"The Majesty of God" by Neal Pollard

Good evening. I saw Chase and Brady

handle something up there on the front row. I hope it's dead. Is it dead?

Okay, that's good to know. All right, it's not dead. Okay,

let's make sure it is.

I want you to imagine yourself tonight camping in

a tent by the sea. You are side— beside

Pi-hahiroth. You're in front of Baal-zephon,

and you begin to hear the wagon wheels of chariots,

and you hear the thunder of soldiers from an Egyptian army,

a powerful nation, that has held you and 12 generations

of your ancestors as their slaves. And now

you hear the disciplined footsteps of soldiers as

they're on their way. They're coming towards you.

And as they do, and you hear them closing the ranks,

I wonder, would you feel panic at the thought

of the fact that your very life was in danger and your safety was threatened?

And while maybe you're processing all of this and you hear those thunderous

sounds and that great army, the greatest army on earth,

all of a sudden there's darkness and there's separation between

you and the Egyptians. And while you're processing

all of this, Moses stretches out his hand,

and by that very action, through the power of God, literally trillions

of gallons of water are piled up to form

a high wall on your left hand and on your right-hand

side. He does such a thorough job

that you walk through and the sea floor is completely dry.

This is a body of water that even today averages 1,608

feet deep and it's 221 miles

wide at its widest spot. And so I don't

know how many, but a good estimate of you would be that there are between

2 and 3 million of you who are going through through in

that wide spot in that same night. And now

you hear them closing in. The entire army

of the Egyptians is right on your steps, and they're

coming down onto the same sea floor that you are on, but you get to

the other side. And when you do, perhaps you'll look back, and what you see

is that all that pile of water, maybe as much as 56,000

cubic miles of water, closes in on the Egyptians.

And when you ascend and you go up on the other side, you see the

bodies of the Egyptians as they wash up onto the shore.

Here's my question. Would you remember that day?

How often would you call it to mind? Would you talk about it?

The Israelites are going to talk about it for centuries to come. And as

we see the writers of the Bible, we will find them one by one

as they look back on this day the very events that happened in

a single night. Joshua in the conquest period,

he's going to talk about it. David in the Psalms is going to make

mention of the crossing of the Red Sea.

The prophet Jeremiah is going to talk about it. And then long after

the exile, when they're back in their homeland near the end of the Old Testament,

Nehemiah is going to make reference to it.

Go all the way over into the New Testament. Jesus has died on the cross.

Jesus is being preached. The church has been established. And Stephen, he's going

to talk He's going to talk about it. And then at the end of the

Bible, to show the supremacy of Jesus and His power and the faith that

God's people had, the Hebrews writer is going to talk about this one act.

I wonder how the people felt. Really, we don't

have to wonder, do we? Because we can read in Exodus 14:31,

Exodus 14:31

and they saw God's glorious power. And when they did, the Bible

says that they feared the Lord and they believed Him and they believed His

servant Moses. And as a response to that,

they began to sing. Do you have that 2 to 3 million

people in your mind? I don't know what's the biggest crowd that

you've ever been a part of in a singing.

Perhaps if anybody's ever been to Polishing the Pulpit,

there's the possibility of thousands or a large lectureship

like Freed Hardeman University where there's at least many hundreds. Can you

imagine the song leader Moses standing before the

congregation of millions of people and singing this song about

the majesty of God and His great praise.

And as you saw in Byron's reading a moment ago, and that's only half of

the Song of Moses, it is a song in full tribute of God's majesty,

His power, and His awesomeness.

Have your eyes ever been filled with tears? Have you ever felt

great emotion as we sang certain songs? I suppose that the songs that

elicit the strongest response from me are songs of praise about the greatness of our

Behold our God seated on His throne.

Come, let us adore Him. Or a song that

even uses the words majesty, worship His majesty.

Or even a song in much more subtle and more antiquated words,

majestic sweetness sits enthroned upon the Savior's

brow. You know, if we are to try to examine the majesty

of God, there would be multiple ways to go about it. We could choose a

topical approach in which we look at some of the great verses and we

will do that to some degree tonight, where we look at God's majesty, His matchless

awesome power. We could also do it expository,

and I would like to just for a few moments to

look at the majesty of God in just one chapter

of Scripture as it's demonstrated to us in 3 very basic ways.

How do we see the majesty of God in Exodus chapter

Exodus 15 · chapter mention

15? First of all, the majesty of God is seen

in His names. You may not be able to detect this

as you're reading in the English Bible, but Moses, as he's writing

there, uses 4 different words for God

in Exodus chapter 15. He will use the names

Exodus 15 · chapter mention

El, Elohim, Adonai,

and Yahweh. And there's something different that's being

expounded when he uses that different name to point us to

the majesty of God. The power of words, we recognize

that, that nations have been turned, revolutions have started

through the use of the medium of words. In fact,

every soul that will be in heaven through some means will have been reached through

the Word. So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

And what we hear and what we read and what we see in Exodus

15 are these names of God. And as Moses

mentions them, they're to help us to appreciate the greatness

and the majesty of God. You think about that first one,

El, that's the first name of God in verse 2.

And that name El is a word that means mighty one,

the Almighty, the hero.

And as that word is used, it is to help us to appreciate

this aspect of God's nature, that he is mighty.

And then there's the word Elohim in verse 2, the other word for God that

we will find there. And this word for Elohim that we

see here is a word that's intensified. It is in the plural.

And when we see this, we see God as He is the supreme

one, God in His majestic power. That's really

what's being conveyed with Elohim, the one who is

so matchless in His strength. And it's a word that's coupled with some of the

great things that he's done in the Bible. It is this word that is used

in combination with his work at creation in Genesis 5:1,

Genesis 5:1

and his position as King, we read in Psalm 47:7,

Psalms 47:7

his position as our Judge in Genesis 50:6.

Genesis 50:6

We see him as our Lord with this word Elohim

in Psalm 86:12, and he is our Savior in

Psalms 86:12

Hosea 13:4. And each time the Holy Spirit chooses

Hosea 13:4

this particular word to help us to see that word

in the plural intensifies, it doubles down, it compounds

the idea of how great His power is.

But it is also used to speak of His majestic rule as

sitting on the throne. And of course, perhaps you've heard it taught in a Genesis

class that it's in the plural. And this helps us to see something about the

nature of God. We have one nature, 3 personalities.

Let us make man in our own image. In our image, Genesis 1:26.

Genesis 1:26

And so as Moses is laying out for us in the song that he is

leading Israel to sing on the other side of the Red Sea,

we see him pull out these different names of God, and then he

pulls out a 3rd name. It's the first usage,

the second usage rather, of Lord in verse 17,

Adonai. This is my Lord.

This is a word sometimes that is used in substitution

of the name Yahweh. And it's a word to

speak of, again, his supremacy and his greatness,

his personal nature as he is my Lord.

It's the word that's used for God in Psalm 29:2,

Psalms 29:2

where we are to worship the Lord in holy array.

We are— or in Psalm 2:4, where the Lord scoffs

Psalms 2:4

at the ungodly, or in Isaiah 6:1,

Isaiah 6:1

where we read, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also

the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up,

and His train filled the temple. We see this majestic power through

the word Adonai. But then there is, of course, the word

perhaps that is most associated with God in the Old Testament,

and it makes sense. Because it's the word not only found 12 times

in Exodus chapter 15, but it's the most often used word for

Exodus 15 · chapter mention

God in the Old Testament, and that's Yahweh.

We use the transliterated word. We take the vowels from Adonai

and we say Jehovah. Did you know that until the

Renaissance period, they did not pronounce that name with the vowels

out of reverence and respect? For the greatness of God.

This is the idea of the self-existent one,

the uncaused cause. This is the

view of God as the eternal one. This is the

God who was and who is and who is to come,

the self-existent one, but it's also the covenant name

of God. And when you couple it with some of the characteristics

that we find in the Old Testament, it gives us a greater appreciation for

the greatness of God. You think about how this is done in Exodus.

It's done a couple of times. In Exodus 17:15,

Exodus 17:15

the Lord is my banner. That is the one who gives

me shade and gives me protection when I'm vulnerable and I'm in

need. And you think about the Israelites at this time, they've left Egyptian

bondage where they've been so long and they need protection. They need

help in order to get to their destination. And we can appreciate that as we

need His help on our way. You think about back in the book

of Genesis when Abraham's been told by God to sacrifice his only

son Isaac, whom he loves. And of course, God supplies the substitute sacrifice

as Abraham knew that he would. What does he say in

Genesis 22:14? The Lord will provide.

Genesis 22:14

There's his name, Jehovah-Jireh. The one

you know the best, Psalm 23:1.

Psalms 23:1

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Do you see the majestic greatness of God as he's described

for us? Or how about Gideon in Judges 6:24, the Lord is

Judges 6:24

my peace. When I'm deprived of peace

on every side and in every situation, and I'm about ready to let

go, I see the majesty, the greatness of God as he gives

me peace. What about when I'm struggling in my unrighteousness at

the low ebb of Israel's history? Much later, you have Jeremiah in

Jeremiah 23:9, where the people are unrighteous.

Jeremiah 23:9

And who is He? He is the Lord Tsidkenu. He is the Lord

our righteousness, Jeremiah 23:9. And even here in

Jeremiah 23:9

this chapter, in Exodus 15:26, He is

Exodus 15:26

the Lord our healer. Do you see what He's

doing with the name? The name represents all that He

is. And by invoking and calling that name,

we're to associate Him. And so you put it all together and what

do you have? You have a mighty hero. You have

a sovereign one who answers to no one, but to whom all answer.

You have an almighty one who cannot be in any way

overcome. Look at verse 7. He is the one that can't be overthrown.

He is the all-powerful one. And you see Him as

the one who is our personal God,

who is uncaused, and yet who stands behind us and He moves

us forward. When we see this, this calling of His name

was to be a moment, a pivot point, so that they could always look back

and remember His name. And in remembering His name, remember what He does here

at the Red Sea. And out of that lived different lives.

What about what Solomon says at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8:23?

1 Kings 8:23

O Lord God of Israel, there's no God like you in heaven

and on earth. You keep your covenant of love with

all your servants who walk before you with all of their heart. And so this

was to be that transformational moment that they would look back to.

But it doesn't take them very long, does it? They're on the other side of

the Red Sea. They're 3 days from the crossing where God has done this with

the water. And what is it that they are facing? They're afraid that they're going

to die without water.

They forget the greatness of God. I even think about Solomon.

He's the one who says this in 1 Kings chapter 8, and it's not long

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

before he forgets. And so, when we see

the greatness of our God, we see it represented in his name.

Again, as I mentioned a moment ago, in Psalm chapter 29 and verse 2,

Psalms 29 · chapter mention

we see the Lord in his majesty that we are to worship in holy

array, or in Revelation chapter 15 and verse 4, where we have

Revelation 15 · chapter mention

a name that is unlike any other, that is awesome

in its power. And so as we see the majesty

of God, we see it in his very name. It's synonymous

with who he is. But then second, as we look at this

text, we see that the majesty of God is seen

in his characteristics. Now you walk through this song, and remember,

Moses is reciting this, he's rehearsing this with them.

This wasn't a one-time song that was going to be forgotten, a one-hit wonder

that was going to be off the shelves pretty soon. It was going to be

the song that they would sing for centuries to come. It is how the Hebrew

mind worked, that you rehearsed over and over again, oral history, oral speaking

in which it would internalize and be a part of you. You think about maybe,

I don't know if you ever sang any Bible verses that

you set to tunes. In doing that, it somehow causes

those verses to stay in your mind. You think about even verses

or chapters of the Bible that we've written songs in our songbooks.

They help us to remember, to internalize. But as

Moses leads them in this song, they are to look at some of

the characteristics of God, and we'll just highlight a few. That first of

all, he is highly exalted. Now Moses

starts the singing. He says, he is glorious. He has thrown

the horse and his rider into the sea. I don't

know how Miriam's song went, but she also had a little part at the end

in which she says essentially the same thing. He has thrown the horse

and his rider into the sea. These are a bunch of people that

mostly are walking. They've been slaves. They've not had possessions

of their own. They really live very basic, humble, simple lives,

but their captors, they had the best that was available.

They had the sports cars of their day. The chariots

and the horses upon which one would ride, that belonged to people who had means

and affluence. And so really you would symbolize

that as a sign of greatness and strength.

And here's what Moses says, he has thrown the horse and his

rider into the sea. Think for a moment of the cumulative

numbers here, maybe as many as 6,000

horses, riders, and chariots. And if a horse weighs between

1,000 and 1,500 pounds, how incredible that

with a seeming wave of His hand, in fact, that's what it was, God through

Moses' action closes the seas on top of that.

And Moses says this in order for the Israelites to get

the picture that we want to get of how great and exalted

God is that He could do such a thing. Again, put yourself there

on that night and look back and you see that happen in a

moment's time through the greatness of God. He is highly exalted.

You know, it was incredible. It happened about a week before I was writing

this sermon that something happened that I think is a parallel to

this, not out of punishment, but out of natural disaster. Did anybody remember

hearing about the glacial collapse that happened about a week and a half

ago on the Tibet and Nepal border? The ice

broke from 17,000 feet in elevation and

it began coming down the mountainside. Of course, this is where the Himalayas are,

some of the highest peaks in the world. And as this water comes rushing down,

the hillside. It affects the infrastructure, destroys bridges

and roads immediately. They said

that the water rose 30 feet in 30 minutes.

They believe that the death toll is going to be 5,000 when all

is said and done. It's the power of a God like this

that Moses wants them to remember, the highly exalted

God. But then he says he is awesome

in praises, verse 11. That's the New American Standard rendering of

that particular verse. This idea of being awesome is

again that which evokes involuntarily a

response from us.

I again go back to that night and imagine yourself

being there. You're yourself, you're walking through, you can't believe

it. You and your family and your friends and your neighbors, you're walking through safely

and you look and you see the Egyptians trying to do the

same thing, and then you see the waters close on them

and destroy their lives. These are

the ones that wanted to kill you that were coming after you. Could you

control what happened in response?

Probably one of the worst analogies I can think of as a preacher.

I got one paddling when I was in school. I was in junior high.

Lane Mitchell was the other disputant in that fight.

It was after football practice and he called me a name and he shoved me

into the locker and that started a 2-punch fight. He swung and I connected.

And then Coach Wilson came and got us and walked us

by our ears to the principal's office. And there we learned our

fate. And this is a different time, I understand that. By the way, I asked

Kya to give me a picture of a principal's office. This is not what I

remember. I remember a dungeon. And wails and cries of people all around.

But I remember going in there and I remember as

I had the— my dad found out about it. And so dad was there and

he proposed to Mr. Lovett. By the way, the only principal whose name I can

remember, Eddie Lovett, and you'll know why in just a moment. I had 3

days in-house suspension and dad said,

can he have 3 licks with a paddle instead? He agreed.

Lane's dad, by the way, Lane became one of my good friends later on,

but Lane's dad asked for the same thing. I remember going

home that night, couldn't sleep a wink.

I remember telling myself, I'm going to be tough, I'm not going to cry.

Next day, you know, you're dreading it, you know it's going to happen all day

long. I didn't know what period it was going to be. The intercom came on.

Could you send Neil Pollard to the principal's office? And I made that

long walk. And again, I was going to be tough and I was kind of

smiling and laughing with my buddies. I got there into the office

and you who are younger don't realize this, but I had to put my hands

on the desk and I had to position myself to be addressed.

And by the second lick, tears were coming out of my eyes. I didn't cry,

but Mr. Lovett was so skillful and so strong,

he just got them out of me involuntarily.

I wonder, perhaps again, that's terrible as analogy.

Could you have kept back from just exclaiming

how great God is? To be able to see

this power taking place in front of you, what could you do but to just

call out in praise and song to Him?

I think about Peter and John, these on-fire disciples who

have just preached the second gospel sermon, and here they are being told,

don't say anything else. But they said, we can't help speaking of all that

we have seen and what we have heard, Acts 4:20. But then we

Acts 4:20

see in verse 11 that He is also wonder-working. These are His attributes.

These are His characteristics. The wonders are seen

in so many different ways, but the way that he points to is the

Red Sea crossing that they are given privy

to. This word wonder-working speaks

of words and actions that demonstrate majesty and greatness.

God's still demonstrating that today. Don't we sing it? There's power,

power, wonder-working power.

As we see the atonement at the cross of Calvary,

as we see God's genius design and his wisdom for

the church, as we see literally the thousands of ways that

he blesses our lives, we have to express his wonders.

But then we think about all the your statements. Do you see them as they

are there for us in the text? I count 13 of them.

Your nostrils, your anger,

your wrath, your breath or

your wind, and there's 8 others of those, and your speaks of

possession. So what are the things that God possesses?

He possesses excellence, He possesses power, He possesses

His people, He possesses heaven and earth. And through

all of this, Moses is saying, I want you,

while it's fresh on your mind, you have been through the Red Sea, I want

you to remember the greatness of your God. And you can see it in the

characteristics that have been displayed in the moments that we have just experienced together.

But then the majesty of God is seen in

His acts. God is not just

a God who we can look at and adore and

appreciate and magnify, but God is a God who

does. And you'll see that in Exodus chapter

Exodus 15 · chapter mention

15 through the 12 you statements. I don't know if you noticed

it when Byron was reading this, but really it goes on past verse

10, that from verse 7 to verse 12, there are 4 you statements,

but these are directed to the Egyptians. Or with regard to

them. They saw, they experienced His acts,

but they experienced them as enemies. And in God's

majesty, they saw it as punishment and as doom and as destruction.

But then in those last 8 statements, those you statements,

those are directed in verse 13 to verse 17 to the Israelites,

to His children, and it had a completely different impact.

He talks about all that God had done for his children because he

was on their side so that they could respond to that grace and that love

and that mercy through obedient faith. You know, when God

shows us his wonders, whether it be in the acts of creation, what we

see in nature, whether it be in the intricate design

of our bodies or the universe and the world and all

that's in it, or whether it be in the masterful language of Scripture,

we see the actions of God. And we won't take the time to look

at all of them, but I want you to think about just one of them.

I believe it's verse 12. If not, it's verse 13 where he says, in your

lovingkindness, you led your

redeemed. The Redeemer concept is one that we're

introduced to in this period of time. It's a part of the Old

Law and the near kinsman, the Redeemer concept is the idea

that if you are the near kinsman, if you are the close relative,

then you can inherit property of the near kinsman.

You could marry the widow and bring up seed, and that's what God wanted to

your near relative. Or you could buy back one

who had been enslaved, or you could avenge the murder of

a near relative. But this idea of redemption

here, is in your loving kindness,

you redeemed us. It can speak— when it speaks of God,

this Redeemer concept speaks of 2 things, either spiritual

deliverance or physical deliverance. In Exodus 15,

it's talking about the physical deliverance, the Red Sea crossing.

But so often God is going to take this and elevate it and talk about

the redemption that we enjoy. Psalm 136,

is perhaps the most beautiful expression of the loving kindness of

God. We see it in verse 1

as the foundation of His goodness. We see it in Psalm 136:2-3

Psalms 136:2–3

as His unchallenged position as the

Creator, as the Lord of all. We see it

in verses 4 through 9 as that which caused Him to do all of His

splendor in the creation. But then in verse 10 through 15,

this loving kindness is seen in his delivering the children

of Israel through the Red Sea. He spends as much time on that one night

as he does anything else in that great psalm, one verse for 40

years. In his loving kindness, he led Israel through the wilderness.

And then in verse 17 through 22, we have the loving kindness of

God that led the conquest. The conquering of the land.

And then the psalmist who's writing up to that time in verse 23 through 25,

he says, and He's still showing lovingkindness even

up to this very moment. You know what he's doing there? He is saying,

this is the lovingkindness of God from everlasting to

everlasting. This is from beginning to end, from A

to Z. And the Lord who has been kind in the past

will continue to do so. I don't know if the Israelites

would've thought that for 400 years, that God was showing His loving kindness.

But if they hadn't seen it in their bondage period, they're seeing

it in the Exodus. They're seeing it on their way to the land of promise

that God had given through Abraham so long ago.

They're seeing His loving kindness. You know,

the Bible talks about God and redemption for us.

And a beautiful thing about that redemption, that is His buying us back,

that deliverance from spiritual bondage, He speaks

in 2 directions. He looks back to the redemption of

God through Jesus on the cross, Ephesians 1:7,

Ephesians 1:7

Colossians 1:14. And then he speaks of God's future redemption, the day

Colossians 1:14

of redemption that is to come, Ephesians 1:14 and

Ephesians 1:14

Ephesians 4:30. We see

Ephesians 4:30

his loving kindness, we see his actions, we see his power

in that, in the sun and the moon and the stars. And in

the storms and in the stillness and in Red

Sea crossings, but we see it just as majestically

and in such an awesome way when Jesus, in the midst

of clamor and chaos for 6 hours, hangs there as

the atonement for our sins,

providing a way for us to pass through the perils on

the safety provided for us so that we can reach

the other side. As I read

Exodus chapter 15 and was confronted

Exodus 15 · chapter mention

with the greatness of God and tried

to see, as you're an Israelite there present on that day,

man, you could never forget a night like

that where something so awesome had taken place.

But the only way for that to stay fresh and to stay as

a conviction in your heart was for you to revisit that. And to keep it

fresh throughout the rest of your life. And it'd have to happen from

generation passed on to generation.

It's frustrating. I remember one of the first sermons I preached

at Lehman Avenue was How Great Is Our God

from Isaiah chapter 40. God's greatness is

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

seen in such a diverse way.

In Exodus 15, The majestic power

of God is seen in his names,

in his characteristics, and in his acts.

What do we do with that? On March 23rd,

1743, Handel's Messiah was performed for

the first time in London, and a huge audience was assembled, and in

that audience was King George II, And as

the chorus, the hallelujah chorus came along, for the Lord

God, the omnipotent reigneth, when those words were sung,

it was said by those present that everyone who was there,

including the king, all rose as one

in recognition of the King of the universe.

You know, we don't have a tradition in our nation like that. We don't,

we're not like some of the European countries and even some other countries around the

world where they have this longstanding monarchy,

and they have this regal pageantry of a king and

what goes along with that, the pomp and circumstances. Here in

America, we ridicule and we laugh at our leaders, and maybe

that makes it a little hard for us to be able to appreciate

the idea of majesty of a king. And yet

in Psalm 8:1, O Lord,

Psalms 8:1

our Lord, how majestic is

your name! God wants us to behold his majesty and

to respond by living lives that keep that fresh in

our hearts. As we leave the cocoon and the safety of our

being together and we go out into the world, a world that eclipses the

greatness of our God, God's counting on us to

look back on our day of redemption, our own crossing

from lostness to salvation, and to keep it

fresh and not keep it to ourselves, but to share it with others.

Have you responded to the greatness of God in your own life by

naming him your Lord, by responding to his grace

through your obedient faith? The song that we're going to sing is an invitation

song that Bill will lead, is an invitation for you, if you want to publicly,

to respond to God's great grace in obedient faith. We would urge

you to do that. If not, speak to us privately.

We would love to sit down and study with you if that's what's needed,

or to be able to— if you've been studying,

to be able to baptize you into Christ. Or maybe you're a child of God

who has lost sight of the greatness of God, how quickly it can

happen. And perhaps you need in your own heart to

rededicate yourself to remembering and to exploring his greatness.

Maybe you need to publicly respond. If that's your need, won't you come right now

as we stand and sing?