Psalm 33:6-9

Introduction

My father was a district leader of the NAACP during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Because of this, he used to tell my brothers and me about the Civil Rights Movement. My father simply called it “the movement.” I heard stories about marches, bus trips called freedom rides, and lunch counters. My father would have a smile on his face when he spoke about the accomplishments of the movement.

In addition, my father told us about the meetings. He noted that these meetings were full of songs and preaching. The songs were about courage, standing up against evil, and about God being on the side of humanity struggling for justice. “I, I shall not be moved, I, I shall not be moved.” Or, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” Also, “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize hold on.” they also sang, “I ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round.” Finally, “We Shall Overcome.”

If one was not aware of the situation one might think that one was listening to a description of a meeting that was celebrating victory. But, surprisingly at the same time that they were singing these songs they were in the midst of very difficult times. I learned about the church bombing that killed those little children. I learned about the assassinations of great leaders of the movement. I learned about government conspiracies to overthrow that same movement that my father spoke so glowingly of. Even my father at times would tell us of his own struggles like having his car window shot out and his life threatened.

Yes, it was a difficult time that called for struggle and work against a system that had been in existence since the beginning of this nation. It was a time when the people of God stood up against powers without even really having the ability to overcome these powers. It was a time when justice was without form and void and darkness was all over the face of the deep.

3 Israel’s Song

Our text this evening was crafted during a time like this. Hope could have easily given in to hopelessness. It was a time when the promise of God to come back to the land that God promised them was coming to past. It was a time when all around there was nothing but visual indications of pain and hopelessness.

Our text is simply a song. “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” Here were a people in the midst of trouble. They were struggling against an environment that was totally against the promise of God. Certainly it didn’t look as though a powerful creator God would leave the return to their land project half done. Certainly all didn’t look right, but they sang this song in particular, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” The song describes the awesome creative power of God. The song talks about God’s ability to do something with nothing. The song attempts to lets us know that that word has the power to do what it says.

But as I think about this singing and about this song in particular, I begin to wonder if there were some in the audience when this song was sung who didn’t really feel like singing the song. I am not suggesting that those few didn’t believe what the song says, but when we look at the circumstances of a creation gone wrong we have to wonder if some didn’t feel like singing this song of God’s majestic creative power. Certainly there was at least one who didn’t want to sing this song when God’s creative power hasn’t seemed to show up “on time” as the old folks used to say. Certainly there was at least one who was in that movement that my father spoke of who didn’t want to sing their songs. When we today look at the pain and hurt in the world and realize that this is not in line with the hopes and dreams of a God that has the power to set aside all of this with only a word. Certainly somebody doesn’t want to sing that song.

I didn’t want to sing the song

I must confess that sometimes I don’t want to sing that song. Why sing songs about the power of God to overcome any situation when you are in the midst of a situation that God could do something about but doesn’t? How can I sing songs about this power of God when we hear of a diagnoses that causes the doctor to shake her head? Sometimes I don’t want to sing that song. And so even when I come to a song found in our text like this I begin to wonder. How could Israel sing about the total creative power of God while looking at complete destruction? How could our mothers and fathers stand up and sing a song about overcoming when injustice seems to reign?

I mean I can understand singing the songs about a God that will help us but not do for us, but that is not this song. No this song is about God’s complete power over all of creation by speaking a simple word.

As a child I had an imperfect picture of this problem and went to my father and asked him why would you sing these songs at the same time that your windshield is being shot out? Why would you sing these songs when water hoses are put on your brothers and sisters? He then answered, we sung these songs so that we can remember. Remember what we were seeing was not in line with God’s desires. We needed to remember, that God spoke in the past. We needed to remember that God was on our side. And most of all we needed to remember the power of God for we were counting on that power of God.

Counting on the Creative Power of God

Israel sang this song for the same reason, they needed to remember that God is a powerful creator. Somebody may be in the same situation of not really wanting to sing the song, but the song reminds us of the time that God stepped in and spoke in the past. Yes we may not always feel like singing the song, but the song reminds us of God’s promise to step in in the future. And thus ultimately you and I are counting on that power to create again. You may not feel like singing the song, but as you sing the song you are a part of a community of witnesses to the power of God. And as you sang the song, you remember and then you fell like singing the song.

Yes, there were some in the congregation who didn’t want to sing the song, but they sang in the community, “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made.” I am sure that there were some who needed to be reminded of the power of God to help them in their situation and so they sang, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.” They sang the song because they needed to be reminded of what God did do in the beginning.

They needed to be reminded of the awesome power of a God that can step out on nothing and call something into existence. They needed to be reminded that that same power has promised them something that they cannot get on their own. They needed to be reminded that they were counting on God’s creative word to do what they could not do themselves. They needed to be reminded that the deeps of their existence needed to be placed in a bottle and that no amount of struggle that they engage in could do that. They needed to be reminded that that same word can take the seas and gather them together as in the creation. So they sang, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.”

We can struggle, we can fight. We must struggle we must fight, but in the end we are dependent on that creative power of God that can take nothing and make something. They sang “By the Word of the Lord where the heavens made.” Because they may not see it now, but they were counting on that creative power to come through for them. They may not see it now, but they were counting on God pulling the cat out of the hat.

I am going to sing the song

I don’t always feel like singing this song. “By the word of the Lord where the heavens made”, but Israel reminds me that I need to remember that power of God that will come through in God’s own time. I don’t always fell like singing the song, but my father reminds me that I need to remember what God has done for us as a people. And so I will sing it anyway, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.

I am going to sing this song. I may have tears in my eyes, but I will sing the song, I may not want to sing the song, but I am gonna sing that song until I remember because like the Israelites, and like my father I am counting on the fact that God is going to do something with nothing. I am counting on that fact that God is going to take nothingness and make something just and good.

Yes, God isn’t through creating. God is still taking formless voids and turning them into paradise. I don’t know where you are right now. You might find yourself in an untamable sea of trouble, but the Song says that God has the power to take that sea and place it in a bottle. So I am going to sing this song, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.” I don’t know when God will create, I don’t know how God will create, but I am counting on that creative power over my circumstances. In fact right now I am planning on seeing that creation happen. In the beginning we were not here to see the creation, but this time we can see creation happen. You might find yourself in the deeps, but the song says God has the power to place all of the deeps into storehouses. Just wait to see that creation happen. Somebody might be in the tumultuous sea all I have to say today is keep on singing the song, because the song says God has the ability to put that sea in a bottle.

So I am going to keep on singing that song, because I am counting on the creative power. I am going to keep on struggling for justice, but I am going to sing that song, because I need God to do what only God can do. Today I ask you to sing that song with me so that we all can remember what God can do until God steps in and does it!

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.

God Bless You!

Exodus 20:18-21…I remember when I was a child sleeping in my warm bed on a cold night. There is something about the warmth of a bed when it is cold outside. But, sometimes early in the morning I would awaken out of a pleasant sleep and find that I needed to go to the bathroom. I would lay there until the discomfort of staying there in the bed overcame the comfort of laying in the bed. Then I would look out from my covers to see the path I will take on my way to the bathroom. In between my bed and the goal, I would see a monster sitting in one of the chairs right next to my bed. This monster looked like that Monster in Daniel 7 because it came up on one side. And on top of it all that beast was looking at me. I thought to myself, I can probably out run this beast, it doesn’t look that coordinated anyway. But that beast would seemingly read my mind and point to the closet where there appeared to be 5 tall Giants standing and 3 of them didn’t have heads. Immediately I would take the cover and put it back over my head. Back to the comfort. Back to the discomfort.

But eventually Mother Nature called so hard that I could no longer safely ignore her. At that point I would jump out of bed and begin my trek to the bathroom. That monster in the chair grabbed at me but I straight-armed that monster just like I saw Walter Payton do on his way to the end zone. Once I got past the monster I realized that I was here in the dark. Monsters all around me. I can’t see where I am going. I need to get somewhere, but I don’t know how I am going to get there. I can’t go back to the bed any longer without getting past the monsters that stood between me and the bed. I can’t seem to get to the bathroom because monsters block the way. Here I am in the dark without knowing where or how to go.

Israel found itself in the same place. The Bible records the children of Israel as being in Egyptian slavery. During that time, Israel learned how to live like slaves. They learned how to eat like slaves. They learned how to drink like slaves. It was uncomfortable being a slave. But at the same time it was comfortable being a slave. It was a comfortable discomfort. They learned when to wake up and when to go to bed. They were slaves. In fact they even learned how to worship like slaves. It was a terrible time. However, they were comfortable. We know they were comfortable because they talked longingly about the past in Egypt as soon as they got out of egypt. Folks can get used to anything. Israel got used to being slaves. They knew how much straw they were going to get and how many bricks they had to make. They knew when they had to be at the job site and when they got to go home. They knew what they were gonna eat. Yeah Someone oppressed them. Yeah it was uncomfortable. But just like a warm bed on a cold morning it was comfortable. They didn’t want to be slaves, but slavery did have its advantages. In addition, who knows what will happen if we ever got out of Egypt. In Egypt they know what is going on. Yeah they were uncomfortable, but they were comfortable in their discomfort.

Well in the fullness of time, God took Israel out of Egypt, God sent a cloud that turned into a ball of fire at night to lead Israel. That cloud protected and led Israel. Israel still remembered Egypt. Israel began murmuring about how good it was back in Egypt. How comfortable they were back in Egypt. Yeah it rains bread from heaven, but that gets old after a while. And why do we have to beg Moses to hit a rock everytime we want some water. Here we are out of Egypt out of the comfortable discomfort, and now we are in nothing but discomfort. We ate better back in Egypt. Not only that we had something better to drink than just water. Bread and water. And on top of it all we are marching in a desert. We don’t know where in the world we are going. Somebody said something about a promised land, but all I see is desert. Somebody said something about a promised land but Now I am looking at a smoking mountain. And that dark cloud at the top fo the mountain is dark which completely illustrates how dark our future looks. It was better in the discomfort of Egypt because now all I see is darkness in front of us. The future is dark and the past is bright. Why did you take us out here to die God (and Moses)?

God had brought Israel out of the past physically. But Israel didn’t want to leave the past mentally. And I resonate with the feelings of Isreael. I know why they were afraid. I know why they stood afar off. It was warm in the bed and cold outside of it. There wasn’t any monsters in the bed and they were all over the outside of it. There wasn’t any junk all over the floor to walk over in the bed. I knew what would happen in the bed. I knew what the future was like in the Bed. I just stay there and wake up the next morning. I know what Isreal was saying. You know what I am talking about. You were comfortable back where you were before God called you into the future that turned out to look like a darkness full of monsters. You were making good money in a career when God called you out of the comfort of the past to God’s promised future. In fact somebody told you that if you keep doing what you are doing you are going places. You were comfortable. You were feeling good. You were up for a raise back in Egypt. You were going to stay in that bed deal with the occasional discomfort, who knows maybe the discomfort will go away with time. However, something within you would not let you be happy with that. Some thing within you pushed you to move. And you finally jumped out of the bed and now you are in the darkness with monsters all around.

The darkness is bad enough with its loss of vision and loss of orientation, but monters inhabit the darkness you have been called into. Isreal was promised a land flowing with milk and honey, the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and more recently Joseph. But things stood in the way of their realized dream of the promise. A desert stood in the way like a monster. That monster took away their hopes for water and food. That monster tried to make Israel think that they would not get that promise. You have seen such things standing in the way of your promised future. Looking like the monsters in my dark room. Racism is a monster seeking to keep racial minorities from the goal of God’s promised future. Monsters keeping you from the opportunities of others. Sexism is a monster seeking to keep women from God’s promise for them. Grabbing at them by placing a glass ceiling over their head. Militerism and a false patriotism that places more value on an american military soldiers life than an innocent foreign civilian villiage. Attacking the productivity of humanity. Monsters in the dark. Economic exploitation of the weak and powerless by the mighty is a monster in the dark. All of these monsters seek to make us think that God’s promise will not become operative in our lives .

Here we are in the midst of darkness. And it is here that God speaks again.
It is here that God starts explaining what it means to live in God’s kingdom in what has been commonly referred to as the 10 commandments. These commands are simply giving Isreal the mindset of the kingdom. God was saying I know where you were and how you lived. Some of what you learned in Egypt was actually good and some of what you learned in Egypt was bad, but all in all you need to learn to live as free people in my kingdom of the future. In my kingdom you only worship that God that brought you up out of Egypt. You only worship the God that has brought you to this place you find yourself today. In this kingdom you don’t worship God through images of stone or wood. In this kingdom you don’t take the name of God lightly or in vain. In this kingdom you remember the Sabbath day as a memorial to creation. In short you love the Lord with all thy heart. This was different than the way of life you learned as slaves. Before you worshipped as slaves, but now you are to worshp God as free people. In this kingdom you love your neighbor as yourself by honoring your ancesters, not murdering your neighbor, not stealing from your neighbor, not committing adultury, not lying on your neighbor, or coveting your neighbors belongings. In this kingdom you love Yahweh and you love the other.

Here Israel was in the midst of a darkness with monsters seeking to keep them from the promise and God begins explaining how the kingdom looks and the practices in that kingdom Israel continued to get scared. Here they were in darkness. Here they were thinking they were going to get to a land flowing with milk and honey and God is speaking about requirements. I wanted light and all I see is a list of commands. This wasn’t what Isreal was looking for. They wanted light. Here they were in the dark and God gives them some rules from a dark cloud? Here they were in the dark of not knowing what was in the future and God just tells them some commands. Here they are in the dark no one wanted any commandments. They wanted to know where the land flowing with milk and honey was. They wanted to know where the permanent water supply was. They wanted to know How God was gonna light the way from Egypt all the way to the promised land. But instead Isreal saw their future of darkness now illustrated in that fact that God was in the midst of a dark cloud. You wanted God to open the way from Egypt to Canaan yourself. You jumped out the Bed and it was dark and so you started wondering why God didn’t just give you all the food needed for the trip to canaan as well as all the drink. You started wondering why you are in the dark. You even acted like you didn’t know if it was God at all.

Moses encourages Isreal to not be fearful. Don’t be scared of the God who brought you here. There is much to be scared of in the dark, but don’t be scared of the God who brought you here, be fearful of sinning against God not of Godsself.

God didn’t take away the darkness. God didn’t totally take away the monsters of the future. God din’t give them a water supply that would always be there. God didn’t diversify their dining menu. But God revealed Godsself in the darkness and gave Israel principles on how to live not only in the darkness, but in the final promise. It is noteworthy that this happens while they are in the darkness of not being in the promised future. God gave God’s principles in the darkness. That tells us that we can often find the principles of God not when we are sitting in the basking glow of God’s promise, niether when we are back in the comfort of our previous life in Egypt, but in the struggle and fight to get to God’s promise. It is here in the journey to God’s promise that God tells us how to live today and the future. As someone said you can’t control God. I wish God would just remove the monsters from the dark and cut the light on, but God doesn’t do that God simply gives them principles for living as they struggle towards the promise. Someone said that God was preparing them for the promise. God not only was preparing them for the eventual promise, but God was better preparing them to reach the promise. I don’t know why you have to go through darkness and confront the monsters. You have seen this, you have received some of the most clear presentations of God only as you went though the darkness. God has told some of us how to live from the vantagepoint of the darkness. God doesn’t will the darkness, but God uses the darkness. The monsters are not the only ones that use the darkness for mischief, God uses the darkness for your good. Sometimes we can only see when the lights are cut off. Sometiems we can only be ready for promise when we are in a place where we have no choice but to trust in the God that brought us out of Egypt and promises a future. Believe me I don’t want to minimize the darkness or the monsters in it. Sometimes bad things happen in the darkness. Sometimes the monsters actually are able to overcome some. Some folks end up hurting. Some folks loose family and friends in the darkness. The darkness causes hurt. But if God calls you into the darkness go on into the darkness and believe in the future the same God that brought you out of Egypt has in store for you.

On those early morning on my trek to the Bathroom I wold sometimes step on a stack of books and almost fall down having to catch myself with my arm. Sometimes I would stub my toe on the way. But inevitably I made it to the destination. I would sometimes look back and see the path I made in the darkness. I would see some of the monsters that looked much less menacing in the light from the future. And I got happy that I went through the darkness. I would someitmes look down on the floor and see a path through the darkness that was made and I would be happy I went through the darkness.

I don’t know what darkness God is calling you into, but the promise today is that God is in the dark that God calls you into. God will meet you in the darkness. I don’t know where I am going but I know God is leading. David says I don’t know where I am going but though I walk through the shadow of death God is with me. Job said I don’t know about this darkness, but though God slay me yet will I trust God. Jesus said even though I want the cup to pass me by into thy hands I commend my sprit. I don’t know where God is leading. I don’t know what is in the dark, and I am even afraid of the dark, but if God says Go it is better to go. The past is no longer there anyway. I don’t know why God brought me out of a career to the ministry. But I’m walking in the dark. I don’t know why God sent me to Vanderbilt divinity school instead of my denominational school that everyone else goes to. But I’m walking in the dark.

I know you know what I am talking about because I have heard your sermons. You said that you didn’t have mother and father. But if I may paraphrase you said I am walking in the dark and in the dark God gave me parents and God threw in some brothers and sisters for good measure. I know you know that I am talking about because you said that you lost your family, but you said that you were walking in the dark and you found God in that darkness. I know you know what I am talking about because you have seen God squeeze good out of the darkness. You said that you hadn’t heard from God in a burning bush but you kept on anyway just like Aaron walking in the dark.

I’m not here to tell you something new, just to encourage you to walk on in the dark. Keep walking in the dark by following God’s leading even in the dark. Folks may misuderstand you, but Keep walking in the dark by confronting the monsters that stand in your way by using the principles that God has revealed to you in the darkness. Keep walking in the dark because The Bible says that God is in the darkness. God is with you in the dark. God bless you