All right, turn to Psalm, the
fourth Psalm. And as you're turning, listen
to my introduction here. Every generation, and I've seen a few, seem to
take certain words and give them a slang meaning that is far removed
from their original actual definition. An example of that would be the
word cool. Cool actually means not hot. It means not warm, doesn't it?
Okay, but not lately. It means a uniquely likable thing. Hey, that coat is cool. And another
example from back in my generation was the word groovy. You know,
something groovy is that something that's got grooves cut in it,
right? It's got grooves. Well, I remember
that it meant, you know, something trendy or hip. That's groovy,
man. I mean. And this is all mostly
harmless, adolescent, seeking to be unique. Use something that's
different. Make me unique. But one word
in particular has been greatly abused by this generation. And
I'm afraid to the detriment of them and many others. And that
word is awesome. It has come to mean something
that's terrific or exceedingly cool. Cool wasn't good enough,
so we've made it exceedingly cool and awesome. An example
of that would be that your outfit's really awesome or wasn't that
awesome. When in fact, the word awe means
reverence. with admiration and fear. That's pretty far removed from
the way the word's being used now, isn't it? I tried this week
as I prepared to remember the first time in my life that I
ever remembered being genuinely in awe of something. And it took
me back to 1967. That's 51 years ago, so you don't
have to do the math. And I was in the army. I had
been a high school biology teacher, and I was now being trained to
drive a tank, a battle tank. And so you get some perspective
here. I did some measuring before the
service, and the tank that I drove, or was being taught to drive,
was a little taller than this ceiling. It was one and a half
times as long as this up here, okay, and deeper than this. It was a big machine. It was
a big machine. It would go about 30 miles an
hour and weight 100,000 pounds and had a 105 millimeter cannon
on it. Now that shoots a bullet about
that big around and about that long. Oh, it had a .50 caliber
machine gun, which shot a bullet about that long and about that
big around, and it did a lot of damage. It was vroom, vroom,
vroom, vroom, and it would just blow anything on most of it.
But this thing shot a big bullet. And after a lot of training,
we came to the day when we were actually going to go in the gunnery
range and shoot live ammunition under simulated battle conditions.
And we practiced and rehearsed and what they called dry fire,
which was act like you put a bullet in there and pull the trigger,
the gunner would pull the trigger and it would click. But today
we're gonna actually shoot the big gun at a target. So I get
in and start the engine and the commander and the gunner and
the loader get in and we start down the range. And you don't
drive a tank with a steering wheel. It has two sticks and
a series of pedals, and you can maneuver it that way, and the
driver sits, and when you're going into battle, you got helmets
and communications gear and all this, but your seat, the driver's
seat has a button you can hit, and it'll pop up when the hatch
is open, and you can see out normally, but when you go into
battle, you don't want your head sticking out there as a target,
so you lower it down and pull the hatch, and you look through
a periscope. like a submarine would. So we're
batting down and we start down the range and we're driving and
all of a sudden the commander says bogey at 10 o'clock. Now
that means there's an enemy that's been sighted and this is 12 o'clock,
that's 10 o'clock. This is nine o'clock, that's
three o'clock. He says 10 o'clock. I'm looking that way, the gunner's
looking that way, and I'm driving and he gives the command to bring
the tank to bear, which means you're gonna try to get the gun
pointed at the target, and then all of a sudden he says fire.
Now the way this happens, so that maybe you'll appreciate,
What I was in awe of was I'm driving the tank and he says
bogey at 10 o'clock and I'm looking and he says prepare to ring to
bear and he says fire. Boom! It was like a stick of
dynamite went off right here. Literally, a stick of dynamite. Let me tell you, I was in awe. It scared me to death. And I
looked, as soon as he said fire and it went boom, I look and
a half a mile away, 800 yards away, this old rusty tank, which
was the target, this huge chunk of the side of it went boom. And I'm sitting there hanging
on to my tank. And here's why I had admiration
and fear. The magnitude of the power that
had just been unleashed right here. I'd heard about it. Now I'd seen it. With my own
eyes, I saw it. And then I thought, the day is
coming when it won't be just me shooting. The other guys will
be throwing that back at us. And I was afraid. I was in awe of that power. Now,
let me tell you what I learned years later. The God of the Bible
has all the power. He's got it all. He is to be
admired and feared and reverenced. He can make us stand in awe of
Him. And Jesus Christ, let me tell
you, He's not fretful, He's not up there As they say, marching
back and forth, looking over the banisters of heaven, wringing
his hands, just hoping somebody will let him into their heart.
No, no. He's the commander of the invincible armies of heaven. He is to be reverenced. He is
to be admired and he is to be feared. The word awe is only used three
times in the Bible. The first is in Psalm 4. Each use in the Bible has a unique
connotation, but it always means to stand in awe or be amazed. Whenever God's spirit reveals
Christ to one of his children, we will be in awe and truly amazed
by the first thing, which is sin. We'll be amazed in awe of
sin. Look at Psalm 4, verse 4. It
says, stand in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon
your bed and be still. When God reveals to us just a
glimpse of his holiness, we will suddenly also get a sense of
our sin and be in awe of that. We'll be afraid. We will tremble. The word means to quiver. We'll
stand in awe. When God shows a sinner what
we have done, what we're still doing, and what we're capable
of, we'll stand in awe. And when that happens, we may
have the first honest conversation we've ever had with ourselves
before God. If the, You know, it's the fallen
nature in all of us to always deny every admission of wrongdoing. You know, we're not, we'll not
be surprised when we ask our children if they did something
and they act like they don't know what we're talking about.
Or they even outright deny doing something they lie, even when
they know we know they did it. And that's all of us by nature.
with regard to our sin, and it shouldn't surprise us. Go back
and look at when Adam first sinned, the very first sin, and the Lord
came walking in the garden in the cool of the night and said,
Adam, where are you? Adam said, I'm just walking around
in the garden. And the Lord said, Adam, what
have you done? Adam said, I was just tending
to the trees like you told me to. And finally, he said, Adam, has
thou eaten of the tree? And Adam said, even then, he
knows God knows. Even then, he says, yeah, but
that woman you gave me, it was her fault, she made me do it.
Do we see how we are with our own sin? It's a dishonest conversation
from A to Z. But if God ever shows us our
sin, We'll stop lying to him and to ourselves and be in awe.
Our tongue will be still and our heart will tremble. Turn
over to Luke chapter eight. We're gonna look at a few scriptures
here in the next few minutes. The way God's people stand in
awe, this is an important concept. The way God's people stand in
awe is they fall down trembling. That doesn't make any sense.
What it does to us, doesn't it? I'm in awe of him and we'll go
prostrate before him. Look at Luke 8, verse 46. And
our Lord said, Jesus said, somebody's touched me for I perceive that
virtue's gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she
was not hid, how did she come? trembling and falling down, she
came in awe before him. She declared unto him before
all the people for what cause she touched him and how she was
healed immediately. And he said unto her, daughter,
be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace,
go in peace. Now the second scripture where
we find awe is in Psalm 33. Turn over there with me, Psalm
33. Let's not forget where this always
starts. The Spirit of God will always
reveal to a child of God something of the true nature of our sin.
And we'll be truly in awe of our sin. And we'll realize that
there's a difference between these two things. There's a difference
between not being very nice and, as Paul said, oh, wretched man
that I am. God shows us there's a difference
in these two things. There's a difference between,
you know, misbehaving or doing something out not to have been
doing and being vile, repulsive, repugnant. There's a difference
between needing a Band-Aid and being full of bruises and wounds
and putrefying sores. There's a difference between
needing a Band-Aid and needing a new heart. If God makes us stand in awe
of our sin, I promise the next thing he'll do is he'll also
make us stand in awe of the Lord Jesus Christ, of him. Look at Psalm 33, verse eight.
Let all the earth fear the Lord, that all the inhabitants of the
world stand in awe of what? Not of what, of who? Of Him,
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn a few pages over to Psalm
46. The sense of awe in this usage,
in this Psalm, is to shrink in fear. We want what we are by
nature to sort of shrivel up, to disappear, to not be seen. Let God see Christ, be exalted,
and see me be abased. We pray when God's justice comes
looking for sin, my sin, we pray it'll be found not in me, but
in Christ at Calvary. Christ is my, I like this, we
hear often, he's my hiding place, he's my shrinking place. I wanna
shrink in the cleft of the rock where I won't be seen and only,
when God looks, you just see Christ. You see Psalm 46 verse
10. Be still. Let us just be still. We don't need to do anything
for God or do anything for our righteousness. Christ's already
done it all. Just be still and know, he says, that I'm God. And I will be exalted among the
heathen. I'll be exalted in the earth.
And the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge,
my shrinking place, my hiding place. Turn to Exodus 3. Christ is so vast, he's so huge,
I can be hid in him. And the sense of awe that was
in Psalm 33 is one also, it means to shrink, but it also means
to turn aside. You ever see anything you're
afraid to look at? You're just afraid to look at
it. That's the sense here. God causes
his children to stop looking. What we ought to be afraid of
looking at is ourselves. And God stops us looking so much
to ourselves and so much at myself that how many mirrors do we need
in our houses? The reason we got them is we
like looking in them. We like seeing what's coming
back at by nature. but we need to stop so much looking
at ourselves and to ourselves and start looking at Christ.
Start looking to Christ. We need to turn aside from the
mirror and look at him, look to him with regards to our salvation
from sin especially. Exodus three, look at verse two.
This is Moses. The great angel, or I'm sorry,
and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out
of the midst of a bush. And Moses looked, and behold,
a bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And
Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why
the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he
turned aside to see, wonder who made him turn aside? God did. God called unto him out of the
midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, And Moses said, here am
I. And he said, draw not nigh hither,
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God
of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon
God. Now that's all. God can show us that all and
make us stop looking in the mirror and grinning so much and go,
oh, oh. You see, that's awe. That's reverence
and fear. All right, now turn to Psalm
119, and we'll see the third usage of the word awe. Psalm
119. God allowed Moses to stand in
awe of his own sin, which he'll do to all of his children at
some point. You know, Moses did sin. He killed that Egyptian. and
had to flee for his life. And I wonder if we realize that
what this life is, young people think it's just a sleigh ride
down a mountain or something. And actually, when we become
enlightened about our sin, when we come in awe of our sin and
of Christ, you know all it is, we're just
running from one sin to the next. We just, we do something and
maybe we get caught or almost get caught and we flee. And we
run for a while and then all of a sudden, we'll sin again.
And that's all it is, it's running from one sin to the next. No
matter how moral the world may think we are or we may appear
in our own mind and heart, it's not actually outwardly, we just
run from one sin to the next. And God made Moses when he realized
he sinned, he just ran off. in awe of what he had done. But then there came a day when
God turned him aside to stop looking at his own sin and look
to the one who could save him from his sin. And then God did
something for Moses. He used Moses to start recording
the word of God. We do understand how much of
this Moses wrote. God used him to do that. And
then God did that to other men. He took Paul, who was the most
self-righteous, religious guy, riding down the road to go kill
some more Christians, and God unhorsed him, threw him on his
face, and in awe, Paul looked up and God, it blinded, and said,
Lord, what would you have me do? And God does that on some
scale to all of us, but he did it to Moses and Paul and the
others who wrote this to complete the word of God. You say, God
planned all that from all the way back then to write all this? That's exactly what he did. Why? Look what it says in Psalm 119
verse 161. It says, princes have persecuted
me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of what? of thy word. He gave us his word. Turn over to Romans 1. Why doesn't everybody, when they
read this book, why doesn't everybody, why doesn't everybody see their
sin? Why doesn't everybody see Christ and Him crucified and
glorified? Why is that not so? Believers
stand in awe of the Word of God. We tremble, we have godly fear,
we have respect and prayerful concern for those who handle
God's Word and for the Word itself. Why doesn't everybody see that? Look at Romans 1 verse 16. Paul was writing, he said, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And that means the word
of Christ, the word of God. He said, I'm not ashamed, for
I've been shown, he had to be shown this, that it is the power
of God unto salvation. My only hope, Paul said, the
only hope I have of being redeemed from my sin to Christ is the
word of God. to everyone that believeth to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. Now, stay with me here.
You see that word power? He said, this book, these words
are the power of God. You know what that word literally
means? Dynamite. This is the dynamite of God. Now, You know, it might change,
as I'm saying this, turn to 1 John 1. 1 John 1. It might change how we think
about and even how we handle what you got in your lap and
what I've got here on the podium. If I thought, you know what this
is? This is 66 sticks of dynamite. This is a case of dynamite. You're
gonna take it and throw it over your back seat and to the back
end of the car? Huh? We're gonna just, it's just
a book. No, this is a case of dynamite. This is the power, this is God's
power. Now we've seen a little of God's
power. You ever see lightning hit a tree? Man. It runs down there and splits
the earth open and the tree goes boom. and the lights on fire
and if you live long enough, you'll see displays of God's
power, but nothing like what you've got right here. This is
66 sticks of dynamite. Look at 1 John 1 verse 1, that
which was from the beginning, the word of God, which we've
heard the Word of God, which we've seen with our eyes the
Word of God, which we have looked upon the Word of God, and our
hands have handled the Word of God of the Word of life. Let's go down to verse three,
verse two is in parentheses. That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you the Word of God. that you also may have
fellowship with us. How do we have fellowship? We
come together and hear the word of God. And truly our fellowship
is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. All right,
we're almost done. This dynamite, thankfully God's
Holy Spirit You know what he has? Spirit of God. He's got
all the matches and all the fuses. You know, the way you set off
dynamite is you put a fuse in the end of the stick and you
light a match to it, it burns down and when it hits the fuse,
it explodes. The spirit of God has all the
matches and all the fuses. The dynamite, the word of God
only goes off when, where and in whom the God has ordained
that it will. We're careful with dynamite because
it can be terribly destructive. We know it can kill us and one
day Christ is coming back. How's he coming? It says in fire. He came once with water, now
he's coming with fire. Christ will be destroyed utterly
according to the Word of God. It condemns all who are not in
Christ. Enough about that. However, you
know what dynamite can be used to do? Create amazing things. Has anybody ever been to or seen,
I know we've all seen pictures, of a place called Mount Rushmore?
It used to be just a ragged, rugged, jagged old mountain.
And you know what they did? They made on it four faces of
men who were presidents of the United States. I did not know
this. You know how they carved that thing? 90-something percent
of it was done with dynamite. How did they do that? And if
you want to get online and research it and everything, you'll find
out that there was guys who blew a war off the nose of George
Washington with dynamite. Before the foundation of the
world, God chose a people. Then God in time created Adam
who sinned against God. And when Adam died spiritually,
you know what happened? He suddenly didn't have a living
heart anymore. He had a heart of what? Stone.
Stone. And he died spiritually. In time,
God's chosen people had the fuse of God's word lit. It burns within
them because they have a new heart. And the power of God is
applied and the word, the dynamite begins blowing off, blasting
off everything that doesn't look like Christ. But one day we'll be changed
completely to be just like him. in the twinkling of an eye, you
talk about being in awe. Standing in awe, what'll we do? The first thing we'll do when
we appear before him is fall at his feet in complete awe and
we'll find Christ has made us just like himself. We'll stand
in awe, bowing at his feet. Now, that's awesome. That's awesome. If we wanna use
that word, That's maybe appropriate. That's awesome. All right. May
the Lord bless his word. We'll take our break now.