I like it when this happens.
The first hymn Brother Greg chose is one that speaks of God being
the God of all nature, ruling all things. The scripture Brother
Ravi read is a scripture I have written down for reference, and
it's always encouraging to me that the Lord's same spirits
move in the hearts of His people for the hour. Psalm 104 declares
the sovereignty of the Lord. God's supremely powerful ruling
all over His creation, over all providence. And this psalm is
dealing with creation and providence, but throughout the scripture,
that's always used to illustrate our Lord's sovereignty and salvation.
Now I want to just look at three verses and concentrate mainly
on just one statement. Let's begin reading and we'll
just, I'll make a few comments till we get down to the statement.
Verse one, bless the Lord, O my soul. Most believe this is David,
the Lord used to pen this because, and he penned it right along
when he wrote the Psalm before it. And the reason most think
that is because Psalm 103 begins and ends the same way as this
one begins. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And
it ends the same way. He says, O Lord, my God, thou
art very great. Thomas called the Lord Jesus,
my Lord and my God. And that's who we're speaking
about here. Our triune God in Christ Jesus
is very great. The psalmist said in another
psalm, his greatness is unsearchable. His greatness is unsearchable.
Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, who covers thyself with
light as with a garment. Scripture says God is light.
That's his nature. God is light, and in him is no
darkness at all, who only hath immortality. dwelling in the
light which no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen nor
can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. You know,
in the beginning, in the first creation, God said, let there
be light, and there was light. And then four days later, he
created the sun. Christ said, I am the light of
the world. He's the light of the world.
When the Lord Jesus was transfigured, His face did shine as the sun
and His raiment was white as the light. He's the light. And it's, He's at God's right
hand in His glory, in that light now. And it's in His light that
we have light. Our Lord, It says, no man has
seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He had declared Him. If we're
going to know the triune God, no man has seen Him, it's going
to be beholding Christ. And just like in that first creation,
God said, let there be light, and there was light. Well, in
the new creation, creating His people anew, God speaks and says,
let there be light, and there's light. That's what Paul said,
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, to
shine in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We know this
psalm is pointing us to Christ, the triune God in Christ, because
down there in verse 4, he says he makes his angels spirits,
his ministers a flaming fire. That's what the Hebrew writer
quoted in Hebrews chapter 1 to declare Christ is preeminent
over all, even the angels. So we're talking about Christ.
He has the reigns of heaven and earth. He's ruling all things,
and He's the light. He's our God, the great God,
verse 2, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain. You know
Isaiah 40, verse 22, He sits upon the circle of the earth,
and the inhabitants thereof are His grasshoppers. that stretcheth
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent
to dwell in. This is making me feel really
small, but that's good, because it's making me see God really
big, really big. Verse three, who layeth the beams
of his chambers in the waters, the beams of his dwelling places.
That's what his chambers are. It's where he abides. It's the
beams or the floor of his chambers laid in the waters or above the
waters. That is in the heavens. Listen
to Amos 9, 6 says, it's he that buildeth his stories in the heaven. He's painting us a picture of
a building with multiple stories on top of it. You remember Christ
said, I go to prepare a place for you. In my Father's house
are many mansions. You could say in my Father's
house are many chambers. I go to prepare a place for you
and if I go prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive
you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. He laid
the beams of the dwelling of his people in his blood, in his
covenant redemption that he accomplished for his people. It's a sure dwelling,
a sure dwelling. Now here's the statement I want
to focus on, verse 13. Who maketh the clouds his chariot,
who walketh upon the wings of the wind. Now you picture this,
picture the clouds, you see the clouds in the sky, the clouds
are the Lord's chariot, his vehicle, that's his chariot that he rides
upon. He walketh on the wings of the
wind. It means he rules all providence.
It means everything in nature, He's ruling it. He created it,
He's ruling it. He upholds all things by the
word of His power and He's ruling all things. He rides on the clouds
like a chariot. Everything that comes to pass
in this world, our sovereign Savior is the first cause. and
He's doing it for the good of His people. He's doing it for
His glory. He's doing it for the salvation
of His people. Now you think of every cloud
in the sky, in the sky, from the pleasant, bright, beautiful
clouds to the dark, ominous clouds, to every wind, to the lightest
breeze, to the greatest tornado and hurricane, He rides upon
them all as His chariot. He walks upon the wind. And then
the figurative clouds and the figurative winds of providence
and the things that come to pass in our life, he's riding upon
it all as his chariot, as his chariot, walking on the wind.
So our subject is his clouds, the clouds, his chariot, the
clouds, his chariot. Now, I was looking at this and
I just started looking at all the places in scripture that
speak of a cloud in connection with the Lord. And they're everywhere. They're everywhere in scripture.
The first place you find the Lord mentioned in connection
with a cloud is when the Lord made a covenant with Noah after
the Lord destroyed the world with water and all the inhabitants
therein with water. Genesis 9, 12, God said, this
is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you
and every living creature." Here's the token. He said, the bow,
the rainbow should be in the cloud. And I'll look upon it. He said, I will look upon the
rainbow in the cloud. And he said, that I may remember
the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature
of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God has kept that
promise to Noah. He's kept it to all his living
creatures. He's kept it to us. Kept it to us. He puts the rainbow
in the sky. How does the rainbow get in the
sky? How does it get in the cloud? Christ, the cloud is his chariot. He walks upon the wind. He put
the rainbow in the cloud and he's made it so all this time
up to now. God says, I look upon that rainbow
and I remember my covenant. But he's put it there so that
you that are regenerated, when you look up and see that rainbow
and remember that covenant with Noah, it reminds us of a greater
covenant than that. It reminds us of his everlasting
covenant that Christ wrote in his precious blood. Christ himself
is our covenant. He's the one, remember in the
heaven, John saw him, he had a rainbow about his head. He's
our covenant. God looks upon Christ. He looks
to his son and what his son accomplished towards people. He remembers
his covenant towards you and me. That's a blessing. Then when the Lord delivered
the children of Israel out of Egypt, he brought them out of
bondage. In Exodus 13, 21, the Lord went before them by day
in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way. And the Lord was
in that cloud. He was in the cloud, he led them
the way and he protected them. You remember when they were at
the Red Sea and the cloud went between them and Pharaoh and
his army. It was a cloud and darkness to
Pharaoh and his army, a cloud of darkness, but it gave light
by night to his people. so that the one came not near
the other all the night. The Lord Jesus, the same Lord
Jesus, he's darkness to our enemies, but he's light to you that he's
revealed himself to. Same Lord. And then when they
got into the wilderness and Israel murmured because they were hungry.
They murmured because they were hungry. As Aaron spake unto the
whole congregation, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold,
the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud." The glory of the
Lord. And they were murmuring because
they didn't think the Lord was... They said, Moses, you just brought
us out here to kill us with hunger. And the Lord sent quail to them. And He said, you're going to
know this day, you're going to know I'm the Lord. And He sent
quail. And in the morning, He sent manna. He gave manna to them. And every
trial of providence is Christ who's riding upon the cloud of
providence as his chariot, walking upon the wind, providing every
need we have in his life. He's doing that. And then at
Sinai, they got to Mount Sinai. And the Lord said to Moses, lo,
I come unto thee in a thick cloud that the people may hear when
I speak with thee and believe thee forever. The Lord told Moses
to go tell them to sanctify themselves, be ready on the morrow. And they
sanctified themselves, got themselves good and washed up, but then
they saw the Lord in the cloud, thundering and lightning, and
the mountain on fire with a tempest, and they trembled, and they were
afraid, and they begged Moses to mediate for them, to go up
between them and God. Moses went up into the mount
and a cloud covered the mount. Moses went up there. God called
him. The glory of the Lord. That's important. We keep seeing
the glory of the Lord was in the cloud. The glory of the Lord. And he abode upon Mount Sinai
and the cloud covered it for six days. And the seventh day,
he called Moses out of the midst of the cloud, and Moses went
up there. He's the daysman between God
and the children of Israel. Moses goes into the cloud, 40
days and 40 nights he was there. And then he came down. We're
sinners. Everybody God saves are sinners,
and we have to have Christ the mediator to go between us and
God, to represent us before God. with the tabernacle, when they
built the tabernacle. Exodus 40 verse 34 says, then
a cloud covered the tent of the congregation and the glory of
the Lord filled the tabernacle. Every time we see this cloud,
we see the glory of the Lord in the cloud. The cloud covered
the tabernacle. The whole tabernacle was covered
with the cloud and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And then over the mercy seat,
in the holiest of holies, In the tabernacle, Leviticus 16.2,
the Lord said, I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
He said, Aaron can't come in here all the time. He got to
come in here with the blood of the lamb. He only comes when
I tell him he comes. Because I dwell in the cloud
over the mercy seat. It's there I'll meet with him.
And then later in Solomon's temple, they brought the ark in. And
the scripture says, the priest could not stand to minister because
of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of
the Lord. Now what's the significance of
God revealing Himself in the cloud and us seeing the glory
of the Lord in this cloud? What is the significance of this?
Christ is the glory of the cloud. He's the glory of God. And He's
the glory in the cloud. Christ was in the cloud. And
you know, and we don't have to guess about this, when they were
in the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter wanted to build three tabernacles,
or three altars to each of them. And the scripture says, while
he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And
behold, a voice out of the cloud which said, this is my beloved
son in whom I'm well pleased. Hear ye him. That's the significance
of all those clouds we saw in the Old Testament. Our Lord is
saying, here's my glory. This is my son. He's my glory.
Hear him. Look to him. Trust him. Believe
him. That's the glory of Jehovah,
the Lord Jesus. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. We only see God by beholding
Christ by faith. That bow in the cloud, Christ
entered covenant to fulfill God's law for His people and He came
and fulfilled it and He's the everlasting covenant. He's the
one God looks to and remembers His covenant. The cloud that
led the children of Israel, that's Christ's glory. He not only came
and redeemed His people from our sin, it's His glory to lead
us all through this wilderness, provide for us the whole way
and bring us to God. The cloud that was in the tabernacle
upon the mercy seat. That's Christ everywhere. He
was typified in the whole, he is the tabernacle, he is the
mercy seat, the glory of God in the cloud. That's Christ. So at the end of his ministry,
isn't this appropriate? At the end of Christ's earthly
ministry, he's accomplished the redemption of his people, and
he asked the Father, Father, glorify thou me with the glory
which I had with you before the world was made. glorify me with
your glory that I had with you before the world was made. So
he stayed with his disciples and he settled them and he encouraged
them for 40 days. And then he ascended and while
they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received him out
of their sight into glory. All this connection between his
glory and a cloud, his glory and a cloud. But now, here's
what our Lord's teaching us. He's our salvation, He's our
Redeemer. Now here's what our Lord's teaching
us to remember. The clouds of providence are
His chariots. He's riding up on the clouds,
they are His chariots. and He walks upon the wind, He's
ruling all for His glory and for the good of His people. Verse
13, Psalm 104, 13, He maketh the clouds His chariot, He walketh
upon the wings of the wind. Now think about some of the clouds
He's provided for us in Providence, how He's come. The Hebrew writer
said He's provided us a great cloud of witnesses. All those
Old Testament saints, How did they come into being? How were
they created anew? How were they given faith? How
were they made to believe Christ? Why are they a cloud of witnesses?
Christ was riding upon the clouds. That great cloud of witnesses
is all due to His glory, all due to His work of grace. Even
you and me that believe, why do you believe? Because Christ
sent His cloud of witnesses to us to preach the gospel to us
by which He called us to Himself. And what are those cloud of witnesses
teaching us? They're teaching us to lay aside every weight
that weighs us down, all the cares and concerns and troubles
that we fret about in this world, to lay aside all our sins and
to run the race set before us, looking to Christ. That's how
they went to the end. They walked by faith, looking
to Christ. And Christ kept them walking
by faith and led them to that eternal city. The cloud of Christ's providence
is his chariot. Listen to this from Proverbs
30 verse 4. Who hath ascended up into heaven,
or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in
his fists? Who hath bound the waters in
a garment? Who hath established all the
ends of the earth? What is his name? What is his
son's name? If you can tell it. That's what
our text is teaching us. Remember that night on that stormy
sea, and his disciples were in the ship, and the sea's raging,
our Lord was asleep. How did that storm come about?
How did that wind come about in the first place? It's his
chariot. He walks on the wind. He's seen
it. And they woke him up, and what
did he do? He said, peace be still. And that wind ceased and
that sea became calm. He rides on the wind. He's ruling all providence. Now
sometimes his chariot is a dark cloud of providence. Sometimes
it's dark. Everything of our flesh in this
world is a perishing flower. Just perishing grass. So if it's
needful, our Lord will blow upon our wealth and it vanishes. starts
wilting. He blows upon our health, it
starts wilting. Whatever it is that he needs
to make to wilt, to make us cease to hold on to it so tightly,
he just blows upon it and it wilts. He sends some providence,
some dark cloud. But in that dark cloud, brethren,
you know when When the night is dark, that's when you see
the stars. And when the clouds dark and the providence is dark,
that's when he's gonna make you see all his promises shine like
stars. That's when he's gonna make you
know he's faithful and he's providing and he's keeping and you can
trust him. And he does it by cleansing your
heart. He does it by purging you and
cleansing you and renewing you. This is what they said in Job.
Now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds, but the
wind passeth and cleanseth them. That's what he does. He sends
the providence. The providence doesn't really
do anything for us apart from him, but he cleanses you. and makes you see Him, makes
you see Him. Then we behold His faithfulness
and we behold His love and we behold that He's providing what's
most needful for us. And you know what that usually
is? What we don't even know we need. That's usually what's most
needful, what we don't even recognize that we need. And we wouldn't
if He didn't make us to know it. But you know, Think about
this now. If the president was coming through
our town, and everybody's gathering up on each side of the street
to see the president of the United States come through, when he
comes through, you're not going to be looking at his chariot. You're not going to be looking
at what he's driving. You're going to be looking at
him. Well, never focus on the cloud, the chariot, the providence,
but look to him. Look to Him, the one that rides
upon it, the one that sent it. It's Christ Himself that's going
to give the blessing. It's Christ Himself. He sent
it to turn us to Him. Every time, when the cloud is
full of good, now this is me, and I'm sure this is you as well.
When the cloud's full of good, sometimes there's a bright cloud,
sometimes the clouds he sends you are full of prosperity and
they're good clouds. And when that happens, what do
we do? We look at the providence and the blessing that he's given
us here and we say, oh, I'm blessed to the Lord. But then when the
cloud is dark, Our faith falls, and our fears rise, and, oh,
what's the Lord doing to me? He's blessing you, just the same,
just the same. But our faith is not in the chariot. It's not in the providence. Our
faith is in the Lord riding upon the chariot, riding upon the
cloud, riding upon the providence. Our faith's in Him. It's the
same with the Gospel. The Gospel is His chariot. The
Gospel is the means by which the preaching of the Gospel is
the means by which He's going to make us know Him. But it's
not just the preaching of the Gospel itself that saves us. It's Him. When He comes and reveals
Himself, when the Word speaks the Word and makes you alive
and makes you know Him and He teaches you more of Him through
the Gospel that's being preached. Christ revealed to us, to himself,
that the Lord chose us in him and predestinated us to be conformed
to his image, and that's why you rejoice in the doctrine of
election and predestination. It's not just merely the doctrine.
Christ made you to know he came and redeemed his particular people
from our sins, saved us from our sins, that he has successfully
accomplished the redemption of his people. That's what, it's
him that makes you love the gospel of, the message of particular
redemption. when He sent the Spirit, regenerated
you and made it to where you could not believe Him. All you could do was trust Him.
Your heart, you just, you didn't do anything to believe. You just
started believing Him. And He made you to know through
His Word that it's by His irresistible grace, by His Holy Spirit sending
you the gospel. That's when you started loving
His irresistible grace and the doctrine of irresistible grace.
The doctrine in the gospel we preach is the means, but it's
him who's riding in the chariot is the one who gives the blessing
and makes you rejoice. And so it is with providence.
When he sends some dark cloud, it's not the providence, or when
he sends a bright cloud of blessing, it's not the blessing, it's not
the cloud itself, it's him who's riding in the chariot, and he
reveals himself. You that believe on Christ don't
fear the dark cloud of providence any more than you fear the bright
cloud of good things. The Lord went to the cross and
bore the thunder and the lightning and the fierce wrath of God in
place of his people. He's not going to pour that out
of the cloud on you. Sometimes it feels like it though,
but he's not. It's a very light affliction
compared to what he's borne for his people. He sends just enough
to make us see that it's not the enemy riding up on the cloud,
it's our great high priest, it's our king, it's he who's got our
names written on his breastplate. That's who's riding up on the
cloud. This is where I was gonna read that scripture Brother Robbie
just read. He said, I'm the one that formed you, old Jacob. I
created you, old Israel, fear not. I've redeemed thee. I called
thee by thy name, thou art mine. When you pass through the waters,
I'll be with you. When you pass through the rivers,
they'll not overflow you. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the only one of Israel,
thy Savior. Thy Savior, you're precious to
me, he said. The Lord, why does he send things
like that? I said this before, that these
little deliverances He gives us all through this life are
keeping us constantly looking to the cross and remembering
the great deliverance He's made for us. And it makes you see,
if He hadn't come and delivered me, I'd have perished. I'd have
perished. And it's teaching us more and
more to hold loosely to everything in this world. It's teaching
us more and more to value Christ and to value the privilege he's
given us of being able to assemble together to hear the gospel with
our brethren and to value brethren. This right here. The Lord don't give this everywhere. He hasn't given this all over
the world. I mean, he's got little places
in the world, his little hills throughout the world. But this
is Brethren are all we have in this
world. And we need each other. And this
is what he's teaching us. He's teaching us what a blessing
it is he's given us by giving us this. When you see anything
here below that's troubling, or even if it's a blessing and
you see it as being a bright, joyful cloud, still look above
the cloud and look to Christ, and see Him, and know who gave
it, and know who sent it, and know why He sent it. Go to Christ
and cast all your care on Him. That's the purpose. And just
when it gets so troubling that you just don't think you're going
to be able to withstand it and you don't think you... That's
the purpose, is to get us to the place, to bring us to the
point where you see I just can't go on. That's the purpose. You can't. You're right. You can't. But we have to be
brought to that point to where it's not just a figure of speech,
to where it's true in our heart. I can't make it. I can't even
lift my head up. And he makes you see that's true. I'm your strength. I'm your strength. and keeps us resting in Him.
That's when you see, like the bride saw in Song of Solomon,
she saw Him skipping over the mountains. Here He came, skipping
over the mountains. That's what He's doing. He's
riding in His chariot upon the clouds to keep us resting in
Him for our salvation. Now let me end. I want to end
by speaking of the end. He's going to He's redeemed His
people. He purchased His people with
His blood. You belong to Him. And He's not going to let you
go. He is not going to let His child perish in our sins. He's going to keep us looking
to Him and trusting Him and walking after Him. And He's going to
do this all the way to the end. You know what's going to happen
in the end? Our Lord said, Hereafter, Shall you see the Son of Man
sitting on the right hand of power and coming, how? In the clouds of heaven. He's
coming in the clouds of heaven. There's his chariot. He's gonna
come. I don't know what that's gonna
look like, but every eye's gonna see him. Every eye's gonna see
him. And he's gonna be coming with
great power and with glory. Have you ever been at night sometime
and seen something in the sky, some light, little light in the
sky, and a thought crossed your mind and you think, I wonder
if that's Him. We're not going to have to wonder.
We're going to know it's Him. He's coming. And that's our hope. We're watching for His appearing.
Watching for His appearing. That'll be a day of our full
redemption. He won't just be redeeming you out of some temporary
trial. He's gonna redeem us out of this
earth into His glory with Him. That where He is, there we may
be also. And here's the thing, this is
what He said too, if our bodies are in the grave, we're gonna
be raised first. Our bodies will be raised first.
But if we're alive when He comes, this is what He said, either
way. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and
so shall we ever be with the Lord. There's a lot in the scripture
connecting the clouds with the glory of our Lord and His sovereign
salvation and His sovereign providence ruling over everything in this
world. That gives you a new way to look at clouds, don't it? So here's what the hymn writer
wrote. You fearful saints, fresh courage
take. The clouds you so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his
grace. Behind a frowning providence,
he hides a smiling face. Amen. All right, brethren.