Psalm 29
Reading from Psalm 29 verse 1,
it says, a Psalm of David. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly
beings, ascribe to the Lord the glory and strength. Ascribe to
the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor
of His holiness. The voice of the Lord is over
the waters. The voice of glory thunders the
Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful.
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the
Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of
Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion
like a wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes
forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes
the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness
of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and
strips the forest bare. And in his temple, all cry glory.
The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned
as king forever. May the Lord give strength to
his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace. Amen,
let’s pray. Lord, we pray that this psalm
tonight would encourage our faith in you, the great God of glory. We pray that not only will it
strengthen our faith, but it will grow and increase our enthusiasm
to worship you as the God always has been, always will be the
God who is powerful in His voice. And we pray it in Christ’s name,
amen. I don’t know how many of y’all are fascinated by storms,
but at least I am. Every time the rain comes, my
little offspring put on their boots and they go down to Willowbrook
Park and they wanna see the creek flooded. They wanna put something
in that raging torrent and they wanna see it, they wanna touch
it. Or when hail strikes, we wanna see how big the hailstones
are. Of course, we wanna hope it doesn’t damage our cars or
our roofs, but we wanna see this phenomenon, this strange phenomenon
of ice falling from the sky. And it’s funny how it happens,
usually in warm weather. How does ice fall from the sky
during the summer? That’s something to figure out.
We want to look at hurricanes. We want to see floods. We wanna
see nature on display. Of course, we don’t want it to
touch us or hurt us. Are any of y’all addicted to the weather
channel? No? I know some of you are probably
addicted to the news channels, but got some in our family, they’re
addicted to the weather channel and they watch these videos of
torrents and wind storms and all kinds of things. But we’re
mesmerized by forces of nature. It’s either that or what’s the
other option? We hide under the bed and wait for the storm to
pass. Well, David has written this
magnificent poem in Psalm 29, and he’s written it after witnessing
a storm. He most likely has been an eyewitness
to some massive storm that gathered, and it brewed, and it formed,
and it passed through Israel, as we’ll see, from the north
all the way to the south, and it dissipated. And it leads King
David to say, look at this storm. Look at the God of the storm.
He looks at the storm and all the actions of it, but he reflects
on the nature of God, particularly the voice of God, and he calls
on heaven and earth to worship God as the great king. Some will
say that Psalm 29 is one of the greatest pieces of poetry in
all of wisdom literature, and maybe it is. Some will say that King David
took a poem from Baal worship, you know, the Canaanites, the
people that Israel displaced out of the Promised Land, or
they displaced most of them, the Canaanites worshiped Baal.
Well, guess what Baal was? Baal was the god of the storms,
the god of thunder. And so some will say David took
a Baal poem and changed it to make it a Yahweh poem, a Jehovah
poem. Well, that may be. This has connections
also to, remember when Elijah called down fire from heaven,
he was fighting, he was competing against the gods of the Baals,
the prophets of the Baals. Well, their gods couldn’t perform,
their gods couldn’t consume the altar and the fire, but Yahweh
could, and so there’s a little bit of that in there. Some say
that David, when he carried the ark from the man’s home where
it had was kept for a while and brought it to Jerusalem, to the
tabernacle as it was erected in Jerusalem, that this was the
psalm that was sang or read at that time, maybe because of verse
nine at the very end when it says, all in his temple cry glory. Remember the ark was where God’s
glory dwelled and when they brought it into the tent, no doubt glory
was on their lips. Various traditions in Jewish
history have used this psalm for all kinds of things, but
it has echoes of It has echoes of God’s voice being powerful
in and among creation. It has echoes of the song of
Miriam and Moses from Psalm 15, or Exodus 15. I will sing unto
the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and the
rider have been thrown into the sea. It has echoes of the songs
of Balaam in Book of Numbers. It has echoes of Judges 5. It
has echoes of God thundering from the mountain at Sinai and
giving his law to his people. Over and over in this psalm,
it speaks of the voice of the Lord, the voice of Yahweh, the
voice of the Lord. But the main way to understand
this psalm is this. David sees a storm gather. He sees a storm strike, and it
strikes the north of Israel, and it goes all the way through
even to the south of Israel, and it peters out in the desert
in the south, and he watches the storm pass by. So this is
David’s response to a storm. You could, in a sense, say he
was literally blown away by the amazing power of Almighty God. So what are we supposed to get
from a psalm like this? Well, I think the bottom line we should
understand is that we should see God, we should worship God,
and we should trust God. Those are calls to us. Well, we want to look at the
psalm in three main headings. The first is in verses one and
two. It’s a call to worship. Look at what he says in one and
two. He says, ascribe to the Lord,
O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord the glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory
due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness.
So King David has watched this storm and he is now calling on
all heavenly beings. This is not a call to people
on earth. This isn’t a call to worship in the temple. This is
a call to worship. David is calling out to all the
heavenly beings, it says in verse one, to worship God. Now we don’t
think outside our little fellowships very often. We don’t think outside
of our sanctuary. But did you know that in addition
to our worship services, the worship services across town
and even across the country and around the world, in addition
to those, there is always 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
stretching all the way back to eternity past, there has been
a heavenly court heavenly beings worshiping God. We don’t think
that way very often. We think that everything that
exists is here and now. We’re like those who built towers
to Babel. They’re in Babel. We build unto
ourselves. And we think our auditoriums
and our sanctuaries and our music ministries, we think our whatevers,
our pictures of success. Well, you know what the Bible
actually says about worship? Worship is taking place in heaven.
And we are participants, participating with them. We are outposts of
heaven. We are glimpses of glory divine. And yes, we try to fashion our
worship after the worship of heaven according to scripture.
We try to fashion our buildings and our architecture to match
what it must be like to be in the presence of God, for God
to speak and for us to respond. We try to do all that. But we
must put our minds around the heavenly realm. It’s where David’s
mind was. He didn’t go running off and
gather a group of people and say, we need to have a little
church service. What does he do? He calls on all of heaven. He calls on the heavenly court
to, what does he say? Ascribe to the Lord, ascribe
to the Lord, ascribe to the Lord, worship the Lord. Four times
he commands that the people or the created beings of heaven
and the unseen realm worship God. In this psalm, there are
25 references to Yahweh. I think 18 times you’ll see the
word Lord in all caps. That’s the divine personal name
of God. In the Hebrew Bible, that’s Yahweh.
It’s the unpronounceable name, the unmentionable name of God,
but it’s the greatest way we know God. It’s the way God revealed
himself to Moses in the burning bush. I am Yahweh. And he says
over and over, Yahweh is to be worshiped. And so there’s a call
to worship, ascribe to God. What does ascribe mean, tell?
Bestow, give to God the glory, do his name. We sing sometimes
at Thanksgiving now, thank we all our God with heart and hand
and voices. Everything we have, we give praise
to God, we ascribe to God. But he also uses not only the
ascribe word, he uses the Worship word, it’s a word that literally
means to bow down. So he’s calling on the heavenly
beings to tell God how much he’s worth. He’s using that worship
word, bow down, literally before the throne of Almighty God. What
does Revelation tell us is taking place in heaven? Day and night,
day and night, the creatures of heaven, the elders and the
saints who’ve gone before us, they are literally bowing down.
before God in worship, crying out, holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God Almighty. Now think about the context of
a psalm like this. Where did Israel live? They lived
in the promised land. They lived in Canaan. Well, what
was Canaan? It was the former land of the
Canaanites. And what did God tell Israelites over and over
and over and over and over to do? When you are dwelling in
the land, and houses you did not build and cisterns you did
not dig, eating grapes and drinking wine from vineyards you did not
plant. Don’t forget me. Don’t worship
other gods. In fact, how does he start the
Ten Commandments? I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall
have no other gods before me. There’s a strong sense this psalm
is saying, remember Israel, remember all heavenly beings. that it
is God who is to be worshiped. Baal and all the other false
gods cannot do what our God can do. And so he’s saying to the
earthly or the heavenly beings, worship God, give him the glory,
do his holy name. And he has a little interesting
line there at the end of verse two, worship the Lord in the
splendor of holiness. And if you have a little footnote,
you’ll notice in our English Bibles, it says, or it could
mean in holy attire. And we have these little discussions
from time to time in our American culture about how should we dress
for church? You ever get into those discussions?
Some people say, oh, it doesn’t matter. It just matters how your
heart is. Some will say, well, your heart is on display based
on how you dress. Well, here we are right after
the inauguration of the president. And I would bet if you got invited
to some festivity at the presidential inauguration, whether it’s one
of the 8,000 balls they had other events, you would probably go
out and buy, what? A new suit of clothes, a new
dress, and it was fashion on display. But that’s how we appear
before royalty. We dress in a way that says,
I respect you, I respect your high office, I respect who you
are. But there’s some little sense here where he’s calling
on the heavenly beings to worship God in the way God has fashioned
them. Remember, it’s Isaiah 6. Isaiah sees a vision of heaven,
and he sees God sitting on the throne. He was high and lifted
up, and what filled the temple? His train filled the temple.
It was so magnificent, it filled the temple. The elders cried,
amen, and holy. But you remember the angels?
They had sets of wings, some to cover their face, and some
to do this, that, and the other. And so we read a little phrase
like the end of verse two, worship the Lord in the splendor of his
holiness or of your holy attire. And we need to remember that
God is to be worshiped. There’s that call here to worship.
But we don’t just approach God in an empty way. We don’t approach
him in a casual attitude. And somehow that has to affect
our human dress on earth for it’s a call here. at least for
the heavenly beings, to worship God in the way He made you to
worship Him. Approach Him in all the right ways. And so it’s
just a good reminder to us, I think. We don’t need to argue about
clothes and fabrics and cottons and ties and stripes and all
that. But we need to be careful how
we approach God, both in heart and in our approach to Him. He says in verse one and two,
we should come to worship Him. So while this call is to the,
excuse me, the heavenly beings, what does it say to us? Well,
who do we worship? Do we worship Baal? Do we worship
the God of thunder? Do we worship the God of commerce?
Do we worship the gods of Hollywood? Do we worship the gods of Apple
and Samsung and all these technologies we so dearly love and carry around
with us? Even read our Bibles on and all
the rest. Who do we worship? What do we
worship? Here’s an even more important question, where do
our affections lie? If you were coming out from under
your bed after a magnificent storm, would you pen Psalm 29? I know King David was under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but what would your response
be after seeing such a magnificent storm? He calls on heaven, or
calls on earth, or heaven, to worship him. And so there’s a
call to worship in the middle part of this psalm, is the best.
After the call to worship, we have in verses 3 through 9, the
storm. Now, God always has a context
to display his glory. We said it over and over again
that all of creation is a theater of God’s glory. It’s a place,
it’s a stage for God to show his wondrous acts of redemption.
It’s why The acts of redemption are important to understand in
their settings. What took place in the Garden
of Eden was important. What took place in the time of
Noah in the flood was important. What took place in the cities
of Egypt in the Exodus and through Sinai, those scenes, those theaters
are important. The battle versus the Baals with
Elijah and the prophets of Baal is important. But here it’s helpful
for us to understand a little bit of the geography of Israel.
You know, you’ve got the Mediterranean Sea on the coast of Palestine. You’ve got, in the north, you’ve
got Mount Hermon, a year-round snow-capped mountain. If you
go to Mount Hermon, even in the summertime, it is capped with
snow. If you understand Psalm 133, which was quoted by our
new president the other day, It says, how good and pleasant
it is when brothers delight to dwell together in unity. It is
like the dew that flows from Hermon. You know, Israel is mostly
a sort of a dry area. It doesn’t rain there very often,
but the Snowcap Mountain produces dew. It feeds the rivers and
the streams, feeds the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee. And so
Mount Hermon is a great fixture in the Promised Land. Well, what
else is in that area? Well, there’s the Cedars of Lebanon.
Do you remember where the cedars of Lebanon come up in the stories
of the Bible? What does King David build his
palace with? It’s the cedars of Lebanon. What is the temple
built with? The cedars of Lebanon. What was
David and Solomon’s greatest trade agreement? It was with
the kings of Tyre and Sidon because what did he want? He wanted cedars
of Lebanon. They were renowned trees. They
were wonderful timbers for building. And so the context of this storm
is the entire land of Palestine. It’s the entire land from north
to south, all the way to the desert. Now he doesn’t tell the
story of what this tempest did over the Sea of Galilee. He doesn’t
tell what the storm did over various cities, but we see in
this Psalm in verses three and four, the storm gathers. He says,
the voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory
thunders, the Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord
is powerful, and the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
And so there’s this storm gathered. We get this picture of it gathering
over the Mediterranean Sea, and it’s gonna go all the way down
the Promised Land. But it’s gathering over the sea, and the voice of
the Lord being over the waters has several meanings here. He’s
gathering a storm, yes. But he’s the God whose voice
is over the waters. In Genesis chapter one, as he
hovered over the face of the deep, And he separated the waters
from the earth, from the waters from the land. He separated the
sea and the dry land by speaking in these things taking place.
He’s also the God who sits enthroned over the flood. We’ll see that
in verse 10. But God and his powerful voice are over the water.
He gathers the storms and he sends the storms. And notice in verse five through
seven, we read about how the storm strikes. It says, the voice
of the Lord breaks the cedars. The voice of the Lord breaks
the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like
a calf and Sirion like a young ox. The voice of the Lord flashes
forth flames of fire.” Now, what is he speaking of here? He’s
speaking of these giant cedars of Lebanon. I’m not sure how
big they are. They’re not probably like the redwoods of California,
but you understand these are great trees, mighty trees. And
what does the voice of the Lord do? It sends forth thunder and
lightning and wind, and it cracks these giant trees. It strips
them bare of their bark, and it uproots them. It strips the
forest bare. These are quite amazing pictures. I remember as a kid, this has
been a long, long time ago, 35 years ago, we were down on Baden
Lake in a family cabin my grandparents had, There was a thunderstorm,
it was a Sunday night, we had driven down there after church,
we had taken another family with us, and lightning hit the giant
pine tree that was right outside the cabin door. I mean, this
tree was three feet from the cabin door, six feet from my
head, and lightning hit this tree, maybe 90 feet up, and it
skinned the tree all the way to the ground. But that lightning
and its strike and the thunder shook, and all of us screaming
kids were awakened. It was quite the thing. I remember
today, the tree had to be cut. It was burned all the way to
the ground. But I think about that. Or recently,
we had this hurricane and over in my parents’ yard, they had
several trees uprooted. And so one of the fascinating
things the grandchildren did over Christmas was they climbed
in and around and under the roots. They could literally see what
used to hold that tree straight up and how nature, how God’s
storm with Hurricane Matthew had uprooted those trees. When
you think about hurricane or tornadoes, a couple years ago
we were on a Sunday afternoon sitting in my in-laws’ screen
porch and a tornado was forming maybe just to the south of us.
And the kids thought I was crazy, but I sat on the porch and watched.
You could see the birds fluttering to find shelter. You could see
animals seeking shelter. It was an interesting thing.
And the storm hit maybe 20, 30 miles away from us. but you could
see it across the mountains. You could see it across the skies
forming. That was quite a thing, but when the storm strikes, it’s
quite an amazing thing. And here, what does it say in
verses five through seven? It says, the voice of the Lord,
or this storm, it breaks the cedars, these giant trees. It
literally makes Lebanon, it makes a whole region skip like an ox. Have you ever seen that? calf
or a baby horse skip around. They can’t really walk straight,
but they skip, they hop, and it’s a cute little thing. What
does he say here? This whole region, even the mountains,
Sirion is another name for Mount Hermon. They’re giant mountain,
they’re giant trees. God’s voice breaks and makes
them skip. What an amazing picture that
is. And it even says in verse what is it, verse nine, the voice
of the Lord makes the deer give birth. It strips the forest bare
and in his temple all cry glory. Now some say that verse nine
doesn’t literally say makes the deer give birth, but it makes
the earth convulse. It makes animals convulse. It’s
a contraction type word. Maybe it does mean that the voice
of God, as it thunders, scares the mother animals into giving
birth. Maybe that is the case. But you get the point, the voice
of God is powerful, it shakes and it quakes. Verses eight through
nine, we have the storm passing. The voice of the Lord shakes
the wilderness, it shakes the wilderness of Kadesh, it’s made
its way south. It’s done its damage, it’s done
its duty. Have any of y’all listened to
a rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons? You know, the beautiful
violins concert builds in momentum. Have you ever listened to a rendition
of it with thunder and lightning sound effects? It’s quite a magnificent
thing to hear. You can probably look it up on
the internet and hear it, but it’s a good way to hear an artist’s
rendering of nature on the move, the storm forming and striking
and passing. Well, God’s storm has shaken,
it has quaked, it has convulsed, it has caused birth, And what
do the people of God in the temple do? We move now from David commanding
the people in the heavenly realm to worshiping, to saying those
in his temple, those in his temple at the end of verse nine cry
glory. They cry kavod, they cry for
the glory of almighty God because he is great and magnificent.
There’s enthusiasm. Now what does this tell us? Should we not hide under our
beds next time there’s a storm? Maybe it’s an encouragement to
us to watch, watch nature, watch the storm. We don’t wanna worship
nature, but God reveals himself in creation. Psalm 19, the heavens
declare the glory of God day to day. Of course, fourth speech.
But it’s an encouragement, I think, to us to get outside and see
what God is up to in this world. Charles Haddon Spurgeon says
of this psalm, And of Psalm 19 and Psalm 8, he says, in Psalm
8, remember the heaven, or, oh Lord, our Lord, how magnificent
is your name in all the earth. When I look at the sun and the
moon and the stars, I look at you and wonder why I’m significant.
And so Spurgeon says, Psalm 8 ought to be read under the stars. And
then he says, Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. Day
after day, they pour forth speech. Remember it says, It’s like a
bridegroom leaving his chamber. It runs its course through the
day and it returns to its chamber at night. He says we should read
Psalm 19 out in the sunshine. But he says of Psalm 29, we should
read it in the midst of a storm. In the midst of a mighty tempest,
we should read this Psalm and it shows us the power of the
voice of God. The last little section here,
verses 10 and 11, it turns to the people of God. It speaks
of God being enthroned, over the flood and the Lord sits enthroned
as king forever. And then he says, may the Lord
give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people
with peace. There’s a real sense here where
David is saying, God, you have shown your might, you’ve shown
your power, you’ve shown your strength, not only in your creation,
but your reigning over creation. You’ve shown your might. Now
show that might and that power to be beneficial to your people. So he’s addressed the heavenly
beings in verse one and two. We’ve seen a storm gather and
run its course and pass by on earth. And now he’s speaking
about the covenant people. God bless your people through
that same strength we’ve just seen on display in the storm. It’s a good reminder to us that
there are all kinds of storms in life. We don’t want to over
spiritualize this, But yes, there are real physical storms in life.
There are times we get under our beds, we get into our tornado
shelters, we hide in the basement, we go to some place that is firm
and fixed and shelter from a storm. But we need to remember that
God is over the storms. Job realizes that after the storms
of life ravage and wreak havoc over his home and his family
and his offspring. And we realize that when we face
all kinds of trials in this life, God is over the tempest. He is
over the floods. And he is always at work redemptively.
What’s the wonderful thing we see in these last verses? He speaks in verse 11 of the
strength of God. And it echoes back to the early
chapters. Why do we worship God? We worship
God because he’s strong, he saves. And now it says, Lord, give strength
to your people. that saving strength, give it to your people. Bless
your people with peace. Isn’t it interesting he speaks
of peace after a tempest? And you know, you walk outside
after a storm and the steam is rising from the ground, the leaves
are all settled, the branches are down, the damage has been
done, and it’s time for peace until the next storm. It’s a
wonderful reminder that God does bring peace after the storms.
Remember Noah, after the flood, what did he say? After that great
deluge destroyed the earth, he sees a rainbow, a sign of God’s
peace. It’s a reminder of good things
to come. There’s a new heavens, there’s
a new earth, that yes, the storms of life will pass and they will
blow down our houses, they’ll blow down our trees, they’ll
blow back our hair, they may even kill us, but God is in control
and that same strength can give us peace. Well, what are we to
take from this? Well, God is Lord over storms, and
Jesus displays that very well in that passage from Matthew
that we read. His disciples were afraid, they were sinking, they
were dying. They thought death was for sure, and where was Jesus?
He was asleep. And they woke him up in a panic,
and what does he say? He rebukes them, oh you of little
faith. And you know, we have these storms
in our life, and they shake us. We feel like our life is quaking
like the mountains of Mount Hermon. We feel like our life is snapping
like the trees of Lebanon. But guess what? God is in control.
He’s snapping every tree. He’s shaking every mountain.
And what is he doing? He’s showing us that these things
will pass, but I will never pass. I will never go away. He’s saying,
peace, be still. He can walk in the midst of our
storm. And so this is a call to worship God. It’s a call also,
to trust him. So we see this storm gather,
it goes from the north to the south, it leaves a destructive
path, no doubt. You know how it is, we watch
these news stories like we’re doing from Mississippi and from
Florida, and we see what damage has been done, but we also see
peace. Nearly every commentator who
writes on this psalm says these words, and I don’t know if they
all came up with it, wrote it themselves, or one ancient said
it and the others are just reminding us of it, but many of them wrote
about it, it’s important. The early part of this song,
we see glory to God in the highest. Worship God, ascribe to him the
glory to his name. Glory to God in the highest.
And then they end, and it ends with peace on earth. God gives
peace to those upon whom his favor rests. It’s a reminder
that God has come down in the person of Jesus. Though he is
worshiped in heaven, but he’s come down in the person of Jesus.
And in his strength, he has brought us peace through the power of
the cross. Let’s pray together. Lord, we
thank you for this psalm and how it teaches us a glimpse of
what it is to worship you and stand in awe, but also what it
is to have faith in the midst of the storms and hardships of
life. And Lord, we pray that You’d
help us to remember that the skies may be dark, the earth
may shake, even the mountains may skip, and the things that
we think are sure and true may pass away, but you never will.
And we thank you for that strong assurance that we have tonight.
May it rest in our souls, may it rest in our hearts, may it
be on the forefront of our minds. Help us to be enthusiastic as
we worship you. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.