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May 22nd
Our Bible reading is in the Royal Psalms of David. Each will identify God in His Royalty over everything...creature and creation. Psalms 95,97, 98, 99.
“Come... let us “sing” to the Lord. Let us “shout” joyfully unto the Lord...the “Rock” of our salvation. Let us come into His presence with Thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise with songs of praise. For the Lord is Great God and great King over all...”
David was compelled by the Spirit to call the people of promise to the worship of their Great God and King. He said, “Let us honor Him...not ourselves...but Him.
“Let us begin our worship in our hearts...on our way to tabernacle... with thanksgiving for His blessings...” “Let us worship with declaration “shouts” of “Who He is” and “whose He is”...as a community. “And let us with joy, fresh from His presence, sing songs of praise to Him!”
Twenty years ago, I spent fifteen days with Ray Vanderlann in Israel and Turkey, the land of the 7 churches of Revelations. One of the Jewish Rabbis taught us about the “shout” in tabernacle and temple and synagogue worship.
Jewish community worship always began with the recitation of the “Shema”...a portion of Deut. 6:4...”Hear, O Israel, the Lord ...our God...the Lord is one. And “they” would “shout” it. “Hear”...(listen to this) “O Israel”...(God’s treasured ones). Shouting as if their words could reach the farthest place where Israelis lived and toiled, to remind them of their Great God...their Holy God...their Good God...their Covenant God. He is One (One and only God!)
David was saying in these songs...Let’s worship Him...O you who are His.And friends, that includes us who believe the Messiah Jesus.
Jewish parents for generations have taught their children to recite the Shema every night at bedtime...”Hear O Israel, the Lord our God...not somebody else's God...Our God...the Lord is One.”...Let us forever worship Him.
And I learned from a Messianic Jew on my trip to Israel, an inspiring testimony. When he and his brothers and sisters would recite Shema as children, their parents would speak of the Messiah to come as the One. And later when he heard the gospel and began to read the New Testament, and heard Jesus saying “I am the Way”...the “One” Way...he and many of his friends recognized “Shema” in the Gospel of Jesus...O Israel...The Lord...God...the One...Wow....could this be the Messiah?
Now just a bit more of the text...“The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble; He dwells between the cherubim.”
Picture the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant within the vale of the Holy Place. The lid on the chest was called the mercy seat of God. On each end of that lid an angel stood cherubim. Not the harp picture of an angel in our mind, but Ezekiel’s Warrior Angels. Strength and power of all earthly creatures and heavenly ones.
David knew in His heart that God not only lived...but He ruled. He reigned over His Kingdom in heaven and on earth. Friends, that’s what we know in our hearts from the Bible record. That’s a wow!!
And from His throne, whether in heaven or in the tabernacle in David’s day, He would command Mighty Angel Armies without number to assist Him in carrying out His righteous judgment.
No wonder David said, “Let the peoples tremble and the earth be moved.”
People in the world for generations have ridiculed the Quakers for trembling when under the power of the Holy Spirit. Had the naysayers been able to understand the “Majestic otherness” of God, they too would have quaked in His Awesome presence.
May we truly get it...that God is so Set Apart and Above us in essence and nature and character...that His attentiveness to wretches like us is mercy and grace beyond our understanding...thus we worship and even humbly tremble in his presence too.
Have a great day
