Okay, Psalm 29. We're going to
read through this psalm. And I want you to notice, you
will obviously notice this as we read through this, that God
in this psalm has given a repetition of a phrase in here. And you'll
see that repeated from verses three through nine, seven times. So I want to look at that. And
also in that phrase is the voice of the Lord. And then also in
the beginning of the psalm where it says, give unto the Lord.
So we want to look at those things, giving unto the Lord and the
voice of the Lord. And then finally at the end where
it describes the Lord's sovereignty. In verse 10, the Lord sits on
the flood and he sits as king forever and he will give strength
to his people and will bless his people with peace. So let's
look at this. We'll read through it first and then we'll go through
it verse by verse. Psalm 29, verse one. Give unto the Lord,
O ye mighty. Give unto the Lord glory and
strength. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. The voice of the Lord is upon
the waters. The voice of, I'm sorry, the
God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the
Lord breaketh the cedars, yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars
of Lebanon. He maketh him also to skip like
a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice of
the Lord divideth the flames of fire, The voice of the Lord
shaketh the wilderness, the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord maketh
the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests, and in His temple
doth everyone speak of His glory. The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. The Lord will give strength unto
his people. The Lord will bless his people
with peace. And there we have Psalm chapter
29. Let's begin with verse one. Give,
it says, give unto the Lord, O ye mighty. Give unto the Lord
glory and strength. Now the word give here, does
not mean that we are to give God something that He doesn't
have. There's nothing that God doesn't
have. All of creation was made by Him, therefore it is His,
and so there's nothing we can give Him. But what it means is
to ascribe to Him. Webster, in his 1828 version
of the dictionary, which is really the one I like to use above all
others, it says that this word here, ascribe, means to attribute
as a quality as to ascribe perfection to God or imperfection to man. And here's three verses that
Webster gives as a reference. He says in Job 36 verse 3, I
will fetch my knowledge from afar and I will ascribe righteousness
to my maker." Now clearly, Job is not saying he's going to give
righteousness to God, his maker, but he's going to attribute to
him, he's going to credit God with righteousness. Then also
in Psalm 68, 34, it says, Ascribe ye strength unto God. His excellency
is over Israel and his strength is in the clouds. So strength,
again, belongs to God. As this verse says, ascribe strength
to God. Therefore, we can't give strength
to God. He has all power. He's called
the Almighty in scripture. And men have become accustomed
to refer to him by that name, the Almighty. And so we can't
give strength to God. He gives strength to us, but
we attribute all strength as being his. And then in 1 Samuel
18, it says, concerning ascribing something to men. Saul was very
wroth, and the saying displeased him. And he said, they have ascribed
unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but
thousands, and what can he have more but the kingdom? So the
women of Israel were singing in their praises that Saul had
killed his thousands, but David had killed his 10,000, and so
that made King Saul very jealous and angry, and he decided to
kill David because of that. But they didn't give, they didn't
make Saul kill the thousand or David the ten thousand, they
just ascribed it to him. So this is what it means here,
to give unto the Lord, it means to ascribe it to him. It means
we give credit to God for these things. We can't give the Lord
anything, all we have comes from him. For example, our life comes
from him. and our faith comes from Him,
and all of our worship. We can't even worship God unless
He gives us this gift of grace to worship Him, and our repentance
comes from God. So therefore, we can sum it all
up that all that we have comes from Him. That's true in creation,
that's true in providence, everyday affairs of our life, it's most
certainly true in all of our salvation. All must be given all must be given to us by God,
and we can only give what is already His. Let me read to you
from 1 Chronicles 29. It says, Thine, O Lord, I love
this text of Scripture. It's a prayer. I believe it was
of either Solomon or David, and I can't remember which one right
now, but you'll see the context. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness
and the power. So God, he's ascribing in his
prayer greatness and power to God. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness
and the power and the glory. and the victory and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven
and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and thou art exalted as head above all." So clearly, this
is ascribing, this is giving glory to God, isn't it? And continuing
on in 1 Chronicles 29, verse 12, it says, both riches and
honor come of thee. So if we have something that
we call riches, that's God's gift to us. If we have honor,
like a king would have honor, that's also God's gift. He says,
and thou reignest over all, and in thine hand is power and might,
and in thine hand is to make great and to give strength unto
all. So it's all entirely in God's sovereign will to give
either honor or riches or to make great or to give strength.
He says in verse 13, now therefore, our God, we thank thee and praise
thy glorious name. God's name is who he is. We praise
God for who he is. He says, but who am I and what
is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after
this sort? For all things come of thee,
and of thine own have we given thee. So here he acknowledges
that whatever they're giving to God now came first from God
to them. For we are strangers before thee
and sojourners. So clearly, we didn't have anything
when you called us as your own. We're just strangers and sojourners.
We have nothing in this world but you. were strangers and sojourners
before thee, as were all our fathers, and all our days on
the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." No man
can live much longer, no longer than God's appointed time for
him. So our life is in God's hands. Everything we have is
in God's hands. And that's an example of the
providence of God giving us all things, but also it's an example
of the salvation in God. Everything comes from him. But
because everything comes from Him, we might think that therefore
our sin also comes from God, but that would not be the case.
Sin is our doing. Even though God, in His will,
uses our sin to His glory, it doesn't come from God, because
God cannot be tempted by sin, and He doesn't tempt any man
with sin, according to James. So Job said this, look to the
heavens and see, in Job 35, he says, look unto the heavens and
see, and behold the clouds which are higher than thou, Now, this
is Job instructing a man. He says, the clouds are higher
than you are. If thou sinnest, what doest thou
against him? Or if thy transgressions be multiplied,
what doest thou to him? If thou be righteous, what givest
thou him? Or what receiveth he of thine
hand? Thy wickedness may hurt a man, as thou art, and thy righteousness
may profit the son of man. So nothing that we do can hurt
God, and nothing that we do can benefit God. God is above all. He gives life and breath to all
things. So when we talk about ascribing
to our Maker, ascribing to our God, in this first verse, we
give to the Lord, it says, everything. We give Him everything. We ascribe
all honor and glory and blessing and power and victory. and everything
in heaven and everything in earth and under the earth belongs to
the Lord our God. Now, what comfort is that? If
the Lord is the one who possesses all things, if he made them and
he possesses them and he made them for his glory, then clearly
he rules over all and he will use all that is his for his glory. And that's what it says in Colossians
1 16, where it says of Jesus Christ, the son of God, that
all things were made by him and for him and he is above all things. So this is true of God and is
true of God in Christ. God made all things by Jesus
Christ according to Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 9. So that's
the first thing I want to point out here about verse 1 is that
to give to God is not to give him something that we have that
he doesn't have. It's to only give back what He's
given us, and primarily it's simply to ascribe to God what
belongs to Him in His own person and in His own works. Whatever
God does is glorious and gives Him glory, and whoever God is,
whatever God is in His character, in His name, and all of his attributes
brings glory to God. Everything about God brings glory
to himself, and nothing detracts from his glory that is of God. It all serves to highlight his
person and character. So therefore, we must appropriately
or rightly credit God with what is His alone. All glory and strength
belong to Him and all strength that we have is from Him. Therefore,
all glory is due to Him. Now, if we think about this for
a little bit, and we're going to get into this a little bit
later, Since our salvation is all His doing, therefore we are
happy as believers to give Him all of the glory." Because if
we didn't credit God with everything in our salvation, what would
that implication be? It would mean that something
about our salvation, and therefore our damnation, hung in the balance
based on what we do or what we are. And that cannot be if we're
going to be saved. It must all be entirely of grace. Otherwise, we're doomed. And
so the child of God is happy to give all glory to the Lord
Jesus Christ and to God the Father and to the Holy Spirit in their
salvation because it's due to them. And without that being
the case, then they would have no hope. We are beggars. We have
nothing. Nothing that is our own. We are
not only beggars, but we are debtors. Think about that. We owe God. We owe everything
to God. And this is not only true in
creation and in providence in our daily lives, but it's most
especially true infinitely more in our salvation. And how deep
the significance of these statements from scripture. Listen to this
in Luke chapter seven, verse 47. These two debtors, one owing,
I think, 50 pence and another 500, 10 times more, when they
both had nothing to pay, their creditor, the one they were indebted
to, frankly forgave them both. Now, isn't that amazing? Now,
this describes our case. We are not only beggars, but
we are debtors to God because of our sins. We owe him our life.
and we're beggars, we can't motivate or influence him to give us something
out of what we've earned or what he owes to us. We're entirely
beggars, but worse than that, we're debtors because we've forfeited
the very gifts that he's given us, the very light that he's
given us, we've suppressed it. and we've sinned against God,
and so that has made us a debtor. We are criminals of God's law
and of his court, and therefore we have a debt, and that debt
can only be paid if the one we owe, our creditor, who is God
himself, forgives us, frankly, without any contribution from
us. And so I wanted to point that
out because This is the way our relationship with God is as believers,
and as everybody, especially believers, because of the debt
that we've been forgiven by God for Christ's sake. And therefore,
when we sing this psalm, or speak it here in reading it, it says, give unto the Lord the glory,
I'm sorry, glory and strength, give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. So we therefore can join this
wholeheartedly, can't we? If salvation is all his doing
and our life He is our maker, we didn't make ourselves, the
Lord made us and he made us for his glory and we owe him our
life and we're beggars and debtors and he has forgiven us this infinite
debt at the cost, the price of his own son. Now, can we give
God the glory? Can we ascribe to him all of
the glory and strength in our salvation and in our life? Every
breath we take, every beat of our heart, every thought of our
mind is enabled by him. If he didn't actively think about
us and uphold us in our existence, no one would ever know we ever
existed and we would cease to be forever. There would be no
record of it unless God in his mind kept us. But He does. This is God. And this is infinitely
true, infinitely more true of God, our Savior. And so we must
give unto the Lord. And then it says here, give unto
the Lord, O ye mighty. Now, who are the mighty? Well,
we in ourselves are weak. We have no strength. When we
were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. We have
no strength. And yet, when God speaks of his
people, he speaks of them as his children. And who is the
one who is the Almighty, but God our Father? Therefore we
are the sons of the Mighty, aren't we? We're the sons of the Almighty. We're the sons of the Almighty
by Jesus Christ. He shed His blood. He adopted,
God the Father adopted us. Jesus Christ purchased us by
His blood and gave us His Spirit that we might know God as our
Father. Therefore, we're called the sons of the mighty, or the
sons of God, who is the almighty. And therefore, it's to the sons
of God that God here speaks, given to the Lord, O you, you
could say, sons of God, you mighty, given to the Lord, glory and
strength. We're not mighty in ourselves. Our strength is the
Lord. But because the Lord is our strength,
then we are mighty, aren't we? We're mighty in Christ. We can
do all things through Christ, which strengthens us. And we'll
see what that means a little bit more later here. So he starts
the psalm this way. Give to God his due. Give to
him, credit him with all that is true about him. And how do
we know that? Because he's told us in scripture.
And how do we feel it? What has endeared Him to us? Isn't it in the forgiveness of
our sins and our salvation by Jesus Christ? We love Him, for
what reason? Because He first loved us. We
have known and believed the love that God has to us. in 1 John
chapter 4. So all these things are revealed
to us by God himself, therefore we ascribe to the Lord, we credit
him, we appropriate, we impute to him all that is true according
to his word concerning his own person and character, concerning
his works, concerning his person and character revealed in the
work of our salvation. And so therefore, he goes on
in verse two. Give unto the Lord the glory
due to his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. Now God's name is, as I said
a minute ago, is just a handle for who God is. It's all that
God is. When you speak of his name, you're
talking about everything about God, his character, his attributes,
his person. But also his name, his person,
and his attributes are revealed in what he does. Proverbs says
that even a child is known by his doing and certainly much
more the God of all of our salvation is known by his doing. Isn't
he? We know him because of what he
has done for us. That's the reason we love him
and we wouldn't love him if we didn't know him. So we can only
know God by what he said concerning his work for us and that work
was a work of love and grace. I want to read to you this verse
here about what is due to his name. Look at Revelation chapter
5. We talk about the name of God
and what is due to him. This text of scripture comes
to my mind, and this is a segue into the next part anyway, so
I wanted to read this with you. In Revelation chapter 5, it's
familiar. There was a scene in heaven,
the Apostle John is given a view of that scene, and what he sees
is a book sealed with seven seals, and no one was worthy to open
the book. Let's read it, Revelation chapter
5. And I saw in the right hand of
him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the back
side sealed with seven seals. Now this represents the will
of God, the everlasting will of God, the Father. of God the
Triune God, really, not just the Father, but especially the
Father, but in general, it's the will of God. God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit are not excluded from that will, but
it's focusing on God on his throne, the Almighty, the All-Sovereign
God. if all is even needed as an adjective
when you use sovereign, but it helps us to realize that God
is sovereign over all. So here we have this book, the
will of God hidden, the will of God yet to be revealed. And
how is that book going to be open? How is it going to be revealed?
More importantly, how will it be fulfilled? So he says in verse
two, John said, and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud
voice, Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals
thereof? So here you can hear the proclamation
echoing, reverberating across heaven and earth and under the
earth. Who is worthy? And no man in heaven, nor in
earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither
to look thereon. There wasn't a man. Not the saints
in heaven, not the saints on earth, and certainly not the
ungodly under the earth. No one was found worthy to open
this book or to look on it. Anne. Hey, honey. Would you go
ask Faith to close her door, please? And then in verse 4,
and I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and
to read the book, neither to look thereon. So the Apostle
John is thinking, how in the world, what are we going to do
if the mind and will of God cannot be revealed, if there's no one
worthy? In verse 5, and one of the elders, this would be one
of those who was already in glory, saith to me, weep not. Behold,
the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed
to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. The
lion means the one who has all strength, and the root of David
means he's the king, the son of David, and he has prevailed,
he's overcome, the enemy to open the book and to loose the seven
seals thereof. So this is one who is worthy. He goes on. And I beheld and
lo in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts and in
the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain. He looked He saw the lion of
the tribe of Judah, but when he looked, he saw a lamb as it
had been slain. This is how he was worthy in
his work. He was worthy in his person,
but we see him worthy in his work. He says, having seven horns
and seven eyes, this is the lamb, seven horns, meaning he has all
strength, the perfection of strength, and seven eyes, which are the
seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. So who sends
the spirits? The Spirit of God, the Lamb of
God, the one who overcame and accomplished our salvation. And
verse seven, and he came, the Lamb came, and took the book
out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. He
took it out of the hand of God the Father. He took it. He was
able, he was worthy to approach God the Father and to take the
book out of his hand, to take his will and reveal it and do
it. Verse 8, And when he had taken
the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down
before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden
vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints. So
we see the prayers of the saints represented by these harps and
golden vials. And verse nine, and they sung
a new song saying, thou art worthy to take the book and to open
the seals thereof for thou was slain and has redeemed us to
God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people
and nation. So the Lamb has redeemed His
people, and they are those who are in heaven, and they're singing
the song of the redeemed, and they're out of every kindred
tongue, people, and nation on earth, not just the Jews, but
throughout the world. And they go on in their song,
and thou hast made us unto our gods, kings and priests, and
we shall reign on the earth. There you have it, the sons of
the mighty. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels
round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders, and the
number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands
of thousands, millions. 10,000 times 10,000, that's a
lot. That's like 100 million, I think. and thousands of thousands, millions,
so hundreds of millions, saying with a loud voice, worthy is
the lamb that was slain to receive power. Who is worthy? The lamb. Why is he worthy? Because he
is the son of God and he's the son of man and he was slain,
he accomplished the will of God. Also, because this is what's
ascribed to him, this is what's given to him in their praise,
he's worthy to receive power, he has all power, riches, everything
is his, Wisdom. He has all wisdom. The wisdom
of God. Strength. Honor, and glory, and
blessing, everything is put in his hands. Do you see it? The
Lamb that was slain. And every creature which is in
heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in
the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing,
and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon
the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four
beasts said, Amen, and the four and twenty elders fell down and
worshipped him that liveth forever and ever. So this is a description
of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no question about that.
When we turn back to Psalm 29, therefore, what we're reading
here is God's Word telling us, by the Spirit of God, to ascribe
and give all honor and glory due unto the Lord, Jehovah, that's
due to His name. And that's exactly what's done
in Revelation chapter five. All of the honor and the power
and the blessing and the glory and the strength, everything
is given to the Lamb that was slain. And so you can see this,
that not only because He's the Lord and it's rightfully His,
but also because as man, And the Son of God in one person,
He fulfilled the will of God and makes it known. And so this
endears Him to us. And so we are to give everything
that's due to His name, to the Lord Jesus Christ. And have you
ever noticed in the New Testament that over and over again, there
are people who come to the Lord Jesus Christ and they fall at
His feet and worship Him? Not once did He ever tell them,
get up, don't do that. He received their worship because
it was due to him. Remember Thomas? He said, my
Lord and my God. Jesus didn't rebuke him for that.
He actually acknowledged the fact that it was God who revealed
these things to them. Peter said, thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. And Jesus said, yeah, and you
don't know that unless God the Father had already revealed it
to you. And there was the 10 lepers that Jesus healed, and
one of them came back and fell at Jesus' feet and worshipped
him over and over again. Jairus worshipped Jesus because
he healed his son. And so, throughout the scripture,
you see this over and over, how people are falling on their feet,
even the demoniac and demons. fell down before Jesus. So He
is God and He's worthy of this worship. And so God tells us
here, all the sons of God to do that. Now in verse 3, I want
to, actually let me touch on this, the beauty of holiness.
The holiness of God is something that's hard to describe because
it really means God's excellence and His purity in all that He
is and all that He does. And there's no one holy as the
Lord. Nobody else is holy but the Lord.
And so when we talk about the beauty of holiness, we're talking
about the perfections of the harmony of God's character and
all that he is as God and all that he does. Nothing is out
of place. No attribute of God is compromised
for one over the other. God's justice is perfectly balanced. when he justifies a sinner. And
this is something that's most beautiful, and we should admire
it with greatest awe. The description of heaven in
Revelation, of each gate of the city made of a single pearl,
and the foundations, and all the overwhelming beauty that's
used to describe that, that's just It's just describing God
in His perfections, and we can't understand it without God revealing
it to us, but we see it in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We see it in Christ's character and in His work. So when we give
this, when it says here, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,
and to give to the Lord the glory through His name, we're talking
about all that Christ is worthy of that we should worship Him
for. And we can only do that in the holy nature God has given
to us. No person, not a single person
on earth can worship God unless God has birthed them by His Spirit,
because the natural man does not receive the things of the
Spirit of God. And what are the things of the
Spirit of God but the things that pertain to Christ? and Him
crucified. We can only know these things
if we're born of God. And so even that ability to worship
God, which is due to God from every creature, has to be given
to us out of pure grace alone. God has to give us whatever He
tells us to do. And aren't you thankful that
we can come back to Him and say, Lord, give me this ability to
know and ascribe to you all that is due to your name and worship
you in the beauty of holiness. Now, let's look at verse 3. In
verse 3, it says, the voice of the Lord is upon the waters,
the God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. Now, this begins a section here
for a few verses where it talks about the voice of the Lord.
And this term, the voice of the Lord, is used seven times in
these few verses here, from verse 3 to verse 9. But notice the
first one, the voice of the Lord. If we look at all three of them,
all seven of them, it says in verse four, the voice of the
Lord is powerful. And then in verse four again,
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. In verse five, the
voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaks
the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them also to skip like
a calf. Lebanon and Syrian like a young
unicorn. And then the voice of the Lord
divided the flames of fire. In verse 8, the voice of the
Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness
of Kadesh. And finally, in verse 9, the voice of the Lord maketh
the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forest, and in his temple
doth every one speak of his glory. So, what is the voice of the
Lord? What is the voice of the Lord?
Remember in Hebrews chapter 1, in verse 1 it says, God who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son, or in his Son. God has spoken, that's the voice
of the Lord. How has he spoken? In his Son. Throughout the Old Testament
he spoke about his Son through men, but in the New Testament
God has spoken in his Son. The voice of the Lord is the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking to men. Now, Jesus Christ is the
Son of God. Therefore, he speaks to men as
God, as the Son of God, but he speaks in the character, in the
office of mediator. He speaks from God to men as
the one mediator between God and men. He speaks from God to
men as the mediator. He tells us who God is. He tells us God's will and God's
work. And he tells us what God requires
of us and how that requirement is met in himself. So this is
the Lord Jesus Christ as the anointed prophet, the one who
speaks to us. So he is the voice of the Lord
in that sense where in his office as our mediator, he is a prophet,
the one who speaks from God to us. But he also speaks from,
for us, to God as the mediator, doesn't he? So in that sense,
the Lord Jesus Christ speaks as the voice of the Lord to the
Lord concerning his people. So we see this, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the Word of God. He speaks whatever is God's mind,
God's thoughts, are spoken in Jesus Christ. If you want to
know what God thinks, look at Jesus Christ. What did he say?
What did he do? That's God speaking to us. It's
the voice of the Lord. Remember in the garden, Adam
and Eve, after Adam's sin, he hid behind the trees, he hid
in the trees, and the voice of the Lord walked in the garden
in the cool of the day. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
who walked in the garden and he called Adam and spoke to him
of redeeming grace, didn't he? He spoke of condemnation for
his sin, but he also spoke of redeeming grace. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. And remember when Cain killed
his brother Abel, what did God say to Cain? Cain, your brother's
blood speaks to me from the ground. Remember that in Genesis chapter
four? And then in Hebrews chapter 12,
it says, the blood of Jesus Christ speaks better things than that
of Abel. So the voice of the Lord, the
Lord Jesus Christ, is Christ as our mediator, but also Christ
as the one who offered himself to God and whose blood speaks
better things than that of Abel. Abel's blood cried for vengeance
against the sinner. Christ's blood cries for justification
of the ungodly. What a word Christ's blood speaks. And so this is the Lord Jesus
Christ speaking. When Elijah was running from
Jezebel, who threatened to take his life, and he hid in that
cave after he had run for a while, and it says that there were three
different things that happened, and I'm not going to try to recall
them all from memory, but you remember the last thing that
happened? Then there was, well, first of all, there was this
splitting of rocks and this wind, and there was all sorts of physical
signs that were terrifying, but then there was this still, small
voice, remember? And the Lord was in the still,
small voice. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord was in the voice of the Lord was in that voice, that's
Christ. And remember, also in the New
Testament, when Lazarus had died and had been dead four days.
Jesus told Martha, if you believe, then you will see the glory of
God. And then later on, he speaks and tells Lazarus, Lazarus, come
forth. And Lazarus, who was dead, came
out of the grave at the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember,
that's the voice of the Lord. And then I want to especially
draw your attention to this one in John chapter five. In John
chapter five, look at this with me to understand best how this
should be understood, the voice of the Lord in Psalm 29. He says
in John chapter five and verse 20, I encourage you to read all
of John five, but especially from verse 17 on. He says in
John chapter five and verse 24, Jesus is speaking. He said, verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, because he spoke his word, he spoke the
word of the Father, he spoke his word, which was the word
of the Father, and whoever believes on him that sent me, believing
the word Christ spoke, everlasting life. It's a present
possession. If you are a believer in Christ,
if you believe his word, the gospel of your salvation, you
have already your present possession everlasting life. If you have
everlasting life, that means you live. He says, and he shall
not come into condemnation. but is all, I insert the word
already because it's implied, but is passed already from death
to life. I can't help but put it in there
because that's the way it's to be understood. We have already
passed from death to life if we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ because faith is the result of the life of God in our souls. In Galatians 2.20, remember that
verse I quote so often, it says, the Apostle Paul says, I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, this new life that
I have, not I, it's not my life, not my fleshly life, but Christ
liveth in me, and the life The life of Christ in me that I live,
the life that I now live in the flesh, that life of Christ in
me, I live how? By the faith of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself for me. Now that's the work of
Christ in us. to cause us to live upon the
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."
That's the work of the Spirit of Christ in us, and that's the
life of God given to us because Christ died for us. And that's
what this life of God in the soul of the believer does. It
directs us to Christ for us. How often I emphasize this because
it not only thrills me, but it also is meant to be conveyed
to us from God's own word so that we understand the mind of
God and the work of God for us. So that when we rest upon what
God has said concerning our salvation, we're giving glory to God for
what he has said, what he's spoken is true. We believe our God and
our savior. So he says this, He said in verse
24, John 5 again, 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.
Next verse, verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming,
yea, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God, and they that hear shall live." Now, there you go. Revelation
5, we just read a minute ago, all power is given to Him. Jesus
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Life is His. All
the truth of God is in Him. He's the Word made flesh. No
man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him, made Him
known. And here we see that his voice, God's voice, is the voice
of the Son of God. And when he speaks, the dead
hear it, and the dead live. Now that's power, isn't it? Now
back to Psalm 29. So the voice of the Lord is Christ. Christ, the Word of God, speaking. And the word that he speaks is
the word from God, the gospel of our salvation. Psalm 29. Let's read this now with the
new light. He says, the voice of the Lord
is upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. Now we know what it's like on
a dark night when lightning strikes. And we hear the effect of lightning
striking. Scientists like to tell you that,
well, it is true, too, that the light is from the ionization
of these particles by the electrical potential that's produced between
that difference between the voltage in the sky and on earth and there's
this great bolt of static electricity that comes down from the cloud
to the earth or some tall object on the earth like a person or
a tree or a lightning rod and you see the flash of the lightning
and then you hear that that crisp crackle of the thunder, which
is the sound of those ionized air particles being burnt by
that lightning, that electrical current. And it's phenomenal. It's so loud that if it happens
close to you within, you know, if it happens and within a second
later, you hear the clap of the thunder, it's overwhelming. I remember as a child being back
in the Midwest in my grandparents' home and never seen lightning
like this before. We were inside of a home and
the entire house lit up like broad daylight because the lightning
was so bright. And that's what it's like in
the Midwest, and I think in other parts of the United States. In
California, it doesn't seem like it's that intense. But what he's
speaking about here is the voice of the Lord is upon the waters,
the God of glory thundereth, and the Lord is upon many waters.
You can imagine what it's like on a in a boat on the ocean in
the middle of the night and all of a sudden the lightning crackles
and there's clouds overhead you can't see any light because there's
no star shining and suddenly the lightning flashes and you
hear the sound of it don't you think that that would not only
give a jolt to the sky, but give a jolt to your own heart. It
would startle you and make you jump and raise your blood pressure. Your heart would beat faster
and everything would happen instantly because of that reaction to the
bright light. and to the sound of that light.
And this is the way the gospel comes to us. It comes to us as
a bright light that gives light, and is the clap of thunder, because
it's the voice of God Almighty. Remember when, I think it was
in John chapter 12, Jesus said, Father, the hour has come, glorify
thy name. And God the Father spoke from
heaven, and he said, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.
And the people that stood by thought that it thundered because
they heard God the Father speak from heaven. And that's something,
it makes the hair on your head tingle, doesn't it? Just to think
about that, what it was like for those people to hear the
voice of God. But it wasn't the emotion of
hearing the voice of God. The indication here is of the
power in God's voice, the enlightening power that the lightning that
produces that sound creates. And so he speaks of it here,
the voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory
thundereth, the Lord is upon many waters. People will go out,
unbelievers will go out just to watch a lightning storm. or to hear it. And there's something,
dogs are afraid of it, people are intrigued by it, but yet
there's a certain fear because it gives them that emotion of
fear and something, and people like that rush. But when you
think about it as a child, when you first saw that or you first
heard that, you wanted to cuddle up to your mom and dad and seek
their comfort, didn't you? Reassurance that it's going to
be okay. Because God has spoken. God has
spoken, and it should put us in a state of awe that we have
no power against this God. We have no power. But when he
speaks, his word is done, isn't it? The God of glory thundereth. The voice of the Lord is upon
the waters, the God of glory thundereth. Who is the God of
glory? Well, in 1 Corinthians 2.8 it says the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Lord of glory. In Acts 3.15 it says he's the
Prince of life. In Psalm 24 it says he's the
Lord of glory and the gates of heaven shall open to him when
he ascended from earth after having accomplished our salvation
and risen from the dead. So the Lord Jesus Christ is the
Lord of glory. He's the God of glory, and he
thunders. And what is this power of God
that we're talking about here? Well, look at Romans chapter
one. In Romans chapter one, he tells us what the power of God
is. And this is the first place I want to look. Romans chapter
one, in verse 16, he says, I'm not ashamed, the apostle Paul
says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the
power of God unto salvation. to everyone that believeth. Everyone,
not just the Jews, but to the Gentiles also. The power of God
unto salvation, that's the power of God. We can't get any greater
power than that, can we? Man plunged himself and Adam
plunged his race into sin and death. God's power is to rescue
his people from sin and from death. And so this is the power
of God. When you think about salvation,
you're at the pinnacle of God's power. This isn't just some exhibition
of some average power of God. No, this is the almighty power
of God. It took Christ to die on the
cross to save one sinner. And it takes the almighty power
of the Spirit of God to speak life to that dead sinner and
to direct that man in the blindness of his heart to Christ and him
crucified and to honor him by writing the gospel on his heart.
That's the power of God. He takes the stony flesh out
of a heart and he puts there a heart of flesh, a heart to
know God in Christ. That's the power of God. Look
at 1 Corinthians. Chapter one, the power of God. We're talking about the Lord
of glory thundering and the power of God being revealed in the
metaphor of thundering on waters. He's talking about the gospel
here. In verse 23, 1 Corinthians 1, 23, we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews a stumbling block,
to the Greeks foolishness. But to them which are called,
Both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God. And how do we see this? How do
we see this power? Well, look at 2 Corinthians 4.
2 Corinthians 4 tells us this power. He's speaking about here
the power of Christ, the power of God, the wisdom of God. Is
Christ and Him crucified? In 2 Corinthians 4, he says this in verse 6. Well, verse five,
we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves
your servants for Jesus' sake, for God who, now this is power,
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. There was no
light, only darkness. He commanded and the light shined.
He has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is power. That is power. To take a dead
sinner, a natural man, a man born of flesh, and to create
him in Christ Jesus, to raise him from the dead, to birth him
as God's own son, that takes the power of God Almighty, and
it's grounded on the resurrecting power of the Lord Jesus Christ,
because we're begotten again by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, by his redeeming work on the cross.
In fact, the work of the Spirit of God is to shine the light
of Christ and him crucified into our minds that we might even
know the glory of God. That takes power, doesn't it?
And so in Revelation 17, 15, it talks about the people of
the earth as being like the waters. So here he speaks in Psalm 29,
the voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory
thundereth, the Lord is upon many waters. It talks about the
Lord Jesus Christ. going forth, speaking from heaven
as the King of glory with the gospel of his salvation and of
his grace to sinners dead in their trespasses and sins and
giving and shining the light of the glory of God in his own
work of their salvation in the face of Jesus Christ, seeing
who he is in his humility, his wisdom, his grace, his power,
his faithfulness, his justice, his mercy, his grace, everything.
is seen by the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, back in Psalm
29, verse 4, we'll just be able to take one more verse here.
In verse 4, before we close tonight, we'll have to finish this next
time. It says, verse 4, the voice of the Lord is powerful. We've
talked about that. The voice of the Lord is full
of majesty. Majesty. What is majesty? Well,
that's what kings claim to have. All of his pomp and majesty.
But look at Hebrews chapter 1. This is majesty. This is majesty. The Lord Jesus Christ in his
saving work of his people on the cross to put away their sins.
In this we see the majesty. God look at Hebrews chapter 1
and I'll read it from verse 1 God who at sundry times and in divers
manners spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets hath
in these last days spoken to us by his son whom he hath appointed
heir of all things given everything to him by whom also he made the
worlds who being the brightness of his glory it doesn't get any
brighter than this and the express image of his person, all that
God is, is seen in Christ, and upholding all things by the word
of his power, there's the voice of the Son of God, when he had
by himself, no one helping, purged our sins, sat down on the right
hand of the majesty on high. So you see the effect of Christ's
saving work? Majesty. The majesty of God,
the glory of God, the expressed image of his person is seen in
Christ. So when it says here in Psalm
29 that the voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the
Lord is full of majesty, he's talking about everything that
God reveals to his people about what he's done in their salvation.
And God is seen in this. God in his majesty and glory
and honor and power and righteousness and holiness, all of the perfections
of God in his greatness and his character is seen. And what are
we to do? Verse one, give to the Lord, O ye mighty. Give to
the Lord the glory, glory and strength. Give to the Lord the
glory due to his name and worship the Lord in the beauty of his
holiness through this holy nature that he's given to us to worship
him. And so next time I want to go
through the rest of these from verse five to verse 11. Let's
pray. Father, thank you for your word.
It delights us to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ in all
of his character, in his work, and His words, and His offices,
and His love, and His grace, and His mercy, and His humility,
and His humiliation, and His willingness to be made of no
reputation, and even to be made sin itself, and to endure the
curse that was due to us for our sins, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. What love, what grace, what a
stoop, and what majesty is His in doing all of this for us who
deserve nothing, but only his wrath, and we're debtors, not
only beggars, but debtors to your grace. Lord, thank you for
the Lord, Jesus. We want to hear his voice. Oh,
how we want to hear his voice, so that his words would be applied
to our hearts, and our souls would be raised to life, and
that life would be renewed by his word given to us day by day.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.