The God Of Seven Thunders

The God Of Seven Thunders,Psalm 18,

Author Guardian

Psalm 18,150 bible studies,

The God Of Seven Thunders

Lord let us know more and more in our lifes the reality of your presence, let our eyes be opened

and go deeper into the spiritual truths of your heart and let us see you move not just

in our own hearts and lifes but in others.

Make us astounded Lord and count your blessings , make us astonished and speechless at

the things you are going to do, blow us away with the wind of your Spirit.

Renew our minds that we might have the mind of Christ and become mature in you.

Let us not focus on the past or the future but let us focus on you alone and not our

circumstances , let us focus directly ahead at the race and prize and as the specators

gaze and cheer us on let us have the knowledge of your prescence ...your shekinah Glory,

In Jesus name amen

I had a vison or picture ealier this week of a man - a person clothed in white and He was

motionless like " A pillar of salt " and after this some time later on another picture

came of a hand reaching down, this was accompanied by another picture given to someone

else at the same time that was similiar in nature of hands.

God wants us and me to move on, not to stand still,not to look back,to focus on Him alone.

He is building and He is the builder and architect and He is the Rock and foundation and

cornerstone.

We move on with God and we do not stand still or look back and Gods sword swings from

many angles and divides.

But lets go onto this message.

THE GOD OF THE SEVEN THUNDERS

In Psalm 18 we see many sides of God and we see a vision or pictures put into music by

David, a song of the heart...a melody, a new song..a poem..a series of pictures are shown

here by David and we see lots of imagery and we see the many sided God who comes through

this series of pictures as an "angry God " a " fearsome God " a God who strikes terror

into the heart of gods and a God of justice and righteouness.

We also see the other side of God like a two edged sword, who comes to save and deliver

and in love He saves David from His enemies.

And David being in relationship with Father God hides under the shadow of His protection.

David knows by experience the love of the Father God and proclaims His maker as the Rock

and Fortress and Shelter.

And so we shall look into some of the imagery surrounding this psalm.

Rev 10:3-4

"Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down." (NIV)

Now we are not about to go into the meaning of the seven thunders as if any man yet

knows the true answer, but we are going to look at the many characteristics and sides of

God and how in many ways we cannot even begin to explain him but through " relationship "

The terrifying awesome God of the ages and the Father of Lights is an awesome and

powerful God indeed,

From His throne room thunder, lightning and sounds never heard on earth reach out and

light brighter than ever seen by human eye or understood by the minds of mortal man

reaches into the universe and beyond and His brilliance is hidden lest those who cannot

bear the light of God be exposed.

His voice at creation spoke out seven times to create and by the breathe of His mouth He

breathed life into man and by the breathe of His mouth He continues to breathe life

into humankind

His seven fold spirit reaches

and moves in ways we cannot explain and no one knows where the Holy Spirit of God will

go.

He gives wisdom to the needy and His Spirit rests on those He chooses

Isaiah 11:2 and the Sevenfold Spirit:

"And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD."

To the one who seeks Christ He gives the mind of Christ and gives the Spirit of the Lord,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding and of counsel,

The Spirit of might, knowledge and counsel...

To the seven churches He speaks and the seven fold Spirit before His throne echoes

out the praises of the God most high

.

He is to be feared by those gods who plunder and steal,He is an angry God and His wrath

shall be known and seen

Zephaniah 2:11

The LORD will be terrifying to them, for He will starve all the gods of the earth;

and all the coastlands of the nations will bow down to Him, everyone from his own

place.

God is awesome indeed and majestic, He is able to do anything anytime anywhere.

He can blow the minds of unbelievers and scoffers, He can bring revelation to to unseeing

( spiritually ) and help the lame ( those who do not walk with Him ) to walk.

He can make a donkey speak, when in the eyes of the evolutionist ..that would be

ridiculous.

He can make the seas part when in the eyes of the scientist ..that would be against

the laws of nature.

He can flood the earth ...when in the eyes of the humanist that would be silly.

He can create all the stars in the heavens ...when in the eyes of the minimalist

that would be a waste.

He can cause the blind to see..(spiritually) when in the eyes of the seeing that would

be unfair.

He can cause the ears of the deaf to hear (spiritually) ...when in the eyes of the

unbeliever that would be unheard of.

He can cause the lame to walk (spiritually)..when in human terms that would be a step

too far.

He can cause the heavens and the earth to come to an end in the twinkling of an eye.

..when in the eyes of people ..anyone else would be sued.

He can cause the living to rise again and in fact millions do or will...when in the

eyes of the already dead ...that would be injustice.

He can judge all peoples ...when in the eyes of unbelievers ..he is judged.

He creates life....when in the eyes of the unbeliever He takes it.

He can do anything ..anywhere ..anytime...when in the eyes of the athiest ..that

would be untrue.

He can form a baby in the mothers womb...when in the eyes of the unsaved....they do

it all by themselves without Gods help.

He gives life and He takes life.....and judges the thoughts ..actions and motives of

the heart and mind......when His children do the same not realising .

He creates and he destroys that which we claim as ours.

He gives us rights...which we claim as ours.

He is a God of the impossible and even the impossible He makes possible.

He is a mighty and awesome God and He lives in me.

Yes He lives in me and you all those who know and walk with Jesus the Son of God.

He lives in us...He lives in us....say after me..

.

He lives in me !!

He is a God who has no where to lay His head.... no man can build Him a home, no mortal

can build Him a dwelling place, He does not live in temporary dwellings as man or woman,

but He lives in eternity because He is eternity.

How can such a big and awesome God live in us ? how can the God who fills the whole

universe live in us !!

He lives in us by His Holy Spirit and He indwells us, He tabernacles in us and with us,

He habitates by His Holy Spirit.

We are like temporary dwelling places ( tents )

He lives in us and moves in us and works through us and although He is such a big and

mighty God He says " I love you "

We call Him God ....the " I AM " and yet there is no name that we know of to describe Him,

no single name can describe the character and attributes of God, for He is bigger than

any name.

He is the all sufficient one el shaddai , He is the Master and Lord..the great Adonai,

Jehovah Jireh the great provider who provides all our needs,He is the Jehovah Rophe by

whom we receive healing and by His stripes we are healed.

He is the God of battle Jehovak Nissi,who sanctifies us and sets us apart as a Holy People,

the one who divides Jehovah-M'Kaddesh,He is the grwat unchanging Lord God Shalom who

gives peace to those who seek Him.

He is a righteous judge and makes us righteous ...for He is our righteouness,and through

Jesus we are made right with Him the great and majestic Jehovah God Tsidkenu who gives

justice and declares us innocent because the price has been paid in full.

A God , Father and Lord and King who has many faces and He lives in me and you

"by His Spirit "

The Shepherd that guides and gently nurtures,

The friend that sticks closer than a brother,

The good samaritan who picks you up from the wayside,

The Companion that carries you when you are weary,

The teacher who instructs you and guides you,

The King who leans down and listens to you,

The gardener who sows the seed and waters,

The Prince of peace who gives peace.

The hiding place from the storm and the refuge in times of trouble.

The high tower and fortress who strengthens you.

The shelter of protection ,

The shield and mighty warrior.

The water of life that fills you with joy,

The well of salvation,

The stream that overflows,

The Spring of everlasting life.

The morning Star that brings light to my life,

The light and fire that burns in you.

The beacon on the hill

The one who lives in unapproachable light, who masks His light,

The Father and the Mother

The brother and the friend

The encourager and the helper

The carer to the end.

The one who protects you under wings of love

The one who teaches you how to fly

The eagle that flies and soars above

The one that see's your needs and supplies

Thats you God and King, My Jesus

Your hiding place and mine.

Although God is so big and so mighty and so majestic He can reside in us and tabernacle

with us.

I once had a vision looking down accross an expanse of desert and seeing tent upon tent

strewn accross a wasteland, it was hot and dry and arrid and silent.

But as I looked I noticed the wind stirring up and the material of the large tents

began to rustle in the wind and God was saying that He was blowing new life into this

empty wasteland and the tents would be filled with His prescence..His Shekinah Glory.

Paul the tent maker speaks of our temporary bodies...

2 Corinthians 5

1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building

from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

2Meanwhile we groan,

longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we

will not be found naked.

4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened,

because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,

so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

5Now it is God who has made us for

this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to

come.

Quote Guardian

These things are not built by human "[b]hands[/b]" but by God the great architect and

designer and builder

And so we have looked at how big God is but how He can also reside and indwell in and

with and work through us.

Now we look at His prescence....His visible prescence....His Shekinah Glory.

Shekinah is a hebrew word that means basically "dwelling place " it is the visible

manifestation of God and here we see that God can in fact and does "dwell in us " by

His Spirit.

We are or can be the temporary residence of His prescence, we are the dwelling place

for His Holy Spirit if we are Christians " Christ In "

Many times in scripture we see this "visible" manifestation of God and we read about

"the cloud " we read about a "pillar" of cloud, a covering of cloud,

clouds that appear

as smoke or rain clouds, this is the only way that people can explain with the mortal eyes

and minds and the only way it can be comprehended...as basically " A Cloud "

Why does Gods prescence appear as in a cloud ? because basically the appearing of His

Prescence would be too much for us to look upon, when we consider that no man " in flesh "

can look upon God and live and when we consider that even in Spirit we would be terrified

at His awesome sight, the only way we can come to Him is through love, through His Son.

Exodus 33:18-23

Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory." And the LORD said, "I will cause all my

goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your

presence.

I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on

whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see

me and live." Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a

rock. When my glory passes by,

I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with

my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back;

but my face must not be seen."

And so He protects by enveloping Himself in cloud or dark cloud or smoke.

To demonstrate Gods prescence and His Shekinah Glory aming mortal man we shall go to

scripture and see how Gods prescence ( note....Gods prescence ) appears to men.

2 Samuel 22:8-14

"The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled

because he was angry.

Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth,

burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were

under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.

He made darkness his canopy around him-- the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the

brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth. The LORD thundered from

heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.

Exodus 40:34-35

Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the

tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon

it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

Isaiah 6:1-4

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted,

and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six

wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and

with two they were flying.

And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is

the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices

the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

When we look to Mount Sinia we remember smoke and the mountian covered in dark cloud as

Moses spoke to the " I AM " and we remember that Moses had to veil His face after

speaking with God becasue of the brightness and glare that ommitted.

Now we with unveiled faces !!

I Kings 8:10-14

When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD

Notice in Acts 1:7-11

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from

their sight

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of

the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them

in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

We have seen how God can manifest His prescence and we can see the Shekinah Glory,

we have seen the awesomeness and greatness and majesty of A Holy

God and the way His prescence manifests

And now we move to lil old you and me.

And we look to the "touch" of God..

We have seen or heard of when God has come down in power upon people and how His

" Prescence " has been observed through physical signs and wonders.

We may know of people who have fallen down under His prescence or have known of physical

signs and wonders that have resulted in Gods prescence coming down.

We see the visible prescence of God through the visible manifestations and

physical signs accompanying His prescence and we wonder as Gods Holy Spirit heals and

delivers and we marvel at the living God who demonstrates His power in and through our

every day lifes.

And so we come to Psalms and to David and to Psalm 17 and 18

And we read in Psalm 17

Psalm 17:8 (New International Version)

8 Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,

This shadow is Gods protection, for although we are in Him and He is in us we also hide

in Him and we can be hidden in God so that the enemy cannot find us, He can protect us

under the "shadow of His wing " like a mother caring for her young.

But now we move to Psalm 18 which is the focus of this study and I will not paste

the entire Psalm here as it is fifty verses but if you can look at this psalm yourself

you will notice it begins with David singing of God His strength...

His Rock, Fortress, Savior, protection, shield and place of safety...

This is the wing of protection that David is hiding in at this time, David having been

delivered from saul and from his enemies who pursued him, praises God for His deliverance

.

Now from psalm 18 we glide back to 2 Samuel 22 and you will find that 2 Samuel 22 is

almost a duplicate of Psalm 18, here we have one of the duplications in Gods word and

again we read the same Psalm of David.

Now we can read on from either 2 Samuel 22 or Psalm 18 and now we start to observe something

we looked into earlier in this study and I shall put some of the scripture onto this page.

Psalm 18

7Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were

shaken, because he was wroth.

8There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals

were kindled by it.

9He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.

10And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.

11He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and

thick clouds of the skies.

12At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals

of fire.

13The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones

and coals of fire.

14Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and

discomfited them.

15Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were

discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

16He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.

17He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were

too strong for me.

18They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.

19He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in

me.

Here we see many aspects of God...we see the terrifying all powerful God, the God of

Justice, righteouness,we see the God of Love who delievers David from his enemies.

This is like a vision and prophetic utterance from David as He describes our awesome God.

And again we see the clouds and smoke, verse 11

11He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and

thick clouds of the skies.

The sides of God we can never comprehend, where we see such a God of wrath and power and

anger (Read Deuteronomy 29:27, 28 ) and yet a God who comes in such power who rescues

David from Hs enemies in love.

Isaiah 11:2 and the Sevenfold Spirit:

"And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD."

1. The Spirit of the Lord.

2. The spirit of wisdom.

3. The spirit of understanding.

4. The spirit of counsel.

5. The spirit of might.

6. The spirit of knowledge.

7. The spirit of awe, or the spirit of reverence or the spirit of worship.

Note Solomon is next in line to the throne and known and renowned for these things.

Here we see the many sides of God and of Gods character in this Psalm, and David ends

again praisng His God...His Rock, His shelter, His provider , His maker and He is known

to have sung a Psalm ...."restore unto me the joy of my salvation and renew a right Spirit

within me, cast me not away from your prescence O Lord "

The Lord is Here , let the weak say " I am strong "

God is here in the midst

This morning for sunday school the lesson was about Jacob and the dream of the ladder and

once again this reminds me of Gods prescence and God appearing.

Zechariah 2

10"Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion; for behold I am coming and I

will dwell in your midst," declares the LORD.

Pray with me if you can

Lets pray

Lord I draw near to you and you draw near to me, though you are in me and I in you,

I ask that you fill me to overflowing with your Holy Spirit, though your Holy Spirit

is in me.

I ask that you fill my heart with joy , though I have your joy of salvation within.

I ask that you provide , though you have already provided.

I ask that you show me more of your prescence. though you are always here

Great Rock of the ages, let my feet stay firmly on you and let not my feet slip but

let my feet be like hinds feet and let me leap for joy as you leap for joy.

We ask you to hear our prayer, when you have already answered.

You are here Lord. let the weak say I am strong in the strength of my God as I hide in you

In Jesus name amen

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