[0:00] I'd like to ask you to turn to Psalm 29, and I trust this psalm will be a great blessing to you. The great thing about the psalms is that they are, as one person put it, they're inspired responses to God's Word and to the things that God is doing in our lives.
[0:17] And we're going to read just 11 verses here, and we're going to be looking at the theme, The God of Glory. Two times in the Bible we find that phrase or that title, For God, The God of Glory, and one of those is found here in Psalm 29.
[0:33] And truly, this is a glorious psalm that shows us the power and majesty of God and then the peace and the strength that He can give. So if we can begin in verse 1 of Psalm 29, the Bible says, The Psalm of David The voice of the Lord is powerful.
[1:18] The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
[1:29] He maketh them also to skip like a calf, Lebanon and Syria like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness.
[1:42] The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests. And in His temple doth every one speak of His glory.
[1:58] The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. The Lord will give strength unto His people. The Lord will bless His people with peace.
[2:12] And in this psalm, we read all about the Lord and all about His glory and His power. Eighteen times in just eleven verses we find the Lord mentioned.
[2:22] In this psalm, God's mighty angels and all people are commanded to give unto the Lord the glory that is due unto His name. In this psalm, God's voice will speak powerfully through a storm that is filled with thunder and lightning.
[2:38] And that will result in cedars breaking, mountains skipping, wildernesses shaking, and calves giving birth. Or deer giving birth to cows and forests to be barren of leaves and branches.
[2:52] But also in this psalm, we will see that in the temple of the Lord, everyone is speaking of God's glory. And the Lord is sitting upon the flood, King forever.
[3:03] Despite all the power and noise of the storm, the Lord is presiding. And the Lord is giving strength to His people and blessing them with peace.
[3:14] This is truly an awesome description of the Lord and a powerful reminder of who God is and what God can do in our lives. Let's just pray together before we get into the passage.
[3:26] Heavenly Father, thank You for the opportunity to open up Your Word. And to read of Your great power and Your great glory. And God, I pray that we would give You the glory that is due unto Your name.
[3:40] I pray that we would hear Your glorious voice. And God, I pray that we would speak of Your glory. God, I pray that everything that is going on in our lives would cause us to give You more and more glory.
[3:55] That it would show us how weak we are. That it would show us how powerful You are. And that it would cause us to give honor and glory to Your name.
[4:06] And thank You, God, that You are a God that gives peace and strength. And I pray that You would give peace and strength to our hearts in these days. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
[4:18] Well, three things we'll look at tonight. And the first one is give glory unto the Lord. I remember as a boy living in a small town of Butler, Ohio.
[4:30] I used to love it when it would storm. Now, I was probably too young to recognize that storms can be quite destructive. But I used to love it when it would storm and we would stand on our front porch and we would feel the wind begin to pick up.
[4:44] And we would hear the thunder. We would see the lightning. We would count, you know, how many seconds there were between the lightning and the thunder. To know, as the story was, how close things were.
[4:59] We would begin to see the rain and even feel the rain as it would blow into our porch. And I just remember being amazed by the beauty and the grandeur and the might of those mighty storms.
[5:11] Well, David in this psalm has experienced probably a more powerful storm than I've personally been through. Maybe some of you that have been through great storms, a hurricane possibly, could identify with the power here that it's going to leave trees broken and empty of leaves.
[5:33] And that is going to shake the earth and shake the mountains. He sees the storm, but he doesn't just see the storm. He sees God in the storm and he hears the voice of the Lord in the storm.
[5:46] And as a result, he gives God glory and he gives God praise. And he writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the angels and all creatures should give glory to God.
[6:02] And despite all that is going on, God is sitting unshaken by that which shakes the earth, but yet caring for those who are affected, his people, and strengthen them.
[6:15] So it's a beautiful, beautiful psalm. The God of glory. Number one, we notice we need to give glory unto the Lord. Three times in the first two verses, we have this command.
[6:28] Give unto the Lord. Give unto the Lord. Give unto the Lord. The who is found in verse number one.
[6:39] Who is to give glory unto the Lord? The Bible says, ye mighty. This is talking about God's host of powerful angels that surround his throne and serve him.
[6:51] God is sometimes called the Lord of hosts. And the idea that he commands a mighty army. And so his mighty army, his angelic army surrounds his throne. And in the midst of that great mighty throng of angels, there is one person.
[7:08] There is one being that all were to praise, that all were to honor. And that is the Lord. And so the mighty angels are told to give unto the Lord.
[7:21] And what are they to give unto the Lord? The Bible says in verse one, they are to give unto the Lord glory and strength. Glory literally means something that is heavy or weighty.
[7:33] And so the idea here is that they were to attribute, they were to ascribe and consider the value, the weight, the importance of God. They were to look at God.
[7:45] They were to consider God and they were to say, he is of great, great value. We acknowledge how valuable that he is. We acknowledge how powerful that he is.
[7:57] They were to give unto the Lord glory and strength. It's kind of a strange way to put it because you think, well, how can we give strength to God? How can we give anything to God?
[8:07] It wasn't so much that they were like handing it over. It was more that they were acknowledging that he already had it. It was kind of like giving credit where credit is due. And so the mighty angels were to see God and they would say, truly he is great.
[8:22] Truly he is strong. Truly he is mighty. And then the third question is why? Why would they give glory and strength? Why would they ascribe that to God?
[8:34] Well, verse 2 says, give unto the Lord glory, the glory due unto his name. Why? Because he's worthy.
[8:45] Because it's due him, it's owed him, the very fact that he is the Lord, the creator, the God of all creation. And in a sense, these first couple verses are the application and the invitation that is at the beginning rather than at the end.
[9:05] The storm is going to make it very clear who God is. The storm is going to make it very clear his power. And so the application is very clear right up front that the whole idea of what's described is that God is powerful and God is due to be glorified.
[9:22] He is worthy. And our God is worthy of being glorified and honored by him. Verse 2 goes on to say, worship the Lord. You know, the real essence of worship is that we understand who the Lord is.
[9:37] We consider just how glorious and how strong he is. And then we give praise and honor and glory unto him. We acknowledge who he is.
[9:48] We value who he is. And we praise him for who he is. And we give back to him worship and praise. Give, give, give.
[9:59] Worship is about giving. It's about giving our praise. It's about giving our lives. It's about giving our money. It's about giving our time. It's about giving our children.
[10:10] It's about giving everything. When we give in the offering, really what we're saying is all we have comes from you. And this is a small token to acknowledge that.
[10:20] This is a percentage or a large token. But we are giving of what we have to say it all belongs to you. So he is a God that's worthy of gifts. He's a God that's worthy of giving and of honor and of praise.
[10:34] Now it's also interesting that the Bible says, Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. That's an interesting way to describe the way they were to worship.
[10:45] Holiness is like a beautiful thing, like splendid clothes. God is a holy God. And his holiness is beautiful. The angels are holy.
[10:59] The ones that are in heaven that didn't rebel against God. And they're dressed with a holiness. And when we think about that holy place and those holy angels and a holy God, we may think, well, how in the world can we worship God?
[11:14] Because we're not dressed in that holiness. We don't have the beauty of holiness. The opposite of holiness is unholiness. And unholiness is ugly. But what's amazing is that through Jesus Christ, we can be made holy.
[11:30] And we are made righteous. And we are dressed in his righteousness. And we can stand in his presence. Not because we have earned it, but because it's been given to us.
[11:40] 2 Corinthians 5.21 says this, That God has made him to be sin for us. Talking about Jesus, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
[11:52] And so through faith in Jesus Christ, our sin is imputed to Christ. And his righteousness is imputed to us. And then we can come into God's presence in the beauty of holiness. Dressed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can come right into God's presence.
[12:07] And we can worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The song we used to sing called, I stand redeemed. And what an amazing thing to think about.
[12:17] There will be a day that we will be for him, holy and without blame. As Ephesians says, we will be able to stand there, worshiping God, made righteous, justified, with no shame, with no fear, because of what Christ has done.
[12:33] And we can do that even now, as we come through Christ. Ephesians 2.13 says, In Christ Jesus, we who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
[12:44] We used to be strangers and outcasts, dressed only in the ugliness of unholiness. But through Christ, we can come and we can enter in, and we can worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
[12:55] And it also reminds us to walk in fellowship with our Savior, to keep our lives clean, even as Christians, to confess in so that we can enjoy the fellowship that is ours, and we can have through walking with the Lord.
[13:12] And so right at the start of the psalm, the angels are instructed about the right response to what we're going to see takes place. But I wonder, are you and I giving the Lord the glory that is due Him?
[13:25] Are we giving the glory that is owed Him? Someone says, you owe me. Well, there's a sense in which we owe God. We owe Him glory. He deserves glory. It's only right that He get glory.
[13:37] How sad that we would give glory to so many other things and so many other individuals, and yet not give God the glory He deserves. Secondly, not only give glory unto the Lord, but secondly, hear the glorious voice of the Lord.
[13:56] After an opening application of the purpose of this psalm, then we hear and we see the power of the voice of the Lord at work in a storm.
[14:09] Notice seven times this phrase, the voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.
[14:20] The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness.
[14:31] The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds or the deer to calf. What a powerful thing. I think we're supposed to get a hold of something that the voice of the Lord is powerful.
[14:43] Now it's interesting because the voice of the Lord in this passage is both distinct from the Lord and one with the Lord. No doubt what we are seeing is a reference to the fact that we know that there is both God the Father and God the Son co-equal, co-existent, both eternal, but both distinct persons within the Godhead.
[15:10] In John chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 we read a similar thing in which we read that in the beginning was the word, the voice of the Lord, and the word is with God.
[15:24] So the word was there in the beginning. The word is with God, co-existent with God, and the word was God. The word is one with God. The same was in the beginning.
[15:35] There is a special significance and power attributed to the voice of God and the word of God. God wants us to see that here. As people of the written word, we are to be reminded that the power of God is in the voice of the Lord.
[15:51] It's in the word of God. Hebrews 4 verse 12 says, All through scripture, the voice of the Lord is prominent.
[16:12] The word of the Lord is there from the very beginning when God created the world and God said, Let there be light all the way to the end of the Bible when the Lord says, Come, come to me.
[16:26] And so the voice of the Lord is a powerful thing and is primarily the way that God works in our world is through his word. Notice now the working of the glorious voice of the Lord.
[16:40] And I think, obviously, as David watches this storm unfold, he's hearing the thunder. And so he's seeing what's happening, but he's hearing the thunder.
[16:51] And he is using that thunder and the power of the wind and the raging of the storm. And he is saying that this is God at work. And this is the way God's word works in our life with great power.
[17:05] Verse 3, The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, very likely talking about hearing the storm brewing upon the Mediterranean Sea. And he begins to hear rumblings of the thunder.
[17:18] And he begins to hear the storm brewing. And so now he knows God is in control of the storm. And he knows the voice of God is now upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth.
[17:31] The Lord is upon many waters. You know, in this storm, we can't help but think about all the different things we go through in life. And many are going through many waters.
[17:44] Many are going through great storms. And it feels like the thunder and the lightning and the brewing of a great storm is taking place.
[17:57] Or is about to take place. Or has taken place. But yet, understand that the Lord is upon those waters. The Lord is in control of those waters. Verse 4, The voice of the Lord is powerful.
[18:09] It is full of majesty. A few days ago, there in Georgia, some of you, I saw someone even wrote on Facebook about this powerful thunder.
[18:20] A thunder clap. And it just rips the sky. And it feels like the whole earth shakes. As David hears this thunder, he says, The voice of the Lord is powerful.
[18:33] It is full of majesty. He is amazed by the power and the majesty of the Lord's voice. In verse 5, The voice of the Lord then begins to break the cedars as the storm moves from the sea and hits the land.
[18:47] It hits with such a vengeance that the mighty cedars of Lebanon are broken. These cedars were famous throughout the region.
[18:58] So famous that Solomon would use them when he constructed the Lord's temple. And this power of the storm begins to snap these mighty cedars and rip them out of the ground and destroy great forests.
[19:14] The powerful trees, verse 6, are made to skip like a calf. Like you might see a young calf who is in the way of maybe another one.
[19:26] And they'll just kind of skip just gently, nimbly through the field. And he says the mighty cedars are skipping like a calf at the power of God. You know, the voice of the Lord and the power of God, His ability to make the strongest and the hardest things to move and to skip like calves.
[19:48] No doubt we see in this how God will humble those who stand against Him. And God will make our hearts to skip. The whole earth is now trembling and shaking.
[20:00] We read on that Lebanon and Syria. And Syria is another name for Mount Hermon. They're in the north of Israel in the mountains of Lebanon.
[20:12] They are now skipping like a young unicorn. Very likely talking about a rhino with one horn. And they're skipping and running. And he says these mountains and these forests that seem unmovable, unshakable, that the presence and the power and the thunder and the might of God are shaking and moving.
[20:33] Verse 7, the voice of the Lord divides the flame of fire. Very likely describing lightning. A tremendous crack of lightning breaks through the sky.
[20:47] Possibly splitting trees in an instant, in a moment. The voice of the Lord is now shaking in the wilderness. And so many people think it's saying it's moving from the sea to the land and now into the southern part, the wilderness of Kadesh.
[21:02] Or another region possibly there in the north called Kadesh. And this storm is moving from the sea through the forest into the desolate wilderness, the remote parts of the land.
[21:17] And God's voice can shine. And God's voice can be heard. And God's voice can move even in the most desolate places and desolate times of our life.
[21:28] When we feel like we're in a wilderness, the voice of the Lord can shake even the wilderness. Psalm 19 says, God's voice can be heard.
[21:56] God's message. God's message. God's truth. As people look and see the heavens and as people hear and know in creation, there's an awareness that there is someone out there.
[22:09] And I don't know where you're at. I don't know what you're going through. Maybe you feel like you're in a barren, desolate wilderness. The voice of the Lord can shake that wilderness. God has a way of shaking us.
[22:22] God has a way of moving us. Verse 9, As a result, the deer give birth. The forest are discovered. All the leaves are blown off and the forests are now bare.
[22:37] And in similar fashion, the Lord with all His power can produce, on one hand, instant fruitfulness like those deer giving birth. In a moment, the power of the voice of the Word of God can bring great fruitfulness.
[22:51] But in the same token, the power of the voice of God can and will uncover any and all hidden purposes and sins. God's voice uncovers and discovers the forest.
[23:04] And God's voice uncovers and discovers our hearts. Hebrews 4, 12 says, For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and the marrow.
[23:20] And listen to this. God's Word is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. And there will come a day that God's voice will reveal your heart.
[23:32] And as we read God's Word, our hearts are revealed. Our thoughts and our intents. Are you in the Word? Are you letting the Word get into you? Are you letting God by His Holy Spirit uncover what is there?
[23:44] Are you letting God by His Holy Spirit speak to you? You know, standing there during that storm, it would have been impossible to focus on anything else.
[23:56] If you've ever been in a powerful storm, a raging storm, the sound, the impact, the light, the destruction, the shaking, everything created this awesome impression on David's mind.
[24:07] And as a believer in God, he knew who was behind it. He knew that the Lord, the God of glory, was showing and speaking to him and to all of creation of His power and His glory and His might.
[24:19] Can we hear the glorious voice of the Lord? Are we listening to His powerful voice as He speaks to us in the storms of life and in the Word of God?
[24:32] How sad to be in the middle of the storm and to be unaware of it. How sad to be in the middle of the storm and not appreciate it. And one of the things that, you know, as a parent, and I'm sure some of the parents can identify, and even as adults, we can get so caught up in small things.
[24:48] We tend to spend a lot of time indoors. And we're so asphyxiated on our phones and computers and TVs and things that are close and that are inside, we sometimes miss out on the big stuff that God's doing outside.
[25:06] I think in my mind, imagine someone who doesn't believe in God and they bow down before an idol. Something made out of possibly some cedar wood.
[25:18] Something made out of stone from Lebanon. And they're praying to this stone idol or this wood idol. And all through this magnificent storm that is snapping cedars and shaking mountains, they never look up.
[25:33] They just keep praying to this false idol. You'd think, how silly. How unaware. How out of touch with the big picture.
[25:44] Look around you. That God is not in the stone or a stick. That God is the one that's thundering. And that's what David's saying. But I think sometimes we do the same thing with God. We're focused on one thing.
[25:56] And that's all we can think about. That's all we can see. And God is saying, hey, wake up. See me. See my power. See what I'm doing. Hear my voice.
[26:07] What is God saying? What is God doing? May God lift our eyes. Maybe we're going through great storms in our life right now.
[26:18] May the voice of God thunder. May the voice of God speak. May we get on our knees. May we tune our hearts. May we say, God, what are you trying to teach me? What are you trying to help me hear?
[26:30] What do you want me to learn? God, speak to me. You are a God. The great God. And I want to hear your glorious voice.
[26:41] Then we see, thirdly, speak of the Lord's glory. Notice verse number nine. Verse nine begins by saying, The voice of the Lord makes the heinz to cav and discovers the force.
[26:54] And then in the middle of the verse, there's a transition. Suddenly we go, we are transported from a thundering, breaking, shaking earth to the calm, serene, and peaceful heavenly temple.
[27:11] The Bible says, In his temple doth everyone speak of his glory. The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever.
[27:23] We have a vision of earth that is shaking and breaking and thundering and lightning. But then we're lifted up to a vision of the temple. And there in that temple, everyone is talking about God's glory.
[27:35] It's almost like that moment when maybe, I guess, a thing that comes to mind is in a wedding when the bride comes down the aisle. And everyone is meant to stand and to focus on her.
[27:49] Well, in heaven, the focus is on the Lord. And everyone can't help but speak about the Lord's glory. Everyone can't help but talk about how great He is and how powerful He is and how wonderful He is.
[28:04] What's happening on earth in this mighty storm in heaven, they know who He is. The problem is that sometimes the inhabitants of earth still miss it. God is worthy of glory and He shows us glory, but the inhabitants of earth are sometimes so blind and so calloused and so obsessed with smaller things that we miss out.
[28:25] But in heaven, it's different. In heaven, everyone's talking about the Lord's glory. It reminds us of Isaiah 6 where Isaiah has a vision of the throne of heaven and everyone is crying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
[28:42] The whole earth is full of His glory. Verse 10, we see that the Lord is sitting upon the flood. He is sitting king forever.
[28:54] The mighty sea. The flooded areas. The storms that are raging are something that the Lord just sits upon.
[29:05] He's able to sit upon these mighty things. He's unmoved. He's unshaken. He's unaffected. He's totally in control of the mighty flood.
[29:18] He is the king who sits on His throne just like He always has sat and always will sit, totally in control.
[29:29] What a picture. And as we see storms rage all around us, and it feels like everything is breaking and everything is shaking and everything is falling apart, let us cast our gaze to heaven, our eyes to heaven, where we see the Lord is sitting, and He's sitting like He's always sat, and He's sitting like He'll always sit.
[29:52] He is sitting king forever. But what's great about our king, not only is He in control, but He's compassionate.
[30:03] In verse number 11, we read that the Lord will give strength unto His people. The Lord will bless His people with peace. What a way to end.
[30:15] What a way to finish out. You see, the Lord may be calmly and serenely sitting while the world trembles, but that doesn't mean that He's not moved. It doesn't mean that He's not touched.
[30:26] It doesn't mean that He doesn't care. You know, the psalm could have ended with verse 10. And we would have no right to criticize our God. He's God we're not. He rules we don't.
[30:39] But then God shows another level of His character in that He is a compassionate God. He's a caring God. And the Bible says that the Lord will give strength unto His people.
[30:51] We may feel blown and tossed and torn. We may feel unable to stand in the face of all the things we're facing. But the same God who can sit in the storm can give strength to us to weather the storm.
[31:07] And the same God who is King forever will bless His people with peace. Peace. The psalm ends with peace.
[31:18] Everything we're going through is going to end with peace. He can bless and He will bless His people with peace. The key is to be His people. That's why it says His people.
[31:31] His people. How do you become one of His people? John 1, verse 12 says, As many as received Him, talking about Jesus, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.
[31:46] You become His people by receiving Jesus Christ and accepting that He is God, that He lived a sinless life, that He came to this world, that He died, that He was buried, and that He rose again.
[31:58] And we believe on Him and trust in Him. And if we will do that, we become His people. We are then given the power to become sons of God. And as His people, we can now trust in Him and we can now receive strength and peace.
[32:14] What a promise this is to us. And so God wants us to speak of His glory. I read about a tornado about nine years ago that went through a place called Joplin, Missouri.
[32:27] It was a humongous mile-wide tornado, lasting 38 minutes, moving at over 200 miles per hour, doing nearly $3 billion worth of damage, killing 158 people, injuring 1,150.
[32:41] The power of the tornado was estimated at 600 times the power of the Hiroshima atom bomb. The desolation was terrible.
[32:53] Hundreds and hundreds of homes and businesses wiped out. Many volunteers went to help clean up. One volunteer went to help with a particular house and he said that this house, the roof had been ripped off and half the house was literally torn away.
[33:09] You could stand in the street and see the kitchen. It was a terrible disaster as parts of the house were obliterated. But there in the kitchen, on one shelf, sat a collection of small glass hummingbirds.
[33:29] The storm had enough power to rip the house in half, but those small hummingbird glass collection had been spared the power of the storm.
[33:39] What a picture. Gray power, but peace for those small birds. And in the midst of the storm that comes and breaks and shakes and shatters, God wants us to know He'll give His people peace and He'll give His people strength.
[33:58] And then finally, let me just challenge you to speak of the Lord's glory. As we read there, everyone in the Lord's temple speaks of His glory. If we really understand who God is and we really understand what He's done and we really get a hold of who He is, then we'll speak of His glory.
[34:17] We'll give Him the glory that is due unto His name. And really, this psalm is David trying to put into words, my God is great, my God is powerful, His voice shakes the earth, His voice is a mighty thing, and I want everyone to know about my God and His glory.
[34:37] I don't know what you're going through. Some of you, I'm aware a little bit of what you're going through. But my prayer is that through all of it, we will give glory unto the Lord.
[34:48] We would give Him the glory that is due unto His name. And we would know that even when it looks like everything is falling apart, the Lord is sitting on the flood, the Lord is sitting King forever.
[35:01] May God bless you.