Jehovah God is Greatest! Psalm 48:1-14

Text: “And the house which I build is great: for great is our God above all gods.”

2 Chronicles 2:5.

Good morning, Christian who serves the Great Lord God Jehovah!  No other gods, so-called, are worthy of the Name of our Lord God; none so Almighty in power; none so Holy in Persons; none so righteous in justice; none so utterly gracious in Eternal Salvation.  This is the great I AM, Lord God, who is our God revealed in Christ Jesus, and you and I know, nor acknowledge, no other God.  Hallelujah!  The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!  Amen.

The First Commandment is: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me (Jehovah Lord God).”(Exodus 20:3)

Verse 1.  “Great is the Lord. How great Jehovah is, essentially, none can conceive: but we can all see that He is great in the deliverance of His people, great in their esteem who are delivered, and great in the hearts of those enemies whom He scatters by their own fears.  Instead of the mad cry of Ephesus, ‘Great is Diana,’ we bear the reasonable, demonstrable, self-evident testimony, ‘Great is Jehovah.’”  (Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 225)

Verse 2. “The joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. Jerusalem was the world’s star; whatever light lingered on earth was borrowed from the oracles preserved by Israel.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 225)

Dictionary Definition: Oracle (noun) a medium or agency of Divine revelation; the place where such responses are given; the Jewish sanctuary; the Word of God...  (The Chambers Dictionary, page 1139)

The ‘prince of preachers’, Spurgeon, is here expounding from Scriptures the fact that ‘Mount Zion’, or Jerusalem, is the joy of the whole earth, because the oracles of God, or God’s revelation of Himself to mankind, was given there; that Christ, the Word of God, and the Light of the world, walked those streets; ministered in that land; was crucified outside that city’s walls for the sins of ‘His people’, and thereafter walked out of, and left behind an empty tomb of witness, that the Lord God Jehovah had made the way of Eternal Salvation for us, by His resurrection from the dead.  This is why the Psalmist, under Divine inspiration, describes ‘Mount Zion’, or Jerusalem, as ‘...the joy of the whole earth’.  Hallelujah!

Verse 5.  “They saw it, and so they marvelled. The potentates of the world saw the miracles of the Apostles, the courage and constancy of the martyrs, and the daily increase of the church, notwithstanding all their persecutions; they beheld with astonishment the rapid progress of the faith through the Roman Empire; they called upon their gods, but their gods could not help themselves; idolatry expired at the foot of the victorious Cross.”  (George Horne 1730-1792)

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Tertullian (160-225 AD)

Verse 6.  “Fear took hold upon them there... Can you and I just imagine for a moment, the intensity of human fear that ‘took hold’ on the onlookers of Christ’s Crucifixion that day on Mount Calvary?  They sat and watched the Lord Jesus suffering and dying on that cruel Cross; they heard with their own ears, the cry of Jesus, as He ‘...gave up the ghost...’ (John 19:30); they saw with their own eyes, the Roman soldier plunging his spear into the Master’s side, and evidenced His sinless Blood flowing out.  They experienced the very elements of earth and Heaven responding, by throwing ‘...darkness over all the land until the ninth hour...’ (Matthew 27:45)   I’ll bet, ‘Fear took hold upon them there...’!  The sins of God’s elect people had been laid upon Jesus, the Lamb of God which taketh away their sin; and He had suffered and died as our Divine Substitute, and taken our rightful place of punishment.

Verse 7. “Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. That same Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living Lord God, proved to all His power to command the very wind and the sea.  His cry of ‘...Peace, be still!’, rebuked the wind, ‘...and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.’  (Mark 4:39-41)  ‘And they (the disciples) feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?’ 

Verse 8.  “As we have heard, so have we seen..."  You and I, dear Christian, have heard and read in our Bibles, of the wonders of the Living Lord Jesus Christ, and how He has performed all manner of Supernatural miracles, especially the miracle of regeneration of dead human spirits.  Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dried Bones is an illustrative example of what Christ has done for each of us who have been ‘born again’ of His Spirit. (Ezekiel 37:1-10)

Just like the ‘dried bones’ of Ezekiel’s vision, you and I heard the Gospel of Salvation in Christ and through His full Atonement Sacrifice at Calvary’s Cross.  By hearing God’s Word with our hearts, we received His vital gift of faith to believe and receive Christ as our Saviour and Lord.  From being ‘...dead in trespasses and sins...’, we received new life, and have been Spiritually regenerated to be children of God Himself – we are ‘born again’ of Him, and now stand upon new Spiritual feet, ‘...an exceeding great army...’! Hallelujah! (Ephesians 2:1-5) (John 3:3-8)

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”  (Romans 10:17)

“For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”  (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Verses 8-14.  “We have here the good use and improvement which the people of God are taught to make of his late glorious and gracious appearances for them against their enemies, that they might work for their good.  Let our faith in the word of God be hereby confirmed. If we compare what God has done with what he has spoken, we shall find that, as we have heard, so have we seen (v. 8), and what we have seen obliges us to believe what we have heard.  As we have heard done in former providences, in the days of old, so have we seen done in our own days.”  (Matthew Henry (1662-1714) ‘Commentary on the whole Bible’.

Thought: Think for a mere moment of what our Lord God has done for us – and we cannot help but cry out from born again hearts, ‘Our Lord God, Jehovah, is greatest!’