The Voice of The Lord

Read this psalm together. And I want us to think of the power of God that's displayed here in all of these extraordinary circumstances, which speak of the power of God over fallen mankind, but in over all of his enemies are going to be made his footstool. And it begins, this psalm of David begins with, Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, Give unto the Lord glory and strength.

And as we said earlier, we don't give anything to God. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. If he had any news, he wouldn't be asking us. It means that we ascribe, we acknowledge that God is glorious and God is powerful. And I love what the, The word mighty means, it means sons of the mighty. It's only the sons of the mighty, only the sons of this mighty God are going to give him glory. Because what's man's issue in this world? I'm gonna have the glory. You will be as gods, knowing good and evil. That's how we came into this world. And God's children, by a work of God, they give unto the Lord. they ascribe unto him.

He's a glorious God. If you've met him and if his voice has come to you, he's a glorious, he speaks glorious words, but he speaks glorious words which reflect the glory of this great God. Listen to what he goes on to say. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. How on earth do we do that? in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who ever did that, who really gave God his Father the glory due under his name. You know that prayer in John 17, the Lord's high priestly prayer.

And how does he begin? I love the fact that as he was going to the cross and his soul was troubled, he said, Father, glorify your name. Glorify your name. And where is the name of the Lord glorified? In the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But listen to how he prayed. He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify thy son, that thy son may also glorify thee. That word glory in the Hebrew means weightiness, substance. The God of this religious world is as light as a feather.

He's a pathetic God who wants Any time you hear anyone in their statement of faith say God wants to, immediately close it up and know that you're listening to a heretic. God has no wants that are unfulfilled. He couldn't be God if his will is not done. His will is done in the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth and he doesn't have to give account of any of his activities to anyone. God is God. God wants, God tries. God, you've heard that old phrase, haven't you? God has no hands but your hands and no feet but your feet. Give me a break. Who gave man his feet and who gave man his hands and who causes man to do anything?

We want to, I pray that the Lord will cause us to give unto the Lord the glory due his name. Your son, glorify your son that your son might glorify thee. The Father is glorified in the Son. The Father is glorified in the work of the Son. The Father is glorified As this high priestly prayer goes on to show, the Father is glorified in what he does in the hearts of his people that he gave into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it was all about the glory of God. That was what the cross is about. It's about the glory of God. Listen to how he prays. Thank you. Thank God. It's a gift. Isn't that amazing? He's glorified God the Father. You want to see the glory of God the Father?

You look to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do, and now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. The glory of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the glory of God is going to be revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified, and where the Lord Jesus Christ is not held up as crucified in such a glorious, glorious God-honouring way, where the name of God, all of the attributes of God, shine on the cross of Calvary. You want to talk about the sovereignty of God, You want to talk about the faithfulness of God, fulfilling his word, the power of God, the wisdom of God that he found a way to be righteous and to exalt all of his holiness and all of his name and all of his attributes. in crucifying his son and at the same time saving all those people that he gave to him. He glorified his justice in his holiness, he glorified his name. Give unto the Lord, ascribe unto the Lord the glory due his name.

Oh, if the Lord would allow us to do that. And then what would happen? Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. We're talking about things that are just way, way, way above my head and my tiny little brain can't compute them. But I love the fact that holiness is beautiful in the eyes of God and we are to ascribe in our worship The beauty of holiness. The beauty of holiness. And again, the beauty and the glory of the holiness of God is seen on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where the holiness of God shines so brightly.

And any denial of what he did on the cross for this particular people and the success of it, and the success of God Almighty in applying that blood to the hearts of all of his people, as he has promised, is a denial of him and it's not worshipping him and it's not glorifying his name. God's children, like David, worshipped the Lord in the beauty of holiness. and the beauty of holiness.

And then we come to these amazing words. That's what we are to acknowledge in him. We are to ascribe to him. And then this is the God who speaks, and there are glorious words about our great God, aren't they? The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. The Lord is upon great waters. Don't you love the fact that our God plants his footsteps on the sea and he rides upon the storm? Where do they come from? Who rules those things? Who controls those things?

The point simply is that I believe one of the points that the psalmist is making is that God's children worship this God and they have heard this word of God speaking to them. And that is the fundamental issue in salvation is that God speaks. And where God speaks, his holiness, his name, the beauties of his holiness, the glory of his name, the glory of everything about him is revealed by him speaking. And we know from 1 Peter 3 that he only speaks to people through the gospel. You know these verses well, but they're so profoundly significant, aren't they?

We're born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God. If you're going to be born again, you're going to hear the gospel preached. which liveth, the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, for all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man is as the flower of the grass.

We mow our lawn, and as soon as we mow our lawn, most of the year, the kikuyu flowers come up, and there's this little silver frosting on top of the lawn. In a couple of days, they're completely gone. You mow it again, they'll come up again. That's the glory of man. That's the glory of man. And the flower thereof fadeth.

But, The word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. It's the voice of God, the word of God. Listen to the Holy Spirit's condemnation of this religious world. In Acts chapter 13, Paul is speaking about this current religious world that we live in. nor yet the voices of the prophets. God spoke through the prophets and there was a voice there.

They didn't hear the voice. They could recite Isaiah off by heart and they never heard Isaiah declaring the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why did the Jews after 2,000 years still ban their people from reading Isaiah 53? They don't know, they haven't heard a voice. If they'd heard a voice from God, they'd be saying, read this with me, this is amazing, these amazing words in Isaiah 53. They didn't hear the voices of the prophets, and yet they read them every Sabbath day and they fulfil them. They fulfil them. They are fulfilling the very word of God. Our God has not been dethroned by this religious world, brothers and sisters. Let's worship him in the beauty of holiness. Let's declare that our God's voice is upon the waters. You know, I just love the fact that you imagine those fishermen, they weren't, they were experienced fishermen in that boat that night.

And then there's this storm and the Lord Jesus is asleep in the boat. He'd already told them, he said, we're going over the other side tonight. There they are, and he's asleep in the back, and they say, don't you care that we drown? This boat is filling up with water. We're about to sink to the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. And he just gets up. What does he say to the wind and the waves? Stop. Be still. Peace. And they didn't die down quietly. Because if they died down quietly, someone would have said, well, the storm just went away. They stopped immediately, and it was as still as a mill pond. Remarkable.

That's our God. And the raging waves of sin and rebellion against him, the voice of the Lord is over the top of those waves. And the glory, the God of glory thundereth, and the Lord is upon many waters. You can read about that in Psalm 144 and Psalm 107. It's just a common theme in the scriptures, our God. is a God of power. Listen to verse four. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. How powerful is the voice of the Lord? The voice of the Lord is powerful in creation. He just said, light be and there was. He said, let there be a universe and there was a universe. Let there be earth, let there be life on this earth. He just spoke and everything came into existence.

How powerful is the voice of God? You can see why when someone says God wants and God tries, they're not talking about this particular God. He's powerful in creation and he's powerful in the new creation. His word comes, as Jeremiah said, my word's like a hammer. My word will break hardened hearts and it will melt a heart of stone and it will cause in that same living person there to be a new creation. He speaks the new creation into existence.

And we've read the promises of the new creation in which all of the new created children of God in this world will get to enjoy a new creation forever and ever. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty, full of majesty. Wouldn't it be wonderful if when we read the word of God, we came to it and we were expecting God to be majestic. We're expecting God to be powerful. We're expecting that word to be written on our hearts in such a way that we bowed and worshipped God. The voice of the Lord, verse five, breaketh the cedars, yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.

What was the biggest living thing in that part of the world? The cedars of Lebanon. You see pictures of them. They are trees. They are serious trees, the cedars of Lebanon. And they grew on those mountains of Lebanon. They grew on those amazing mountains in that amazing soil. And they grew enormous.

And the Lord says, I can break them like a toothpick. They're nothing to me. I can break them. And he broke those cedars of Lebanon and he used those timbers from those cedars of Lebanon and he brought them down and he built his temple in Jerusalem with the stones and the cedars of Lebanon.

The most powerful, most majestic thing that they saw in creation is under the hand and under the control of our great God. Can he save? Is his arm too short to save, is it? He's powerful, our God. He breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. He also maketh them to skip like a calf. He makes them to dance. He makes them to move the most powerful things. He causes them to move at his command.

We came into this world thinking that we are Like gods, as Satan told us, and the Lord is able to make us bow at his footstool and worship in the beauty of holiness, and he's also able to make his people move. What's the movement of God in the hearts of his people? You come to the Lord Jesus Christ. You come. He calls, and you come.

And you might, in your own mind, think that you're a suitor of Lebanon, and he's able to make them dance in their coming. Lebanon and Sirion, that's the highest peak, one of the highest peaks in those mountains where these trees are living on. He's able to make them skip like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divided the flames of fire.

That's lightning. Have you ever been close to lightning? I've been close to lightning a couple of times. I've had one over near that famous oval just up the road from Norman Bess where the lightning seems to always come there. I was planting corn as a young fellow years and years ago and I was standing on top of a truck, desperately trying to cover up the seed and fertiliser while this storm came. So I was on top of a truck and there was a tree about 150 metres away and the lightning landed exactly between us. I saw the puff of dust come up from the paddock. You're in the presence of lightning. You're in the presence of thunder. And you are made aware in a heartbeat of how terribly, terribly weak and frail and inconsequential you are. And that's why the Lord asked Job, didn't he? One of the questions he asked Job, he says, where were you, Job? Where were you? Can you do this, Job? Can you do that, Job? Where were you when I created all things?

In Job 38 verse 25, who has divided the water course for the overflowing waters all the way for the lightning of the thunder? Who determines where that lightning goes? You've seen that lightning zap through the sky and it seems to us extraordinarily irregular, doesn't it? And God says, every tiny little bit of that path is determined by me and I control it. I control it. The thing that causes us extraordinary fears, the great waters cause us fear. And the Lord thundereth upon many waters. The Lord divides the flame of fire. In verse 35 of Job, can you send the lightnings? How powerful do you think you are? Can you send the lightnings? I'm God and you're not. I'm God. Can you send the lightnings that they may go and say unto thee, here we are.

Job heard the voice of God, didn't he? He says, behold, I am vile. He said, I heard thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes see thee, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Job, under the most extraordinary provocations of Satan and his miserable comforters, was caused to actually defend his own righteousness right at the very end.

And then God sends a gospel preacher, Elihu, comes to him. And then after Elihu comes, God comes. It's exactly the course that still happens in this world when God plans to be merciful and God was merciful to Job in the most extraordinary ways. But the great mercy was that Job saw God in ways that caused him to rejoice and he heard a word from God. He heard a word from God.

The voice of the Lord, verse eight, shaketh the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The Lord shakes the things that we can't even see, that holy place. But I love verse nine. The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve. That means the doe, the female deers. And he asked Job, he said, where are you? Can you make them calve? He challenges Job, doesn't he? And this verse is a wonderful challenge.

The voice of the Lord. Why do they have their babies? The voice of the Lord. He makes the hinds to calve. The voice of the Lord. discovereth the forest. The voice of the Lord creates life. The voice of the Lord strips the trees of their leaves so you actually see them. Where were we hiding in Genesis 3? We'd covered ourselves with leaves and we'd hid amongst the leaves of the forest and the Lord comes and he strips it all away. His voice makes life, makes the hinds to carve. He discovereth the forest. And I love this verse. This is a lovely, lovely verse of scripture. Lovely passage. That's just a given, isn't it?

Everyone in God's temple speaks of his glory. What is his temple? He said to those Pharisees there in Jerusalem, he said, destroy this temple. The temple is his body. The temple is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are a building made by God. All of God's children make up his temple. We are the dwelling place of God by his spirit. The temple is a place where God reveals himself, where God gathers his people to himself, where God meets with his people.

We are Ephesians 5.30, we are members of his body, his flesh and his bones. Such is the closeness of our union with him. That's Christ and the Church. You know those verses in Ephesians 2, You are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. in whom you are also built together for the inhabitation of God through the Spirit."

What are they singing? What are they saying? Everyone, everyone in his temple does speak of his glory. That's what they're singing in heaven, aren't they? You've redeemed us by your blood and you've redeemed us out of every tribe and nation and kindred and you made us kings and priests.

What are they singing about the glory of God in heaven? They're singing about the glory of the Redeemer in heaven. They're singing about the glory of the Christ in heaven. They're singing about the glory of those wounds that they see on the Lord Jesus Christ. Forever and ever and ever. The glory. They speak of his glory. They're not speaking of man's glory and man's will and what man must do. They're speaking of his glory. His glory is great, he says, in thy salvation.

The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. We've read a lot of promises today. We've heard a lot of amazing promises from God. Isn't it wonderful that our God is so big and so powerful that he can make every one of them yay and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our God speaks creation into existence. He speaks new creation into existence. He speaks the glory of that creation in such a way that his children worship him in the beauty of holiness. We worship him in his beauty.

We see our Lord Jesus Christ as beautiful and he sits upon the floor. Do you think of that ark? That ark is the Lord Jesus Christ. It sat upon that flood, and the judgment of God fell upon that ark, and all of the wrath of God fell on that ark, and that ark absorbed that wrath, that pitch.

It had propitiation on the outside and propitiation on the inside, and Noah was safe. Noah was safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what the floods do. All of the wrath of God has been expended, and he sits as a king forever. And that God can say in verse 11, the Lord will give strength unto his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace.

I just love the sound of that word, peace. In this world, you're gonna have trouble. Where's our peace? In me, you'll have peace. You'll have peace in this Lord and in peace in this voice coming to you, this voice that's powerful, this voice that breaks the cedars, this voice that divides the lightning, this voice that shakes the world, the voice that makes life, the voice that exposes what's in the forest, the voice that says in his temple, everyone's going to speak of his glory. That's peace. I love that. I love thinking about this psalm. May the Lord write his words on our hearts and unite our hearts together to rejoice in him, in the beauties of his holiness, in the glory of his power and his wonder.

He will give strength unto his people. Why will he give strength unto them? Because they feel themselves as weak. As weak as little lambs. And when we are weak, then we are strong in him. And the Lord will bless his people. He has a people in this world. His people, he calls them. He says, they're mine. They're mine. That's what he says. Every one of his children in this world, mine. I love that. He owns us. He bought us. We're his by redemption, but most of all, we are his by conquering love. He overwhelms his people. And we just love it that way.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for your word. We thank you We thank you that it speaks of the glory of your dear and precious son. Oh, Heavenly Father, may we speak of your glory to each other. May we speak and practise the songs of heaven that speak of your glory while we live in this world, Heavenly Father. And may our hearts, in the midst of a tempestuous world and tempestuous sins in our lives and trials and troubles, Heavenly Father, May we see you above the waters and may we hear you saying, peace, be still.

He is our peace. He's made peace by the blood of his cross. Oh, Heavenly Father, how wonderful it is that we can worship you in the beauties of holiness because you've taken away our sins and now we are made holy in our dear and precious Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Make his blood precious to us, Heavenly Father.

May we go from here with his words of peace resting upon us and may we, Heavenly Father, be continually drawn to the fact that our God reigns. Our God reigns. Reign in our hearts. Unite us, Heavenly Father, unite our hearts together to love you, to reverence you and to worship you in the beauties of holiness in your dear and precious Son. May we eat and may we drink with faith, Heavenly Father, looking to him alone. For we pray in Christ's name and for his glory. Amen.

The Voice of The Lord

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The Voice of The Lord

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About Angus Fisher

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