His Voice

 

Monday, June 5, 2023

The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea.  The God of glory thunders.  The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.  The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic.  The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars; the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.  He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf; he makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox.  The voice of the Lord strikes with bolts of lightning.  The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.  The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks and strips the forests bare.  In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”  Psalm 29:3-9

Long ago I heard for the first time a preacher say these words:  If you’ve never trembled in the presence of Almighty God, it’s because you’ve never really stood in the presence of Almighty God.  He was making the point that we misunderstand a lot of things.  And sometimes we miss God, because we don’t know Him very well.  We hear about something marvellous being discovered – a cure for this disease, or that syndrome, or a new invention like driverless cars, or pilotless planes – and we mis-label a move of God for human inspiration.  We praise the Nobel laureates instead of marveling over Heaven’s gift.

Psalm 29 is attributed to King David.  It’s not hard to understand why; as a boy David spent many nights alone in the desert wilderness keeping watch over sheep.  To this boy, ordained to be the anointed king of Israel, the resounding crackling of lightning bolts were not merely storms, but the sacred voice of JHWH, the burst of almighty God’s love for His creation.  David heard THE Voice.

There are plenty of Biblical references concerning the presence of God, and how we are to enter boldly, to come closer, to dwell-in that presence.  Those are welcoming sounds – words of invitation to be near and experience God’s lovingkindness and majesty.  That is good, and it is right for us to receive those words as true; God means to provoke us to respond.  He wants His family to enter the house, and drink-deeply of His goodness.

But, somewhere, deep-down, within the center of our existential soul, there must be fear; not the kind of fear you might have facing a hungry lion in the wilderness, without a weapon or a place to hide.  Rather it is the awe of a majestic voice that thunders loud enough to split the cedars of Lebanon…trees that have withstood hundreds of years of storms and earthquakes.  This voice can make a mountain jump like a cat that’s been startled from behind.  His voice can strip a forest bare in an instant.  The power of God is limitless and unstoppable.  Scripture tells us that God’s power to rearrange, end, or begin life is without boundary.  He is God; his voice is final!  Apostle John was given a glimpse of that voice, and the finality of how it will preside over that great and final day of the Lord:

And a mighty shout came from the throne in the Temple, saying, “It is finished!”  Revelation 16:17

For You Today 

There is a day of reckoning approaching.  We’ve been advised in Scripture not to set a date, but rather to be prepared to meet that day.  If, as my preacher friend once said, you have never stood and trembled before a holy God, there will come a day when you will.  Better to stand there now in humble prayer, pledging your commitment to Him, and tremble as his thundering voice and loving arms embrace you.  The alternative is to stand before him later to receive judgment.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Joy & Judgment  The Voice of God  

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Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©