I invite your attention to the
twenty-ninth psalm. Psalm number twenty-nine. 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 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 them 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 every one speak of his glory. The Lord
sitteth upon the flood, yea, the Lord sitteth keen forever. The Lord will give strength unto
his people. The Lord will bless his people
with peace." We are going to expound, God willing, this psalm
tonight. I suppose if you wanted to find
a theme in the psalm, it would be. The voice of the Lord. That pray that phrase appears
seven times. In these 11 verses. Seven is a number of. Completion. Seven is the number of the Lord
completing the work of creation seven days. And there is a certain
completeness and completion in the voice of the Lord as we find
it speaking in this psalm. The voice of the Lord is His
thunder. When the Lord speaks, He thunders,
and when He thunders, He speaks, and when you hear the thunder,
he has spoken. There are three things to be
observed in this psalm, and you may divide it into these three
divisions. First, in verses one and two,
there is a call for the mighty to properly revere Jehovah. In verses three through nine,
you will find the description of Jehovah's voice in the tempest. And in verses 10 and 11, you
will find a reason for the righteous to trust in Jehovah. So let's
look at that first division. First of all, here is a call
for the mighty to properly revere Jehovah in verses one and two.
Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones, we're told. Give unto him. How do you give something into
someone who already owns everything? The word here does not mean to
bestow something upon him that he does not already possess.
He possesses all things. The earth is the Lord's and all
its fullness in the world and all that dwell therein. You give
him nothing because he already owns everything, and yet you're
told to give something to him. What is it to give unto him who
already possesses all things? It means to ascribe to him what
he is due, and that he is due. Ascribe to him the honor that
belongs to him. Who should do this? Oh, you mighty
ones. The Hebrew means sons of might. Who are the sons of might? These
may be the mighty ones among mortals. Silver rulers in scriptures
are called mighty ones. Heroes of the people are mighty
ones. Let me also suggest to you that
Mighty ones includes everyone who has a high and mighty opinion
of himself. And I suppose I'm not the only
one here tonight described by that phrase. Oh, you mighty ones. In one way or another, every
one of us is included. You better ascribe something
to Jehovah. And we are to ascribe to him
three things. In the remainder of verse one,
we're told glory and strength. And in verse two, we're told
to give him everything else that is due his name. What is it to
give unto the Lord? Glory. This glory is honor. To give this honor to Jehovah
is to celebrate and glorify him for who and what he is in his
glorious person and in his nature. It is to acknowledge Him as the
one true and living God and to acknowledge all others as impostors
and vain idols. It is to acknowledge Him as the
one who created all things and for whose glory they were created. It is to give Him glory for His
work of providence. in sending the rain that you
need and withholding it if it please Him. Glorify Him in whichever
case. But as much as He is to be honored
in His works of creation and providence, especially give Him
glory for that great work of salvation. Give Him glory. for that work of redemption and
justification and sanctification and glorification, all these
things, He alone deserves the glory. Now give it to Him. Give
it to Him. And give unto the Lord strength,
we're told. The Hebrew word denotes the might
and power found particularly in warriors. We're told to ascribe
strength to God. Acknowledge that He alone is
the strong one. The Bible says His strength is
in the clouds. Every time you see a cloud, think
about how strong He is. The clouds declare His strength. He speaks with a strong voice. Listen to the thunder, folks.
That's a loud God speaking. He speaks with strength. And confess That the God of Israel
is He who gives strength and power to His people. Have you
the strength to trust in Him? Glorify Him for that. Ascribe
glory and honor to Him that He gave you strength. Have you come
to Christ? Pray tell, where did you receive
that strength? Have you looked to Christ? Pray
tell, where did you get that sight? Have you heard Christ?
Pray tell, who opened your ears? Have you run to Christ? Pray,
tell, who gave you that strength? Ascribe strength to Him because
all the strength you have comes from Him and Him alone. And then
we're told to give something else to Him in verse 2. Give
unto the Lord the glory due His name. What is His name? His name is Himself. Should there
be a thief running down the street and some officer says, stop in
the name of the law, no one turns around and says, well pray tell,
what is the law's name? No. We know what is meant. To stop in the name of the law
means to stop by the authority of the law. The name of the law
is the law. And God's name is Himself. Give unto Him the glory due His
name. Give unto Him everything that
is due Him. I know that it is impossible,
but you'd better do it. You must. Give unto Him the glory
to His name. Hold back no honor from Him. Never let anyone hear us say,
God did His part and I did mine and together we got the job done.
No, no, no. He did it all. Give unto Him
the glory due His name, which means you'll be giving no honor
and glory and strength to your name because you don't deserve
it. He receives all the glory and honor. Second point. Pardon me, the latter part of
verse 2. Worship the Lord in a beauty of holiness. Jehovah
is the only being worthy of worship. You know what that word worship
means? In the New Testament, the Greek word is proskuneo.
It means to fall prostrate before someone. That's what it is to
worship Him. To worship Him is to fall prostrate
in His presence and give the glory and honor and strength
that He is due. He is worthy to be worshiped
in the proper manner. It is said to be in the beauty
of holiness. And the beauty of holiness denotes
two things. There is the beauty of the holy
person, Jesus Christ. He is the beauty of holiness
for excellence. Do you want to know what true
holiness is? Look to Christ. The beauty of
holiness is found in Christ. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness by worshiping Christ by who and what He is. But there's
something else about this beauty of holiness. Worship Him with
that beautiful and holy nature God gives you in regeneration.
Oh, worship the Lord with that nature given unto us that cannot
sin. So beautiful it is to worship
the Lord in the beauty of holiness is to worship Christ as He is
worthy to be worshipped with that nature given unto us that
only wants to worship Him and cannot sin. Worship the Lord
in the beauty of holiness. worship Christ and do it in the
right manner. Now the second point, a description
of Jehovah's voice in the tempest, verses three through nine. We
read this passage and it appeared that there were random events
just chosen. The voice of the Lord does this,
the voice of the Lord does the other, and the voice of the Lord
has done something else. And it appears that these were
randomly chosen. Not at all. There is a very good
order in all that is said of the voice of the Lord. And the
psalmist is describing a storm that has arisen in the Mediterranean
Sea over the waters, has moved inland to Lebanon, and then down
the chain of mountains, down through the land of Palestine,
down through Jerusalem, and even down to the southern border of
the land And the psalmist describes, not randomly, but very deliberately,
all that God does in raising the storm, all the waters over
Lebanon, down to the land and all the way to the southern border
at Kadesh, and in His temple they shout glory. And there is
an order to everything that the psalmist says. Now let's observe
the order. Verse 3, the voice of the Lord is over the waters.
These are the waters of the clouds above the earth. But there is
a spiritual application to be made from this. In Revelation
17, 15, we read that the waters are peoples, multitudes, nations,
and tongues, all who hear Jehovah's voice. The voice of the Lord
is over the waters, not only over the Jewish nation, but over
Gentile nations. I've done some work in my family
tree, and I've learned that I've descended from some Scots and
perhaps some English, some Dutch and some Germans and a few other. My wife has descended from Swiss
and Czechs and French. And I see that the Lord has spoken
over the nations, all these things. There are folks here, I dare
say, from Ireland, maybe many different countries. And you've
heard the voice of the Lord. He has spoken over your nation.
He has not confined His voice to one place. But over the nation
of the earth, the Lord has thundered, and we have heard. The voice
of the Lord is over the waters, and the God of glory thunders,
we read. This is His voice. He booms forth
His glory. Our Lord had a couple of disciples,
apostles. They were mistreated in one village
and they said, Lord, would you like for us to call down some
thunder as if they could? Should we call down some thunder
on these folks? And the scriptures speak of them
as Boanerges, sons of thunder. I would say to you, I would pray
and I believe in your message tonight, you would agree. I would
pray that every preacher of God's Word would be a son of thunder.
God spoke tonight. It might have been a still, small
voice, but He spoke and thundered in what was said. I would to
God that every time a man of God stands in the pulpit, God
would thunder. The God of glory thunders. May
all His preachers be Boanerges, sons of thunder in the holy sense
of that term. The Lord is over many waters,
and may He be pleased to thunder His gospel over all the waters,
not just here, but down in the Yucatan. May He thunder there
like He does here in Louisville, Kentucky. May He thunder there
down in Franklin, Tennessee. May He thunder there wherever
the waters of the peoples are. May He thunder. Verse 4, the
voice of the Lord is powerful. No one doubts the power of thunder
and of the lightning which accompanies it. I was in munitions in the Air
Force four years, worked with bombs and ammo, and they always
stuck us ammo men away from everybody else because they didn't want
us to be too close. The ammo dump was always at the
far end of the base. In Germany, they stuck us 13
miles away from the base on top of a mountain. It was the biggest
war-rated material depot in NATO, and we were out there in the
middle of nowhere. And there's a reason for that. Ammo was set
off by electrical spark. And so every day we went to work,
walked through the bomb dump, You had to slap a metal bar,
brass, every time you walked into a building to discharge
any spark. Had to wear special clothing,
special boots. No lighters were allowed in the
bomb dump and no spark-producing tools. They watched us carefully
because one little spark and folks were all history. Now,
what are you going to do about all that spark in the atmosphere?
We had to be careful of that, too. And every time it thundered,
every airman raises his hand and looks at his watch, and he
starts timing it. And when you heard the thunder,
within five seconds of the lightning, you had to immediately vacate
the bomb dump. Because one spark of lightning,
and potentially, probably not probably, it would not go up,
but potentially it could. And we knew how powerful that
one little streak of lightning could be. could blow it all up. Because the voice of the Lord
is powerful. Why God thunders and many people
jump under beds. I've got a dog. I've got a dog,
little old Sheltie, just brave as he can be till it thunders.
Fourth of July, he's a nervous wreck. He hears the thunder.
God speaks. And it is a voice of thunder
and power that speaks. And God's voice of thunder is
heard in His gospel. For the word of God is living
and powerful. It ever and unfailingly accomplishes
what it purposes, because the voice of the Lord is powerful.
It is far more glorious than the dead and nippetent so-called
gospel of dead and nippetent churchianity, which abears that
God is unable to save a man without that man's cooperation. Who would
serve a God so impotent? Let me say something to you tonight.
If God speaks, you're going to know it. You're going to know
it. It'll be a power that'll wrap
your body. I pray that he would. Beginning
here in the pulpit, may he speak. And when he speaks, it is a voice
of power and thunder. The psalmist continues. The voice
of the Lord is full of majesty. And oh, we are in awe of majesty
and thunder and of the lightning which accompanies it. Still photography
in the past few years has been a marvelous thing. And I have
seen lightning coming through the sky in real time. But I was blessed a few nights
ago on History Channel to watch thunder and lightning in still
photography. And it was amazing how the thick
streak of lightning just doesn't come down like a straight line.
It was all over the place. It was full of majesty and awe.
And I said, you mean to tell me this is what's going on and
I can't see it? Because it happened so fast.
And the voice of the Lord is the same way. It is full of majesty
if only your eyes were open to see it. It is full of majesty. Let us be in greater awe of this
gospel of Jesus Christ. It is full of majesty because
it is full of Christ, and He is the majesty on high. He is
majestic in His person. He is majestic in His works,
and He reveals the majesty of God because it is revealed in
the face of Jesus Christ. The voice of the Lord is full
of majesty because it reveals Christ unto our eyes. Verse 5, the voice of the Lord
breaks the cedars. Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars
of Lebanon. That was the loftiest and best-known
mountain range of Syria. So the storm has come across
the Mediterranean and now has come inland and it is over Lebanon. It is over that big mountain
of Lebanon in Syria. And on that mountain were cedars.
These cedars were the pride of Lebanon. So much were they the
pride of Lebanon that even to this day they are on the national
flag of Lebanon. Cedars, high and lifted up, the
Scriptures speak of them. These cedars of Lebanon, high
and lifted up, and they are the glory of Lebanon. God speaks
and they splinter. They splinter. He'll do that
to cedars like you and me, too. Here's a cedar, a cedar of Lebanon
by the name of Saul of Tarsus, riding on his high horse to persecute
some of the Lord's children. And there he is at high noon,
and God thundered and Saul splintered and fell to the ground. God spoke. The God of glory thundered, and
that proud cedar of Lebanon, Saul of Tarsus, came tumbling
to the ground like so many splinters. He makes them all so skip like
a calf, Lebanon and Sirion, like a young wild ox. Sirion, that's
another name for Mount Hermon. So, now the storm has moved. Now it's over Hermon at the very
northern border of the land of Israel. That storm moves across Hermon,
or Sirion. And notice, they skip like a
calf. This is oriental hyperbole. It
is described what Jehovah's Voice does in moving the mountains.
God speaks and the earth quakes. and mountains skip like young
calves." Here's a man, poor beggar, he can't walk. He says to a couple of gospel
preachers, can you help me? And they say, silver and gold
have I none but such as I have given unto thee. In the name
of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk." And God spoke thunder
right there to that man. And the next thing you read,
he is walking and leaping and praising God. Immovable mountains
skip like calves when God speaks. Immovable mountains like you
and me and our self-righteousness. Unmovable till God speaks, and
then we skip like calves. Verse 7, the voice of the Lord
divides the flames of fire. Now, here is poetic license.
The psalmist describes the thunder's booms as dividing lightning's
fiery bolts from one another. And you know how that you see
the lightning, then you hear the thunder. See the lightning,
hear the thunder. See the lightning, hear the thunder.
It is as though the thunder is dividing the flames and the bolts
of lightning. And the voice of the Lord is
thy reckoning. That God will devise the fiery
bolts that in men's hearts illumine the truth and melt rebellion
and kindle a flame of holy love and devotion. Oh, may he strike
some of us tonight. May he thunder and divide some
flames of fire. May he divide one incentive to
you and one to you and one to you and one to you all around.
May he speak. And in thunder send bolts of
lightning into our hearts and kindle flames of love within
us." Verse 8, the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The
Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. Now the storm has moved
all down to the land, down to Kadesh. Folks, that's on the
southern border of the land. Now this storm began as a Mediterranean
moved across the Lebanon, across Hermon, all down the mountains
of central Israel, and now it is down to Kadesh, the land of
the wilderness." Kadesh is wilderness. Such a wilderness may be a great
and terrible wilderness in which were fiery serpents and scorpions
and thirsty land where there was no water, Deuteronomy 8,
15. Well, that's our Gentile world, the wilderness of the
peoples, we're called, in Ezekiel 20, verse 35. But Christ in mercy
shakes even wastelands through the force of His thunder. Wastelands
shake and tremble when God speaks. Jesus Christ hangs on Calvary,
suffering the penalty of the sins of God's elect, and then
in victory He shouts as He dies, And the earth did quake. It doesn't
say there was an earthquake. The earth quaked. Completely,
all over, God spoke and He shakes the wilderness, the wilderness
of our world. And then in verse nine, the boys
of the Lord makes the deer give birth. The thunder of God in nature
often makes animals cast their young, is the term that people
who deal with wildlife describe it. They cast their young. It
means they say that it makes them give birth prematurely.
Now, you and I both know that nothing happens prematurely,
nothing. It's always on God's schedule. If it was time for that deer
to give birth, And it looked like it was not going to happen.
The Lord sends a storm so that it does happen. Because it's
going to happen when it's supposed to. And God speaks and, well,
the complete period of gestation may not have occurred, but that
hind is coming. That calf will be born. When
God speaks, birth takes place. There's an old There's an old
jailer in Philippi. He's heard the gospel and has
been preached. He heard those fellows singing
and praying, preaching the gospel in his prison in Philippi. He finally is able to go to sleep, and he is just as fast asleep
as he can be until God spoke. Or an earthquake. And the Bible says he was awakened
out of his sleep. Let me suggest to you, no, let
me say to you, he was awakened out of his sleep in two ways.
One, he was probably knocked out of his bed. That would wake
you up. But he was wakened up spiritually,
too. An old dead sinner was given life because God spoke. The voice of the Lord came down
into Philippi that night and God spoke and a deer was given
birth. The voice of the Lord makes the
deer give birth and strips the forest bare. The thunder of God
and nature denudes the trees. We've seen storms that have come
that have been so ferocious that just took every leap off the
trees. That's what God does when he
speaks. We stand before God like tall
cedar trees and we're clothed in self-righteousness. All these
old filthier rags that we're so proud of, we've sewed them
all together and put them on like a garment and we wear them
before God. So God sends a little storm our
way. And the wind of the gospel begins to blow. And the next
thing you know, we're standing here completely naked because
He has now denuded us. As the wind of nature strips
the trees of their leaves, so will the Lord strip us of our
self-righteousness when He speaks through His gospel. He strips
the forest bare. He even exposes the thoughts
and intents of the heart. And in His temple, everyone says, The storm has come, and perhaps
the people in Jerusalem have gone down to seek refuge, probably
in the temple complex. They have seen the awesome works
of God and the thunder, and they thunder their own glory in response. God spoke, and all around people
trembled in fear, but in His temple in Jerusalem, they said, Look at this. He just cut down
another tree. Look at this. He just denuded
another forest. Look at this. The deer have given
birth and they shout glory. And likewise today from the temple
of God and Mount Zion can be heard a voice from heaven like
the voice of many waters and like the voice of loud thunder
glorifying him for all his awesome works. And I pray that he might
hear glory coming up from our congregation tonight. Oh, may
he speak. And we respond by saying, glory,
glory. Now third and last, a reason for the righteous to
trust in Jehovah, verses 10 and 11. The Lord sat enthroned at
the flood. He was the only one sitting. He sat enthroned at the flood. My wife is threatening to put
a sign in front of our house that says, Bob Vela does not
live here. And I've got tools, folks. I've
got martyring tools. I just don't know what to do
with them. They don't do what they're supposed to do when they're
in my hands. And here's another one. I don't
know what kind of tools he had, but I know they were not black
and decker. No cobalt. Nothing. No craftsman. He built
an ark. I'm going to tell you something,
folks. If the Lord had shut the ark that I had built, Nobody
would be sitting. We'd be looking for leaks. I don't know what Noah and those
folks were doing, but I'm sure there was activity to be done,
animals to be fed. Maybe they were looking for leaks,
but they were making sure that they had done what God had prepared
animals to be prepared for. I don't, I suppose that no one
in New York was really sitting down for a while. And outside,
I know nobody was sitting down because they were running for
high heels. And the animals are running, looking for cover. And the only person who's sitting
down is God. The Lord sat enthroned at the
flood. He sovereignly sent it. And so sure was He that that
ark would rescue and save those in it that He sat down. His work
was done. And the Lord sits as king forever. He is as much enthroned today
as He was then. And the same God that sovereignly
sent the storm in Noah's day to save His people does so today. He sends storms to save His people. Verse 11, The Lord will give
strength to His people. How does He do that? The Lord
gives strength to his people by giving to them Christ because
they acknowledge Christ as God, our strength. He's the strength
of Israel. We say Jehovah is my strength
and my song and he has become my salvation. Christ is our strength. And He is our strength because
the Lord gave Him to be our strength. The Lord will give strength to
His people. How does He do that? He gives
them Christ. And then we read, the Lord will
bless His people with peace. How does the Lord bless His people
with peace? The same way He blesses them with strength. He gives
them Christ. Because as Christ is the strength
of Israel, so is He the peace of Israel. He Himself is our
peace, we read. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. And we have the peace of God
in our hearts if Christ is in our hearts, because Christ is
the peace in our hearts. And this the Lord gives. Even
in the midst of storms, he thunders, and we, because of the strength
and peace of Christ given unto us by God, we shout in response,
Glory. And oh, I would to not he might
thunder. I would to not he might splinter
some of us cedars. denude some of us of our self-righteousness? Would it give birth to some poor
dead sinner tonight? Would immovable sinners be found
jumping and leaping and praising God? It happens when God speaks. O
Lord, speak. Thunder. We pray. And then your
temple, we will shout glory. Pastor? you