Day 29: The Great and Terrible God
Week Five: Our God is Mighty and Terrible
Nehemiah 1:5
"...I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments:"
Devotional
Welcome to The Turnaround’s 52 Days of Prayer!
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Day 29 of our 52 days of prayer. When Nehemiah heard of the trouble among the exiles and that Jerusalem’s wall had been broken down, he wept, mourned, fasted and prayed for several days. He went before the Lord of Heaven, the great and awesome God, on the behalf of Israel.
INSIGHT
“If you could know God personally, would you want to?” I asked at the end
of the survey.
He, a non believer, had a most thoughtful expression on his face and
responded, “No!
That would be just too scary!”
Fifty years ago, the presence of our God struck terror in his heart. Our
culture has lost sight of this, believing God to be a God of whatever you
want Him to be.
What the KJV translates as “terrible,” modern translations use “awesome.”
Awesome is an adjective for something that causes one to be filled with
awe. However, “awesome” is now so overused that most people don’t
intuitively think of it as something that causes awe.
The Hebrew word used here means to fear, revere, to be dreadful. Our
culture and much of the American Church have lost the “fear of the Lord.”
Nehemiah’s prayer was 141 years after the destruction of Jerusalem. What
did Nehemiah know about the fear of the Lord? Nehemiah had both the
Scriptures as well as family stories which had reached down to him
concerning Jerusalem’s destruction. He knew the terribleness of the
discipline of the Lord.
He knew all too well that the destruction came because his ancestors
had lost their fear of the Lord. Because they lost their fear of Yahweh, they
went after other gods. They sacrificed their children to the gods of their
own pleasure. They abandoned God’s plan for marriage. They abused the
poor. Consequently, they lost their nation, their city, and their homeland.
The Lord humbled them, destroying their nation. He struck terror into their
lives. That is the meaning of terrible.
Nehemiah was about to return to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He had
to focus on the terror of the Lord. Knowing the terror of the Lord was what
gave him the backbone to be the leader he needed to be during those 52
days and following.
If we are going to rebuild the walls of our country, we need to understand
the terror of the Lord.
TURNAROUND QUESTION
If God allowed His own people to be destroyed because His people
destroyed their own children on the altars of Baal and Molech, what does
that say about our nation which has destroyed more than 70,000,000
since 1973? Why did Nehemiah call God terrible? As we come with
boldness before the throne of God, why do we also need to understand
that He is the terrible God? How should that enter into our prayer?
PRAYER
Lord God of Heaven, You are the great and terrible God. You are also the God of great mercy and compassion. Yet Lord, we know that the day is coming when you will no longer strive with our sin, and we recognize that the evil we have committed is a stench in Your nostrils. We ask that you would be merciful to us and humble us that we might turn from our wicked ways. We ask for repentance. Because you are the terrible God, enable us to rebuild the foundations of righteousness for our nation. We ask in Jesus’ name.
DECLARATION PRINCIPLE
Earthly authority remains accountable to the sovereign and just God.
DECLARATION CONNECTION
The Declaration appeals to the “Supreme Judge of the world.”
SCRIPTURE FOUNDATION
Nehemiah 1:5; Psalm 7:8–11
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