Awesome God

Some words are over-used because they are "in". One such word at the present (especially with the younger generation) is "awesome." According to the New Oxford Dictionary, "awesome" means "extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear." But it is now extended in "informal" use to mean "extremely good; excellent" as in "the band is truly awesome."

The word "awful" originally meant "inspiring reverential wonder or fear." It has come to mean "very bad or unpleasant", and then, by another shift simply becomes the adverb "very"!

We could also look at words like "terrible" or "terrific" - both of them over-used words that used to have almost the same meaning - "causing terror."

These shifts of meaning can cause us some cross-generational communication problems. But they can also catch us out when we are reading some older writing too.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) wrote a hymn which begins with the words:

Before Jehovah’s awful throne,
ye nations bow with sacred joy.

Now take Psalm 68.36 in today’s reading. The King James Version said, "O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places." Most of the more modern translations use the word "awesome" - "You are awesome, O God, in your sanctuary" (NIV).

It is rather important in dealing with the generation brought up on the King James Version, but for whom the meaning of the old English words had already changed. Sometimes folk have developed a view of God as rather distant and scary - a view that isn’t Biblical, because the words on which it based didn’t mean that in 1611 when the KJV was translated.

A number of writers believe Psalm 68 was written for the procession which brought the ark of the covenant to mount Zion (2 Sam. 6.2-18). This occasion, as one writer puts it, was "a dramatic reminiscence of the nation’s journeyings from Egypt to Canaan."

Some people are inclined to talk flippantly about God as "the bloke upstairs." Perhaps we have trouble expressing the sense of awe about the God who is Creator and Judge, yet who is also loving Redeemer.

Here is vv. 19-20 - "Praise be to the Lord, to God our Saviour, who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death."

The awesome God loves us, cares for us throughout our lives, and, at the end, welcomes us into his eternal home.

Prayer: Lord God, you are awesome! Creator of this world, righteous Judge – our heavenly Father! At your right time, you sent your Son to live our life, to die our death, so we could be forgiven, so we could know you forever. We are filled with awe at your power and love. Enable us to live each day under your grace, and to help others to know the awe of your love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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