Psalm 96:4

Continuing in Psalm 96-

Most thoughts by Dr. John Piper- www.desiringGod.org

4a FOR THE LORD IS GREAT, AND GREATLY TO BE PRAISED:

The LORD IS great, and you need to praise Him not a little - but GREATLY! This is the real REASON were created, Sherry!

4b HE IS TO BE FEARED ABOVE ALL GODS.

And why must He be FEARED? Because we have all failed to glorify God. Piper says,

1. "In stead of glorifying God by loving Him, we have neglected, disdained Him, loved other things more than Him, and gotten a lot more "kicks" out of the world than out of Christ.

2. Instead of glorifying God by trusting Him and finding our security and our hope and our welfare in Him, we have sought security and hope with money and technology and our own initiatives and weapons - but not in God.

3. Instead of Glorifying God with gratitude for life and breath and everything, we have treated life as a 'right', and we have treated happiness as something we deserve instead of an absolutely free and gracious gift of God which He did not have to give us and for which
we ought to thank him every moment of our lives.

4. Instead of glorifying Him by obeying Him and seeking His counsel on our sex lives, our politics, our finances, our relationships, our attitudes, we haven't consulted Him 90% of the time in the choices we've made. We have written Him off, back-balled Him, ignored Him,
brought contempt upon Him through our indifference!

He has offered Himself to us for the enjoyment of the glory of His grace and the glory of His beauty and the glory of His generosity and the glory of His wisdom and the glory of His strength...all of His glory! We have looked Him over, sniffed at Him a little bit, and
turned to:

MONEY
SEX
POWER
FAMILY
RELATIONSHIPS
HOBBIES

He simply doesn't get 1/2% of most people's attention and affection. That's a slap in the face. That's a "spit" in the face of God. And that's no exaggeration! We have exchanged His glory for this world!

God is righteous, and His righteousness is His commitment to uphold the worth of this glory. Therefore since we have desecrated the glory of God...every day His righteousness commits Him to oppose us. A just condemnation hangs over the head of every human being. God
will sentence us all to hell in the end if we do not find a way of escape because He's holy and righteous, and He's committed to upholding the worth of His glory.

A crime is blameworthy, wicked, and evil in direct proportion to the worth of the one assaulted. You can smack as many mosquitoes as you want and not an eye brow will be raised..Why? Because they're not worth anything. You try to do that to dogs, and you'll get into trouble. Horses? More trouble! People - you will die or sit in jail the rest of your life...

God is the infinite worth of the universe. God is the TREASURE, and therefore the blameworthiness, the evil, the wickedness of any act that degrades, heaps scorn upon or contempt upon God, is immeasurably horrible and heinous and worthy of eternal and infinite condemnation.

Now this simply will not make sense in a world where God is a millimeter tall..." BUT the LORD JEHOVAH is NOT a millimeter tall!

"(He) made us - hold us in being by the Word of His power - knows the atom and all of its pieces - has named every one of the billions of galaxies and calls them by name. He is God, infinite in glory, infinite in worth, infinite in majesty and purity and holiness. And we are no bigger than a little, tiny, minuscule ant on this earth which is among all the billions of the galaxies. And we scorn Him with our disbelief; we scorn Him with our lack of faith; we scorn Him with our two second devotions; we scorn Him with our fear of witness; we scorn Him every day by our attitudes of irritability and unkindness and lack of love. We heap scorn upon God every day even after we are saved.

The great danger that the human race faces today is not nuclear war; it's not AIDS; it's not environmental catastrophes; it's not crime; its' not racial strife. The greatest danger that we are exposed to is the WRATH OF GOD. Everything else pales in comparison to an omnipotent God opposing us with His wrath. That's the greatest danger that humans face!"

BUT...is there hope? Is there an answer? Yes...read on...