Psalm 29. This psalm repeats
one phrase over and over again, the voice of the Lord. And so we want to look at that
again tonight in the last part of it. And we want to conclude
the psalm in the last two verses also. Let's pray. Father, we
thank you for your word. Thank you for our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. whom you sent into the world,
your only begotten son, that he might, by laying his life
down, give us life, and that we might be brought to God by
him taking our sins and bearing them as his own and taking them
away from before your face, so that in all of your glory you
can openly declare to the onlooking universe that you have justified
your people You have purged them of their sins. You have answered
your own justice. You have fulfilled your own law.
And you've done it all in your son. You've done it all for sinners. And we thank you, Lord, for this
great word that's in the gospel that's in your word. And so we
pray, Lord, tonight that you would be with us, be with Joanne,
Joanne Todd, we pray you'd help her. We know that she's not feeling
well because she's sick from the grandbaby. And we pray, Lord,
that you would help her and you'd be with Barbara Lowe in Tennessee.
And you remember all those who meet together regularly in your
name and that you would be with them by your spirit and teach
us about our savior. Tonight, we pray, dear Lord,
in his name we pray. Amen. All right, Psalm 29. I
want to read back through this psalm so I can remind you by
reading it that this psalm is about all of the glory that is
due to God, how we are to give it to Him, and it's about His
glory in His voice. Psalm 29, verse 1. Given to the
Lord, O ye mighty, or O you sons of the mighty, given to the Lord
the glory I'm sorry, given to the Lord glory and strength.
To give just merely means to ascribe to Him, acknowledge it,
see that it's there, and admire Him for His glory. We can't make
God glorified. We can't glorify Him by adding
to what He is or even revealing who He is. But we can look upon
Him, we can hear His Word, and we can declare His Word, and
that's simply ascribing glory to Him. All glory is due to Him
only, and all strength too. Verse 2, Give unto the Lord the
glory due unto His name. All that God is, is His name.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Not only is he holy
in all of his perfections, but he has given us a holy nature.
And without that holy nature, we would not be able to worship
God. And we worship him in the beauty of holiness, which is
another way of saying we worship him in Christ, who is the sanctuary,
the one in whom God has come. That's what the beauty of holiness
has to do with here, is the Lord Jesus Christ, our sanctuary.
In verse 3, the voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The
God of glory thundereth, the Lord is upon many waters. Now we see from scripture that
the waters can refer to the peoples of the earth. And it reminds
me of what Jesus prayed in John 17. as thou hast given him power,
the Son of God, the Son of Man, as thou hast given him power
over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him. So the voice of the Lord is upon
many waters. The God of glory thundereth.
We know the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord of glory. And we
know his voice is like thunder, not for its audible strength,
you measure audio signals with decibels in engineering and in
audio science and applications. We don't measure God's voice
with a decibel meter. We measure it by the doctrine.
We measure it by the power that it has in the declaration of
the truth. So God's voice is the voice of
Christ, and the voice of Christ is declaring the truth. And that
truth, the gospel, is his power unto our salvation. He takes
the truth and applies it to us by his spirit. The next verse
says, the voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord
is full of majesty. We know God's voice accomplishes
his will. In Isaiah 46.10, he says as much. He says that, has he not spoken
and shall he not do it? So God's word accomplishes his
will. And he says in Psalm 33, verse
6, that by the breath of the Lord, the voice of the Lord,
the breath of the Lord, were the heavens made. And that breath
is the spirit of God. So we know that the voice of
the Lord is God speaking in his son and by his spirit. And it's
full of majesty because it speaks of God and his majesty of Christ
and his majesty because he purged our sins by himself. And then
in verse five it says, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars.
Yay, the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. We looked at that
a little last week, and we saw that the cedars of Lebanon are
those majestic trees on the high mountain of Lebanon that was
a forest, and that forest was considered the place where the
greatest trees, the most noble trees were, and the forests of
Lebanon are referred to. The trees, the cedars of Lebanon
were used to build the temple of Solomon. And we know that
all of God's people are stones in the temple of the Lord. They
make up the city of Jerusalem by God's work, by his spirit
in them. And so the church itself is compared
to the cedars of Lebanon. We saw that last week in Psalm
92. And in the Song of Solomon, we
saw that Christ himself is compared to the cedars of Lebanon. But
men also in false religion lay claim to being noble and tall
and strong and beautiful and blessings to others like the
cedars of Lebanon. And God has to bring us down.
And he brings us down when he, by his voice, by the gospel,
he humbles us. And he brings us down that we
might see ourselves to be but men, We are sinful, we are unbelieving,
and only Christ is righteous. He by himself has purged our
sins and has judged Satan, and so he has overcome our enemies.
And all of this is the voice of the Lord in the Gospel that
lays us low and lifts us up to be with Christ. He lays us low
in our own view of ourselves, so that we are humbled, we no
longer take confidence in the flesh. And he lifts us up to
see that all of our salvation and our glory is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And there we're content now by
his grace. And so this is speaking here
of the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars of Lebanon and the
Lord breaking He says it twice, the voice of the Lord breaks
the cedars of Lebanon, yea, the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. So the next verse though, it
says that he makes them also to skip like a calf, Lebanon
and Sirion, like a young unicorn. And that's speaking about the
mountain itself. And so we saw last week that to skip and to
To skip means to dance, to dance about like a frisky, young, joyful
animal on the hillside in the wild, in the brisk air, with
all the strength of its youth, jumping about in all of its happiness. And the mountain of Lebanon and
the cedars of Lebanon are made to skip. And we saw that this
refers to how the gospel causes us, who in ourselves are unable
to move about, to move to Christ, to come to Christ. And that movement
not only is seen in how we come to Christ, we believe on him,
but it also is seen in how we go forth with the gospel as the
mountains and the trees clapping their hands and the mountains
singing with happiness in Isaiah 55, verses 11 and following.
So all these things are seen here in the voice of the Lord.
And I'm just reviewing it here. It gives us such a picture of
the power in God's voice, not so much in what we would naturally
think of his power in creation, but the power of God's voice
in accomplishing his will through the preaching of his gospel.
When dead sinners, dead like the dry bones of Ezekiel chapter
37, dead sinners hear the gospel from his servant, God sends his
servants, he tells them, to speak to the bones, he tells the servants
to speak to the wind, and the bones hear the voice of the Lord. The bones are joined together,
the wind gives breath to the bones, and flesh puts flesh upon
them, and they stand upon their feet. And this is the act of
God and is carried forth by the gospel. So all these comparisons
to God's voice being powerful in creation, it's really talking
about the spiritual creation, the spiritual life that he gives
us through the gospel by his spirit, directing us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And remember this, always remember
this, the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself is our life. He is our strength. He's our
salvation. He is our all. And so now we want to get to
the next verse. It says, the voice of the Lord
divides the flames of fire. Now, the flames of fire, I mentioned
last week that there's a couple of places. We saw Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego. They were saved through the fire.
God promises that though the floods and fire come upon his
people, they will not be over flowed and they will not be burned.
God will save them through those things. And we saw how the Son
of God was with his people in the fire so that the fire of
God's wrath has been quenched by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
now the fire that we have is the light of the gospel. We have the light of the gospel
and the fruit of the gospel And all that's by the Spirit of God.
Jesus was going to baptize in the Spirit of God, in the Spirit,
and he was going to baptize his people in the Spirit, and it
says with fire. And it says that clove and tongues of fire came
on the apostles in the book of Acts and the day of Pentecost,
and they preached the gospel so that men heard it and men
were converted. So this fire then represents
either the consuming fire of God in judgment or it represents
the Spirit of God coming to us. So that in 1 Thessalonians 5
it says that we are not to quench the Holy Spirit of God. To quench
means to put out that flame, that fire. And it also says that
in the book of Revelation it compares the Spirit of God to
this light, the candles, the light of the fire in the church. And so all these things are directing
us back again to the Spirit of God telling us about Christ in
the gospel. And so the fire that it says
the Lord divides the flames of fire, he has quenched the fire
that was against us and he has given us the fire to see the
light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Okay?
Now we're going to get to verse 8, which is where we left off
last time. So I've been hurriedly trying
to summarize where we were last time. Let's pick it up in verse
8 now. Let me turn to that part of the
notes. It says there in verse 8, Psalm
29, the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness, the Lord shaketh
the wilderness of Kadesh. Now, I didn't remember this. You might remember it, but Kedesh
was a place in the wilderness. When the children of Israel came
out of Egypt and on their way to Canaan, one of the places
they were in was called Kedesh. And the word Kedesh means holy. And it was in Kadesh that God
told Moses and Aaron, take the rod of God and go speak to the
rock. Remember, they had the first
time God had told Moses to strike the rock. But at Kadesh, God
told Moses and Aaron, speak to the rock. And so the place called
Kadesh was in the wilderness. And it was that place where the
Lord told Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock. And you know
from 1 Corinthians 10 that that rock was what? That rock was
Christ. In 1 Corinthians 10 he says that
rock that followed them was Christ. So we don't have any ambiguity
here. God told Moses to speak to the
rock. Now Moses in scripture most often
represents the law of God. And so God was saying by that,
and it occurred in Numbers chapter 20, in Numbers chapter 20 when
he said to speak to the rock, it was as if he was saying, Moses
in the law and in the prophets and in the psalm, all of the
law then speaks of Christ. And in the law, in the prophets,
and in the Psalms, the command is that Christ would bless. I mean, God's word is that God
would bless his people. Like water out of a rock, God
would bless his people with living water, with eternal life out
of Christ. And that living water from Christ
is Christ himself given by his spirit. Do we understand that? Jesus told the woman at the well,
if you knew the gift of God, Who it is that asks you for a
drink of water, then you would have asked him, and he would
have given you living water. So he's the fountain of living
water. He himself is the life-giving
water. But that water flows to us by
his life laid down. And it's the spirit of God, compared
to water as a fountain, that's given to us in the preaching
of the gospel. Christ gives us his spirit. through
the gospel being preached to us, he sends his spirit to us
and gives us life. And that life is a continual
flow. Jesus said in John 7, out of their inmost being shall flow
rivers, not one, but rivers of living water. So the water that
God commanded Moses to bring out of the rock by speaking to
it represented the eternal life that we have in Christ when the
Spirit of God shows us Christ who was crucified that we might
live. But that was all the law and
the prophets were supposed to do at that point was to speak
to the rock. But Moses hit the rock instead.
He smote the rock. And for that, God said to Moses
that he and Aaron would die in Canaan. They would not come into
the land of Canaan. Moses couldn't lead them into
Canaan. That would be given to Joshua
to do, and Joshua is the name for Jesus. So the law can't bring
us into our inheritance, can it? The law cannot bring us into
the promise of God's salvation, that eternal salvation, our inheritance
in Christ, that eternal life promised to us, the Spirit of
God promised to us. All the blessings of God are
in Christ, and that's what Canaan represents. And Moses would not
be able to bring God's people into that land. And this occurred
at Kadesh. So here it says that the voice
of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness
of Kadesh. Now, since this wilderness was
the time when Israel was traveling to Canaan, and it was that time
when God had given them the law, and here Moses was speaking to
the rock, we can see then that God is shaking with his voice. And what is he doing? He's shaking
the wilderness, he says, and he's shaking the wilderness of
Kadesh. Now, since the law was given,
and the law couldn't save, then God had given the law in order
to show us not only the futility of us in any way contributing
to our salvation, but also to foreshadow how our salvation
would come to us. And how would it come? The Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the one that all of the
law and the prophets in the Psalms spoke of. And so when God's voice
shakes the wilderness and shakes the wilderness of Kedesh, he's
speaking about God's voice and the effect that it would have.
This is the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is it that
happened when Jesus Christ came? Well, first of all, he fulfilled
the law and the prophets. He fulfilled the law and the
prophets in the Psalms. And how did he do that? Well, he's the
Lord Jesus Christ, the anointed prophet, priest, and king. As
the prophet, he speaks to us from God. He speaks God's word
to us. He reveals God to us in himself. in his words, in his
life, in his death, in his sufferings, in all the epistles that he gave
his apostles from heaven, from his throne and glory. And so
as a priest, he's the one who brings us to God. And as the
king, it's his authority that makes his priesthood and his
prophecy to us effective. He gives us all the blessings
of God. He rules over us to deliver us from our enemies, our sins,
and Satan's kingdom, to overthrow Satan and bind Satan, and to
overthrow the world. Christ did all these things.
And that fulfilled the law of the prophets and the Psalms.
So in the first place, when Christ came, he was coming in fulfillment
of this in order that he himself would accomplish everything the
law and the prophets and the Psalms foreshadowed. He would
do that. And so what this meant, though,
was for the Jews who had the law, and they practiced it, and
they lived by it, and they trusted in it, their world was going
to be turned upside down. Their world was going to be shaken. The foundation on which they
trusted was going to be broken down. The law Meaning all of
that old covenant that required man to do his part in order to
have blessing and life, in order that he might be accepted by
God, all that was going to crumble. The law was going to be taken
away. It was going to be abolished. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 says
so. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, I'll
just read a couple of verses there so that you don't think
that we're being too harsh on what the old covenant was like
and how God was going to do away with it. In 2 Corinthians chapter
3, he says this. He says, in verse 13, that we use great
plainness of speech when we preach the gospel, but not as Moses,
which put a veil over his face that the children of Israel could
not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. The
end of that which is abolished, the end of it was not only the
consummation of it, but the finishing of it. and the putting away of
it. It's abolished. When it was done,
when it was fulfilled, there was no more need for it. Christ
had come. The shadow was not needed when
the substance, the image of the shadow, was come. And that's
Christ. And so it was abolished. And
the fulfillment of the law that we can't keep it, We couldn't
keep one part of it. We certainly couldn't keep it
for our salvation. And so all that was done away.
It was weak through the flesh. But what the law was weak through
the flesh, God accomplished by sending his son, Romans chapter
8, verse 1 through 4. And so here it says that the
law is abolished. And it's also done away in verse
11, if that which is done away was glorious. So the law was
done away. The law was abolished when Christ
came because he fulfilled it. He put the new covenant into
force when he shed his blood. And this is such an important
truth that it's stated over and over in scripture. Every time
we take the Lord's Supper, we're reminded of Jesus's words when
he held that cup out to his disciples, he says, drink ye all of it,
for this cup is the New Testament in my blood. In other words,
the New Testament, the will, the last will and testament of
Christ was put into force when the testator died, when he shed
his blood, because that fulfilled the conditions of that old covenant. And so therefore it was put away.
But back to Psalm 29, The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh is referring
to the fact that Christ's voice in the gospel absolutely sets
the foundation down that cannot be shaken. And it does away with
every other foundation that can be shaken and is therefore removed
by his voice. When Christ came, every other
legal hope was destroyed and obliterated. because it was revealed
that he himself was the consummation of the law. Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it.
And in Hebrews chapter 12, it talks about the new covenant
coming and God shaking everything else that can be shaken so that
what God is doing there is leaving what cannot be shaken. He says
in Hebrews chapter 12, And this is a prophecy from the Old Testament
fulfilled here. It's from Haggai, but here it's
in Hebrews 12. He says in verse 26, or verse 25, see that you
refuse not him that speaketh, for if they escape not who refused
him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we
turn away from him that speaks from heaven, whose voice then
shook the earth. But now he has promised, saying,
yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifyeth
the removing of those things which are shaken, as of things
that are made, so that those things which cannot be shaken
may remain, wherefore we, here's a thing that can't be shaken,
receiving a kingdom, which cannot be moved, let us have grace,
whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear,
for our God is a consuming fire. The New Testament, in Christ's
blood, the revelation of his kingdom having come when he came
into the world and put that kingdom into force when he ascended to
heaven and sat down on the right hand of God and sent his servants
into the world to subdue, through the preaching of the gospel,
the rebellious will of man and to raise to life those dead in
sins The king is shaking everything. And so this is referred to throughout
scripture. In Matthew chapter 7, I want to read this text of
scripture to you. In Matthew chapter 7, talking
about shaking and things that remain, Jesus said this, starting
at verse 21. He said, not every one that says
to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But
he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven, Many
will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in
thy name done many wonderful works? We've prophesied, we've
cast out devils, we've done many wonderful works all in your name. But what did they fail to mention?
They talked about what they did. They failed to mention what Christ
did. They failed to mention the Savior. They failed to mention
the Mediator. They thought they could come
into the gates of heaven the way that they made by their own
obedience. They never mentioned faith. They
never mentioned grace. They never mentioned righteousness
of Christ. These were the things they didn't
know about or trust in. They refused to submit themselves
to the righteousness of God, which is the work of Christ in
our redemption. And they trusted in their own
obedience. Like in Romans chapter 10, verse one through three.
But he says here in verse 23, then Jesus said, I will profess
to them, I never knew you. Not at that time when you were
doing those things or before or after. Depart from me you
that work iniquity. Therefore, he said, so what was
he saying to them? They were sinners. They tried
to come to God in an iniquitous way, in a sinful way, in a way
of transgression. They tried to come justifying
themselves by their own obedience. There's only one way to come
to God, the way Christ Jesus, His righteousness and His blood.
And so the one who comes that way does what? According to Psalm
29, they give all glory to the Lord. They give strength to Him.
They ascribe it all to Him. But verse 24 of Matthew 7 says,
Jesus said, Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings, isn't
that the voice of the Lord? Whoever heareth these sayings
of mine, Not just the audible sound of it, but the doctrine,
the truth of it. He says, let me read it. I turn
the page. He says, whosoever hear these
sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man
which built his house upon a rock. And what is the rock? It's Christ
and what he said. It's what he did. Everyone who
builds on Him is trusting Him. They've ventured their souls
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. They're leaning upon Him, like
Jacob leaned on his staff. They've put the full weight of
their eternal souls on the judgment scales, on the scales of God's
justice. Their souls are on one side and
what's on the other? in their trust and in their confidence.
It's Christ. They didn't put Christ there.
They didn't create the scales. They didn't put themselves on
the scales. But that's the way they see it. That's their confidence
is that Christ is all. And so he's going on with that.
They hear his sayings and they do them. And what he commanded
them to do was to believe on him whom he has sent. Remember
John 6, 29, when the people there wanted to know how he made bread,
how can we do this? He said, they asked him, what
shall we do that we might work the works of God? And Jesus said,
this is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has
sent. It's not a work, it's faith,
that's the issue. And so he said, so to do them,
that is to believe Christ. I will liken him to a wise man
which built his house on a rock. The rain descended, the floods
came, there's the shaking, the winds blew and beat upon that
house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. And
that rock is Christ and his words. Everyone that hear these sayings
of mine and doeth them not shall be likened to a foolish man like
those told to depart. They came to Christ. Lord, in
your name we've been preaching. In your name we've been casting
out devils. In your name we've done many
wonderful works. Go look, look at the records.
That's not the point here. The point is not what you do.
That's not the way you enter heaven. That's not the way you
enter life. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
So here are those who foolishly did hear his words, but didn't
believe him. They held to their own righteousness,
and they said this, they didn't do them, they're like a foolish
man, they built their house on the sand, and the rain descended,
the floods came, the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and
it fell. And great was the fall of it,
and it came to pass, after Jesus said this, the people were astonished
at his doctrine, his words. The voice of the Lord spoke and
shook the wilderness, the wilderness of Kadesh, where the people of
Israel were gathered together because they had no water. And
God told Moses, speak to the rock. God has told us, look to
Christ and him crucified. There, Moses was commanded in
the wilderness to lift up Christ on that pole. And Jesus said,
whoever looks upon him in faith in Christ crucified shall not
perish, but have eternal life. So we see here the shaking is
Christ in His Word. Christ in His Word of the Gospel.
It shakes everything else. It leaves only Him. And He's
our rock and we stand on Him. Think about how firm Christ's
words are. Think about it. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Now that's the judgment
of the Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel, isn't it? God is saying,
here's God's judgment. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? The voice of the Lord has spoken.
That cannot be shaken. God's people are justified in
Christ. Who dare assault or challenge
God's justifying work? His declaration of their justification
in the righteousness of Christ. Who dare lay one thing to their
charge? And all of heaven and earth and
under the earth will be silent, because no one can fault, can
find anything, not even a smidgen of a shadow of compromise in
God's work to justify His people and to declare it to be so from
the beginning of the world, because they are His elect. Now, this
is the voice of the Lord. Everything else, shaken. Everything
else, fallen. But what God said about His people
in the Lord Jesus Christ stands firm. And that's the message
to get from this. The rock is Christ. The law and
the prophets and the Psalms speak of Christ. And what they speak
brings water from the rock, because Christ and Him crucified is our
life. And the Spirit of God tells us
that's where our life is. We trust him and we find a rock
on which we can stand even in the floods of judgment, even
before the throne of Christ. We shall not come into condemnation. We have already passed from death
to life. OK, that's Psalm 29, verse eight. OK, next, Psalm 29, verse nine. It says the Lord. The voice of
the Lord maketh the hinds to calve. Now, a hind is a deer. And so this is talking about
the birth of a newborn baby deer. And so the voice of the Lord
is what brings to the birth. Do you see that the hinds are
those that is another way of referring to the the people of
the Lord that he is as a deer pants for the water brooks so
pants my soul for thee O God remember Psalm 42 throughout
scripture and the Song of Solomon it talks about the hinds the
deer is a is a clean animal and so these These Hines have and
this is talking about the spiritual birth of the people of God by
the voice of the Lord. Isn't that what the New Testament
says? By the it says of his own will, of the will of the father,
of his own will, begat he us by the word of truth. There's
the voice of the Lord. James one eighteen. Every good
and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, and
of his own will begat he us by the word of truth." That's what
James 1, 17 and 18 say. And in 1 Peter 1, 23, being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word
of God. And so here, the voice of the
Lord does what? Gives life. It brings to the
birth. It creates in the womb of the
conception, the spiritual conception of the people of God by the spirit
of God. It creates the spirit of the
spirit in them that they don't have. It's a dead spirit. But
God creates them in Christ. And so they're created in Christ,
they're brought to the birth, and all by the power of the voice
of the Lord. And then it says, and discovereth
the forest, and in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory. to discover the forest, I'm not
quite sure precisely how to tie that in, except to say this,
that God's forest in the world are all the people, and his people
that are in the world, that are his elect people, he knows them. It says, this is the foundation
of the Lord standeth sure, the Lord knoweth them that are his,
and so the voice of the Lord discovereth the forests. I think
it refers to the fact that when the gospel comes in power, it
brings forth those that were ordained to eternal life to faith
in Christ, as it says in Acts 13, 48. So here in the next part,
then it says, and in his temple. Doth everyone speak of his glory? And this is a wonderful thing.
Everyone the Lord saves is part of his temple. Jesus Christ lives
in, dwells in, abides in all of his people. He abides in them
by his spirit. He sits on the throne as the
son of man, but by his spirit he lives in his people. And I
quote this verse perhaps more often than any other verse in
Galatians 2.20. The apostle Paul said, I am crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, not an independent life, but Christ liveth in me. And the
life that I now live in the flesh, By this life of Christ in me,
I live by the faith of the Son of God, Christ for me, who loved
me and gave himself for me." There it is. What an incredible,
gracious, comforting statement of our salvation that Christ
himself lives in us, directs us to himself because he died
for us, he loved us and gave himself for us. In Jeremiah 31
3, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore,
with loving kindness, have I drawn thee. So here we have it in his
temple. Everyone who is indwelt by the
spirit of Christ is they belong to Christ. They are his. They're
his inheritance. They make up his temple and he
dwells in them so much so that even the members of our body
are the members of Christ. so that what we do with our body,
we're doing with Christ's body. And each one of us not only individually
is a temple of Christ, but all of us collectively who trust
Christ, who have been born of the Spirit, make up his body. And he dwells in us. And in Revelation
21, the consummation of the ages of history will be made when
God reveals the temple as the new Jerusalem descending out
of God from heaven. And it's beautiful beyond description,
beyond words. And so here, everyone who is
Christ, or everyone in his temple, speaks of his glory. And what
does everyone who trusts Christ say? I have nothing. I have no confidence in my flesh. and I have confidence in the
Lord Jesus Christ and his shed blood. I have no way that I can
come to God, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the way to God by which
I come. He himself has said, this is
the will of him that sent me, that everyone who seeth the Son
and believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting
life. This is the will of the Father. This is the will of Christ
and everyone in his temple. All those who have been saved
by the Lord are happy to say there's nothing in my salvation
that I contribute to nothing. He must have all of the credit
for everything and therefore all of the glory goes to him
alone. And this is something we learn
over and over again out of the weakness of our own sinfulness
and unbelief, out of the coldness of our heart. We're brought back
to this repeatedly in our lives to say, if Christ is not enough
for me, I have no hope. If his blood alone is not my
access, I have no access to God. If when I stand before God in
judgment, if the answer of himself offered in sacrifice to God for
his people. It is not enough to answer for
me. I have no answer." So we've hung
everything on Christ. We give him all of the glory,
and we're happy to have it that way, aren't we? That's why it
says here, everyone in his temple does speak of his glory. The
next verse says, the Lord sits upon the flood. Yea, the Lord
sits king forever. The flood. What is the flood?
Well, we think of the flood immediately. We think of Noah's flood. But
the Lord sits on the flood. Or we think about the flood of
the ungodly. But the Lord sits on the flood. No one, there's
no flood in this world that Christ doesn't rule over and calmly
sits on that flood. Remember when the disciples were
on the in the boat on the Sea of Galilee and Jesus was in the
boat sleeping and then the waves were about to destroy them and
the boat and they wake him up and he speaks to the wind and
the waves and tells them, peace, be still. And they were immediately
calm. The Lord sits on the flood. And
that's to teach us every trial, every adversary to the gospel,
everyone that opposes the building up of the body of Christ, everything
in my life that opposes my salvation, the Lord sits on the flood. Nothing,
not the flood of my sins, not the flood of God's wrath, not
the flood of the ungodly. There's no flood in this world
that's going to destroy the child of God because the Lord sits
on the flood and he sits king forever. It's his. It's his. a place as king that puts into
effect all of the virtue of his other offices as prophet and
priest, because as king he lives. Therefore, he says in Romans
5, 10, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son, much more now being reconciled, we shall
be saved by his life. Remember, life and Romans 8,
34, Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. Rather, he is risen again, who
also sits at the right hand of God and makes intercession for
us. So it's his life, his reigning
life, as our intercessor. His blood is the efficacious,
legal ground, I don't like to use that word, but the grounds
upon which God's abundant grace flows to us in satisfaction of
God's justice and fulfillment of his righteousness. So everything
about Christ is fulfilled because he's the king and we love to
have it so. Remember Thomas, he said, after
the resurrection of Christ, I will not believe, I will not believe
until I can put my finger into the nail prints of his hand and
put my hand into his side where the spear was. I won't believe
it. And Jesus appears and he says,
Thomas, do not be faithless, but believing. And he said, stretch forth your
hand and put it in here. And Thomas said, he didn't stretch
forth his head, he just said, my Lord, my God, and here we
have it, the Lord sits king forever. You see what Thomas, that faith
that he had, my Lord, my God, and may God give us that grace.
And then he says here, the last verse of Psalm 29, the Lord will
give strength to his people, the Lord will bless his people
with peace. The Lord will bless his people
with peace. You know what it says in, this is such a wonderful
statement from scripture. You know what it says in Colossians
chapter one and verse 20? Let me read this to you. Colossians
one verse 20, having made peace through the blood of his cross,
by him to reconcile all things to himself. By him, I say, whether
they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were
sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight." How are we at peace with God? the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ephesians chapter 2, it says
in verse 14, he is our peace. Well, think about it. Everything
that is required for me to be at peace with God in all of his
glory, to stand in His presence, to come boldly before His throne,
everything that is required for me, a sinner. Someone who by
nature is a child of wrath, even as others. Everything required
to make my peace is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our peace. And he made peace through the
blood of his cross. What a wonderful thing. The Lord
will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people
with peace. That peace is in Christ and his blood and the
strength that God gives to us. is the strength in trusting Christ. It's Zechariah chapter four,
verse six, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith
the Lord. And the spirit of God in us causes
us to live by faith on Christ for us. Remember what God told
Paul in second Corinthians chapter 12, verse nine and 10. He says,
my strength is made perfect in weakness. My grace is sufficient
for you. Everything about you, like John
the Baptist said, must decrease. You must lose all confidence. In coming to God, in performing
for God, in glorifying God, you must lose all confidence in yourself
and find all of your confidence in Christ. The Lord will give
strength to his people, and that strength is found in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The power of God, the wisdom
of God, the righteousness of God, the propitiation for our
sins, our peace, everything is in Christ. Christ is our all. And what a blessing thing it
is. When the Lord Jesus Christ prays, think about this, when
he prays, he talks about one thing to his father, what he
wants for his people. All of his prayers are with reference
to them. And when we pray, well, he also
mentions his righteousness, of course, but it's for them. But
when we pray, all of our prayers are with reference to Christ.
He prays concerning himself with reference to his people. His
desire is for them. Our desire is that God would
hear him for us and glorify himself in his son. So there's this reciprocal,
mutual, harmony between the prayers of Christ and the desires and
prayers of His people. Christ is glorified by the Father
because He sought not His own, but He sought His people. He
laid His life down for them. And God is glorified in the prayers
and desires of His people because we seek what Christ wants. We
want Him to be heard for us and God to be glorified by Him. We
want it for ourselves. We want it for our Friends and
our children and our families, we want this. We want this more
than anything, that they would know Christ. And so the Lord
is glorified. And we see this in the Psalms,
the Psalms of the prayers of Christ. He comes to God concerning
his own work, his own sufferings, all for his people to the glory
of God. And we come to God as he did
in the same prayers, borrowing his words, praying that God would
hear him for us and hear his prayers. We want nothing but
what Christ wants for us. And we want to be found in Him.
We want His prayers to be heard for us. And we want all that
God has for Him. We want Him to give it to us
freely by His grace. And we trust that He will because
He laid His life down for us. What a Savior. Oh, the voice
of the Lord. It's so powerful. It's so gracious. It's so faithful. It's so unmovable.
It removes everything else and leaves Christ alone. And that's
where our hope is. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank
you for your word, for the gospel, for your voice that we hear in
the gospel. We hear, as it were, your own
words, your own heart and mind, your own will and desire, your
work, everything that moved you to come from heaven and to live
your life and to suffer all that you did, the mocking and the
shame and death itself, and then to rise in glory. and take your
throne all to the glory of God and for the salvation of your
people, to have them as your own and to make yourself known
to them and to be satisfied in revealing yourself to them and
saving them from their sins. What a blessed thing that is.
And we pray, Lord, that all that you desire would be fulfilled.
We want it, Lord, but you put it in our heart to desire it.
And we pray for the grace of faith that we might endure all
things in this life, trusting Christ and living by him. In
Jesus' name we pray. Amen.