He will take your Bibles and
turn with me to Psalm 105. Psalm 104. Psalm 104. I told Cheryl what I was
doing and she looked at me. So yeah, I checked that. Psalm
104. We'll be looking at the first
15 verses, not entirely, but we'll be leaning from these verses
1 through 15 this evening. The title of the message tonight
is, The Greatness of Our God. The Greatness of Our God. Psalm 104, verse 1. The Scripture says, Bless the
Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, Thou art very
great. Thou art clothed with honor and
majesty, who coverest Thyself with light as with a garment,
who stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain, who layeth the
beams of His chamber in the waters, who maketh the clouds His chariot,
who walketh upon the wings of the wind, who maketh His angels'
spirits, His ministers of flaming fire, who laid the foundations
of the earth, that it should not be removed forever. Thou
coverest it with the deep as with a garment. The waters stood
above the mountains. At Thy rebuke they fled. At the
voice of Thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains,
they go down by the valleys into the place where Thou hast founded
for them. Thou hast set a bound that they
may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth.
He sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast
of the field. The wild ass quenched their thirst.
By them shall the fowls of heaven have their habitation and shall
sing among the branches. He watereth the hills from his
chambers. The earth is satisfied with the
fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow
for the cattle and herb for the service of man, that he may bring
forth food out of the earth. and wine that maketh glad the
heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread
which strengtheneth man's heart." The psalmist here begins this
psalm the same way he began Psalm 103. You look over the page of
Psalm 103, he begins it the same way, "'Bless the Lord, O my soul.'"
And again, he ends Psalm 103 with the same thing, "'Bless
the Lord, O my soul.'" And here he is in Psalm 104, "'Bless the
Lord, O my soul.'" You think he's trying to tell us something.
You think He's trying to say something to us? Yes, every word
in the Scripture is meant for our good, and this is no different,
especially pay attention to those things that are repeated. Bless
the Lord, O my soul. The psalmist here again speaks
of his own soul, his heart, and he commands his soul to stop
and to bless the Lord. This word bless, I love this
word, I've told you this before. This word bless is a very special
word. It's not a word like we would
use to bless someone else. Like if I bless you, I can add
something to you, right? I can give you something and
you could be happy and that would make you happier, right? But
when we bless God, we can't add anything to God. When we bless
God, we can't add anything to His character, or to His nature,
or to His happiness, or to His holiness. He is perfectly content
always in Himself. And yet the word here says, bless
the Lord. What does that mean? Well, the
word bless comes from the root word which means to kneel. as you would kneel before a magistrate
or a king. Imagine a king in his kingly
garments and the royal regal majesty of his court. And you stand in awe and adoration. And that's what it means. To
kneel down in awe and adoration to God. Bless the Lord. Kneel down before the Lord. You see, He's the Giver of all
things, and we may not add anything to Him, but when we bless the
Lord, we must kneel down and give Him what is due Him. Is
not praise due our Maker? Praise is due unto God from every
creature. Psalm 151 says, Not unto us,
O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name. Give glory. To Thy name, give glory. We don't
deserve glory, do we? We don't deserve it. You see,
God, just because of the character of His being, He deserves all
glory. He deserves it all. Give it back
to Him. Give it to Him. He deserves it.
May God enable us this night, right now, in this place, for
those of us that are here under the sound of my voice, may God,
the Holy Spirit, give us unction to command to our souls. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And as He said within Psalm 103,
And all that is within me bless His holy name. May we with all
of our longing and desire tonight bless God. Adore our God. Adore Him. Bless the Lord, O
my soul, He says. He didn't say bless the Lord,
O your soul. You see, I can't make your soul
bless the Lord. Stir that up within our own hearts. May God make us have a longing
to bless Him and to kneel before His throne. To kneel before God. And you see, to bless the Lord
and to kneel before God means that we must do away with all
other gods. To be able to kneel down before
God, all other gods must be done away with. Anything that would
set itself up in the place of God must be done away with. I pray that all of our thoughts
tonight would be in unity and that we might stand in awe of
our God. Stand in awe. We hear things about God over
and over, don't we? Constantly we hear things about
God. You've been to many worship services. You've read many passages
of Scripture. But my friends, I still long
to stand before God in awe. Remember Isaiah? Remember when
Isaiah was preaching and he said, Woe unto you! Woe unto you! But
when he stood before God, what did he say? Woe is me, for I
am undone. May we stand before God in awe
and realize we don't know anything. We just don't know anything about
God. In comparison to what there is
to know about God, we know very little. And if we could fill our minds
with all the fullness of knowledge in this world, we still would
only have a fraction, a portion of what it is to know God. And this is the reason the psalmist
says that he must command his soul to stand in awe before God. Look at the reason there in verse
1. He says, 4, Thou art very great. This is the reason we should
stand in awe of God, because Thou art very great. God is great. Men borrow that title, don't
they? Alexander the Great. How great
is he? He's dead. And by all knowledge,
he doesn't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and he's in hell.
How great is he? Frederick the Great. How great
was he? He's dead too. God is not. God is great. and greatly to
be praised. God is worthy of our adoration
for He is very great. Is there any greater than God? Is there any person or thing
that should raise itself up to compare himself unto the greatness
of God Almighty? Is there anything? Can you think
of one thing? There's nothing. God says, who
will you compare Me to? Who will you compare Me to? There's
nobody to compare Me to. God is in a class all by Himself. All by Himself. He's very great. He's very great. And the three
things I want us to see about God's greatness, He is great
in His person, He is great in His power, and He is great in
His salvation. His person, His power, and His
salvation. First of all, His person. Let's
look at this in our text. The psalmist says, Thou art very
great. Thou art clothed with two things,
honor and majesty. Honor and majesty. Jeremiah 10, 6 says this, For
as much as there is none like Thee, O Lord, Thou art great,
and Thy name is great in might." There's none like God, and His
name is great. Now, when we say the name of
the Lord, when you read that, what do you think of? When you
see the name of the Lord, when the name of the Lord is mentioned,
it says, give glory to His name. What are we talking about? Well,
when I mention names of people that you recognize, the first
thing that immediately comes to our mind is their character.
Adolf Hitler. You think of a vile, evil man
because he murdered all those people. I mean, that's just what
we think about. When we think of His name, we
think of His character. When we think of, just pick anybody,
men we love, Don Fortner. You know him. You see his character. You start to see things about
him that you love, you admire. Jesus. Jesus, when I say that
name, what comes to mind? His character, His person, His
work, His actions, all of those things are wrapped up in a name,
in His name. The name of God is greatly to
be praised. The psalmist here in our text,
he says he's clothed with honor and majesty. Who's he talking
about? He's talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's who he's talking about. He Himself, who was clothed
with honor and majesty before the world began, yet when He
Himself took upon the form of a servant, He came and honored
God's law completely and perfectly in obedience, and therefore God
hath honored Him above All men. He is greatly to be praised because
He is full of honor. Can we say that about ourselves?
Can we say we are honorable people? If we do, we're not. We've just messed it up because
we're not honorable people. We have lied and we have told
half-truths. We're not as honorable as God
manifest in the flesh. He clothed with honor because
He alone honored the law of God perfectly in thought, in motive,
and in deed. He is worthy of honor. Hebrews
2.9 says, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than
the angels for the suffering of death, here it is, crowned
with glory and honor. You see, when He arose from the
dead, God the Father crowned Him with glory and honor. He is full of honor because He
is full of the righteousness of God. Adore Jesus Christ by
faith, who was made a lower than the angels, so that He became
a man to perfectly honor God's law in our stead. See the beauty
of His holiness as the God-man mediator. Is there any in need of righteousness
here? Is there any in need of righteousness?
That's me. I need righteousness. I need honor before God. The only way I can be honorable
in the presence of God is through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
And in Him, I am honored. He is full of honor. He is clothed
with it. He worked out the righteousness
of God by His own hand. And it says that He is clothed
with majesty. Jesus Christ who took upon Him
the form of a servant. Think about this. Who condescended
down. Took on Him the pains of a man. Every one of us have pains. Every
one of us has experienced hunger or thirst and suffering or grief
and sorrow. How many like that? How many
like that? Anybody like that? Anybody want
to take those things on willingly? Gee, I want some more suffering,
you know? No, we don't. But He did. He took on the form
of a servant to suffer. And he suffered as a man and
he humbled himself and died on the cross 2,000 years ago. But this man is no longer a poor
man. This man that I'm speaking of
is no longer a pauper. This man is no longer a servant. This man is risen to heights
of glory and is king and he has majesty. He's clothed in majesty. All from the top of his head
to the bottom of his feet is majestic. He's kingly. He's sitting on a throne right
now in glory. There is a man on the throne
of God. Isn't that amazing? He's clothed
in majesty. Have you ever been around somebody
majestic? We're not familiar with kings,
are we? But I've been around some famous
people before. You know how you get around famous people, sometimes
your palms sweat and you start feeling... You know, but this
is altogether different. This is altogether different
to being in His presence. He's clothed with majesty. I
know that Solomon was a great king and clothed in fine clothing. People came all over the world
just to see him. But my friends, Jesus said, a
greater than Solomon is he. And I'm trying to show you there's
a greater than Solomon and all the kings of the earth, Jesus,
who's clothed with majesty. And my friends, He has risen
to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in our day, people like
the idea of Jesus as Savior. Nobody has a problem with that.
You talk to anybody, they'll say, Yeah, Jesus saves. Yeah,
no problem with that. But you see, they want Jesus
as Savior without Him being their Lord. They say within their heart,
I will not have this man to rule over me, but he can save me if
he wants to. Isn't that the idea of modern man and modern religion? It is. But my friends, if Jesus
Christ is not your Lord, then He is not your Savior. That is
a fact. In order to have Christ as Savior,
you must first bow to Him as Lord. And I'm going to let you in on
a little secret. Whether you bow or not doesn't affect His
Lordship. It doesn't affect His Lordship.
He's still Lord. He's still Lord. And because to us who believe,
it is a blessing. It is a blessing to know that
my Savior is my Lord, and my Lord is my Savior. And I love to bow down at the
foot of His throne. I love to come to the feet of
my Master. Because my Master is a gracious
Master. He's a kind Lord. And He says
this, My Master and Lord says this, All that the Father giveth
Me shall come to Me, and Him that cometh to Me I will in no
wise cast out. Isn't that a gracious Lord? My
friends, you couldn't make it past the White House gates, could
you? How gracious is our elected officials? Try to get into their
office and see how gracious they are. Oh, but my friend, I know
the one that rules the world by the word of His power and
I come before His throne and He welcomes me. Isn't that something? Isn't that wonderful? Number
three, let's look at His person in the light. He says in verse
2, "...who covers thyself with light as with a garment." This
is speaking of His life-giving, creating ability. as well as
His holiness. You can look at it either way.
For time's sake, I just want to look at this, because the
rest of these verses here deal with His creative power. So I
believe this has an idea of His life-giving ability. He clothes
Himself with light. John says that in Him was life,
and the life was the light of men. Imagine this world without
any light. Would you have any life? If we
had no light, we could not have any life. My friends, Jesus Christ
is the life giver of all things. If there's anything that was
made or has life, it was made or has life by the power of Jesus
Christ by His hand alone. We are sitting here breathing
tonight because of the omnipotent power of Christ giving us life. That's it. He gives life to all. Paul says,
in Him we live and move and have our being. Why is that? Because in the beginning, He
created all things. John 1.1, in the beginning, was
the Word. And the Word was with God and
the Word was God. And the Scripture says in verse
3 that without Him not anything was made that was made. He made
all things. Is that not great? Do you not
enjoy the things of this world? Have you ever been thirsty, really
thirsty, and then just had a sip of water? I remember fishing
with my grandfather out on the lake and it'd get real hot. We'd
have Coke sitting there in the cooler, you know. But nothing
would refresh you like a glass of water. And how thankful we
ought to be for everything He created to be enjoyed. Everything that we have is of
Him. He created all things. And therefore, we want to look
at the greatness of His power. The greatness of His power. Look
at this in verse 2. Now get the picture here. Who stretches out the heavens
like a curtain. Anybody got curtains? How hard
is it for you to stretch out some curtains? To throw open
some curtains. You take the curtains and you
just throw them back. How much effort did it take to
throw back some curtains, and yet God stretched forth the heavens
of which we can see no end, as a man would stretch forth curtains? I can't fathom that. Can you? The effortless power of God in
creation for Him to create ten billion worlds was an effortless
task for Him. Effortless. Let's throw back
some curtains. Hey, here's the universe. There's
the universe. I always liked that in Genesis
when it says He made the stars also. Just like it was an afterthought. Just like He flung them out there
with the fingertips. Do you know one star out there
is so big it can contain our solar system in the middle of
that star without touching the sides? And he stretched them out like
a curtain, like a man would put up a tent. And I don't mean one of those
hard ones, I mean one of those that you just throw out. One of those
easy ones, because I know how hard it is to do a tent. That
was a bad analogy if you ever put one together. But it's so
effortless. You know it would take a man
a year to 18 months to fly from here to the closest planet? Over a year to a year and a half
just to touch it. Not just get out and walk around,
just to touch it and turn around and come back. That's Mars. What about all the other ones?
And God just stretched them out like a curtain. Isn't that amazing? The power of our God. The power
of our God. Do you have any concerns tonight? Do you have any worries? Any
hurts? Any griefs? Any pains? How big
is your God? My God, He stretched out the
heavens like a curtain. Can He not take care of my little
needs and my little concerns? Absolutely. With much less effort
than it took to create the world. How big are our problems in the
eyes of our God? Oh, little children. Little children. Our Father is great. Our Father
is great. Is there anything too hard for
God? No. No. Nothing's too hard for God,
so let us who believe and kneel adore His great power, that He
creates everything out of nothing, and He calls what is not as though
it were. Do you realize what He calls
you, believer, concerning your glory? It says that He not only
redeemed us, He not only called us, He redeemed us. We are also
glorified in Romans chapter 8. You feel glorified? God calls
them as though it were. Why? Because in His eyes, it
is so. It is so. Now, the power of this world
and all the creation of this world, as beautiful as it is,
do you realize that the creation of this world saves no one? A man could look at a tree and
be in awe of the detail and design and magnificent structure of
a tree for his whole life. If he really studied it, he could
never really get off of the amazement of the design of this and realize
that there was a Creator that made that tree. But my friends, he could spend
all of his life in looking at that tree, but he can only know
one thing. He can only know that there is a God. And he can only
know that that God is all-powerful. But my friends, he cannot tell
how it is to please the God that made the tree that he's looking
at. You know why? Because our nature is bent and
wicked and vile and depraved. You see, we all by nature do
not know how to please God. Why? Because we don't know Him.
We don't know Him. Unless it is through the Lord
Jesus Christ. You want to know God? You want
to be able to adore His power and His person? You can only
do that through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. Through His
gospel. Paul says in Romans chapter 1
that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel. The gospel of Jesus
Christ. And therefore, thirdly, I want
us to look at the greatness of our God in salvation. You see,
it is only by revelation that we can truly see the greatness
of God's person and power by the gospel of Christ. Now let
us look at our text in the light of Jesus Christ and His gospel
and the power that He has to save sinners. And look at verse
6. God here is giving us a picture.
And this is a picture of the gospel in this text. You can
find many more here, but I just picked out a couple. In verse
6, he says, "...Thou coverest it with the deep as with a garment."
He's talking about the waters over the earth when it was created.
You remember in the beginning that the Spirit of God moved
on the face of the deep. Imagine this planet covered in
water with nothing showing but water. Every mountain is covered
by the deep. This is a picture of you and
me in our sin and the lust of our flesh. It's covered over. That's how we come into this
world. It's covered over in the dark,
cold depths of night. Unable and unwilling to recover
ourselves. We are suppressed and overtaken
by the lust and our passion. Running from God. Enemies and
haters of God. But I want you to see this. I
want you to see the greatness of God and salvation in the next
verse. Look at verse 7. And at thy rebuke
they fled. At thy rebuke they fled. One day, God came to us in this
horrid condition. One day, God came with a man
who had His message. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the deep of our sin. And God, at His command by the
Gospel, rebuked our sin. And guess what happened to our
sin? It fled away. It fled away. You think about
the man that he touched with leprosy. What happened to a leprosy? Immediately he was healed. About
the man who was blind, he touched him and immediately was healed.
Guess what he happened when he touched our souls with the gospel? Immediately our sins were gone. Our sins were gone. Let me ask you, do you have peace
with God? It's an altogether important
question. Do you have peace with God? If you are covered in the depths
of your sin, you have no peace with God. You see, sin must be
dealt with. And the only one that can deal
with your sins is Jesus Christ and Him alone. And when the message of God takes
hold of your heart, it will strip you bare before God. But it will also quicken your
soul and give you life. Isn't that great? It is if it's
happened to you. If it's happened to you, you
see the greatness of God in this. It is the waters of our sins
that must be rebuked, and we must come by faith. And when
we do, when we come to Christ by faith, we come to Christ and
we confess our sins, and we see His blood as the only hope and
holy forgiveness of our sins. And the water recedes, and as
the water recedes, the dry land appears. In Genesis 1 verse 9 it says,
And God said to the waters under heaven, Be gathered in this place,
in this one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so.
When God who is great in power calls a sinner forth, his sins
are gathered to one place. Guess where his sins were gathered? On the cross. On the cross. He gathered them in one place
and put them on His Son, and there executed the justice
of God for our sins. And not only has He done that,
He's took away all of our enemies and He puts them at bay. You
think about the sea and how God set the sea in its bounds. The sea may foam. The sea may
roar. It may even flood every once
in a while. But will it overtake the dry
land? No. Let's read in our text. He says,
"...at thy rebuke they fled, and at thy voice, thy thunders,
they hasted away." They go up by the mountains and down by
the valleys unto the place which Thou hast founded them. Thou
hast set a bound that they may not pass over and that they turn
not again to cover the earth." Now my friends, don't get me
wrong, sin does come in sometimes, like a flood, doesn't it? Sometimes we are overwhelmed
with our passions. Take comfort. Take comfort. God has set the bounds even of
our sin that it would not overtake our souls. Isn't that amazing? It may beat against the rock,
but it shall not prevail against the rock. Jesus Christ, our foundation. Now, I want to show us three
more little things that in this text I thought was really good.
Go to verse 15. Flip down to verse 15 of our
text. It says this. Let's go ahead
and read verse 14. He callseth the grass to grow
for the cattle, the herb for the service of man, that he may
bring forth fruit out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad
the heart of man, oil that maketh his face to shine, and bread
that strengtheneth a man's heart. Here we see three things. Three
things that God has done and given to us. He's given us wine,
He's given us oil, and He's given us bread. This is an easy one. What's the wine? It's blood. We see it in the
Lord's table every time we partake of that ordinance. We remember
the blood by the wine. It is the blood of Christ that
takes away our sins. And only the blood. You know, in that day, wine was
a necessary beverage. Today, it's more like a recreational
thing or, you know, if you just have a bottle or a glass or,
you know, it's just something that you can do every once in
a while. But back then, it was very needful for them to have
wine. They traveled great distances
across the desert and the wine didn't go bad. It actually got
better as it went along. This shows us of the necessity
of the blood of Christ. Can we not see the necessity
of the blood? The necessity of the blood of
Jesus is because only His blood is the only thing God will accept
for an atonement for sins. When God said, when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. This is a picture of God looking
on the heart of us. And if He sees the blood, If
he sees the blood, he says, I'll pass over you. Why? Because my wrath has already
been poured out. My justice has already been poured
out. And this wine makes the believer's heart glad. Makes
me glad. I'm glad for the forgiveness
of sins by the blood of Christ, aren't you? Number two, the oil. What is that? That's the Spirit
of God. Now, oil in this day was used mainly, it was used
for many medicinal purposes. It was used for cosmetic purposes. You put oil on, it makes your
face shiny. And it was also used for light. My friends, the Spirit
of God, when He comes in power and reveals Christ to you, He
comes and makes His abode in us, and He shines through us. He shines through us. We're given
the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance,
faith. All of these things are ours.
Sometimes a little bit more than others. You know, sometimes we
have a little bit more love than others. But that's the Spirit's
fruit in us. And when that fruit bears itself
out, what do people see? It makes our face to shine, doesn't
it? I know we don't see it. I don't
see it. But my Lord and my Master says
this to us, let your light so shine among
men that they may see your good works and give glory to your
Father which is in heaven. And lastly, we see the bread.
What is the bread? That is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is our daily bread because it speaks
about the bread of life. Jesus is not only the author
of salvation, but He is the sustainer. Are you still a believer today?
Why is that? Why is that? Why have you not
left? Why have you not gone away in
unbelief? because Jesus Christ has sustained
you by His gospel, hasn't He? This is our daily bread. This
book that we have here speaks of Christ. And everywhere you
look, look for Him. And it will be better for you
than regular physical food. Only this can sustain us. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed
in prayer.