Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "The Majesty of God" by Neal Pollard

Transcript

"The Majesty of God" by Neal Pollard · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Good evening. I saw Chase and Brady
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handle something up there on the front row. I hope it's dead. Is it dead?
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Okay, that's good to know. All right, it's not dead. Okay,
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let's make sure it is.
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I want you to imagine yourself tonight camping in
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a tent by the sea. You are side— beside
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Pi-hahiroth. You're in front of Baal-zephon,
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and you begin to hear the wagon wheels of chariots,
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and you hear the thunder of soldiers from an Egyptian army,
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a powerful nation, that has held you and 12 generations
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of your ancestors as their slaves. And now
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you hear the disciplined footsteps of soldiers as
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they're on their way. They're coming towards you.
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And as they do, and you hear them closing the ranks,
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I wonder, would you feel panic at the thought
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of the fact that your very life was in danger and your safety was threatened?
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And while maybe you're processing all of this and you hear those thunderous
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sounds and that great army, the greatest army on earth,
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all of a sudden there's darkness and there's separation between
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you and the Egyptians. And while you're processing
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all of this, Moses stretches out his hand,
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and by that very action, through the power of God, literally trillions
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of gallons of water are piled up to form
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a high wall on your left hand and on your right-hand
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side. He does such a thorough job
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that you walk through and the sea floor is completely dry.
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This is a body of water that even today averages 1,608
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feet deep and it's 221 miles
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wide at its widest spot. And so I don't
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know how many, but a good estimate of you would be that there are between
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2 and 3 million of you who are going through through in
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that wide spot in that same night. And now
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you hear them closing in. The entire army
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of the Egyptians is right on your steps, and they're
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coming down onto the same sea floor that you are on, but you get to
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the other side. And when you do, perhaps you'll look back, and what you see
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is that all that pile of water, maybe as much as 56,000
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cubic miles of water, closes in on the Egyptians.
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And when you ascend and you go up on the other side, you see the
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bodies of the Egyptians as they wash up onto the shore.
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Here's my question. Would you remember that day?
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How often would you call it to mind? Would you talk about it?
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The Israelites are going to talk about it for centuries to come. And as
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we see the writers of the Bible, we will find them one by one
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as they look back on this day the very events that happened in
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a single night. Joshua in the conquest period,
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he's going to talk about it. David in the Psalms is going to make
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mention of the crossing of the Red Sea.
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The prophet Jeremiah is going to talk about it. And then long after
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the exile, when they're back in their homeland near the end of the Old Testament,
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Nehemiah is going to make reference to it.
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Go all the way over into the New Testament. Jesus has died on the cross.
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Jesus is being preached. The church has been established. And Stephen, he's going
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to talk He's going to talk about it. And then at the end of the
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Bible, to show the supremacy of Jesus and His power and the faith that
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God's people had, the Hebrews writer is going to talk about this one act.
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I wonder how the people felt. Really, we don't
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have to wonder, do we? Because we can read in Exodus 14:31,
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and they saw God's glorious power. And when they did, the Bible
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says that they feared the Lord and they believed Him and they believed His
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servant Moses. And as a response to that,
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they began to sing. Do you have that 2 to 3 million
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people in your mind? I don't know what's the biggest crowd that
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you've ever been a part of in a singing.
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Perhaps if anybody's ever been to Polishing the Pulpit,
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there's the possibility of thousands or a large lectureship
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like Freed Hardeman University where there's at least many hundreds. Can you
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imagine the song leader Moses standing before the
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congregation of millions of people and singing this song about
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the majesty of God and His great praise.
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And as you saw in Byron's reading a moment ago, and that's only half of
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the Song of Moses, it is a song in full tribute of God's majesty,
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His power, and His awesomeness.
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Have your eyes ever been filled with tears? Have you ever felt
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great emotion as we sang certain songs? I suppose that the songs that
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elicit the strongest response from me are songs of praise about the greatness of our
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Behold our God seated on His throne.
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Come, let us adore Him. Or a song that
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even uses the words majesty, worship His majesty.
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Or even a song in much more subtle and more antiquated words,
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majestic sweetness sits enthroned upon the Savior's
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brow. You know, if we are to try to examine the majesty
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of God, there would be multiple ways to go about it. We could choose a
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topical approach in which we look at some of the great verses and we
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will do that to some degree tonight, where we look at God's majesty, His matchless
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awesome power. We could also do it expository,
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and I would like to just for a few moments to
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look at the majesty of God in just one chapter
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of Scripture as it's demonstrated to us in 3 very basic ways.
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How do we see the majesty of God in Exodus chapter
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15? First of all, the majesty of God is seen
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in His names. You may not be able to detect this
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as you're reading in the English Bible, but Moses, as he's writing
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there, uses 4 different words for God
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in Exodus chapter 15. He will use the names
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El, Elohim, Adonai,
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and Yahweh. And there's something different that's being
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expounded when he uses that different name to point us to
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the majesty of God. The power of words, we recognize
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that, that nations have been turned, revolutions have started
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through the use of the medium of words. In fact,
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every soul that will be in heaven through some means will have been reached through
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the Word. So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
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And what we hear and what we read and what we see in Exodus
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15 are these names of God. And as Moses
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mentions them, they're to help us to appreciate the greatness
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and the majesty of God. You think about that first one,
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El, that's the first name of God in verse 2.
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And that name El is a word that means mighty one,
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the Almighty, the hero.
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And as that word is used, it is to help us to appreciate
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this aspect of God's nature, that he is mighty.
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And then there's the word Elohim in verse 2, the other word for God that
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we will find there. And this word for Elohim that we
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see here is a word that's intensified. It is in the plural.
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And when we see this, we see God as He is the supreme
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one, God in His majestic power. That's really
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what's being conveyed with Elohim, the one who is
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so matchless in His strength. And it's a word that's coupled with some of the
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great things that he's done in the Bible. It is this word that is used
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in combination with his work at creation in Genesis 5:1,
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and his position as King, we read in Psalm 47:7,
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his position as our Judge in Genesis 50:6.
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We see him as our Lord with this word Elohim
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in Psalm 86:12, and he is our Savior in
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Hosea 13:4. And each time the Holy Spirit chooses
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this particular word to help us to see that word
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in the plural intensifies, it doubles down, it compounds
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the idea of how great His power is.
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But it is also used to speak of His majestic rule as
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sitting on the throne. And of course, perhaps you've heard it taught in a Genesis
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class that it's in the plural. And this helps us to see something about the
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nature of God. We have one nature, 3 personalities.
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Let us make man in our own image. In our image, Genesis 1:26.
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And so as Moses is laying out for us in the song that he is
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leading Israel to sing on the other side of the Red Sea,
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we see him pull out these different names of God, and then he
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pulls out a 3rd name. It's the first usage,
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the second usage rather, of Lord in verse 17,
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Adonai. This is my Lord.
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This is a word sometimes that is used in substitution
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of the name Yahweh. And it's a word to
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speak of, again, his supremacy and his greatness,
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his personal nature as he is my Lord.
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It's the word that's used for God in Psalm 29:2,
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where we are to worship the Lord in holy array.
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We are— or in Psalm 2:4, where the Lord scoffs
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at the ungodly, or in Isaiah 6:1,
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where we read, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also
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the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up,
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and His train filled the temple. We see this majestic power through
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the word Adonai. But then there is, of course, the word
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perhaps that is most associated with God in the Old Testament,
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and it makes sense. Because it's the word not only found 12 times
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in Exodus chapter 15, but it's the most often used word for
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God in the Old Testament, and that's Yahweh.
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We use the transliterated word. We take the vowels from Adonai
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and we say Jehovah. Did you know that until the
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Renaissance period, they did not pronounce that name with the vowels
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out of reverence and respect? For the greatness of God.
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This is the idea of the self-existent one,
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the uncaused cause. This is the
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view of God as the eternal one. This is the
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God who was and who is and who is to come,
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the self-existent one, but it's also the covenant name
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of God. And when you couple it with some of the characteristics
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that we find in the Old Testament, it gives us a greater appreciation for
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the greatness of God. You think about how this is done in Exodus.
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It's done a couple of times. In Exodus 17:15,
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the Lord is my banner. That is the one who gives
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me shade and gives me protection when I'm vulnerable and I'm in
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need. And you think about the Israelites at this time, they've left Egyptian
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bondage where they've been so long and they need protection. They need
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help in order to get to their destination. And we can appreciate that as we
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need His help on our way. You think about back in the book
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of Genesis when Abraham's been told by God to sacrifice his only
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son Isaac, whom he loves. And of course, God supplies the substitute sacrifice
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as Abraham knew that he would. What does he say in
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Genesis 22:14? The Lord will provide.
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There's his name, Jehovah-Jireh. The one
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you know the best, Psalm 23:1.
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The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
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Do you see the majestic greatness of God as he's described
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for us? Or how about Gideon in Judges 6:24, the Lord is
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my peace. When I'm deprived of peace
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on every side and in every situation, and I'm about ready to let
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go, I see the majesty, the greatness of God as he gives
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me peace. What about when I'm struggling in my unrighteousness at
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the low ebb of Israel's history? Much later, you have Jeremiah in
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Jeremiah 23:9, where the people are unrighteous.
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And who is He? He is the Lord Tsidkenu. He is the Lord
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our righteousness, Jeremiah 23:9. And even here in
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this chapter, in Exodus 15:26, He is
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the Lord our healer. Do you see what He's
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doing with the name? The name represents all that He
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is. And by invoking and calling that name,
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we're to associate Him. And so you put it all together and what
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do you have? You have a mighty hero. You have
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a sovereign one who answers to no one, but to whom all answer.
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You have an almighty one who cannot be in any way
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overcome. Look at verse 7. He is the one that can't be overthrown.
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He is the all-powerful one. And you see Him as
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the one who is our personal God,
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who is uncaused, and yet who stands behind us and He moves
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us forward. When we see this, this calling of His name
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was to be a moment, a pivot point, so that they could always look back
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and remember His name. And in remembering His name, remember what He does here
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at the Red Sea. And out of that lived different lives.
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What about what Solomon says at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8:23?
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O Lord God of Israel, there's no God like you in heaven
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and on earth. You keep your covenant of love with
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all your servants who walk before you with all of their heart. And so this
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was to be that transformational moment that they would look back to.
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But it doesn't take them very long, does it? They're on the other side of
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the Red Sea. They're 3 days from the crossing where God has done this with
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the water. And what is it that they are facing? They're afraid that they're going
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to die without water.
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They forget the greatness of God. I even think about Solomon.
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He's the one who says this in 1 Kings chapter 8, and it's not long
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before he forgets. And so, when we see
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the greatness of our God, we see it represented in his name.
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Again, as I mentioned a moment ago, in Psalm chapter 29 and verse 2,
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we see the Lord in his majesty that we are to worship in holy
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array, or in Revelation chapter 15 and verse 4, where we have
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a name that is unlike any other, that is awesome
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in its power. And so as we see the majesty
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of God, we see it in his very name. It's synonymous
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with who he is. But then second, as we look at this
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text, we see that the majesty of God is seen
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in his characteristics. Now you walk through this song, and remember,
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Moses is reciting this, he's rehearsing this with them.
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This wasn't a one-time song that was going to be forgotten, a one-hit wonder
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that was going to be off the shelves pretty soon. It was going to be
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the song that they would sing for centuries to come. It is how the Hebrew
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mind worked, that you rehearsed over and over again, oral history, oral speaking
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in which it would internalize and be a part of you. You think about maybe,
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I don't know if you ever sang any Bible verses that
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you set to tunes. In doing that, it somehow causes
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those verses to stay in your mind. You think about even verses
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or chapters of the Bible that we've written songs in our songbooks.
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They help us to remember, to internalize. But as
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Moses leads them in this song, they are to look at some of
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the characteristics of God, and we'll just highlight a few. That first of
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all, he is highly exalted. Now Moses
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starts the singing. He says, he is glorious. He has thrown
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the horse and his rider into the sea. I don't
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know how Miriam's song went, but she also had a little part at the end
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in which she says essentially the same thing. He has thrown the horse
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and his rider into the sea. These are a bunch of people that
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mostly are walking. They've been slaves. They've not had possessions
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of their own. They really live very basic, humble, simple lives,
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but their captors, they had the best that was available.
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They had the sports cars of their day. The chariots
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and the horses upon which one would ride, that belonged to people who had means
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and affluence. And so really you would symbolize
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that as a sign of greatness and strength.
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And here's what Moses says, he has thrown the horse and his
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rider into the sea. Think for a moment of the cumulative
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numbers here, maybe as many as 6,000
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horses, riders, and chariots. And if a horse weighs between
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1,000 and 1,500 pounds, how incredible that
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with a seeming wave of His hand, in fact, that's what it was, God through
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Moses' action closes the seas on top of that.
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And Moses says this in order for the Israelites to get
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the picture that we want to get of how great and exalted
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God is that He could do such a thing. Again, put yourself there
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on that night and look back and you see that happen in a
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moment's time through the greatness of God. He is highly exalted.
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You know, it was incredible. It happened about a week before I was writing
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this sermon that something happened that I think is a parallel to
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this, not out of punishment, but out of natural disaster. Did anybody remember
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hearing about the glacial collapse that happened about a week and a half
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ago on the Tibet and Nepal border? The ice
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broke from 17,000 feet in elevation and
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it began coming down the mountainside. Of course, this is where the Himalayas are,
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some of the highest peaks in the world. And as this water comes rushing down,
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the hillside. It affects the infrastructure, destroys bridges
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and roads immediately. They said
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that the water rose 30 feet in 30 minutes.
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They believe that the death toll is going to be 5,000 when all
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is said and done. It's the power of a God like this
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that Moses wants them to remember, the highly exalted
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God. But then he says he is awesome
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in praises, verse 11. That's the New American Standard rendering of
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that particular verse. This idea of being awesome is
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again that which evokes involuntarily a
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response from us.
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I again go back to that night and imagine yourself
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being there. You're yourself, you're walking through, you can't believe
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it. You and your family and your friends and your neighbors, you're walking through safely
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and you look and you see the Egyptians trying to do the
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same thing, and then you see the waters close on them
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and destroy their lives. These are
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the ones that wanted to kill you that were coming after you. Could you
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control what happened in response?
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Probably one of the worst analogies I can think of as a preacher.
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I got one paddling when I was in school. I was in junior high.
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Lane Mitchell was the other disputant in that fight.
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It was after football practice and he called me a name and he shoved me
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into the locker and that started a 2-punch fight. He swung and I connected.
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And then Coach Wilson came and got us and walked us
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by our ears to the principal's office. And there we learned our
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fate. And this is a different time, I understand that. By the way, I asked
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Kya to give me a picture of a principal's office. This is not what I
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remember. I remember a dungeon. And wails and cries of people all around.
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But I remember going in there and I remember as
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I had the— my dad found out about it. And so dad was there and
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he proposed to Mr. Lovett. By the way, the only principal whose name I can
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remember, Eddie Lovett, and you'll know why in just a moment. I had 3
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days in-house suspension and dad said,
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can he have 3 licks with a paddle instead? He agreed.
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Lane's dad, by the way, Lane became one of my good friends later on,
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but Lane's dad asked for the same thing. I remember going
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home that night, couldn't sleep a wink.
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I remember telling myself, I'm going to be tough, I'm not going to cry.
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Next day, you know, you're dreading it, you know it's going to happen all day
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long. I didn't know what period it was going to be. The intercom came on.
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Could you send Neil Pollard to the principal's office? And I made that
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long walk. And again, I was going to be tough and I was kind of
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smiling and laughing with my buddies. I got there into the office
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and you who are younger don't realize this, but I had to put my hands
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on the desk and I had to position myself to be addressed.
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And by the second lick, tears were coming out of my eyes. I didn't cry,
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but Mr. Lovett was so skillful and so strong,
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he just got them out of me involuntarily.
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I wonder, perhaps again, that's terrible as analogy.
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Could you have kept back from just exclaiming
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how great God is? To be able to see
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this power taking place in front of you, what could you do but to just
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call out in praise and song to Him?
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I think about Peter and John, these on-fire disciples who
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have just preached the second gospel sermon, and here they are being told,
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don't say anything else. But they said, we can't help speaking of all that
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we have seen and what we have heard, Acts 4:20. But then we
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see in verse 11 that He is also wonder-working. These are His attributes.
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These are His characteristics. The wonders are seen
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in so many different ways, but the way that he points to is the
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Red Sea crossing that they are given privy
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to. This word wonder-working speaks
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of words and actions that demonstrate majesty and greatness.
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God's still demonstrating that today. Don't we sing it? There's power,
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power, wonder-working power.
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As we see the atonement at the cross of Calvary,
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as we see God's genius design and his wisdom for
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the church, as we see literally the thousands of ways that
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he blesses our lives, we have to express his wonders.
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But then we think about all the your statements. Do you see them as they
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are there for us in the text? I count 13 of them.
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Your nostrils, your anger,
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your wrath, your breath or
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your wind, and there's 8 others of those, and your speaks of
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possession. So what are the things that God possesses?
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He possesses excellence, He possesses power, He possesses
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His people, He possesses heaven and earth. And through
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all of this, Moses is saying, I want you,
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while it's fresh on your mind, you have been through the Red Sea, I want
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you to remember the greatness of your God. And you can see it in the
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characteristics that have been displayed in the moments that we have just experienced together.
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But then the majesty of God is seen in
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His acts. God is not just
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a God who we can look at and adore and
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appreciate and magnify, but God is a God who
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does. And you'll see that in Exodus chapter
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15 through the 12 you statements. I don't know if you noticed
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it when Byron was reading this, but really it goes on past verse
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10, that from verse 7 to verse 12, there are 4 you statements,
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but these are directed to the Egyptians. Or with regard to
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them. They saw, they experienced His acts,
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but they experienced them as enemies. And in God's
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majesty, they saw it as punishment and as doom and as destruction.
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But then in those last 8 statements, those you statements,
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those are directed in verse 13 to verse 17 to the Israelites,
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to His children, and it had a completely different impact.
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He talks about all that God had done for his children because he
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was on their side so that they could respond to that grace and that love
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and that mercy through obedient faith. You know, when God
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shows us his wonders, whether it be in the acts of creation, what we
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see in nature, whether it be in the intricate design
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of our bodies or the universe and the world and all
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that's in it, or whether it be in the masterful language of Scripture,
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we see the actions of God. And we won't take the time to look
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at all of them, but I want you to think about just one of them.
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I believe it's verse 12. If not, it's verse 13 where he says, in your
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lovingkindness, you led your
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redeemed. The Redeemer concept is one that we're
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introduced to in this period of time. It's a part of the Old
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Law and the near kinsman, the Redeemer concept is the idea
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that if you are the near kinsman, if you are the close relative,
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then you can inherit property of the near kinsman.
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You could marry the widow and bring up seed, and that's what God wanted to
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your near relative. Or you could buy back one
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who had been enslaved, or you could avenge the murder of
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a near relative. But this idea of redemption
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here, is in your loving kindness,
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you redeemed us. It can speak— when it speaks of God,
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this Redeemer concept speaks of 2 things, either spiritual
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deliverance or physical deliverance. In Exodus 15,
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it's talking about the physical deliverance, the Red Sea crossing.
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But so often God is going to take this and elevate it and talk about
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the redemption that we enjoy. Psalm 136,
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is perhaps the most beautiful expression of the loving kindness of
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God. We see it in verse 1
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as the foundation of His goodness. We see it in Psalm 136:2-3
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as His unchallenged position as the
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Creator, as the Lord of all. We see it
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in verses 4 through 9 as that which caused Him to do all of His
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splendor in the creation. But then in verse 10 through 15,
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this loving kindness is seen in his delivering the children
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of Israel through the Red Sea. He spends as much time on that one night
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as he does anything else in that great psalm, one verse for 40
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years. In his loving kindness, he led Israel through the wilderness.
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And then in verse 17 through 22, we have the loving kindness of
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God that led the conquest. The conquering of the land.
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And then the psalmist who's writing up to that time in verse 23 through 25,
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he says, and He's still showing lovingkindness even
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up to this very moment. You know what he's doing there? He is saying,
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this is the lovingkindness of God from everlasting to
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everlasting. This is from beginning to end, from A
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to Z. And the Lord who has been kind in the past
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will continue to do so. I don't know if the Israelites
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would've thought that for 400 years, that God was showing His loving kindness.
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But if they hadn't seen it in their bondage period, they're seeing
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it in the Exodus. They're seeing it on their way to the land of promise
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that God had given through Abraham so long ago.
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They're seeing His loving kindness. You know,
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the Bible talks about God and redemption for us.
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And a beautiful thing about that redemption, that is His buying us back,
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that deliverance from spiritual bondage, He speaks
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in 2 directions. He looks back to the redemption of
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God through Jesus on the cross, Ephesians 1:7,
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Colossians 1:14. And then he speaks of God's future redemption, the day
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of redemption that is to come, Ephesians 1:14 and
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Ephesians 4:30. We see
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his loving kindness, we see his actions, we see his power
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in that, in the sun and the moon and the stars. And in
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the storms and in the stillness and in Red
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Sea crossings, but we see it just as majestically
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and in such an awesome way when Jesus, in the midst
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of clamor and chaos for 6 hours, hangs there as
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the atonement for our sins,
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providing a way for us to pass through the perils on
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the safety provided for us so that we can reach
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the other side. As I read
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Exodus chapter 15 and was confronted
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with the greatness of God and tried
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to see, as you're an Israelite there present on that day,
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man, you could never forget a night like
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that where something so awesome had taken place.
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But the only way for that to stay fresh and to stay as
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a conviction in your heart was for you to revisit that. And to keep it
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fresh throughout the rest of your life. And it'd have to happen from
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generation passed on to generation.
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It's frustrating. I remember one of the first sermons I preached
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at Lehman Avenue was How Great Is Our God
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from Isaiah chapter 40. God's greatness is
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seen in such a diverse way.
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In Exodus 15, The majestic power
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of God is seen in his names,
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in his characteristics, and in his acts.
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What do we do with that? On March 23rd,
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1743, Handel's Messiah was performed for
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the first time in London, and a huge audience was assembled, and in
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that audience was King George II, And as
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the chorus, the hallelujah chorus came along, for the Lord
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God, the omnipotent reigneth, when those words were sung,
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it was said by those present that everyone who was there,
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including the king, all rose as one
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in recognition of the King of the universe.
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You know, we don't have a tradition in our nation like that. We don't,
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we're not like some of the European countries and even some other countries around the
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world where they have this longstanding monarchy,
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and they have this regal pageantry of a king and
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what goes along with that, the pomp and circumstances. Here in
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America, we ridicule and we laugh at our leaders, and maybe
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that makes it a little hard for us to be able to appreciate
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the idea of majesty of a king. And yet
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in Psalm 8:1, O Lord,
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our Lord, how majestic is
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your name! God wants us to behold his majesty and
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to respond by living lives that keep that fresh in
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our hearts. As we leave the cocoon and the safety of our
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being together and we go out into the world, a world that eclipses the
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greatness of our God, God's counting on us to
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look back on our day of redemption, our own crossing
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from lostness to salvation, and to keep it
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fresh and not keep it to ourselves, but to share it with others.
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Have you responded to the greatness of God in your own life by
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naming him your Lord, by responding to his grace
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through your obedient faith? The song that we're going to sing is an invitation
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song that Bill will lead, is an invitation for you, if you want to publicly,
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to respond to God's great grace in obedient faith. We would urge
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you to do that. If not, speak to us privately.
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We would love to sit down and study with you if that's what's needed,
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or to be able to— if you've been studying,
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to be able to baptize you into Christ. Or maybe you're a child of God
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who has lost sight of the greatness of God, how quickly it can
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happen. And perhaps you need in your own heart to
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rededicate yourself to remembering and to exploring his greatness.
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Maybe you need to publicly respond. If that's your need, won't you come right now
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as we stand and sing?