In a very similar vein with that psalm, tonight we consider Psalm 29, so it asks you to turn your Bibles to Psalm 29. Probably a psalm that many of you maybe are not familiar with or have not spent a lot of time with. We do sing this psalm often, and after the sermon we'll sing it, and it takes on, after we've heard it preached and considered what it's saying, singing it is really a beautiful thing. But tonight, this psalm describes the Lord's great power, and you'll notice the continued emphasis on His voice. So we'll read the entirety of the psalm and consider Psalm 29 together tonight. This is the word of the Lord. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. 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. 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 young 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 forests 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. And may the Lord bless the hearing of his word. When I was a child growing up, I was always attracted to, and maybe some of the young people will connect with this, I was always attracted to those friends of mine who, when they went to worship and worship the Lord, they seemed like they were having an experience that I was not having. I always wondered, that question was always in the back of my mind. Am I missing something? Maybe I'm missing something. It was confusing for me because I always thought that if I brought them to my church, I knew that it would be something completely different for them. I didn't know how they would respond to that. I mean, we were doctrinal and we sing psalms and and what would they think about that? Wouldn't they think that that's lifeless? I mean, that that would be the kind of thing that I would hear. I also knew on the other side of the spectrum that there was the problem of just being old school for the sake of being old school. Jesus warned about that. He warned about those who draw near to him with their mouths, but their hearts are far from him. But then I thought to myself, I knew sheer unmediated feeling was just a danger zone. It was It was dangerous because there was no restraint and all restraint was cast off and I knew that was an awful thing to have happen. As I look back over my struggle with the whole issue of worship and as I wrestled through these issues of worship, which I'm sure many of you do, the verse that really had an impact upon me was something the apostle said in Romans chapter 10 when he was speaking of the failure of Israel and the ways that they failed. And he said something that always stuck with me. He said something that was very profound under the inspiration of the Spirit. He said, I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God. A passion for God. But not according to knowledge. That struck me. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God. A lot of people claim to have a passion for God and they claim to have this passion. And it's a passion for God, as the apostle here describes, of people who seek to draw near to God on their terms. And Romans 10 makes that very clear in their own way, in a way that manipulates God, to bring God to them, to bring Christ to them their way in the way that they want to have Him come. And what really struck me is when he says it's not according to knowledge. When I reflected on that, the thing over and over that came back to me from the scriptures is that often, growing up, I had not taken into account who this God really is. When it dawned on me that people can have a passion for God, but not according to knowledge, I thought, how dangerous worship then is. How dangerous worship is without a proper knowledge. For me, that just shattered categories of traditional versus contemporary. I wanted to know what does worship look like that is according to knowledge. I wanted to know that. Worship had to be something that first considered God. Considering what He is like. Considering how He has made known Himself in His Word. In such a way that I had come to understand that I believed His holiness and how that would drive everything that I did, the whole way that I reflected upon Him in worship, what I thought about God, how it engaged my mind in worship, His radiant beauty and His majestic holiness. Because worship that does not do that leads us very easily into the problem of refashioning God into something that makes us feel very comfortable that we like about Him. Undoubtedly back into the fallen image of our own fallen image trampling His holiness underfoot. Psalm 29 tonight is given to us for that. Psalm 29 is given to us to keep us from making God into one of us in worship. Psalm 29 is about raising our view of God out of the roof. And it's about worshiping the Lord and knowing Him in His holiness. And how He's revealed Himself and a proper knowledge of Him. And that's the whole point tonight. This psalm that is before you, if you're taking notes, is given to convict everyone to consider God in His terrible holiness. That we might worship Him with understanding. That we might worship Him with understanding. The psalm is pure praise tonight. Do you notice that? It's not saying go out and do anything. It's calling us to consider it. It's calling us to consider God in all of His glory and all of His splendor. and His greatness, so that we can, as you notice when His people gather together, that all that comes out of our mouths when we consider who He is and how He's revealed Himself is the single great word, glory. Glory. Let's study this tonight. The psalm is describing something that David learned. That proper praise of the Lord actually happens when the whole earth is bowed down in prostrate form before Him, bowing before Him in submissive silence before His holy majesty. Not just the angels, not just humans, but the psalm gives us this picture of all of creation doing this. It's very powerful imagery tonight to consider. It's a beautiful sort of poem using this imagery to describe worship, to describe how worship should be and what it should look like and how people are really reflecting upon the holiness of God. Listen to verse 1. Give unto the Lord, O you mighty one. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name. Now, I love that the ESV tonight uses that old word ascribe. Something beautiful about that word. Assign, credit. Assign, ascribe to God. All that is due to him. That's what he's calling us to do tonight. God is telling us how true worship begins. And we're not really given this circumstance here, but we can understand that David is reacting to something. He's reacting to something by whom he's addressing. We see it through whom he's addressing. You'll notice that he mentions the mighty ones. Your version says the heavenly beings. Others say the mighty ones, or a very wooden translation, is the sons of the gods. David could be calling the angels to worship, and many do take that position, But the whole flow of the psalm here seems to indicate that something has really bothered David on the earth. Something has really troubled David on the earth. Something has really got him. And it's a simple fact that there are multitudes of people and their rulers who have not stopped and they have not paid homage and they have not given full credit and they have not ascribed glory to this magnificent creator of heaven and earth. So David singles out the mighty ones who represent the peoples. And we're going to see in this psalm that it's a psalm showing kingship, showing the Lord as the great king, which comes on the heels of what was described in Psalm 2 in the Psalter where many kings and many mighty men on the face of the earth have taken counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. They speak against the Lord and they rule by the dictates of their own hearts and here it's presented as an attack on the kingship of the Lord. And so here we think about the peoples and the leaders lifting themselves up. They lift themselves up. They arrogate themselves against the Lord and against His Christ and act as if they are the one supremely in control and they've not considered. David's asking the question, have you considered, have you given thought the least bit to who you're refusing to acknowledge? Who you're refusing to worship? Do you have any idea who this God is of all glory and all holiness with whom you have to do? And David considers this. David is thinking about this. He's inspired to write this. And we think of Psalm 51, who warns those who forget God in worship. The danger of forgetting God. And so he's calling the mighty ones. He's calling the rulers of the people, which really is a summons for all people to fix their hearts and to focus on the Lord and his radiant glory and his majestic brilliance as the creator of all things. This was not just a problem for the heathen. This was a tragedy in Israel's history that God's people themselves, from the beginning, there was the awful problem of God's people refashioning the Lord and creating Him into an image of their own imagination. You'll remember that in the Golden Calf event and what happened on that where they had, as Romans 1 describes, they had exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God and made Him into an image of a bull calf and they worshipped Him that way. And the thing that struck us about that, the thing that strikes us, is that it wasn't that Israel had blatantly denied the existence of God. It is that they were substituting His glory for something they thought would be more satisfying. Something more tangible. A God there for their pleasure. A God who would meet all their expectations and who was ultimately at the end of the day powerless to defeat all of their enemies. And so they were constantly calling, you'll remember throughout their history, upon the pagans to deliver them. And they called upon other nations to help them. And even at times looking to Baal, who was known as the God of the storm to deliver them. What a sad tragedy up on Mount Carmel when God's people were bowing to Baal. They had obliterated the distinction between the creator and the creature. Now, all of this may seem rather primitive to us, but we do the same thing. We do the same thing constantly as we live in fear. We are living in increasingly unstable times economically, politically. The world scene right now just seems to be escalating with violence. It would be interesting to talk to our seniors and see how much this has really troubled them. The threat of Islam becomes greater and greater. And people today, in this country by and large, are gripped by fear. How easy it is for Christians to fall into this. True, isn't it? Some of us, maybe tonight, are very anxious about many things. Some of us tonight are worried about children or worried and in fear about this and that. And what is this? Is it not some kind of result of a very low conception of the Lord and His glorious majesty and His holiness and His sovereign omnipotence? It's all powerful over all things. The psalm is corrective tonight of this. The psalm is calling us to look up. The psalm is calling us to consider God, to consider Him in His greatness, to turn your eyes away from yourself in all of life's anxieties, in all of the fears, and to hear His summons to worship. The Spirit says to us, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Glory gives the sense of here of His respect that we should have of Him and that our view of Him should be framed by taking delight that He is all-powerful and that He is almighty and that He upholds everything by His sovereign power in hand. Nothing shakes Him. Nothing rattles Him. Nothing has gotten away from Him. And all people are called to have their conceptions of God raised to consider Him in His greatness and His power. The Psalms are often contrasting this. Psalm 92, which is a wonderful psalm for the Sabbath, contrasts two different kinds of people. those who consider the Lord's ways and works and who have high thoughts of God compared with those who are senseless, who are like beasts of the field, who have their head down and don't consider His glory. Think of this glorious call. I want you to come, bow, and acknowledge the Lord. Assign and a credit to Him the glory that is due to His name. That all of your life, all of your living, all of your strength comes not from yourself, but to be deeply overwhelmed tonight by the Lord in His infinite majesty and His irresistible power and His glory and strength that He gives His servants. That He strengthens them to worship Him in the beauty of holiness. This is the proper posture of worship, isn't it? To bow down, subordinating our wills and our minds to Him. Our understanding of God affects everything of what we do and who we are. Consider it tonight. Consider His holy transcendence, says the psalm. Consider His greatness. Now I want you to see what the psalm is doing to have us do this. And that's why I really enjoyed studying this psalm. This psalm is so powerful when we understand the summons to worship and to call. now that He moves us and drives us to do this, how does He do that? How do you raid people's minds of a very low view of God? How do you fix that problem? How do you get people to drop the knee? How do you bring about the kind of worship that is pleasing? He does this in the most poetic way, to have God's people consider it. He describes a storm. I don't know how many of you have ever been through an awful storm. The rain you're receiving right now is not it. It's not a storm. I was recently in South Dakota visiting relatives for a death. We flew out there and my kids and my wife, we got in the car and we headed out to this farm town. And I was wondering why no one was out on the road. But as the storm started to hit, I had never been in anything like that, a Midwest storm. The sheets of rain that came down were just blinding. All you could see was a sheet of white. I couldn't even see the line on the road. And before the storm had hit, I thought there were funnel clouds out there. But I was thinking about this and reflecting upon this. We sang together in the car Psalm 46, which was a wonderful perspective in the middle of a storm to sing of the Lord's power and to sing of the Lord's might. And we did that as a family. And it was one of the most memorable experiences that I'd ever had. And I'll never forget it. But you can't really appreciate tonight what is described unless you're taken out into the middle of the storm and you in some way experience this. The way that the Lord has described it through the imagery and the word that is given to us here. This is a storm that as it makes its way through, it totally devastates everything in its path. Verses 3 through 9 describe this storm. And notice the imagery that's used. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. I want you to picture this. The Jews would have understood this. These awful storms would come up over the Mediterranean. And in the deep blackness, when they looked out far into that sea, an onlooker, they would look out and they would see the black clouds hurl up. And it was a terrifying sight of what they knew was coming. and the storm begins to form and it raises up this black blanket of terror. And as it comes upon the shore, it comes upon in hurricane-like fury as it breaks on and it sweeps down, it sweeps down the entire strip of the land of Canaan. And as it breaks through the land of Canaan, everything that it hits, it utterly destroys. Everything in its path is utterly laid waste. Nothing stands. Now, the psalm is correcting our view of God by doing something that the psalms often do, by describing Him with this imagery, and we think of the other psalms putting this together, of riding on this storm. The waters are hurled up and the Lord is riding on top of this and under His feet is blackness and darkness and lightning and thunder and fire. And this is just in the vein of Psalm 18. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken because He was angry. Smoke went up from His nostrils and devouring fire from His mouth, coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down with darkness under His feet. And He rode upon a cherub and flew. He flew upon the wings of the wind. In this particular psalm, seven times the voice of the Lord is mentioned. It's focusing on the voice of the Lord, the powerful voice of the Lord. Everyone who ever heard this voice throughout Israel's history, when they heard the voice, they dropped. There was nothing but silence when this voice came to them. The closest thing that we have to this is thunder. And it's the thunder that comes out of somewhere like Arizona in the monsoon season. And the Bible will use imagery. And Job describes this in Job 37. My heart trembles and leaps from its place. Hear attentively the thunder of His voice and the rumbling that comes from His mouth. He sends it forth under the whole heaven, His lightning to the ends of the earth. After a voice roars, He thunders with His majestic voice. And He does not restrain them when His voice is heard. God thunders marvelously with His voice. He does great things which we cannot comprehend. All of this imagery, all of these things in nature are used here to have us consider the great, awesome holiness of God. The God of glory thunders, says the psalm. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. Imagine this with me. Off in the distance, you look out and you see it coming. You see it coming. Thunder. Everyone is hearing and they're telling you, you better get out of the way. You better hide. you better run. You'll notice in verses 5-7, the storm moves down from Lebanon. And Lebanon is the northernmost part of the border of the land. And so we picture this storm now coming upon the land. And the first thing it confronts as it comes upon the land, did you notice what it says there? The cedars of Lebanon. These were beautiful cedars. These were powerful cedars. And it says the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon. If you were to go over to the Mediterranean, you would find these massive Lebanon cedars. And they average about 130 feet. And their circumference, it's really amazing. They're 45 feet circumference. And their root systems are some of the most complex in all of the world. They're usually at altitudes of 3,000 to 7,000 feet. And you'll remember that the great temple was built out of these cedars of Lebanon that Solomon had them cut down. They were so massive they had to float down the river. He mentions in verse 6, Sirion. That's another name for Mount Hermon. Sitting on the border of Lebanon, Syria is Mount Hermon and its top reaches well over 9,000 feet. So imagine this, this imagery that's being given to you, this massive mountain, and then stand these powerful cedars of Lebanon, giant foes standing up, risen up in their deeply planted into the ground. And what happens? The Lord storms through the Mediterranean. And as He approaches the land, He's riding on the clouds. He's riding in His glory. The voice of the Lord, and what does it say? It splits the cedars of Lebanon everywhere. blows them to bits. Can you imagine that imagery? They skip away like a calf. They skip away at His terrifying presence. The rage of His glory bursts, splintering these cedars of Lebanon. You ever heard wood split when struck by lightning? Power. Glory. The mountain itself. Assyrian skips before him like a wild ox. The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire. So you get what's described. The mighty Mediterranean makes a path for the Lord. He thunders through. He meets the formidable foe, the symbol of the greatest power and strength, and he blows it to bits. And it's represented that these are nothing before the Lord in His awesome transcendent glory. The mountains tremble and they bow down to Him. And the storm makes its way through the desert and in verse 8 it says that the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. That's the holy desert that Israel passed through. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth. It strips the forest bare. The animals hear that voice and any pregnant animals immediately drop and give birth. It makes its way out into the wilderness, this storm. It shakes the ground. Everyone is in awful fear. Everything in its path, everything as it goes through, is completely stripped bare. Now, what has this psalm just done? It's done something. It's done something very effective, hasn't it? It should hush everyone before the majesty of this God. Who is sprouting off now? Who is running the mouth now? Who is not considering? Who is not worshiping? Who is not bowing? Here's the problem. God in His terrible holiness, David is using the storm. He's using the imagery of a storm. to describe what God is like, walled off in His glory. He is dangerous. He is absolutely dangerous. And here's the sad problem. Who's considering that today? Who is considering this about the Lord? No one's listening to the voice. Are they? Calvin is right. Even the beasts tremble in the earth. The beasts will tremble. Man's not moved. And he blames the storm on all the other causes to do anything to avoid acknowledging God in His glory. The question I have is this. What kind of voice does this represent? Even though he's using a storm to describe this, what is this really communicating to us about God? What is this really telling us about the Lord? Israel would have understood this. They experienced a storm, didn't they? Remember the storm that they experienced out in the wilderness? Remember that storm? What was the most frightening experience studying Israel's history that Israel ever had in the wilderness? It wasn't the nations coming against them. It wasn't any of that. What was the most frightening experience of Israel in the wilderness? What was it? Well, the most terrifying moment for Israel is Exodus 19 and 20. When God came down with the voice of the law. Remember that? And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God. And they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now, Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, what did they do? What did they cry out? Don't let him speak to us. That was the thing they said. Moses, remember this morning? You speak, lest we die. Hebrews tells us this, and I quote, When they heard that voice, they begged that the Word of God should not be spoken to them any longer. The voice of the law. When they heard that, they begged, don't speak to us anymore. What does it say? for they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was that sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling. Now, here's what few are considering. Everyone should be fulfilling the reason they are created to glorify God and enjoy Him and worship Him in the beauty of His holiness. But so many have turned. And here's the problem. God is so incredibly holy. He is such a consuming fire. When God comes down in His terrible justice, He will consume, as we just sung out from Psalm 68, afar and near. If he splits the cedars of Lebanon to bits, what's he going to do to those who do not believe the gospel? How can anyone stand when he comes down? How can anyone be before this holy God? What are we to do? Here's tonight where this psalm is going to overwhelm you with joy. There's a little curious statement in the midst of this. Did you catch it? And in his temple, notice it there, everyone says glory. Now that's an overwhelming verse. I'm picturing that as they are looking, God's people are looking at the oncoming storm. They're considering it. They're considering God. They're considering his attributes. They're considering his holiness. And where are they rushing to? Where are they going to? They're going to the temple. And what are they saying? they are all screaming out glory. They run to the temple and they say glory. There's no other word to describe God in that kind of holiness other than glory. Why are they saying that? There's only one answer to that. It's because in His temple, He has spoken to His people with a different kind of voice, hasn't He? He speaks distinctively here. He speaks clearly here. He corrects things here. He speaks to sinners here. And what has He announced out of His holy temple? What has the Lord announced with this different voice? A different kind of voice than the one that thunders and terrifies. It isn't here, is it? What are you getting in His temple? What are you having announced to you in His temple? Remember, the Reformers were very clear. where God's people have gathered to hear the Word and the Gospel preached, you are in His temple. You are worshiping. What is the voice? It is here that He speaks to us the message of peace. Have you ever thought how beautiful it is that we come together? And what is He doing for you every week? What does He care to do for you every week? It's this message that God, in all of His holiness and all of His justice has made a way of escape. That He has drawn His people to hear the message of love and care and protection and always throughout the Psalms you keep coming upon and many of you I know love something like Psalm 91. He shelters us under His wings. He covers us. He gives us peace and strength, doesn't He? Here in the temple, God has announced a way that the storm has calmed. And all who are sovereignly drawn by Him, who come to His temple, who believe they are utterly covered and protected and surrounded from this awful storm that is coming upon the whole world. Are you seeing that? Verse 11, The Lord will give strength to His people. The Lord will bless His people with what? Peace. Peace. What an amazing way to end this psalm, isn't it? That's what He's going to do for you. That's what He's done for you. Who brings that peace? Have your Bibles open tonight. Turn to Mark 4. I want everyone to see this. You know the passage well. But what a perspective we have now. Verse 35, Jesus came here, Emmanuel, God with us. When He was dwelling among us one day, there was a storm out on the sea, wasn't there? And a great windstorm arose, verse 37, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. But he was in the stern asleep on a pillow. What an imagery, isn't that? They are deeply afraid. His sheep are deeply in fear in a turbulent and stormy world. And they panicked. Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? What happened? The Lord rose out of His chamber, didn't He? And He spoke with His voice and the sea was calm. You see that in verse 9? Then He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. Christ calmed the sea. And what happens? He immediately goes out of the boat and He comes onto the land and He's confronted with the legion of demons and He shatters and breaks that bondage and He splits them and sends them down into the sea and He travels through the land and He breaks hard hearts all the way through with His voice. His voice spoke. His voice of peace. And He saved. What overwhelmed the disciples about Him? What did the disciples realize about Him? Well, they realized and they worshipped Him as their God. But what did they say about Him? We beheld His glory. This is the one. This is the one. The glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. All we could say, the apostles, after the Lord had ascended and we find it with Peter and thinking about the transfiguration, all they could say is we beheld that face. We saw the glory. We saw it when we looked upon His face. this is the image of the invisible god this is the one this is the glory and that's exactly what this psalm does for you tonight reminding you where that glory comes where that glory how the lord and all of his glory has spoken to you his people you're going to face many sorrows in this sad world and you're going to see many things happen that are very difficult to explain. And we can never read providence, can we? We don't understand all those things. But here we are always promised that we have a place of refuge, that we have a place to come, and the Lord through it all will always speak to His people words and give them not only strength to guard the heart and the mind, but He will surround His people with peace. That's what the Gospel has brought. He will strengthen us. And I've always been moved by that little verse that Peter said who realized this. Humble yourselves under His mighty hand, casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you. What an amazing verse, isn't it? This God, who's thundering in all of His glory, calls you to cast your cares upon Him because He cares for you. He gives you peace and strength. I need that every day. You need that every day. You ever struggled with the thought that when it's all said and done that maybe you'll be lost? A Christian goes through that at times, don't they? That God might just cast you off. When I think like that, I have to always again turn myself to His voice of peace. In His temple, where the Gospel's preached, there is peace. You see, this God of the storm is the same Lord over all who one day had to face the storm of God's wrath on the cross, didn't he? When everything turned black and there was an earthquake and Jesus Himself cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You think about how blessed you are. You never will have to say that. You are covered. He's coming again. He's coming again. And the voice that you heard in this psalm, the first voice, is going to shake heaven and earth again, Hebrews tells us. Christ has promised you tonight that he will shelter you from that wrath. Look to him. Trust him. Come to him. Nothing can separate his people from that love. The very king, this psalm says, who sat enthroned at the flood, our Lord Jesus Christ, will come again in all of his glory and he will take you to be with himself. We, as Christians, have nothing to fear. So can't you say with the psalmist tonight, ascribe to the Lord. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Describe to the Lord the glory due to His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. If He's spoken to you that way in the Gospel, don't you love to come and worship?