Okay, we are going to be in Psalm
29 tonight. You want to turn there? So before
we begin tonight, let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
thank you for your word. Thank you that your word tells
us of salvation in your Son. Thank you that this salvation
that is in the Lord Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son and our
Savior, is a salvation that is strong enough to save the worst
of sinners. We thank you for this, Lord,
because we ourselves are constantly reminded that we are sinners
and that we cannot help ourselves overcome our sin, but you have
to take it away both before the throne of God and from us so
that we are enabled by your grace to know you and to believe you
and to love you and to love your people. So we pray, Lord, that
you would be with us tonight. Speak to us from your word and
remind us that you are the one that we are to fix our eyes upon
You are the one that we are to trust and look to for all strength
and everything in our life and to give you all the glory. In
Jesus name we pray. Amen. I want to remind you of
a few things in Psalm 29. We're on the second part of Psalm
29. But in order to do that, I want to read through the Psalm
with you. It says in the first verse, Give unto the Lord. And
we looked last time, the word give here, it means that we don't,
it doesn't mean that we can give anything to God. All we can do
is recognize what is the Lord's and credit Him with that. And
that is the act of faith. We credit God, ascribe to the
Lord what belongs to Him. So it goes on, given to the Lord,
O ye mighty. Now, O ye mighty means O you
sons of the mighty, and the sons of the mighty are the children
of God. They are the children of God through the Lord Jesus
Christ, children by the Spirit of God, of course by God's eternal
will, and they're children of God in believing Christ. So this is all from the New Testament
that we learn this. that we are the children of God
through faith in Christ Jesus. In Galatians 3, chapter 3, in
verse 26 and 29, I would recommend you take a look at that. So,
O ye sons of the mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Now, I know that I've been confused
about these words before, just the concept of glorifying God. We think glorifying God, or I
have mistakenly thought of glorifying God as doing things that reflects
that God is who he is or that we are giving him honor by our
actions and our words. But really, it means that we
are recognizing God is glorious. And so when we say, give unto
the Lord, O ye mighty, or you sons of the mighty, give unto
the Lord glory and strength, we're recognizing that all glory
belongs to the Lord, and all strength is His. And so now it
makes sense to us. We're not doing something that
increases God's glory or increases God's strength. God gives to
all life and breath and all things, so all we can do is, as objects
of His grace, sign to Him in our hearts and with our affections
and our desires, with our words, all that is already due to Him,
all that belongs to Him. And so this is what God does
when He teaches us about His goodness. We recognize and we
acknowledge and we ascribe to the Lord all of the glory and
all of the strength. He's the one who alone is worthy.
And then the next verse in verse two, given to the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Now the name of anyone in scripture
refers to who they are. So here when it says given to
the Lord the glory due to his name, it's saying all that God
is demands our attention. It demands that we ascribe to
him this glory that's due to him in all that he is as God,
all that he has revealed himself to us. He says, worship the Lord
in the beauty of holiness. Now, I mentioned this last time,
but I want to remind you and remind myself of this here, let
me get my page separated, that when he says in verse two at
the end, he says, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. When it says the beauty of holiness
here, it's referring to a couple of things. First of all, God
alone is holy in himself. We know that from scripture.
There is none holy as the Lord. But it's also true that God's
holiness, His intrinsic holiness is always just His, but all of
His people are separated by His electing will, His eternal will. When it says in Jude 1.1 that
He has preserved us in Christ Jesus, God the Father did, He
sanctified and preserved us in Christ Jesus. This is the act
of God by which He set us apart, which means He made us holy in
that act. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
made his people holy when he shed his blood. By his blood,
we are made holy to God. And then, of course, because
Christ shed his blood and we have the righteousness of Christ
in him, therefore the Spirit of God is given to us and we're
given life. And so that we have a holy nature,
the Spirit of God in us or Christ in us, That life of Christ in
us is a holy life. So the believer is holy for those
three reasons. The God the Father who sanctified
us by giving us to Christ and setting us apart to have us as
his own and do that in Christ. And then Christ, by shedding
His blood, sanctified us with His precious blood. And then
the Spirit of God, applying the merits of Christ to us, gives
Himself to us in life and faith, so that we are set apart in our
heart. Remember in 2 Corinthians 3, it says that the Spirit of
God writes the gospel on our heart. So not with ink, not with
stone, but on the fleshy tables of our heart. And this is God,
the operation of God's Holy Spirit. And this results in our life,
spiritual life, our being born of God, we're created in Christ
Jesus, and we're called the children of God, we're set apart to God. So in that we see that God himself
is holy. We are made holy by the work
of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But what
I want to also point out here is this word holiness in this
verse when it says, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
It's a word that's often translated sanctuary in scripture. In the
Old Testament, I think about 86 times, this word is translated
as sanctuary. And that reminds us that God's
holiness in the Old Testament was seen in that sanctuary, that
place where the blood of the lamb or the goat was sprinkled
on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. That's the sanctuary. Where did God meet with his people
in the Old Testament? Well, it was in the tabernacle.
And what how what was the context of him meeting there in that
Old Testament Holy of Holies? Well, it was above the mercy
seat. The cherubim looked down upon that mercy seat. The high
priest once a year sprinkled the blood of the goat on the
mercy seat and God's glory appeared there. And that's where God met
with his people. But all of this is fulfilled
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the sanctuary was the place
where God's holiness was seen and the beauty of his holiness,
because that's where atonement for the sins of the people was
made. And it's meant to draw our attention to the fulfillment
of that Old Testament tabernacle, that Old Testament sanctuary,
that Old Testament sacrifice and high priest to our New Testament
sanctuary, sacrifice and high priest, which is the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is only in the Lord Jesus Christ that we can know
God in His perfections, and therefore only in the Lord Jesus Christ
that we can see His beauty and His holiness, because it is only
in the Lord Jesus Christ that our sins are forgiven for His
blood, because of His blood we're justified because of His blood,
reconciled to God, redeemed by His blood, our sins are remitted.
We have full redemption in His blood, propitiation to God has
been made in His blood. Everything is done by the blood
of Jesus, and that's where we see God in His holiness, in the
beauty of His holiness. All of God's perfections are
seen in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this verse is saying to
us here, give unto the Lord the glory that's due to his name.
All that God is, give him all the honor and glory and praise
for all that he is in all of his perfections and worship him
in the beauty of holiness. Worship him in the brightness
of the glory that shines from Christ and his sin atoning death,
as it says in Hebrews chapter one, verse three. When he had
by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of
the majesty on high. And that's where the glory of
God is seen. He's the brightness of God's glory because we see
God's bright glory, all of his perfections in Christ and him
crucified. Okay, so continuing on in verse
three, it says, the voice of the Lord. Now here's where it
began last week, and I wanted to draw your attention to this
again, the voice of the Lord, because this is used seven times
in this psalm, and we were in the process of going through
this last week. So let me remind you in verse
three, the voice of the Lord. Remember, we come across this
phrase, the voice of the Lord in the Garden of Eden for the
first time, when it says that the voice of the Lord walked
in the garden in the cool of the day, remember? And this was
after that Adam had sinned and he was hiding behind the trees
and he heard God's voice and he was afraid. But it was the
voice of the Lord that was heard there. And then we were also,
we considered the fact that the voice of Abel's blood cried to
God from the ground for vengeance against Cain. And that triggers
our memory to remember in Hebrews chapter 12 where God said that
the blood of Christ speaks better things than that of Abel. So
that the voice of the Lord is heard in the voice of Christ
in his shed blood. And that blood speaks better
things of Abel's blood because unlike Abel's blood that called
for vengeance, Christ's blood calls for reconciliation. And
so, Even though Christ was murdered by those like Cain, who were
religious, in man's religion, and even though we were guilty,
Christ's blood calls for our forgiveness, and His voice is
heard. Remember, He prayed in Luke 23, Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do. So then we began to consider
the fact that God's, it says throughout scripture, God's voice
is heard in many ways. Like for example, in that cave
where Elijah heard the still small voice. Now that was a voice
that spoke to Elijah, not in the crashing, breaking of the
rocks or in the whirlwind, but it was in a still, small voice.
Because the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us in his humility. He stoops to sinners and he speaks
to them in tender tones. And it reminded in Matthew 11,
28, where he says, come unto me, all you who labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So those words of Christ
are soft and tender. It's a still, small voice. It
speaks to us when we're in the greatest of need. And that doesn't
come to us like the crashing of threatening of the law. It comes to us in the truth and
the grace that's in Christ Jesus. He fulfilled all of God's truth
and God's grace is shed forth in its abundance because he laid
his life down to God for us. And that's the voice. So when
we look at the New Testament, we hear the voice of the Lord.
Remember the disciples and Jesus were in a boat on the sea and
the storm was raging and Jesus was asleep. His disciples were
terrified. They waked him out of his sleep.
He got up. He spoke to the wind and he spoke
to the waves, the voice of the Lord. And so what happened when
he spoke? It was calm. And so it is. The
voice of the Lord calms the waves and the wind. And then we know
that when Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb, that was the voice
of the Lord. The voice of the Son of God was
heard there. So throughout scripture, what
we see is that God always speaks in his Son. In these last days,
God has spoken to us in his Son. And he is called the Word of
God. So that the voice of the Lord is synonymous with the Lord
Jesus Christ speaking. And since he is the Son of God
and the Son of Man, he speaks with all of the authority of
God. And in John chapter 5, Jesus told the Pharisees there and
tells us also that God has given, the God the Father has given
him all authority even to execute judgment so that all men would
honor the Son even as they honor the Father. And then there was
that other verse in John chapter 5 when he continued speaking
to the same people, that same account in John chapter 5 that
I read to you last time, where Jesus said this about the voice
of the Lord. In John 5 and verse 24, he said,
Verily, verily, I say to you, he that hears my word and believeth
on him that sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death to life." That's power,
isn't it? That's the voice of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He speaks, we hear, And in hearing
and believing, it's evidence that we possess eternal life,
that he has spoken to us and raised us from death to life. We are not under condemnation
and shall not come under condemnation. He says in verse twenty five,
Verily, verily, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is
when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they
that hear shall live. That's the voice of the Lord,
isn't it? The dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and what happens? They live. And when is that? Well, the hour is coming, and
now is. So even then, when Jesus was
speaking, there were those who heard, those who were raised
from spiritual death to life. They heard the voice of the Son
of God. So with all of these now in the forefront of our mind,
going back to Psalm 29 and looking at the voice of the Lord, we
can now appreciate here what is being said, because the Old
Testament often speaks in In comparisons, it takes things
that are like a parable and uses those things to point us to the
more significant truth. It's a metaphor or a simile or
a parable. All those things are not synonyms,
but they teach us that God spoke in ways that were indirect. in
the Old Testament, especially also in the New, but mostly in
the Old Testament. He spoke in shadows. He spoke
in figures. He spoke in types. And all those
things were done to teach us a more glorious truth. And that's
what it means when it says in John 1, 17, that Jesus Christ,
by Jesus Christ came grace and truth and grace. Remember, the
law was given by Moses, but but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. The truth of what God had said
in the Old Testament is manifested in him and all of God's grace. So let's read this again now
in Psalm 29. He says in verse three, the voice
of the Lord is upon the waters. The voice, I'm sorry, the God
of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. Now, we can think about all the
cases where there is water on the earth, like in the flood,
for example, or the Red Sea, for example. And there's all
sorts of places where the water was given. But in Revelation
17 and verse 15, It says, the waters which thou
sawest where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and
nations and tongues. And this is what I think is being
spoken of here in Psalm 29 and verse 3. The voice of the Lord
is upon many waters, people and nations, and these different
places throughout all the earth where God's people are. God's
word, the voice of the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, His message,
which is the gospel, the power of our salvation, that voice
is sent into all the world. It comes to both Jews and Gentiles. It comes to the poor and to the
rich. It comes to the sick. It comes to the healthy. But
it finds all of them in the same condition as sinners And the
voice of the Lord here says is upon the waters, the God of glory
thundereth and the Lord is upon many waters. So we want to look
at this one a little bit. Let me see here. You get to the
place. So the point here I wanted to
make, first of all, is that when it says the voice of the Lord,
it is a reference to Christ speaking. The voice of the Lord is Christ
speaking, the Son of God speaking. He speaks to us, and everything
in this Psalm, if you see this, when it talks about the voice
of the Lord, things are accomplished when he speaks. Whatever God
wants done, he accomplishes by his word, the voice of the Lord. So that's the first thing we
see here. And the second thing we see here is that God's power
is made known in his voice. And then also it says in verse
It's full of majesty. So not only does God accomplish,
but He reveals Himself through this voice. And if this is the
voice, as I'm trying to direct this to scriptures that support
this, that the voice of the Lord is nothing less, nothing more
than the voice of the Son of God in our nature. speaking to
us from heaven, God speaking in him and by him, so that when
we hear his voice, we are made alive to salvation, that this
voice is the way God accomplishes his work, it's the way God reveals
himself, and this is his power, his great power. upon the many waters and upon
the thunder." I'm sorry, the voice of the Lord, it says in
verse three, the God of glory thundereth. Remember last time
we looked at that? Who is the God of glory? It's
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Lord of glory, the Prince
of life, the one who is, who rose from the dead and all of
his glory was made known when he ascended to heaven and took
his place at the right hand of God. And he from his throne in
heaven sends his gospel by his apostles and his preachers and
his voice is heard throughout the world. It comes upon the
many waters of the people in the world and it always accomplishes
his will. Remember Isaiah 55 and verse
11. Let me read that to you. In Isaiah
55, he says, that so shall my word be that
goeth forth out of my mouth, it shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it. So the rain falls,
in verse 10 of Isaiah 55, the rain falls from heaven, The snow
falls from heaven. It does not go back to heaven,
but waters the earth and brings forth fruit. And this is done
so that it might give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. And God compares that activity
in nature to a spiritual activity where God sends his word from
heaven and his word brings forth fruit. and it gives bread to
those who need it, just like Jesus did in Judea when he broke
the five loaves and two fishes and gave bread to all those people,
the 5,000 men plus women and children. So here the voice of
the Lord is on the waters, that's the people of the earth, The
gospel comes to them in power. The God of glory thundereth.
The Lord is upon many waters. And God's voice is compared to
thunder because of its power and because the sound of it goes
out. You can be inside a house, and
when it thunders, you're going to hear it. It doesn't take,
you can feel thunder. It's that powerful of a sound. And so that's the way God's word
is. It reminds us of Romans 1 16. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. That's the voice of the Lord.
And remember it said in 1 Corinthians 1, 23 and 24, we preach Christ
crucified to the Jews, a stumbling block, to the Greeks, foolishness,
but to them that are being saved, Christ, the wisdom of God and
the power of God. So this is the voice of the Lord.
It's the gospel. sent by Christ from His throne,
sent to arrest men and to give them life from the dead. This
is a very powerful word, and it directs sinners to Himself,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is all by the Spirit of God.
Let's go on in verse four. It says, the voice of the Lord
is powerful, the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. I've
already quoted 1 Corinthians 1, 23 and 24 about God's power
in his voice, and Romans 1, 16 about the power of the gospel,
being the power of God to salvation. We saw this when Jesus raised
Lazarus from the dead. He said, I am the resurrection
and the life. When speaking to Lazarus, Lazarus
rose up. He could not resist the power
of Christ's word. He had no power to raise himself.
He couldn't hear it physically. But the word that Christ sent
was contained the power in his word. He qualified Lazarus. It brought to him the life that
he didn't have. And that's the way the voice
of the Lord is. The Lord Jesus Christ brings everything to us
when he speaks. We don't somehow enable him to
speak to us. He speaks when we're not expecting
him. He speaks to us from his word
about his work and about his glory in that work, so that when
we hear it, we're arrested and we're caused to see our own filthy
rag righteousness, and see His glorious righteousness, and we're
made to trust Him. And so we're compelled and constrained
by the voice of the Lord. Not only are we made alive, but
we're compelled to follow Him. And that's the action of the
voice of the Lord. It's powerful. It gives life to the dead. It
causes sinners to submit to Him in His power, in trusting Him,
and they gladly own Him as their Lord. And then it goes on, it
says, the voice of the Lord, in verse five, the voice of the
Lord breaks the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars
of Lebanon. Now, it turns out that this comparison
to the voice of the Lord and the cedars is is also a spiritual
metaphor for what is happening here. Lebanon was a mountain,
and on that mountain was a forest. The forest was made up of these
cedar trees, and not just cedars, but cedars prominently. They
were the favored wood, the that what gave the mountain of Lebanon
this reputation of being so great. So it was a tall mountain. It
had snow on it all year. The snow fell and the water from
the melting snow, because the cedar trees were there and the
rest of the forest was there, that water ran down the mountain
and watered everything around it. And so scripture speaks of
this mountain as a high mountain. It speaks of the cedars as great
trees. And now it says here in this
verse that the Lord, the voice of the Lord, breaks the cedars.
Yea, the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. Now, In our natural
selves, we know that we are proud. In Judges chapter 9 and verse
15, let me read this to you. In Judges 9, you might remember
this, Gideon, who was used by God to overcome the Midianites,
that great company of Midianites. He routed them with 300 men who
were armed only with a trumpet and a lantern and a pot. They
kept the lantern in and they destroyed 120,000 in that battle. Just 300 men. It's phenomenal. Anyway, but in Judges chapter
9 and verse 15, what had happened
after Gideon won this battle, and after his time was up, one
of his sons, who was an evil man named, I think his name was
Abimelech. Yes, Abimelech. He thought to
be the only ruler in the land, so he tried to kill all of Gideon's
sons, and he almost succeeded. He killed all but one. And that
son spoke against Abimelech and against the men that made Abimelech
their king or their captain. And in his comparison to this,
he refers to him in chapter 9 and verse 15, Judges chapter 9 and
verse 15, it says, He's going on with his parable.
I'll read this to you. Maybe you've heard it before.
It says in chapter 9, in verse 7, when they told it to Jotham,
he went and stood in the top. Jotham was the last son, the
surviving son of Gideon. He went and he stood in the top
of Mount Gerizim. He lifted up his voice and he
cried and he said to them, hearken unto me, you men of Shechem. that God may hearken unto you."
Verse 8, Judges 9, verse 8, the trees, here's his comparison,
the trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them and
they said to the olive trees, reign thou over us. So these
are tall trees talking to these lower trees, these olive trees,
but the olive trees said to them, should I leave my fatness? Wherewith,
by me, they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the
trees. So the olive trees, in his analogy here, said, no, we're
not going to reign over you like a king. And so the trees said
to the fig tree, come thou and reign over us. But the fig tree
said to them, should I forsake my sweetness and my good fruit
and go to be promoted over the trees? No. And then said the trees to the
vine, come thou and reign over us. And the vine said to them,
should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go
to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees to the
bramble. Now the trees are tall. Proud, strong, and yet they're
seeking for a ruler over them. And Jotham is comparing this
to these men who made Abimelech, this scumbag, their leader. He says, so the trees went to
the bramble. And the trees said to the bramble, come thou and
reign over us. And the bramble said to them, the trees, if in
truth you anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust
in my shadow. And if not, let fire come out
of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon. So you see
that phrase, the cedars of Lebanon? That connects this concept here
in Judges 9 and verse 15 back to Psalm 29, where it says, the
Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. In the context of Judges 9, what
we see is that the cedars of Lebanon represented the rulers.
in that day, who trusted in Abimelech, who was a wicked man, and therefore
he was compared to a bramble, a thorn bush, and they came to
put their trust in him. But it was said in the prophecy
here that the fire would come out of them and consume, the
fire would come out of the bramble, meaning Abimelech, and consume
the cedars of Lebanon. And so we see that the cedars
of Lebanon would be brought down for their foolishness and their
wickedness and their idolatry entrusting this man of Bimelech
who had slaughtered, killed 69 of the 70 sons of Gideon. So I say all that to help you
understand that the Cedars of Lebanon here in Psalm 29 represents
the breaking down of those who are proud in their own esteem,
their own self-worth. They think they're great. But
also it's the case that God, the people of God are also called
Cedars of Lebanon. In 2 Kings, in chapter 19, let
me look this up for you, in 2 Kings, And chapter 19, just so you get the full picture
here of what's being said, 2 Kings chapter 19 and verse 23, it says,
by thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord and has said with a
multitude of my chariots, I am come up to the height of the
mountains to the sides of Lebanon, and I will cut down the tall
cedar trees thereof and the choice fir trees thereof, and I will
enter into the lodgings of his borders and into the forest of
his Carmel. Now, this is a prophecy of a
wicked man, Sennacherib, who is speaking against the people
of Judah, really, where Hezekiah was king, and they're trying
to, in their speaking against Hezekiah and the Lord, they're
trying to put, instill fear in the hearts of the people of the
land of Judah. And so he threatens them, and
God is summarizing this, that he said this when he spoke to
them, that he would cut down the tall cedar trees thereof,
of Lebanon. But what were the tall trees
being, what did they represent in what is being said here? What
did the man, Sennacherib, send this message threatening to cut
down the tall cedar trees of Lebanon, what was he saying in
that message, in that comparison? Well, he was saying that he was
going to cut down the men of Judah who were compared to the
people of God, who were compared to the tall cedar trees of Lebanon. But he didn't. Sennacherib was
defeated. God turned him away and destroyed
his army. But the point here is that both
these proud men in the Book of Judges and these men in Judah,
who were the people of God that God spared through his mercy,
both were compared to the cedar trees of Lebanon. And we see
that the cedar trees of Lebanon represent this strength that
men have as rulers, this position, the high stature they have in
their natural place as rulers over the people. But we also
see that God compares his people to the cedars of Lebanon. And we also know that Solomon
built the temple. Remember Solomon's temple? He
built that temple out of cedar, which was brought from the mountain
of Lebanon. So those cedar trees were from
there as well. So when you put all this together,
what we see here in Psalm 29, it says, the voice of the Lord
breaks the cedars, yea, the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
What we see is that the Lord is saying here that when the
voice of the Lord, the Son of God in the gospel comes to his
people, it's like God's voice breaking the cedars of Lebanon
or Yeah, breaking the cedars, the
cedars of Lebanon. And how does that happen? Well,
you know what cedars are. They're big, tall trees. These
big trees in this forest of Lebanon were renowned for their size
and their height. And so, the voice of the Lord
is Christ in the gospel, coming and humbling proud man. And just
like in the forest of Lebanon, you see these tall trees, they
were huge and strong and powerful and they didn't move. But what
made them move? What caused these cedar trees
to move? Well, in the Psalm 29, it's the
voice of the Lord, but in nature, what caused them to move? Well,
it was the wind, wasn't it? The wind blows, and the trees
sway in the wind. And when the wind blows strong
enough, what happens? It breaks the cedars. And so,
I think it's in Isaiah. I probably got the wrong reference
here. Let me see if I can put my finger
on it. This is frustrating if I don't,
because I wanted to point this out to you. It's not Isaiah 55. I think it's... Oh man, I... Oh, maybe let's
see. Maybe I put it in my notes here. Well, I'm frustrated with myself
because I didn't write it down, but... It's, oh here it is, it
is in Isaiah 55, nevermind, I'll get to it. First let me mention
a couple more verses here to strengthen the understanding
of what we're looking at here. In Psalm chapter 92 it says this,
the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, he shall
grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Okay, so here again, the righteous
are compared to the cedars of Lebanon. And then in Psalm 104,
verse 16, it says, the trees of the Lord are full of sap,
the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted. Again, this
forest of Lebanon is compared to the cedars of Lebanon, and
God's people are compared to that. And then also, in Song
of Solomon, it's speaking about the husband. It says this about
him, his legs are as pillars of marble set upon sockets of
fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon,
excellent as the cedars. And this is Song of Solomon,
chapter 5, verse 15. So the righteous are compared
to the cedars of Lebanon and Christ himself is compared to
the cedars of Lebanon. His countenance is as Lebanon.
This mountain was considered a high and prominent mountain
for two reasons. In the negative, man's pride,
who thought he was something to boast in, and then actually
Christ, who is truly something to be boasted in, and God's people
are in him, so they are also considered so excellent as the
cedars of Lebanon. But the wicked also and judges
were compared to the cedars because of their idolatrous false religion
that boasted in their works, and God had to discover their
true character. And so it says in Amos chapter
2 and verse 9, Yet the Lord destroyed the Amorite before them, whose
height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong
as the oaks. Yet I destroyed his fruit from
above and his roots from beneath." So God humbled the pride of an
idolatrous people who were opposed to his people. Now, I say all
this because I'm trying to get to Isaiah 55, because you can't
move these cedars. Go ahead. You know, you've gone
to a forest where you've seen these trees are huge. You put
your hands against them and push with all your might. They don't
budge. These trees are massive. We used to live in the redwoods,
and redwood trees get up to 300 plus feet, and they're huge,
they're monstrous. They move in the breeze, but
you don't see it much. That size of a tree, you don't
feel it moving at the base. It seems immovable. But what
we do know is that the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars.
And we know that in nature, the wind is that which bends the
cedars, and it does this to them. In Isaiah 55, In verse 11, again,
where I had read before, it says, So shall my word be that goes
forth out of my mouth. It shall not return to me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please. Here's the voice
of the Lord. And it shall prosper in the thing where to I sent
it, for you shall go out with joy. And what is this describing? Going out with joy and be led
forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall
break forth before you into singing and all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands. I remember the first time I read
this scripture I was about 17 years old working on the railroad
driving back and forth and I read that and I got out of my car
and I looked at the trees and I thought The trees are clapping
their hands for me. I had no idea what this verse
was talking about. But what we see here in connection
with Psalm 29 is that just like in the forest, when the wind
blows the trees, what happens? Will their branches sway about?
The tree itself moves about. and these branches are brushing
together like men going forth with joy, clapping their hands."
You see the comparison here? So what causes these cedars to
move? These great cedars, these prominent
trees of great stature, what causes them to move? the wind
does, okay? In Psalm 29, the next verse says,
in verse 6, he maketh him also, these cedars of Lebanon that
break, but the voice of the Lord, he makes them also to skip like
a calf, Lebanon and Syrian like a young unicorn. So here we see
not only are the cedars of Lebanon, these massive trees which didn't
move until a strong wind came and blew them, and God's voice
was compared to that wind that was strong enough even to break
the cedars of Lebanon. Okay, but here he's saying not
only that, he makes the calf, the mountain of Lebanon and Syrian
to skip like a calf. And the word skip here is like
dancing about. So now the mountain itself is
dancing about because of the voice of the Lord. Okay, so it's
like a frisky young calf in a pasture jumping about, leaping, kicking
up his heels. And that's what the mountains
of these strong cedar trees are compared to. The cedars are moving,
the mountain itself is moving. It's like they're all dancing
together. And like Isaiah 55, when God's voice comes down,
then you will go forth with joy and you would the mountains shall
and the hills will break forth in singing before you and the
trees of the field to clap their hands. This is the same verse,
isn't it? It's explaining to us what Psalm
29, verse five and six mean. What is it? What is it that it
means? Well, it means that what naturally doesn't move by itself,
it can't move, it's fixed. In fact, that's the beauty of
the cedars of the mountain is it's just fixed there. That which
doesn't naturally move by itself is moved by the voice of the
Lord, the voice of Christ. The gospel moves what has no
spiritual movement in itself. And what is that spiritual movement
that the gospel causes men who are naturally proud to do and
in doing reveal them to be the true cedars of Lebanon? Well,
it's the gospel when it comes to us in power. It causes us
to come in spiritual movement to Christ, doesn't it? That's
what the wind of the Spirit does. He directs us to Christ crucified,
like Jesus did to Nicodemus. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up
that whosoever believeth in Him, looking to Christ, not the serpent
on the pole, but Christ on the cross, should not perish but
have eternal life. That's the effect of the wind
of the Spirit. You must be born of what? Water
and fire. the spirit, or water and the
wind. That's what it says in John chapter three. Unless you're
born of the water and the wind, or the word, the gospel, and
the spirit of God, you cannot see the kingdom of God. And so
here we see described in Psalm 29 the effect of Christ's word
from heaven coming to sinners, his people, through the gospel
of their salvation, attended with the wind or the spirit of
God through the preaching of the gospel. And like the proud
cedars of Lebanon, they're humbled, but at the same time, they're
made to go forth with joy and clap their hands as the wind
makes the cedar trees dance about in the forest and the hill, the
mountain of Lebanon, jump around like a dancing little calf. That's
the spiritual movement. It's that joy that comes from
hearing the gospel of what Christ has done and in self-abasement
giving all honor and glory to him. And there's an excellent
example of this in the book of, let me direct you to it, in the
book of 2 Samuel. The story is long, but you probably
remember some of it. Remember, the Ark had been away
a long time, a long time. And David, when he came to be
anointed king, he wanted to bring the Ark back. And so he sent
for that ark to be brought back. And at first, what the men did
is they put the ark on an ox cart, and they put an ox, or
maybe two oxen, I can't remember which, to drag the cart and to
pull the ark in. And so there was a couple guys
standing beside the ox cart. One of them's name was Uzzah.
The ark started to tip. Uzzah put his hand out to steady
the ark, and immediately God killed Uzzah. And that frightened
David. It made him, he was greatly displeased.
And he didn't know what to do because he couldn't bring the
ark back. And so it stayed there for another
three months. And then finally, David correctly
had the priest carry the ark back like God had told them in
the book of Moses. in the law of Moses. And so when
the priest began to bring the ark back, this is the count in
2 Samuel, and I'm going to read it to you in 2 Samuel chapter
6. Listen to these words here and compare this now to what
we saw in Psalm 29 about the voice of the Lord breaking the
cedars of Lebanon and making the mountain to dance. He says,
And it was so that when they that bear the ark of the Lord
had gone six paces, now the priests are carrying the ark, they had
only gone six paces, that David sacrificed oxen and fatlings.
And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David
was girded with a linen ephod. He was just dressed as an ordinary
man. In fact, he was dressed like
a priest without his garments on. He had no glorious garments
at all. So David and all the house of
Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with
the sound of a trumpet. And as the ark of the Lord came
into the city of David, Michal, or Michael, Saul's daughter looked
through the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before
the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. This was David's
first wife, Saul gave her. King Saul gave her to David,
would have made him Saul's son-in-law, or did make him his son-in-law,
son-in-law to a king. But Michal was not a faithful
wife. She despised David when she saw
him dancing and leaping before the ark of the Lord. And so it
says in verse 17, And they brought in the ark of the Lord. They
set it in his place in the midst of the tabernacle that David
had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace
offerings before the Lord. And as soon as David had made
an end of burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the
people in the name of the Lord of hosts. And he dealt among
all the people, even among all the whole multitude of Israel,
as well to the women as men, to everyone a cake of bread,
a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine. It didn't matter if
you're a man or woman, David gave you something, food, bread,
meat, and wine. So all the people, and that speaks
highly of the Lord Jesus Christ, he gives to all of his people
his flesh and blood as their meat and drink. But anyway, so
all the people departed, everyone to his house, and then David
returned to bless his household, and Michael, the daughter of
Saul, came out to meet David, and she said, sneeringly, I think. How glorious was the king of
Israel today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaidens
of his servants. So his servants had daughters. So these were the very poorest
of the people who were the servants to David. And they're daughters. They're the handmaidens of his
servants. David danced before the Lord.
And they saw it. And this made Michael angry because
it made David look very small and ordinary and like some kind
of a man out of control in front of the ark when he was supposed
to be the king in all of his majesty. And so she said to him,
how glorious were you today in the eyes of the handmaidens of
your service. You uncovered yourself before
them as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovers himself.
And David said to Michael, listen to this. It was before the Lord
which chose me before thy father and before all his house to appoint
me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore,
will I will I play before the Lord and I will be yet more vile
than thus, and I will be base. in my own sight, and of the maidservants
which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour."
What is being said here? David, as a believer, was happy
to be abased because the Ark of the Lord, which represented
Christ and Him crucified, was being brought back to the temple
where David had set up a place for the Ark. He was so happy
that God would bring the manifest work of Christ into the midst
of Israel. that he took off everything except
just that linen ephod and he played before the Lord. He danced
with all of his might to show that he was so joyful, so happy
that God had chosen him, that God had accepted him, and all
because of God's grace and on the basis of what God would do
in the Lord Jesus Christ as represented by the Ark of the Covenant here,
pointing to Christ who would fulfill the old covenant in the
new covenant. OK, so now when we read in Psalm
twenty nine about the voice of the Lord breaking the cedars
of Lebanon, bringing men down in their pride, and then also
the voice of the Lord making the mountains and skip or dance
like a young calf or a unicorn. We see here that the gospel comes
from Christ on his throne to his people. It brings them down
in their own eyes. It makes Christ and him crucified
glorious so that they don't care what it costs them in the eyes
of the world. They're going to trust Christ
no matter what, even if it makes them look like one of the vain
fellows who uncovers himself. Yes, I'm a sinner. And I have
nothing but what God has done for me in Christ. He chose me.
He redeemed me. He gave me this blessing. And
David was like one of us. And he gave everyone a piece
of bread, a piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine to show that
this blessing that God had given him was the same blessing they
would be blessed with. This is grace. This is the gospel.
Okay? So when you see that there, hopefully
we can get some faint view of the beauty of the gospel. And throughout this psalm, we're
seeing this, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. And
the next verse, it says, We've already mentioned this, that
the voice of the Lord was full of majesty, the beauty of holiness,
the majesty of God, the power of God, His ability to bring
down and to lift up His people. That's what His voice does. It
humbles the idolatrous false religion of men, men and their
unbelief. It breaks His people down so
that they see Christ and Him as being all glorious. And they
don't care if they're humbled in the process because all they
want is for him to have all the glory. Then it goes on in verse
7, the voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire. I think that's
the next verse. Yes, it divides the flames of
fire. Now, we know what fire does.
Fire burns things up. It consumes things, doesn't it? But there's a time when fire
comes and it doesn't consume. There's a time for fire to consume
and then there's a time for fire to not consume. Just like in
Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there's a time for everything under the
sun. When did the fire consume? Well, the fire will consume on
the last day, all outside of Christ. And we know that the
fire of God's wrath was poured out on Christ. And even though
in the Old Testament the offerings were burnt up, Christ was not
burnt up. That fire was fully expended
on him so that he rose from the dead. And then, because of that,
the fire of God will not come upon his people. Remember Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego? Nebuchadnezzar commanded everyone
to bow down to his golden idol that stood, I can't remember
how high, really tall. And everyone bowed down, not
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And he threatened them. And he
said, well, you know, we're not going to bow down. Our God is
able to deliver us. But if he doesn't, we're not
going to bow down to your idol. And so he heated up the furnace.
And he had the strong men cast them in. Strong men fell down
dead. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fell down. I mean, they
were thrown into the fiery furnace. And then Nebuchadnezzar was astonished
out of disproportionately astonished, more than he ever expected to
be. And here's Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, not only in the
fiery furnace alive, but walking around in there as comfortable
as if there was no fire, and there was a fourth with them,
the one who was like the Son of God. And Nebuchadnezzar called
to them, and they came out, and there was not even the smell
of fire on their clothes or their hats or anything. The effects
of the fire had no effect upon them. And so here we see the
voice of the Lord divided the flames of fire. He divides the
flames of fire. In Isaiah, Isaiah 43, he says
in Isaiah 43, Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not. For I have redeemed
thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. And then he says,
when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.
Through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. And 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
Holy One of Israel, thy Savior." And he goes on and talks about
how precious they were. This is speaking about God's
view of his elect, his promises to them. God has called them. They're His. He redeemed them.
He called them by their name. He called them in the gospel
by His Spirit to faith in Christ. Nothing is going to happen to
them. The floods, God will be with them in the flood. The fire,
God will bring them through the fire. It won't touch them. And
so the voice of the Lord, again, divides the flames of fire. It
separates the wheat from the chaff. It brings those through
the fire that God has chosen and redeemed in Christ, and it
leaves those to the fire who are left in their own sin. They
receive from the Lord what they wanted. They want to get what
they've deserved, and God will give them what they deserve.
Okay? I want you to see here, the next
time we meet, I'll close with this, the last three verses of
this chapter, the voice of the Lord. What a powerful voice. What a voice of majesty. What
a voice of revelation. This voice is revealing. This
voice is all powerful. It gives life. It brings down
and it raises up and it causes those who were proud in themselves
to be humbled and to be glad they're humbled and want Christ
to get all the glory. And I was thinking about this
today as I was preparing for this study again. If you think
about God's glory, because it says in the first verse here,
give him the glory due to his name, thinking about God's glory.
If there's anything about which we try to seek glory, and we
do in our sinfulness, don't we? There's times when you want others
to recognize you for this, that, or the other thing. You shouldn't. I shouldn't. None of us should.
We have nothing to boast in. But we do in our sinful pride.
But if there's anything that we seek glory for ourselves in,
what is that saying? It's saying that thing we're
taking credit for. That thing we did it or we are
that. We think we deserve something
from God for it. But in doing that, in seeking
our own glory for that thing, what we're really saying is that
that part of our salvation is our own doing. But the opposite
is true when God convinces us in the gospel of our salvation
in Christ. We want Christ to save us all
by himself and to the uttermost because we know by God's work
in our heart that we cannot save ourselves. We're helpless against
our own sin, helpless against the judgment of God and the wrath
of God. And so we don't want to be commanded to depart from
Christ. We don't want to live our lives
without knowing Christ. We want to know Him and trust
Him. We want to love Him. And we want all these things,
and yet we have this awareness that we cannot do one thing.
And so we come to the settled persuasion that God in Christ
deserves all of the glory, because if He doesn't get it all, if
He doesn't deserve it all, then something is left for us to do,
and we do not want that. God has convinced us we do not
want that. We want to see Christ alone glorified. He's the only one who can save
us, and that's why we are so intent on making sure in our
lives that He gets all the glory. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
the Lord Jesus, our Savior, the Son of God, the eternal Son of
God, would get all the glory in our salvation, and we would
be given grace to trust Him in everything. And we ask that you
be with Barbara Lowe also, Lord. We think about her, we think
about the physical trouble she's going through and how she's separate
from the brethren, from the church, and she can't go see them. And
we feel her pain and the despondency that she must feel because of
these things. We ask, Lord, that you would strengthen her faith
and give her grace to endure all these things, looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ and finding all comfort and assurance in
his precious blood not trusting anything in ourselves because
life is so fleeting and our bodies are so weak and full of sin. We know you have to change these
bodies. They have to go into the grave
and we have to be made like Christ, not only in our soul, but in
our body. And so we thank you, Lord, and
ask you to be with her. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.