Good Morning,
One of my favorite hymns is, “How Great Thou Art.” In it we sing about some of the sublime features of God’s creation. We sing of worlds, of stars, and of rolling thunder; of woods and forest glades and the sweet singing of birds; of lofty mountains grandeur, of the sound of the brook, and the feel of gentle breezes. We praise and adore God because of the greatness of God implied in these things.
The theme of this hymn is a biblical theme. There is a theme in Scripture, that the natural world displays the majesty and glory of God who created it.
In Psalm 29 we see the majesty of God in his natural works, and we exclaim, “How Great Thou Art!”. This Psalm focuses on the Storm -- the “rolling thunder” of the beloved hymn. Seven times the Psalm speaks of “the voice of the Lord.” The Psalmist hears the voice of his God in the thunder and lightning of a mighty storm.
This is not the only place in the Old Testament where thunder is called “the voice of the Lord.” In Exodus 9:28, where Pharaoh says, “Enough of God’s thunder and hail,” what is translated “God’s thunder” literally says, “Voices of God.” “No more Voices of God!” Pharaoh says. The Psalmist is well-aware of how the heathen view the storm. So he takes the storm away from their gods, and gives it back to the One who truly made it. It is not Baal but it is the voice of Yahweh the Lord of Israel, the one and only God, that sounds forth in the storm.
In our day and age we do not tend to see any natural event as directly caused by God. We emphasize the natural causes of things. Some people draw the conclusion that to understand the workings of nature is to rule God out. It is better, however, to see the dual cause of these things -- the natural causes, but also the spiritual, divine cause, which is the ultimate cause explaining how things began and how they continue to exist. God remains the ultimate cause of all things.
In Psalm 29 we are moved to hear God’s voice in the thunder. If we will do that, we will be able to appreciate something about God that tends to be de-emphasized in popular religion. We will appreciate the majesty of God, or, as the Psalm says, God’s Glory. When we speak of the majesty of God, we mean the greatness of God. We mean the yawning gulf that lies between his greatness and our smallness. The voice of a human compared with the voice of thunder, gives us an illustration of the difference between human beings and their Creator. The tendency of popular religion, however, is to de-emphasize God’s majesty, and emphasize God’s closeness. People like to think of God as a friend always at their side, with whom they can talk in a familiar way, but the danger is that of forgetting the majesty of God, and making him too much like ourselves. The danger is that God becomes something too small to solve our problems, and unworthy of the time spent in praise and adoration. Our faith becomes weak, and our worship lifeless.
This Psalm reminds us that, however available God has made himself to us because of the work of Jesus his Son, God is not like us. He is eternal, infinite, and almighty. He is to us like thunder. What happens when we are in the presence of thunder? There is an awe that comes over us, before this terrible display of nature’s power.
If you think about it, there are two sides to our response to the voice of thunder. First, there is fear. We sense the power to destroy that is there. In the Psalm, he speaks of the lightning splintering the great cedars of Lebanon, snapping them like toothpicks, but there is something else besides fear and trembling. There is also a fascination, even a joy, that we have been in the presence of something so rare and terrible and beautiful. In the Psalm he speaks of the mountains being made to skip about like colts in a pasture.
The Psalm praises the voice of God. Surely, it is easy for us to feel the majesty of God’s voice, when we hear it in a great clap of thunder. The scriptures speak, however, of a time when, once again, we will hear the voice of God, directly and without mediation. We will hear the voice of Christ calling to the dead, “Come forth,” and they will all come. We will hear his voice from the throne of judgment, saying to us either, “Depart from me,” or, “Enter in to the joys of your Lord.” The book of Revelation says that we will hear a voice from God’s throne, which proclaims the dawn of the new eternal day: “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev 21:1-4). If it is an experience to hear the voice of God in a thunder clap, what kind of experience will it be to hear his voice, welcoming us to eternity. These are the ways God’s voice has come in the past, comes in the present, and will come in the future.
Sometimes it comes to us in a gentle, didactic tone. It reasons with gentle persuasion. It pleads with loving interest. It gently guides us, as a father might speak to his daughter or son. Sometimes, it comes in a sweet, consoling tone. God is called, “The God of all comfort,” and his voice can comfort us when we need it most. He encourages, he consoles, and he promises. He says what we need to hear to help us through the hour of trial. Then again, at other times, the voice is heavy and hard, reproving us when we are stubborn, commanding us when we are disobedient.
God’s voice might be soft or hard, gentle or jarring, consoling or commanding. But whatever the tone of his voice, we cannot help but be grabbed by it, even as thunder might grab us. When thunder comes, everything else falls silent in comparison. There is no other thought in our minds but of this majestic outburst of nature that we have witnessed. When God speaks, in whatever tone, everything in us must fall silent, every objection, every rationalization. We tremble in fear, we rejoice in amazement, but we also listen and obey.
Psalm 29, moves us to listen to the thunder of a storm, and hear the voice of God. It moves us to appreciate the majesty of God, the wide gulf that lies between his greatness and our smallness. It also focuses our attention on the majesty of his voice, which remains just as majestic wherever and however it may speak.
Jesus Christ, as the Word, is the very voice of God embodied. It is clear, then, how this Psalm of the voice of God preaches Christ to us. We are moved to put the words "Jesus Christ" in the Psalm, wherever it says "the Voice of the Lord."
There was a sound from heaven like the rushing mighty wind of a storm. There were flames of fire, shining like lighting, on the heads of men. In this way the reign of God’s Messiah was announced and the gospel was first preached. The words of the Psalm were proclaimed, “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as a king forever.”
Christ Jesus thunders from heaven still, in greater ways even than he did while on earth. The Voice of the Lord, Jesus Christ, still sweeps over the earth. It spoke to Saul of Tarsus, and struck him down. He was hit by God’s lightning, and he was changed forever. John heard the voice too, speaking with the sound of mighty waters, exhorting the churches to be faithful in their tribulations.
So, then, let’s hear this too from the Psalm. Let’s appreciate the voice of thunder, the reality of the glory of our living Lord Jesus. Here is a thunder that still rumbles and flames in the earth, striking everywhere, even in our own lives, changing forever the hearts of men and women. When we see and hear a great storm, with its mighty clouds, its terrible thundering and lightning, its sweeping rain and hail, we are naturally terrified and amazed. When a great bolt of lightning strikes nearby, followed closely by an explosion of thunder, we are struck dumb before it. If this is how we are before thunder, how should we before God?
These majestic forces of nature are symbols of the majesty of God. If we cower in fear or rejoice in fascination at the thunder, how much more should we do so when the voice of God speaks!
In His Grace,
Brown
Click here to view video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcF75h4BHk8
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment