Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

I would like to share an observation with you, maybe this is something that you have noticed as well.

People in our culture for the most part are open to talking about god (lower case g) but when you start talking about the Biblical God

When you begin to talk about God in such away where you are not stripping Him of all of His Divine Attributes

When you talk about God as the all knowing God, the all seeing God, the ever present God, the God whom we cannot hide from, the God who is our Sovereign Creator, the Holy God of the OT then people begin to get uncomfortable.

Case in point, the reason Andy Stanley is leading this march into this new liberalism and calling the church the unhitch itself from the OT is because he understands that people are uncomfortable with the God the Bible.

He speaks of these “de-conversion” stories of people who grew up in Christian homes and then as they get older and get more familiar with the God of the Bible they get offended and leave Christianity and so Andy Stanley is attempting to make God more palatable for the unregenerate heart.

He wants to talk about Jesus as if Jesus is not the Second Person of the Trinity, as if Jesus is somehow disconnected from the God of the OT and tell people that they can have Jesus and not have the God of the OT.

This is just a new charge into liberalism, it is just the old Marcion heresy given a new advocate.

As Andy Stanley heads into this direction he is misleading thousands with his heretical theology who have been captivated by his skill as a communicator and a leader.

In the Psalm before us this morning we are confronted by the God of the Bible, we are confronted by Jehovah, the Creator, the God who Speaks, the Righteous Judge, the Redeeming God, the Covenant Keeping God, the God who cannot be escaped

And then at the end of the Psalm we see the Mixed Responses to God

The All-Knowing God (v.1-6)

Notice right out of the gate, LORD, Jehovah.

Of course there is but one God, the Bible is clear on that all the way through, and this God is the LORD.

He is the God of

He is the God of

He is the God of

He is the God of

He is the God of

He is the God of

Exodus 8-12

In other words He is the God of all Creation, the God that every man and woman and boy and girl will have to stand before and give an account, He is the God who rules and reigns over all, the God who destroys sinners, and the God who redeems sinners

And we see here in that He is also the God who is All-Knowing.

This past fall we talked about the Omniscience of God, the fact that God is all knowing and one of the parts of God’s Omniscience is God’s Knowledge of each of us.

As we read v.1-6 we are aware that God’s knowledge of us is far greater than we can imagine.

My actions, my thoughts, my intentions, my words (even before they are spoken)

He knows all of my past and all of my future as well

What does David say in v.6

This is overwhelming

It is overwhelming when we consider the greatness of God

Brothers and sisters we are reminded this morning of

Hebrews

The Ever-Present God (v.7-12)

But not only is God all knowing but He is also ever present.

Maybe one may ask as they consider the knowledge of God, is there anyway that something can be hidden from God, is there anywhere that we can run to escape His all seeing eyes, can we escape His infinite knowledge.

Maybe one may ask as they consider the knowledge of God, is there anyway that something can be hidden from God, is there anywhere that we can run to escape His all seeing eyes, can we escape His infinite knowledge.

We learn in that Yahweh must really be God, He must be that Being of which no greater being could be imagined because not only does He know all things (including every single thing about me) but one cannot escape His presence.

He is in the heavens

He is in the place of the dead

No matter where one may go they cannot escape His presence

The deepest ocean, the highest mountain, the darkest night, the brightest day; He is there.

The pagan deities had an authority that was conceived as confined to certain areas of operation and yet we see here that the LORD’s authority extends to the heavens.. the depths…the wings of the dawn… the sea.

The farthest reaches of heaven and the depths of the earth, the extremities of east (the wings of the dawn) and west (the far side of the sea) and of darkness and lights serve to strengthen the image of God’s absolute sovereignty over creation and our inability to hide from Him.

The Sovereign Creator (v.13-16)

Not only is God all knowing, not only is He all present but He is also our Sovereign Creator.

In v.13-16 we see that Yahweh is the one to whom we owe our very being.

We can talk all about conception and the development in scientific terms from a zygote to an embryo to a fetus all the way to birth

But listen to me, there is something that many in our day do not understand; this cannot be understood if you look upon this a simply a biological event,

This is the the very handiwork of God.

The growing of a baby in the womb of the mother takes place under the Sovereign care of our God

knitted together

fearfully and wonderfully made

made in secret

intricately woven in the depths of the earth

puts in beautiful poetic language what the Bible teaches clearly

and 2 clearly teach that all things were created by the LORD God and that we humans, were created by God as His image bearers.

A few things about God being our Creator

God created all things for His glory (He alone can determine the end for which He created all things)

2. As God’s creatures we can only understand life and the meaning of life in light of Him and His revelation to us.

John 1.1-

3. We have a responsibility to live in submission to Him as He is our Creator

So let me summarize what we have so far in ,

Yahweh is the one True God Who Sovereignly made us and to whom we are accountable and there is nothing that we can hide from Him and there is no where that we can hide from His presence.

That is what we see in v.1-16

I think that is the clear reading of the text.

There is much application that we could draw from all of this individually but we will spend our time in the discussion of application in this last section.

The Mixed Response (v.17-24)

We see two responses in this section

We see the delight of God’s people

We see the hatred of God’s enemies

Let’s first talk about the later and then we will go back to the former

The Bible makes it clear that all of humanity are to be found in only one of these two categories, there are those who are God’s people and there are those who are God’s enemies.

The hatred of God’s enemies

Notice v. 19-21

There are those who are referred to as the wicked, they are men of blood, they speak against the LORD with malicious intent, they are the LORD’s enemies, they hate the LORD and they rise up against the LORD

Those who are outside of the covenant people of God, those who do not know the new birth, the gracious work of God in changing the heart and making us new creatures in Christ Jesus fall into this category.

They may be nice people, they may smile and wave at you when you go by their house and yet the Bible tells us that if we have only been born once we are enemies of God.

The fallen human heart is wicked, it is full of unrighteousness, it is deceitful above all things, it cannot be trusted, and it cannot be understood, it leads one away into foolishness, sin, and death

men of blood, that is the sinful heart if left to itself is murderous.

You say well i know a lot of people who are not saved and have never murdered anyone

Jesus teaches that we men and women murder in their hearts daily

To hate someone and wish they would just go away and not inconvience you is a murderous heart

And the to add more significance to that we need to remember that the murder of a human being is an attack on the Creator in whose image he was created.

You hear people talk about the God of the Bible and they say things like this, well if God is like the God of the OT then I don’t want anything to do with Him,

You look at all of the confusion in our culture today.

Gender identity crisis, LGBTQ and might as well add another B and P for beastiality and pedophile because those things are coming down the line as well

We step back and it appears that the world has gone mad, that they have lost their mind

Well they reality is that they are being driven my a madness, an insanity in that they they are in a full rebellion against the Creator and His good design.

They hate Him, even if they aren’t really aware of it.

You may wander about our culture, why is there so much murder, just earlier this month there was a blood bath in Chicago, 74 shot in one weekend due to gang related events, the Colorado man who turned himself in this past week for killing his 15 week pregnant wife and his two little girls, the multitude of abortions that take place every day in our country

All of this is a horrific symptom of the heart of the problem and it is a hatred for the Creator, a rebellion against the Creator

Why are there men of blood?

Because they are enemies of the LORD

helps us understand what is going on in our culture, people do not want to submit to the Sovereign Creator, people hate the idea of a God who knows all of their secrets, a God whom they cannot hide from, a God to whom they must give an account and all of their actions are flowing from an uncontrollable hatred of this God, of the Lord God who has revealed Himself to us in His Word and in His Son Jesus Christ.

But we also see a second response

v.17-18 we see this delight in who God is, this trust in mercy and the kindness of God

Clearly we have this picture of those who are at war with God

And then those who are at peace with God, right?

This one who trust God, who delights in God, this one who hates all that is opposed to God