The Only Roar That Matters

The floods have lifted up, O LORD,

            the floods have lifted up their voice;

            the floods lift up their roaring.

            Mightier than the thunders of many waters,

            mightier than the waves of the sea,

                        the LORD on high is mighty!

(Psalm 93:3-4 ESV)

 

I still have vivid recollections of the only time I watched “Saving Private Ryan.”  Being a history enthusiast and having read many books on military history, I was eagerly anticipating this movie, which had great reviews when it was released.  But I was not prepared for the reality being portrayed.  When I watched the D-Day beach landings I had an immediate physical reaction, which I still experience when I recall the sights and the sounds.  The machine gun fire came so fast and furious from the German soldiers that the GIs in the landing crafts had no time to react.  The scene was one of unleashed chaos and destruction that was only overcome by the discipline of previous, intense training of the allied forces.

The Psalms often use the imagery of floods and seas, of waves and waters, and roaring to depict such uncontrollable chaos and destructive forces.  In Psalm 93 the writer uses the metaphor of thundering water and roaring floods to describe conditions in his world—either military, political, or personal—that have the power to terrorize and to rule over individuals.  The personification found in verse three adds a malevolent aspect to the power of the chaos; its only purpose is to destroy utterly whatever is in its path.

If the psalmist were writing today using images from our situation, he might use the roar of political rhetoric, or the national debt, or the threat of economic collapse, or escalating unemployment, and so forth.  Perhaps your floods come in the guise of health issues or problems at home or with a co-worker.  We all have pressures and problems in our lives.  These all come at us at times like floods and waves and thunders, with the very real potential to reduce us to fear and trembling, to make us ineffective, to cause spiritual and emotional paralysis.

But our hope and our only deliverance is not found in ourselves, in our ability to swim underwater or to hold our breath until the flood subsides.  Neither is our deliverance to be found in political actions or in the right investment portfolios.  Our hope and our deliverance is found only in the absolute ruling power of the Lord God—the only roar that matters.  Only God can speak peace to the roar of flood waters, to the power of chaos in our lives.  Only God is mightier than the thundering waters of destruction that surround us in this fallen world.

If we back up in Psalm 93 to the first verse, we read of the reason for the psalmist’s confidence in the face of chaos:

The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.  (Psalm 93:1 ESV)

God the Lord, the eternally self-existent Creator, has established the world and reigns over it, ever-vigilant to preserve a core of order that cannot be shaken or displaced by the roar of many waters, or dislodged by the pounding of mighty waves.  In the book of Jude we are told in no uncertain terms that God has committed Himself to our preservation:

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24-25 ESV) 

In another psalm we read similar words of comfort in the midst of chaos:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling…. (Psalm 46:1-3 ESV)

The imagery here is reminiscent of the historical flood, the great Flood, in which only Noah and his family were preserved.  The Ark was an actual vessel that stands as a symbol of our refuge and our rescue in God, for those of us who…have died, and your life is hidden with Christ  in God. (Colossians 3:3 ESV)

That is the only basis for our hope and one day Christ will roar and shout and usher in the new heavens and the new earth.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God. And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first.  

Then we, the living ones who remain [on the earth], shall simultaneously be caught up along with [the resurrected dead] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so always (through the eternity of the eternities) we shall be with the Lord!   

Therefore comfort and encourage one another with these words. (1Thessalonians 4:16-18 Amplified Bible)

For those of us who die in Christ, we will become the roar of many waters—a creative, redemptive roar, a roar of praise and worship and thanksgiving, a roar of reversal from death to life, the roar of God, the only roar that matters!

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

            “Hallelujah!

            For the Lord our God

            the Almighty reigns.

            Let us rejoice and exult

            and give him the glory,

            for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

            and his Bride has made herself ready;

            it was granted her to clothe herself

                        with fine linen, bright and pure”—

            for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

(Revelation 19:6-8 ESV)

Soli Deo Gloria!