STUDY THEME: GOD OF GRACE AND GLORY 09-01-02
"GOD IS HOLY!" 1 CHRON. 16: 7, 8-13, 14-22, 23-27, 28-30, 31-36
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO 1 CHRONICLES 16.
Today we begin a five session study; looking at the God of Grace and Glory. All the lessons of this month will focus on the central theme of the entire Bible. The central theme is God Himself! Every person in the world needs to know who God truly and really is! It makes all the difference in the World. Not all ideas about God are equally valid! Not everybody has a correct understanding of the true nature of God. How a person perceives the nature of God’s character will determine their sense of relationship to Him.
In our study of God we need to remember to bring Him into the conversation. Let Him speak to us through His Word, as we speak to Him through prayer and praise. This first lesson is based on verses from a Psalm in which David is called on to praise the Lord.
In 1 Chronicles 13 after David had taken Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the capitol of the then-united Israel and Judah, he was eager to make it the religious center as well. This could not be done, however, until the Ark of the Covenant was returned to a permanent, resting place in Jerusalem.
The Philistines had captured the ark at Shiloh, exhibited it for several months in Philistia and then returned it to Israel where it had been housed for about 100 years.
In Chronicles 13:7-14 with great pageantry the procession with the ark made its way toward Jerusalem, riding in the cart rather than carried by the Levites as stipulated by the Law of Moses. The cart on which the ark was riding hit a rough place, the oxen stumbled, and the ark began to tip. Instinctively Uzzah put out his hand to hold the ark, and for his sacrilege he was struck dead. The reason, of course, was not only the holiness of the ark but the fact that it was being transported improperly.
There was a three months delay in the movement of the ark while it was sheltered in the house of Obed-Edom. In Ch. 15 David prepared once more to relocate and house the ark in Jerusalem. This time it would be transferred in accordance with the Mosaic Law. The Levites would carry it.
In 2 Samuel 6: 14 we read that as the ark was being brought into Jerusalem David danced before the Lord with all his might. Vs. 16 says his wife Michal "looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. Vs. 23 adds, "Therefore Michale had no children to the day of her death."
In 1 Chronicles 16:1-6, having brought the ark into the tent prepared for it and the prescribed offerings having been made, David blessed the people and the program began. David assigned Asaph and his helpers to lead the music.
Asaph is to offer prayers and praises to the Lord, with the assistance of certain other Levites; all mentioned in 1 Chronicles 15:17-18. They would accompany the praises with musical instruments. Vs. 7 tells how David delivered first this Psalm to thank the Lord. David had taken parts from his earlier poetry and woven them together into this beautiful praise song. Let’s listen as the song begins.
2. PLEASE READ 1 CHRONICLES 16: 8-13. (1. PLEASE READ PSALM 105:1-6. )
Notice that Vs. 8 identifies three aspects of true worship: thanksgiving, petition, and proclamation. When we begin to worship, praise and thanksgiving are expressed. Later we call upon His name in petition. Finally, we make known his deeds among the people. The proclamation is to be made within the congregation and beyond it: "Make known among the nations what He has done." God is great because He is a God of miracles. These are still the basic components of true worship of the holy God. We come together on the Lord’s Day to worship, and we go forth to testify and serve.
What Christianity most needs in her antagonism with every form of unbelief, is holy living. The beauty of holiness has done more, and will do more, to regenerate the world and bring in everlasting righteousness than all the other agencies put together. A holy life is a voice; it speaks when the tongue is silent, and is either a constant attraction or a perpetual reproach.
The word sing occurs twice in Vs. 9. The faith of the Bible is a singing faith. The singing is to be directed unto Him (the Lord Himself). David was a musician; therefore, music and singing were especially dear to him. The existence of the Book of Psalms testifies to the importance of music and singing in worship. The early Christians sang. Paul wrote in Eph. 5:19, "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord." All the great revivals of the Christian faith have been accompanied with singing. Music in worship plays a vital part, for music is a way of expressing emotions and feelings that prosaic language cannot express.
In the biography of Billy Graham titled "Just as I Am", the author records that in the Graham crusade in England the media was reporting that people were responding to the invitation due to the emotional influence of the music. The next night Dr. Graham asked that there be no music. He preached, sat down and began to silently pray. Cliff Barrow said here wasn’t a sound in the huge arena. Fifteen minutes passed and no one had moved. He said that seemed like an hour. Then he heard a chair squeak, then another and all over, that great crowd people began to respond. There were 1000 who came forward to receive Christ that night. It was definitely the moving of God’s spirit and not the appeal of the invitation or the music.
3. PLEASE READ 1 CHRONICLES 16: 14-22. (2. PLEASE READ PSALM 105: 7-15.)
In Vs. 7-13 this Psalm enabled Israel to praise God for his incomparable greatness and marvelous works that he had performed for His chosen people. He is the Lord their God. Now as the Psalm continues it calls for praise for God’s eternal faithfulness. God remembers his covenant forever that He made with Israel. He will keep His part of the covenant forever. Israel needed to be faithful to their part of God’s covenant. The covenant that David had in mind was the covenant God made with Abraham; the ancient covenant. Now David sings of how God cared for Israel while they were few in number in the land; rebuking kings for their sake.
In Gen. 15: 6 God promised Abraham redemption upon his faith in God’s promise. He also promised Abraham in 1 Chron. 16:18 that He would "give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit." Later God renewed or swore that covenant to Isaac, Abraham’s son. After Jacob was born, God confirmed His covenant with him as a decree or law. God had kept His promise for about 800 years from Abraham to David. God’s covenant with Israel would be an everlasting covenant.
I have heard preachers proclaim that God displaced Israel because they refused the Messiah when He came and gave to the church the place once occupied by Israel. David’s song pointed out that God’s covenant with Israel was to be an everlasting covenant. You have only to look at the history of Israel since May 1948 to see the hand of God protecting and sustaining this little nation against impossible odds. Anyone, who opposes Israel will be opposed by God. He promised He would bless those who blessed Israel and curse those who cursed Israel. I pray that our nation may never turn her back on Israel.
4. PLEASE READ 1 CHRONICLES 16: 23-27. (3. PLEASE READ PS. 96: 1-6.)
The Bible uses the word GREAT to describe the Lord. Our worship cannot begin to fathom Him or to do Him full justice. But we should try to exalt Him as best we can. We sometimes sing:
Great is the Lord, He is holy and just;
By His power we trust in His love.
Great is the Lord, He is faithful and true;
By His mercy He proves He is love.
Great is the Lord and
worthy of glory!
Great is the Lord and worthy of praise.
Great is the Lord; now lift up your voice,
Now lift up your voice: Great is the Lord! Great is the Lord!
Some people say that "He also is to be feared above all gods." This means that the writer of the psalm believed that God is the chief among many gods. Vs. 26 shows that the writer did not believe in other gods; he was aware that others did believe in them. As for him, these other gods were only idols, a word that means "nonentities." These gods were not real. They were made by humans, whereas, the Lord made the heavens. Worship within itself can be given to false gods, which are not gods at all. True worship must be given only to the true God. Whatever people worship is their god. Only God is real. Only He is to be worshipped.
Vs. 17 pulls out all the stops in using four words to describe the infinite God: glory… honor… strength…gladness. Each of these words is rich in meaning. By piling them up in one verse, the inspired writer is saying that the Lord is wonderful beyond what our words can describe. We cannot comprehend the full glory of the Lord, but we can know Him and worship Him.
5. PLEASE READ 1 CHRONICLES 16: 28-30. (4. PLEASE READ PSALM 96: 7-10.)
In Vs. 18 the word "ascribe," demands that everyone acknowledge that the Lord is God, and proclaim that truth. It does not mean that someone can give God glory or strength. He already possesses these by virtue of His nature. Rather, each person of every ethnic background and nationality needs to recognize these characteristics of God’s existence.
Glory communicates the fundamental notion of weight or visible substance. When applied to God, it implies the manifestation of God’s divine presence and power. For example, God’s destruction of Pharaoh’s chariots in the Red Sea was an expression of His glory. Strength designates God’s inherent power to do what He wills. His omnipotence is an essential attribute of His deity. Together these describe God’s capacity to perform anything He desires. The acknowledgment is owed to Him because He is God.
An important method for ascribing to God that, which is His due, is worshipping Him. The term offering here refers to the entire O.T. sacrificial system. It applies to appropriate forms of worship. The verb worship literally means, "to bow down." Worship is not a means to something else. When a person worships for some advantage, the act ceases to be worship. Such religious activity is only an attempt to manipulate God to serve the worshiper. As such, the act is the antithesis of authentic worship. Worship is something an individual (or a group of people) directs toward God solely because He is God. The motivation for worship is the character and nature of God, without any ingredient of self or self-interest. Worship is the proper human response to the presence of God.
Two components of worship are in the middle of Vs. 29. First, worshipers are to bring an offering. Second, worshipers are to come before Him. This is where the miracle of grace comes into play. We are sinners who cannot enter into the presence of the holy God, but in His love He invites us to come. The death of Jesus Christ His Son opened access for us to come boldly to God’s throne of grace, in spite of our unworthiness. Heb. 4:16 says "Let us, therefore, come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
The words worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness suggest that God’s actions display His holiness. We as his people must recognize the uniqueness of God and the need for appropriate respect in worshipping Him. God’s great acts always display His holy splendor. God’s holiness is evident in that He is incomparably great, eternally faithful, exclusively God, and our only Savior.
6. PLEASE READ 1 CHRONICLES 16: 31-36. (PLEASE READ PS. 106: 1, 47-48.)
David calls upon all God’s creation to join in joy and rejoicing that God is coming to judge the earth. This will be a time when the curse upon everything will be lifted and the redeemed can dwell in the midst of all nature in harmony and peace.
Vs. 34 expresses a theme of many of the psalms and the heart of our faith in God. First, it calls for us to give thanks unto the Lord. Expressing praise is addressing our praises to the Lord for who and what He is. Expressing thanks is expressing gratitude to Him for His many blessings to us.
The word good is like the world great when it is used of God. The Hebrew term depicts the absolute superiority of God when compared to all else. We use the word good too casually today. Just as God is greater than what our word great means, so is He better than what our word good generally implies. His goodness is another way to refer to His mercy, love, grace, and loving kindness. Mercy is the Hebrew word used in the O.T. to describe the kindness, mercy, love and faithfulness of God. God’s love is without limit. You will notice that because of His love God will always care about what happens to His people.
VS. 34, appears at the beginning of Ps. 106. Vs. 35 comes near the end of the same psalm in Vs. 47. In between are descriptions of the history of sinful Israel and the punishment their sins brought on them. Ps. 106:47, therefore, was a prayer for the Lord to save them or deliver them from the plight caused by their sins.
Looked at from the perspective of the N. T., God in Christ is our Savior from sin and death. The deliverances of the O.T. pointed ahead to this ultimate deliverance. When we as Christians worship, we acknowledge and worship the One who alone has saved us, is saving us, and will save us.
Ideally, we are to come to the Lord clothed in garments of holiness, however, until we experience the grace and power of the holy God, we can only come to Him as unworthy sinners who need His saving and forgiving grace. This was the experience of young Isaiah in Isaiah 6, when he saw the vision of the holy God in the temple. The vision of the holy God convicted Isaiah that he was a man of unclean lips. However, even as he confessed, he was invited to allow the forgiving love of the holy God to enable him to enter the presence of the Lord. Of course, after we experience God’s salvation, we are empowered to live a holy life and we continue to be able to draw near to God because of His salvation in Christ Jesus. Holiness is not the way to Christ, but Christ is the way to holiness. Through the love of God we have access to the God who saves us.
Holiness is faith gone to work. It is love coined into conduct, devotion, helping human suffering, and going up in intercession to the great source of all good. A holy life is living above the world while we are still in it. We sometimes say, "Blessed is the memory of those who have kept themselves unspotted from the world".—Yet more blessed and more dear is the memory of those who have kept themselves unspotted in the world. Real holiness has love for its essence, humility for its clothing, the good of others as its employment, and the honor of God as its end. The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world next to the might of the Spirit of A HOLY God.
NEXT SUNDAY FROM EZEKIEL 18 WE READ THAT "GOD IS JUST."
A.V. DAUGHERTY 09-01-02