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2:42And so, this psalm has a lot of imagery in it, and before we read it, I would encourage you to just put yourself in a storm that you have physically been out in the elements of, that you felt small and fearful. You can. Smell the storm, you can hear the thunder, you can see the lightning, feel the wind, taste the rain. Get there, and now listen to Psalm 29. Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert. The Lord shakes the desert of Kadish. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare. And in his temple, all cry, Glory.

4:11The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord is enthroned as king forever. The Lord gives strength to his people. The Lord blesses his people with peace. Would you pray with me now? Father, we thank you for your word. That which is sharper than a double-edged sword penetrates to dividing our soul and spirit, our joint and marrow. We ask that it would do so now. That we might hear and obey and follow your voice. That we might leave here with strength and peace as we seek to give you the glory that is due to your name. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, our King and our Savior. Amen.

5:03Well, you could probably hear that this psalm is clearly about the voice of the Lord. It's repeated seven times. There's no denying what the subject is. And when you start looking for the voice of the Lord in your word, you're going to find it all throughout, from the first pages of Scripture all the way through to the end. You know, thank you, John, for no pun intended, for stealing some thunder there with some of the passages. I mean, when Pastor Tom went through Revelation 1 and he talked about the voice of Jesus and it's like the sound of many waters, I mean, it's all throughout your Bible when you start looking for it. But that phrase specifically, the voice of the Lord, shows up most often in the Old Testament, particularly if you're reading from the ESV, the more literal translation. You'll find it in Deuteronomy, 1, 2 Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah. And the context most often is when it would say, obey. The voice of the Lord, or the other translations will say, obey his commands. That's when you see it most often. And so as we think about Psalm 29, picture it like a child receiving instruction from a parent, or a parent giving instruction to a child. The first thing you want the child to do is just to listen, just to hear the commands that you're giving them. And then you want them to act on the instruction that they've been given, right? You want them to obey what you've told them to do. And then, Lord willing, as they learn to obey with their whole lives in love and in trust, that looks like following the commands and the instruction that you've given them. And that's the flow of Psalm 29. Verses 1 and 2 are the commands. And our response is going to be that we would first hear the voice of the Lord, hear his commands. And then verses 3 through 9, you see the storm. This is where all the action happens. And so we are to act on the commands that we've been given, to obey the voice of the Lord. And then verses 10 and 11 are the takeaway. And that's where, again, as you seek to, with your whole life, walk in his way in obedience, that we end up following the voice of the Lord. And it leaves us with strength and peace. And if that's a lot for an outline, for simplicity, you zoom out and say, what's the goal of this Psalm? It's the same goal that we should all wake up with every day. His glory and our good.

7:32That we might give God the glory, do his name, that it might go well with us. That's the goal of Psalm 29. So let's jump in with verse 1. It says, Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones. David begins with a command that's not even directly addressed to us. And what he's doing is he's reminding us that we do not worship alone. You know, unfortunately, our world is so materialistic that we forget what was very common back then, that like Elisha prayed that the eyes of his servant would be opened to see the chariots that were all around them, that those who are with us are more than those who are with our enemy. That the cosmos are indeed haunted with spiritual forces of evil, yes, but with God's angels, with his heavenly host, his mighty ones. And David begins by reminding us of that. Then it says, Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, which is to say, give to God that which is already his, right? This is the sun-moon analogy. We have no glory in and of ourselves. We simply reflect God's glory. Nor do we have any strength apart from that which he gives us. The very breath in your lungs now, the very ability that you had to get here today or serve and sing and worship, it was all with the strength that he provided.

9:00So we give God that which is rightly his. And then in the first half of verse 2, David makes a key point. He says, Ascribe to the Lord the glory, due his name. Give God the glory, due his name. Again, this is the goal of this psalm, that we might give God the glory that is due to his name. And I think it's worth pausing and asking ourselves: this is a command that we've been given by God. Give him the glory that is due to his name. Now, how might we fail to fulfill that command or to obey that command? And there are many ways. I'm sure we could all just think through our day today and we could find many ways that we have failed to obey that command. But to look at maybe the most obvious, and that would be when we seek to take God's glory as our own. Right? When we seek to take that which is not ours, not rightly ours. And so a couple of illustrations from Scripture of how this command can be disobeyed and obeyed. If you recall, King Herod in Acts gave what must have been an eloquent speech of sorts, and the people responded by saying, Ah, this must be the voice of a God, not of man. And that must have tickled Herod's ears. He liked the sound of that because he didn't deny it. And what's the next verse in Scripture? It says, immediately, because Herod did not. Give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down. Anyone remember the rest? And he was eaten by worms.

10:38You got to love Luke. I mean, the nail is already in, he's just going to hammer it in more. He was eaten by worms. But he's making a point. Don't do that. Herod either forgot or chose to ignore that he was only king because God had appointed him to be so. He could only speak because God had given him the strength to do so. It's not his glory, it's God's. And he sought to take it as his own. So that's the wrong way, right? Let's not do that. Now, contrast that with Paul and Barnabas just a few chapters later when they're in Iconium and Lystra and Derby. And at one point, Paul looks out in the crowd and he sees a man lame from birth, but he sees that that man also had faith to be healed. And Paul simply says, stand up. And the man does. Pretty amazing, right? I mean, I'd be shocked. And the crowd is also amazed, rightly so. And they pretty quickly say that Paul must be Hermes and Barnabas must be Zeus. And they seek to bring sacrifices to them because these must be gods. And Paul and Barnabas don't allow this for even a second. They immediately are distressed. They tear at their clothes and they say, no, what are you doing? We are men just. Like you, Paul is acknowledging, I'm just the vessel. I didn't heal that man. The Lord healed him through me. And that should be our response. Now, I don't want to discourage you, but just to remind you that the world does not always honor a right response because the people go from wanting to bring sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas to then stoning Paul and dragging him out of the city to leave him for dead. So there's that for encouragement. But I don't want to make light of the command because I was tempted to go through it and say, you know, I don't really do that. I don't seek to take God's glory as my own.

12:44But I think we do at times. And often it might come when you receive encouragement or a kind word from a brother or sister. Hey, you know, that event went really well. You did that really well, or you're really talented at that. And the temptation is there to pat yourself on the back. Say, yeah, you know, I am pretty awesome. That was good. Don't do that. It's not your glory. It is God's. And yes, there's a way to receive compliments and do that in a right way. But it's not our glory. It's God's. And we are to obey the command, to give God the glory due to his name. Now, in the second half of verse 2, it says, Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.

13:30And this really transitions well into the next section because so often we limit worship to what we just did, where we're singing, and we forget how it describes it in Romans, that we are to offer our body as living sacrifices. This is our spiritual act of worship, that it's with our whole body, our whole lives. Everything that we do is a part of worshiping the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. And so that transitions well from we've now heard the commands, we have to hear the voice of the Lord. And now the action begins. We are to obey the voice of the Lord, to act on that which we've heard with our whole lives. And so the storm begins in verse 3, but before we move on, I just, you know, the commands are important, and I want to give one last reminder from Scripture of the importance of obeying all of God's commands. If you recall in 1 Samuel, when Saul was, his anointing was removed as king, he was given a clear command by God to totally destroy the Amalekites and the evil king Agag, right? And he doesn't do that. He listens to the voice of the people, and he spares the best of the livestock. So he comes on his return home and confronts Samuel, and Samuel hears the bleeding of the livestock. And he says, Saul, what have you done? And Saul tries to give excuses. Like, oh, I kept them so we could make sacrifices. And Samuel rebukes Saul. And what he says is, does the Lord delight in sacrifices and burnt offerings as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? That's what Samuel says to him. He says, I don't want y'all to just come here and sit in the seats and be present. We are to go and act, live out the commands that we've been given.

15:35So I just wanted to give that reminder from Scripture. But we'll move on to verse 3, where the storm begins. And it says, the voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters. And I think I said earlier that the voice of the Lord is present from page 1 all the way through till the end. Hopefully you kind of hear it. David's hearkening back to the beginning. When in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of the Lord was hovering above the waters. This is hearkening back to the beginning. The voice of the Lord is over the waters until what? God speaks. God thunders. And just like in the beginning, that the Spirit of the Lord was hovering above waters until what? God said, Let there be light. That as soon as God starts speaking, things start being. The action starts.

16:28Then it says, the voice of the Lord is... Powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic, or full of power, or full of majesty, your Bible might say. And we won't take the time to go too far in depth with that right now, but I would encourage you on your own to, you know, while you're driving, just think about what is truly powerful and truly majestic. Just give it some thought. I think you'll come up with a pretty short list.

16:59Nothing man-made, certainly, and even within God's creation, it's limited to God Himself, that which is truly powerful and truly majestic. And it goes on and says, The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. You know these cedars. These cedars are renowned throughout Scripture, right, as being strong timber used in construction, used in the construction of the temple and the palace. These were known, well-known cedars, but yet the picture here is just a twig. It's nothing against the power and might of the voice of the Lord.

17:43Verse 6 says, He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox. This is referring back to the mountains. It's the picture once again of the mountain trembling, the earth quaking. That when the voice of the Lord Lord speaks, the whole earth can shake. Verse 7 says, The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. And I love, in all honesty, I think lightning is fun to watch. It's fun to sit on the porch during a storm, particularly at night, and it's pitch black, and there's just nothingness until lightning just lights up the whole sky.

18:27It's mesmerized and looked at. And I think there's a picture here of the ability of the light of the lamp of the Word of God to overcome all darkness. There is no darkness that has overcome it. When the lightning strikes, the whole sky lights up. The power and majesty of the voice of the Lord. Verse 8, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert. The Lord shakes the desert of Kadish. It's probably childish, but I couldn't help but think of an Etcha sketch.

18:59I don't know, maybe because my kids play with one, but that's what it seems like here. First, the mountain was shaking, and now it's the whole desert that's just shaking at the power of the voice of the Lord. You can tell it's sweeping across the landscape. There's every type of terrain, it's touching everything, and some of what David might have been doing is combating the small G gods that would have been worshipped at the time because there was all the small gods. Of individual parts of all of this, of the rain, or of the mountain, or of the river, or of whatever it was, and David's saying, no. When my God speaks, he's the God over everything. You've got these small gods.

19:49When my God speaks, all of creation responds. Verse 9, the voice of the Lord twists the oaks or strips the forest bare. You know, I've never physically gotten to see that in a storm, but you've gone out afterwards and seen that, right? I mean, we all love oak trees because they give a shade in the Texas heat, but I mean, you've seen an oak tree that just gets twisted from the power of the wind. Or you've seen, I remember out in East Texas Pines when the great winds blow through and it looks like just a whole forest full of naked toothpicks, right?

20:31The wind can blow through, and that, again, it's just a picture of the power and majesty of the voice of the Lord. I will note that somebody else may say, makes the deer give birth. I think that was the most common translation, and some of the commentary really tried to turn that into like this sweet moment of like, oh, it's like the deer giving birth. When I read that, I thought like it's a storm is so scary that the deer just prematurely like pops up. The baby out. So I didn't know what to do with that, so I just stuck with my translation.

21:07Just full admittance there. But the end of verse 9 says, And in his temple, all cry glory. And to this we must say, Amen. That it might forever and always be on the tip of our tongues to be singing, all glory be to Christ our King. All glory be to Christ. Or glory, glory, hallelujah. And once again, acknowledging that this is what all of creation is already doing. You know, there's many Psalms that talk about how the mountains and the moons and the stars and all the different living creatures, it's all evidence of his handiwork. It's all giving him glory. And so all of creation is already using its voice to give God the glory that is due to his name. I mean, if you've ever listened to the sounds of the whales beneath the oceans or sat out at night and listened to the whipper wheel doing his thing or the coyotes or we can even record the sound of stars. I don't know how we do that, but it's like a percussion sound. And it's just evidence that all of creation is using its voice to give God the glory due to his name. And so, no less so, even more so, should we who are made in his image, who have been given a voice that at least is imagination. Like him, that we ought to use our voice to obey all of God's commands. Not just to be singing, but to rejoice always, to pray continually, to never let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths, right? But only what is useful for building others up. That we might always be ready to give a defense for the hope that we have in us.

22:50The very spreading of the gospel itself, right, is with our voice as we share the good news with a co-worker or a neighbor. Every word out of our mouth, to the best that we can, by his grace, with his help, ought to be to give him the glory that is due to his name. And that's the voice of the Lord and the storm. And I don't want it to just be the storm and it kind of be almost theoretical. I mean, the storm is real, it's tangible, but maybe kind of allegorical because we know what power and majesty was in the voice of the Lord when the word became flesh and dwelt among us, right? We know the power and majesty in the voice of the Lord and our Savior. So let's think about the words of Jesus and some of the power and majesty that was displayed whenever he spoke.

23:51That he, too, simply had to tell someone to take up their mat and walk, a lame person, and then they did. And if that Wasn't dramatic enough to tell that same man that his sins were forgiven. That Jesus simply had to say, your sins are forgiven, and it was so. Or that he could heal from a distance, that he simply had to say, go, she's well, and it was so. Or that the demons themselves obeyed the voice of Jesus. When he says, be quiet, they be quiet. When he says, come out, they come out.

24:29Or the storm itself, that all Jesus had to say was, be still. Yes, the picture here is the voice of the Lord in the storm, but he is the God over the storm. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm, as we just seen. That all he had to say was, be still, and the storm obeyed. Even death itself obeyed. If you think about Talitha Kulim, I say to you, little girl, arise, and she did. Or Lazarus, come out.

25:03And a dead man walks out in burial rags. Death obeyed. But probably the most powerful and majestic sentence that was ever uttered, what Pastor Tom preached about on Good Friday. What about when Jesus said, it is finished on the cross? Death, sin, conquered. So I want to read to you from Matthew just to remind us of what happened when the voice of Jesus spoke at the end, when he cried out. This is from Matthew 27. I'm in verse 50.

25:48And it said, And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

26:15See some commonalities there? That all of creation once again responds. It's not just the curtain of the temple, but the earth shook and the rock split. There's a consistency throughout Scripture when the voice of the Lord speaks and the response. I admit that it wasn't until I went back and reread it with this, with Psalm 29 in mind, that I just, I guess I had read over verse 52 and how wild that is. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.

26:53When the voice of the Lord speaks, and the crazy thing is, Jesus actually told his disciples this would happen in John 5. He said, there will be a day when those who, the dead will hear my voice and they will rise, those who have done good onto heaven, those who have done evil unto judgment. So we've seen the voice of the Lord in the storm, the voice of the Lord in our Savior. We are to first hear the voice of the Lord and then act on that, obey the voice of the Lord.

27:28But now comes a question for all of us: if you've heard the voice of the Lord and maybe even taken steps of obedience at times, what is your ultimate response to the voice of the Lord? Because there are different responses. You could choose to stick your head in the sand, just kind of like the childish, I can't hear you. That's an option. Even though it's undeniable that the voice of the Lord is speaking, you can choose to bury your head in the sand and ignore it. You can choose to, maybe even worse, to spit into the storm, so to speak, so to speak, to mock the voice of the Lord.

28:17That's an option for a response. And to anyone in the room who, up until this point, has chosen some of those responses, I would. Say to you the same thing that Scripture says. In Hebrews, it says, referring back to the Psalms, it says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. So Scripture says, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Soften your hearts, have soft soil to receive the seed of faith that it might grow and bear fruit. And again, thank you, John, for thinking about Hebrews 12, because Hebrews goes on to then say, see to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. If your response is to reject the voice of the Lord, a reminder that the judgment will come, whether that's for all of us together or for you individually one day, judgment will come. And that's where David actually goes next in Psalm 29. In verse 10, he says, The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The word flood, the word that's used there for flood, is the same word that's used in Genesis 6, referring to the flood, the great deluge, reminding us that the same God who said, let there be, let there be, let there be, is the same God who said, I will wipe away every living thing from the face of the earth.

30:09And so once again, if that's been your response, I say to you the same thing that Scripture said. We read from Revelation, but going on in Revelation in chapter 3, the last of the letters to the churches, what does Jesus say to the church in Laodicea? I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, I will come in and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him. Why should we respond like the centurion after he heard the cry of Jesus on the cross and said, surely this was the Son of God? Why should we respond like that? Because he doesn't want to come in and shame you and be an evil dictator or a slave driver. He wants to come in and dine with you. Again, this is where David goes next in Psalm 29. He says, the Lord is enthroned as king forever. He gives strength to his people. The Lord blesses his people with peace. We respond by following the voice of the Lord because he's a good king. A good, holy, righteous king that, yes, we obey because we want to give God the glory to his name, but it's so that it might go well with us. His commands are not burdensome, they're for our good. What does David write just a few songs prior, Psalm 23, about the Lord is our shepherd. He wants to lead us besides steps. Waters and makes us lie down beside greed pastures. He wants to walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death, that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives. This is who we follow: the good shepherd.

31:53And for those who do follow his voice, it's worth asking ourselves what can distract us. Because, again, David at the end says that the Lord gives strength to his people. The Lord blesses his people with peace. And we ought to all, myself very much included, be able to admit we need strength and peace. Me, Logan, in my flesh, am weak and anxious. If it's just me, that's all I have to offer: weakness and anxiety, fretfulness. I need the Lord's strength, and I need peace from the Lord.

32:41But we have to be aware that there's so much noise out there in the world today. There's so much else that's trying, so many other voices that are trying to grab our ear. And think about how aggressive it's gotten, that it started how. Many years ago, with just radio, right? And so the world just grabbed your ear. And then it went on to T V, and now it grabs your eyes and your ears, right? And then comes video games at whatever point. Now it's got your hands and your eyes and your ears. And I admit, I don't befuddled by it. When I witness it, I've never done it. But, you know, I drive through campus and you see the students walking around with the big headphones, like the noise-canceling headphones, and I'm just like, that seems wild to me that you would just walk around with the whole world blocked off to you. Like, you just can't hear what's going on around you. Or there's virtual reality nowadays. I've never done it, but the storm of the century could be going on right outside and you've got no idea because you're in some alternate universe, la la land. And there are good things out there. We all know that. I mean, there's some great podcasts that you can listen to and other sermons that you can go hear, and there's lots of constructive things out there, but there's only one source of true strength and true peace. Only one source. If that's what we all need, is strength and peace as we go on our way, there's only one place to find it. The voice of the Lord.

34:24And the psalm doesn't go there, but we can ask ourselves, well, what does that even mean to follow the voice of the Lord? And this is where we'll conclude. And it's the easy Sunday school answer, y'all. It's the same one that you figured out when you were six years old, you know, got you the dumb-dumb in class. It's God's Word, like, as it says in John 10, that his sheep follow him because they know his voice. You can't follow the voice of the Lord if you don't know his voice. You have to know the word to be able to recognize, because then it goes on, it says, but they will never follow a stranger because they do not recognize the stranger's voice. And so we have to know how to identify the source of goodness and truth versus all the other junk that the world has out there. If you want to follow the voice of the Lord, you have to know his word. You have to spend time in prayer, listening, meditating on the word. Spend time fellowshipping with God's church, with the body of Christ.

35:32It's the same answers we've always known. If we want to follow the voice of the Lord, this is what we must do. So to recap, first we are to hear the voice of the Lord, to obey the voice of the Lord, and then. Just like that child that grows up and learns that their parents weren't just giving them commands to be annoying or to make them suck all the fun out of everything, but they learned, you know, 20 years down the road the wisdom in all that their parents were trying to say. That we learned to obey in love and in trust and understand that his commands are not burdensome, and that looks like following the voice of the Lord with our whole lives.

36:30And so I'll leave you with a blessing from God's Word. This comes from Jeremiah 7. This is the Lord speaking to his people through Jeremiah. And he says, But this command I gave them: obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Walk in the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. May it go well with you, Emmanuel. May we obey his commands, walk in his ways, that it might go well with us.

37:05Hope you've been blessed by Psalm 29. You're dismissed.