremendous preacher and teacher of years ago - once made the statement that it would be interesting if it were possible to flash on a screen up here our individual concepts of God compared to a re-display of God’s glory like Isaiah saw in the temple.
It would probably startle us if we saw the concepts of some people right here on this campground - perhaps even right here sitting with us now.
What we think about God - will shape the way that we experience God.
Alongside of that - How we experience God transforms what and how we think about him.
Wrong or inadequate thinking about God will lead to serious error.
A. W. Tozer in his classic work Knowledge of the Holy reminds us:
What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and mans spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. - Knowledge of the Holy - A. W. Tozer (Kindle Locations 49-52). Reformed Church Publications. Kindle Edition.
Tozer continues:
We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God....Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, What comes into your mind when you think about God? we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. - A. W. Tozer. Knowledge of the Holy -(Kindle Locations 57-58). Reformed Church Publications. Kindle Edition.
I want to talk to you today especially about the GREATNESS of GOD -
Lets take a look at Psalm 93 - The First Thing we notice about God’s Greatness is...God is Majestic
God is…Majestic
God is…Majestic
Read Psalm 93
1 The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; The Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: The world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.
2 Thy throne is established of old: Thou art from everlasting.
3 The floods have lifted up, O Lord, The floods have lifted up their voice; The floods lift up their waves.
4 The Lord on high is mightier Than the noise of many waters, Yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.
5 Thy testimonies are very sure: Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever.
Anselm once said, “How do we understand God? A being who of that nothing greater can be conceived”
The Psalmist here is attempting to lift our conceptions of God from their poor finite, narrow, fallen views of God to one that is grand and lofty and excellent
One has properly stated If God was small enough for us to understand, He wouldn’t be big enough for us to worship.Author unknown
Our God Reigns - that means He is ruling, He is in control, now I realize there is an aspect of free moral agency - but we don’t have to worry about tomorrow - God is so big HE IS ALREADY THERE
We have some metaphorical language about God clothing himself with majesty and strength
Majesty is another word for “stateliness” you could also say impressiveness in scale or proportion - grandness
One of the greatest songs I know that speaks to the idea of Majesty of God was written by Jack Hayford back in the 70’s
Majesty
Worship His majesty
Unto Jesus
Be all glory, honor and praise
Majesty
Kingdom authority
Flow from His throne
Unto His own
His anthem raise
The story is told that Dr. Hayford was so moved during a visit to England back in 1977 during Queen Elisabeth’s silver anniversary as monarch
Touring the palaces, seeing the place where Sir. Winston Churchill had been, experiencing the grandeur and magnificence of the Royal Crown of England and then comparing them to God he recognized how much they paled in comparrison
As they were driving away from all of the earthly pomp and glory he began to turn his mind and heart to concepts of God he had his wife grab a pen and paper and he began to dictate to her the words of that chorus
Majesty
Worship His majesty
Unto Jesus
Be all glory, honor and praise
Majesty
Kingdom authority
Flow from His throne
Unto His own
His anthem raise
So exalt, lift up on high
The name of Jesus
Magnify, come glorify
Christ Jesus the King
[Verse 3]
Majesty
Worship His majesty
Jesus who died, now glorified
King of all kings
[Chorus]
So exalt, lift up on high
The name of Jesus
Magnify, come glorify
Christ Jesus the King
Majesty
Worship His majesty
Jesus who died, now glorified
King of all kings
Oh how Majestic God is
If you scoot on over a couple of Psalms you land at Psalm 95-96:6
1 O come, let us sing unto the Lord: Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
3 For the Lord is a great God, And a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: The strength of the hills is his also.
5 The sea is his, and he made it: And his hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down: Let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
7 For he is our God; And we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, And as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 When your fathers tempted me, Proved me, and saw my work.
10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, And said, It is a people that do err in their heart, And they have not known my ways:
11 Unto whom I sware in my wrath That they should not enter into my rest.
1 O sing unto the Lord a new song: Sing unto the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing unto the Lord, bless his name; Shew forth his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the heathen, His wonders among all people.
4 For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: But the Lord made the heavens.
6 Honour and majesty are before him: Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
This Psalm invites us to come into his presence with an already elevated view of God to be raised even more
Psalm 95:3 “3 For the Lord is a great God, And a great King above all gods.”
Psalm 96:4 “4 For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: He is to be feared above all gods.”
Oh I wish I could really portray to you this morning that
GOD IS…GREAT
GOD IS…GREAT
Remarkable or out of the ordinary in degree, magnitude, or effect
Language fails to convey the greatness of our GOD
HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD HOW GREAT IS HIS NAME
Even his name is so great that in the Hebrew it is given only in consonants
We fill in the gaps with vowels making it Jehovah or Yahweh
He is so great - remember the other day when I talked about how small the planet earth is in the Milky Way galaxy not to mention all of the other millions and perhaps billions of galaxies out there
The Psalmist talks about how Great God is because
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: The strength of the hills is his also.
5 The sea is his, and he made it: And his hands formed the dry land.
He knows the number of the hairs of your head - think of that all the billions of people on the earth - he knows their name, where they live, all that is going on in their lives, and even how many hairs they have on their head.
The NSA and IRS has a lot of information about me - they have a file on every one of us here and has access to information on about every US citizen in the world.
But think of this - they have to file away information and then spend a lot of energy, money and security to protect and keep that information hiring thousands of employees to gather, store, analyze and keep that information.
The Census Bureau has tons of data and information on all of us. And yet again they employ thousands of employees and volunteers to gain, analyze, sort, and keep that data..
I'm talking about a God - who is so great - who without the help of employees or a computer knows instantly right now not just how many hairs are on your head, but how many are on all 7.125 Billion people on the earth right now.
If that has your head spinning - we aren't through yet
All of those 7.125 billion people have bodies that were designed and created by our God - that are so complex and detailed that science has never yet been able to duplicate. They can do a lot of amazing things but it has taken them years and years of research and development, hundreds of thousands of dollars on prototypes and designers and engineers and manufacturers working many many hours to create and produce all of the amazing things we have come up with today sometimes mind-blowing sophisticated technology -
(Psa 139:13) For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. (Psa 139:14) I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
Fearfully and wonderfully made– Knit – when the microscope first began to magnify and look at the body they said “It’s woven”
Our skin - is made from collagen fibers that are very strong in fact stronger than steel and yet it’s stretchy which is made possible due to the knitting or because it is woven together. You weave it one way and it’s stretchy you weave it another way and its not stretchy like the eyeball.
Our Brain - The brain is the most sophisticated organ system in the universe. Billions and billions of neurons hundreds of billions of interconnections.
It remembers every single thing you have ever seen.
And every single thing you have ever heard.
It can processes more than 2 million bits of information per second. …
your brain and this is a conservative estimate can take in 1 new fact every second for over three million years before you begin to challenge your brains capacity;
and that’s our brain in it’s degenerate state. Can you imagine what it was like before the fall? It’s because we were made in the image of God.
I talked to you the other day about the Eyes -
but still none of it compares to what my God did when he as only S.M. Lockridge could describe it "God came from nowhere - there wasn't anywhere for him to come from - coming from nowhere he stood on nothing - he reached out where there was nowhere to reach and caught something when there was nothing to catch and hung something on nothing and told it to stay there. "
But as the Prophet says in
Isaiah 40:12 (KJV)
12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
My hands I can only get a couple of teaspoons of water in them - but this says the hollow of his hand measured the waters
the span of his hand measured out the heavens -
The Old Testament Book of Amos is a fascinating study
The entire book of Amos can be summed up in the word "judgement" God is getting ready to pour out his wrath and judgement upon the wicked and especially upon His chosen people that are wicked.
Amos 5 is actually a funeral dirge somewhat like a eulogy. Can you imagine this hillbilly farmer from Tekoa coming to the big city in his greasy overalls, straw hat, and southern accent going through the city main streets with possibly a few paid mourners behind him singing this. That is what is going on here.
Amos a sheepherder and fig salesman, was from Judah but was used of God to prophesy to Israel and the Northern Kingdom. "Amos, like Hosea, prophesied during the reigns of Jeroboam II of Israel (793– 753 BC) and Uzziah (= Azariah) of Judah (792– 739 BC)."[1]
8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, And turneth the shadow of death into the morning, And maketh the day dark with night: That calleth for the waters of the sea, And poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:
I (From NET)Verse 8 - I like how the NET puts it - "But there is ONE!!!" This ONE made the "seven stars" or Pleiades and Orion - They worship stars - but YOU, YOU SEEK THE GOD WHO MADE THE STARS!!!
Did you know the Bible commands the stars to worship God!!! Psalm 148:3 - Praise ye him, sun and moon: Praise him, all ye stars of light.
Gen. 15:5 And he brought him [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.2.
Did you know that approximately 7,000 stars can
be seen from earth without a telescope, but only 2,000
can be seen at one place at any time. Yet, what is
beheld with the eye is but a fraction of the stars
that exist in the universe.
According to one source by estimating how many stars there are in our Galaxy and by estimating how many Galaxies there are, it is estimated that there are about 3 thousand million billion stars (that's 3 with 16 zeroes after it).
According to one article I read recently about Jeremy Harper who won a Guinness world record recently, counted aloud from 1 to one million. It took him 89 days and was live streamed online.
Now Mr. Harper took a few breaks here and there but he "neither left his apartment nor shaved during the event; he recited numbers aloud (read off a computer monitor) for about an average of 16 hours every 24 hour period for 89 straight days."
The article went on to calculate that using the same method of Jeremy Harper except giving about 6 seconds to count the larger numbers instead of 2 seconds and assuming you are reading the numbers off a computer screen it would take around 244-285 years to count to 1 billion.
The estimated number of stars do you remember that number? 3 thousand million billion stars. We are talking hundreds of lifetimes for us to count the stars.
But the Psalmist says in Psalm 147:4 He telleth (or counts) the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
God knows the exact number of stars in the Universe, He does not have to estimate. He counts every one of them and call each of those 3 thousand million billion plus stars in the sky by name!!!
Psalm 19:1 (KJV)
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: But the Lord made the heavens.
The Psalmist tells us the Heavens declare the Glory of God
Our moon is our nearest neighbor 1 quarter of a million miles from us.
Our Sun is 93 million miles away,
Our solar system is flying through space at 134 miles per second spinning as it goes,
Scientist estimate and that’s all they can do as many as two 100 billion stars and that’s just in our galaxy.
And of those two hundred billion stars 6 Billion have planetary systems of their own.
4 He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.
I love Genesis 1:16 “16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
It’s like God did a BTW text in the Bible
Have you ever recieved a text with those abbreviations in there - BTW
It means BY THE WAY
Think of the vast expanse of space - Voyager 1 - the most distant man-made object in space launched in 1977 traveling at a speed of forty thousand miles an hour it is just now arriving at the edge of our solar system Think of this though we live in the Milky Way galaxy just one of over 125 billion galaxies- our nearest Galaxy neighbor is Andromeda is 10 million million miles from earth it would take 2 million years to reach this galaxy traveling at the speed of light.
And yet God spoke it into existence. Just the word from his mouth and it appeared - we serve a great God - who truly his greatness is beyond investigation.
I love 1 Corinthians 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory!!!
NO wonder David said in Psalm 8:3-4 When I consider thy heavens, and the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou ar mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? NO WONDER THE SONGWRITER WHO WAS AWED BY THE MAJESTY OF GOD PENNED _ HOW GREAT THOU ART!!![6] Amos mentions just two star clusters, Pleiades and Orion are found in two other places throughout the Bible. Job 9:9; 38:31-32,
The Pleiades star cluster – also known as the Seven Sisters or M45 – is visible from virtually every place that humanity inhabits Earth’s globe. It can be seen from as far north as the north pole, and farther south than the southernmost tip of South America. It looks like a tiny misty dipper of stars.
November is often called the month of the Pleiades, because it’s when this star cluster – sometimes called the Seven Sisters – shines from dusk until dawn. [7]Pleiades in Greek mythology says, however, that actually these were the seven daughters of Atlas. The seven daughters of Atlas were pursued by the giant Orion, and Orion was a great giant of a fellow. They were pursued by the giant Orion, causing them to come to Zeus to appeal to the great god for protection. Zeus changed them into a constellation of stars, so no longer were they the daughters of Atlas. However, during the destruction of the city of Troy, one of these daughters could not stand to see the destruction of the city and was given a leave of absence from the constellation. That daughter has not been heard from since, so now there are only six daughters shining in the skies as stars forever and ever. These remaining six stars are supposedly not as bright as they used to be because they too were humiliated at the defeat of the city of Troy.
Now let's look toward Orion. Orion, in Greek mythology, was a great giant, the son of Neptune. He was a mighty hunter; and while out hunting one day, he noticed a beautiful girl. Her name was Diana. He wanted Diana and began to chase her. The day came when Diana's brother, Apollo, decided he was going to do something about this giant who was chasing his sister, Diana. Apollo took Diana down to the sea and found Orion swimming in the sea. All that could be seen was his black cap. "Now," said Apollo to Diane, "you're pretty good with a bow and arrow, but I bet you couldn't hit that black speck out there on the sea." It happened to be the head of Orion. She loved him, but she did not know that the black spot was his head showing above the water. She took her bow and arrow and shot him in the head. She killed him. (Don't cry about this; this is not a true story.) Orion was brought to shore with the tide, and the beautiful Diana came and saw that she had killed her pursuer. In so doing, she transformed him into a star and placed him in the heavens. From that day till this, Orion has been chasing the six daughters of the Pleiades. [8]
He turns darkness into morningDaylight into nightHe turns the oceans into rain He has a name - "THE LORD IS HIS NAME."
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[M] Arnold, Bill T.; Beyer, Bryan E.. Encountering the Old Testament (Encountering Biblical Studies): A Christian Survey (Kindle Locations 11856-11865). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.[M] IBID[M] Jeremy Royal Howard, ed., HCSB Study Bible, (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2010), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "Amos 5".[M] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary – The Prophets, (Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 2002), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 355-359.[M] IBID[M] From <https://recordsetter.com/world-record/highest-number-counted-to/13623> < http://www.sermonsearch.com/sermon-outlines/15962/lessons-from-the-stars-pleiades-and-orion-5-of-7/>[M] http://earthsky.org/favorite-star-patterns/pleiades-star-cluster-enjoys-worldwide-renown[M] https://www.baptist-city.com/sermons/pleiades.htm
A couple of days ago we visited for the first time the Grand Canyon.
now heights and I do not get along well and I would look down and down and down and know that as long as the ground I stood on stayed solid, as long as the guard rail held I was safe - but I would still get bouts of dizziness just looking down and down and down.
I stood on the precipice of the Grand Canyon and looked at the vast beyond of a beautiful mixture of interesting rock formations, colors, sand and crevices, craters, dips and mounds nearly as far as my eye could see. Clicking my camera like crazy but knowing I would never be able to grasp in a picture what my eyes were seeing.
I couldn’t help but stand there and look out over the vastness and seeming boundlessness of this enormous canyon - the rugged beauty, the colors, I believe it was at Mather point that I happened to be left alone with the view - everyone else had moved on a little ahead - but I was so engrossed with the view I just had to stay and look - I couldn’t tear my eyes away - and I as I was viewing the great canyon my mind began singing that old song
“Oh Lord, my God
When I, in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art,”
And as I was contemplating all of this and meditating on the greatness of God while seeing the beauty in front of me it dawned on me that all of the beauty I was seeing in front of me was actually due to sin
Now you may believe that the little river at the bottom of the Grand Canyon scrapped, eroded, and carved out the massive site of breathtaking vistas we see today - but I don’t have that much faith - even if it did take millions of years.
I agree with many Creationist who theorize and please understand that is all we can do - that is all they can do - and then find evidence to back up their claim -
It was the fall - sin that brought the flood. In fact the Grand Canyon is one of the greatest proofs of a massive global flood in judgment for sin.
The Bible says that the fountains of the deep were opened up
The earth would have split in places opening deep crevices and cracks
Rushing water would have in moments and hours and days and weeks and months cause all kinds of changes to the earths surface.
But then - after the flood many Creationists believe and there is strong evidence to support it - there was an ice age
During that ice age glaciers would have scrapped the earth carving out canyons, pushing up rocks into mountains and planes and plateaus.
I’m sure it was more complicated than that - but my point is - the beauty I was so overcome with and causing me to meditate on the greatness of God - it dawned on me was due to the wages of sin.
Now think about this for a moment - I’m talking about the greatness of God.
E.V. Hill a tremendous black preacher from the past preached a powerful message on the question of we have a great God , “but when was God at his greatest?”
He then goes through a litany of the great acts of God
Creation
Incarnation
Crucifixion
Resurrection
And as he waxed eloquent and orated beautifully each point its a no! That’s not when God was at his greatest.
When was God at his greatest? and he goes back to a little place called Sweet Home, TX where as a young person he prayed through and was born again.
Well mine wasn’t Sweet Home, TX but was at a little tent meeting in MO where God for Christ sake forgave my sins, and came into my heart, and made me a new creature in Christ Jesus.
The songwriter went on and said...
And when I think that God, His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
HOW GREAT THOU ART!!!
Psalm 95 - 96:6 God is Great
Tomorrow I think we will continue with this thought a little more of GOD IS…GREAT
by looking at the beauty and holiness of God
PRAY!!!