Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, Psalm 29. Let's go to this psalm and let's read it together. And as we've been going through the Psalms, you just never know what you're going to come across. There's a lot of repetition in the Psalms, as we've seen. We've just in the 29th Psalm, but we've seen a lot of repetition. This one is going to take a turn a little bit different. Of course, it has some of the same themes of giving praise and honor to God. And of course, the Psalms are the songs on Sunday night we talked about. No, that was at college last night. We were talking about James where. When James, chapter five, I believe it is. If any among you, if there's any afflicted among you, or it says let him pray and if any is Mary, let him sing. Psalms is what it says, which is what we're looking at tonight. So these are essentially hymns. These are the songbook. This is the songbook of the Hebrew people.
[00:01:00] And so as we go through this, sometimes, one thing I've noticed is I want to be analytical as I go through the Psalms. You know, that's kind of my natural bent, is I'm an analytical person, so I want to pick things apart. Now, of course, that's all fine and good, but you can't. I'm starting to realize when you go through the Psalms, you can't.
[00:01:22] You can't just be analytical because it's not intended to be analytical.
[00:01:27] There's poetry and it's intended to touch our emotions. And that's why our study is called the Heart of the Bible. The Heart of the Bible, which is the Book of Psalms, it touches our heart, not just our brain. And so I want to make sure I do that tonight. Alright? Psalm number 29 starts with a Psalm of David, verse 1. Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars, Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. He maketh them also to skip like a calf. Lebanon and Sirion, like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord maketh the Hinds to calve and discovereth the forests. And in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.
[00:02:47] The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. The Lord will give strength unto his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace. Would you pray with me tonight?
[00:03:02] Our Father, thank you for this psalm, this song that your people in times past have sung to your name. I pray that the truths and the richness and the various characteristics of this psalm would be evident to us tonight. Please, Lord, teach us, help us to see something ever more clearly about you and about your ways, about your kindness and your goodness, and especially, Lord, about your power. And so, Lord, as we look at the psalm, guide us, Lord. Help me to say what your people need to hear. Help your people to receive what. What it is that they need. And, Lord, we just pray that your voice, even as this psalm says, would be heard among us here tonight. And so bless our time, but not only our time in the Word, but also our time in prayer. Lord, we need you. Every single day. We need you. Please give comfort, Lord, to those who are suffering. I think especially of Ms. Barnett and her daughter Karen. Lord, have mercy on them. Give them comfort, Lord. They need it right now.
[00:04:07] We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:04:12] Now, what you'll notice in verse number one as we open the psalm, it says, give unto the Lord, O ye mighty. So this psalm is written, Is written in a way that is an address to the mighty. The mighty. Now, what does mighty mean? That seems like an obvious word. The meaning seems to be obvious, but simply to be mighty means to possess might or power. So that kind of narrows down. Who are we talking about here? Given to the Lord. Because the Lord is. You know. I know sometimes when we read the Psalms, we just kind of. We just read through them and not really think about what they're saying. But this is the Lord is saying, I'm talking to you. Mighty. The Mighty. I'm talking to you. This is what I want you to do. This is specifically addressed to this group called the Mighty, or those that hold might or power. Now, just take a stroll with me. We'll do this several times tonight. But look at Genesis chapter four. I'm sorry, chapter six. I want to show you a few of these verses.
[00:05:20] Genesis, chapter six.
[00:05:23] Look at verse number four. And then we're also going to go to Genesis chapter 10, right after that. Genesis chapter 6, verse number 4 says this.
[00:05:33] There were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and bear children unto them. Now, I'm sorry I'm going to disappoint you because I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to keep reading, all right? So if any of you are like, I wish you would tell me what he thinks that means, I'm not going to do it. All right. And the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. You see that? Mighty men which were of old, men of renown. So whatever this is, that's not we're looking at tonight. But whatever this is, what. These mighty men, they became well known and famous as a result of their power, right? As of their might. People who held power and held might. Look at chapter 10, if you would.
[00:06:22] You're familiar with the man Nimrod, chapter 10, and verse number nine says. This verse eight rather says, and cush begat Nimrod. Cush is the word for Ethiopia in scripture. That's equivalent. That's the Hebrew equivalent of Ethiopia. And cush begat Nimrod. And he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, so among the sons of men, Nimrod was a man who kind of stood out in his power. In other words, other people started to look at him and to consider him a man of authority. They started to listen to him. They started to follow him. How do we know? Look at the next verse. It says, and the beginning of his Nimrod's kingdom was Babel. So Nimrod not only was a mighty man, but he was a man who possessed a kingdom. So that means as a result of his characteristics and as a result of his renown, his power, his exploits, whatever the case might be, others started to look at him and say, he's different than us.
[00:07:28] And they started to yield authority to him and show him reverence and honor and power and esteem more than others. In other words, he was a mighty man. That's what that means. Now, mighty. We think of mighty in our normal use. We think of physical strength, right? Or the might of the. The United States Marine Corps. That's what we think of. The might of the.
[00:07:51] Why you laughing? Why you laughing? The might of the armed forces of the United States as it relates to war or strength. But really might, might also, when it speaks of the mighty men, speaks of people who hold authority, who hold power, who hold honor, who hold glory, and that is who the Lord is addressing. Look at one other one.
[00:08:13] Actually two others in the Psalms, but they'll be in the psalms. So Psalm 51.
[00:08:19] Look at that one.
[00:08:22] Psalm number 51 and verse. I'm sorry, Psalm 52. Got the numbers switched. Psalm 52. Look at the subtitle here. It says, to the chief musician, Maskil, a psalm of David. When Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul and said unto him, david has come to the house of Abimelech. Now, you guys remember when that happened, that David went to the house of Abimelech to get some help. And Doeg, who was a servant of Saul.
[00:08:52] Now, he was a servant of Saul, Saul the king. But he was a servant of Saul. But he himself was a mighty man. He himself was a man of authority. That's why. That's because of his association with Saul. Notice what David says in the psalm.
[00:09:05] Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? He's talking about Doeg. He's saying, this is a mighty man. The goodness of God endureth forever. Look at Psalm number 82, the last one we'll look at on this Psalm number 82, verse number 1. Psalm 82, verse number 1. The Bible says, this God standeth in the congregation of the mighty. He judgeth among the gods.
[00:09:38] The word gods is not referring to false gods because there is no other God beside the one true God. This is referring to the mighty, those who hold power. It's interesting that God uses the word gods to describe them because there is a truth in which those who are mighty, those who hold power, might and power, who possess might and power, sometimes think of themselves something a little more than they are. And so the Lord uses that term because they think of themselves maybe a notch above other men.
[00:10:13] What I want you to see here, and of course I could go to First Corinthians 1:26 says this for you see your calling, brethren. How that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.
[00:10:27] So this psalm is addressed to those who hold power and authority.
[00:10:35] And in fact, the theme of power goes throughout the psalm. Verse one speaks says the word mighty. Verse one talks about glory and strength. Verse three talks about thundering. Verse four talks about speaks of the voice of the Lord as being powerful and majestic and breaking cedars and shaking the earth.
[00:10:57] That's what the psalm talks about. This psalm is about power. That's what I want you to see. This psalm is about power. God addresses it to people who hold power.
[00:11:07] And God speaks of his own power. This psalm presents the Lord as a mighty ruler whose voice is powerful that you think of. You know, you think of Donald Trump, you think of Henry McMaster. You think of people who hold power. When they say something, people do stuff, right? That's the idea. When they say something, people do it. Why? You ever thought about that? Why do people do things when they say things? I mean, is their voice any louder or more fearful than every other person's voice? Why is it that when those people say things, people react and do it?
[00:11:46] You know why? Because they're mighty. They hold authority. And it's kind of mysterious, is it not? It's kind of mysterious like Sam was. The past couple weeks, Sam's been doing his annual training with the Air Force. And he has people over him, right? You have a commander. Why do you listen to him?
[00:12:08] It's mysterious, is it not? You just do it. You just do it. Power is kind of a mysterious thing. And that's what the Lord's describing here. So the Lord takes aim and he addresses the mighty. He addresses the king, right? He addresses the servants of the king. He addresses the governors in Israel. He addresses those who hold power.
[00:12:30] He addresses those whose voice is powerful. He speaks to the mighty in the earth. Now, the Lord is not so much, although it applies, he's not so much speaking to the. To normal, the regular people. He's speaking to those who hold power, whose voice has power among men.
[00:12:50] Now, here's the thing. Those who are mighty in the earth, like I'm describing, and those that have power are often apt to seek glory for themselves. So it's no wonder that the Lord directly addresses them with, give unto the Lord, O ye mighty. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Because those who hold power often are tempted to seek glory for themselves, whether they're people who are born of royal birth, right in the case of a king, or a monarchy, and they're reigning from the throne, or whether they are people who are duly elected representatives of the people. In both cases, people respond to power in the same way. In other words, it goes straight to the head.
[00:13:39] It's very, very common. This is why so many people go to Washington, and it ruins them.
[00:13:46] You got two things. It's actually three, but I'll only mention two.
[00:13:51] Money and power.
[00:13:54] There's something that gets into the bones that says that, you know, you go into Washington D.C. as an example, and it's true of other others as well. And you sit in your office and all these people are around you to just do what you say, and then you have your constituents right back home, and you speak and you hold a meeting, and they come and listen to you, and they quiet down, you know, straight to dead.
[00:14:18] And so the Lord says, I'm talking to you.
[00:14:22] I'm talking to you.
[00:14:26] These people who hold power, the mighty 10, sometimes tend to see themselves as in some way above other men. Not just in their position, which they are above other men in position or in power and in responsibility, but they see themselves above others in their nature as well.
[00:14:47] And so the Lord kind of drops them back down. Let me give you a couple examples of this. Look at two places. Ezekiel 28 and Acts 12, Ezekiel 28 and Acts 12, Ezekiel28. Look at that, if you would.
[00:15:07] Verse number one. Ezekiel 28, verse number one. Look what it says. The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Prince of Tyrus, the king, right? He's the king of. He's the king of Tyre right? Now. So this is one of those kind of dual meanings, because when the prince of Tyrus is mentioned in Ezekiel, sometimes it's referring to Satan, who's also a mighty one, one who holds power. Satan commands, does he not? He commands legions, I guess. Millions, it would seem to us. Innumerable beings that are at his command. Right? That's what the Bible says. His tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven. That's what Revelation says. That's power. Right? Because we know angelic beings are far more powerful than we are.
[00:15:55] So that's why the devil is described in this way. He's described as one who is mighty, just like the prince of Tyrus. A king, A human king. Notice what it says. Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God.
[00:16:16] I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the seas. Notice the word seas. Though thou set thine heart as the heart of God, behold, thou art wiser than Daniel. There is no secret that they can hide from thee.
[00:16:33] Notice here's what I want you to see from this. Is this king, his power, his might has gone straight to his head. He thinks of himself something more than just a man. Right? Look at Acts, chapter 12 for another example of this.
[00:16:53] Acts 12, number 22.
[00:17:02] This is Herod giving a speech.
[00:17:05] Verse 21 says, and upon a set day, Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made an oration unto them. Speech. And the People gave a shout saying, it is the voice of a God and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him because he gave not God the glory. And he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. But the word of God grew and multiplied. I love that. That contrast there. Here's what I want you to see. Herod thought.
[00:17:33] Even though Herod didn't say, I am a God, he was okay. He was amenable to this shout that came to him. And God says in Psalm 29 to Herod, one who is mighty. God says, I'm talking to you.
[00:17:51] Given to the Lord, O ye mighty. Give unto the Lord glory and strength.
[00:17:59] You see, those who, going back to Psalm number 29, notice this. He says, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord. Again, he's speaking to the mighty now. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.
[00:18:14] Those who are held in high esteem because of their position or power or authority, they have a glory. You know that fame and power come with. You know, there's a certain amount of glory that comes with that, right? Would you understand? I mean, that makes sense, right? There's a certain amount of honor and prestige and notoriety. You know, whenever the president or anyone surrounding him goes anywhere, you know what? People notice them and they, you know, they take their phone and they do selfies and they want to. Why they don't do a selfie with me when I'm walking down the street? Why not? Because I don't have that glory, right? That's what we're talking about here.
[00:18:57] So these mighty men that the Lord speaks to and remember, they're mighty. God is the one who raises up rulers and puts down. They're mighty because the power that they have, there is no power but of God is what Romans tells us, right? So the might that those in those positions have came from God.
[00:19:17] And so therefore, they must acknowledge that. They must acknowledge that.
[00:19:24] You see, what the Lord wants them to do is he wants them to take their glory and give it to God because they have a glory, a certain glory, right? Those who are in places of prestige and honor and glory and might and power, the Lord wants them to take their glory and give it to God. Now, you can't give God glory. God has all he needs. But the idea is that you're contributing to God's exaltation, right?
[00:19:52] When they exalt the Lord, they give God of their own glory.
[00:19:58] This is what verse one is telling us. They are giving God glory and strength. But from where? From Their own.
[00:20:05] And someone comes to them and says, oh, you Donald Trump, or, oh, you, Henry McMaster, oh, you, Senator Scott, or whatever, right? And praise goes to them. They are to take that glory and say, but God?
[00:20:19] But God, right?
[00:20:21] Now, again, I'll say something. Those who are the mighty of the earth, they're going to give an account to God based upon this psalm. The Lord says, I'm talking to you.
[00:20:35] I'm talking to you.
[00:20:39] They are not to keep the glory and might that they have to themselves for their own exaltation, but they are to use the glory that they have for God's glory in order that those who are under them, that they lead, might also exalt and see God lifted up. You see all these people that look to those who are mighty, all those people who look to them and think, wow, they're just this and they're just that. And they vote for them or whatever.
[00:21:12] They give honor to them. The Lord wants that person to take that honor and to use it to exalt the Lord and say, this is who you need to be looking at. And you do see people do that from time to time, do you not? You see mighty men who do that. And the Lord is pleased with it. He says, give unto the Lord glory and strength.
[00:21:35] But this reminds us of the necessity of those who have honor, who have prestige or any level of influence with others, should and must use that influence for the glory of God. To point people to God and to give God glory. It means to recognize God's power and rule overall. You know what happened to Nebuchadnezzar? God humbled him even though he was the ruler of the world at that time. Right? The ruler of the known world at that time, the most powerful man on earth. God humbled him and he ate grass like an ox. Right? When he came to himself, what happened? He gave God glory and he acknowledged God is ruler over all. He's ruler over me. He's ruler over the sons of men. That's what Nebuchadnezzar did in the Book of Daniel.
[00:22:26] To give God glory means that we acknowledge one's condition as but a man and therefore humbly submit ourselves even as a mighty man, even as one who holds authority. We humbly submit ourselves to the Almighty. I love that. Almighty. The Almighty. The name of the Lord. The Almighty comes from the word all and the word mighty. It's sort of like omnipotent. Omnipotent. It means the same thing. Almighty, he who has all power.
[00:23:00] That means one who has power and Authority must, with his lips, publicly recognize the God of Heaven before those that he leads.
[00:23:14] And so this is the responsibility of those who hold power.
[00:23:18] This is the responsibility of those who have might.
[00:23:25] But notice Verse three.
[00:23:28] I want to read verses three through ten. The scene that the Lord kind of describes here is poetic, okay? It's a poetic scene. This is the thing where if we overanalyze it, we'll lose it. We'll lose the meaning. We'll take it apart. And when you take it apart too much, it no longer has the beauty. It's like when you take. You know, you pluck all the petals off of a flower because you want to look at each one. Well, it's no longer a flower. It's kind of the way it is here. So here's what the Lord is describing here. Let's read it one time, and then I'll explain it to you. Now just follow along with me. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thundereth. The Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. The Lord maketh them to skip like a calf. Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve and discovereth the forests.
[00:24:36] And in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory. The Lord sitteth upon the flood. Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever. Here's what this has. You know you're going back to the mighty. The mighty has a voice that when people hear it, they react, they respond to his power. And here God says, I sit king forever.
[00:24:54] And when I speak, things happen.
[00:24:59] My voice is powerful. You know what he uses to describe it? Anybody kind of pick up on what he's describing poetically here?
[00:25:08] He's describing a storm, a powerful storm. This storm. Verse 3. This storm. It comes from the waters of the Mediterranean. This storm rolls in. And even before, even as it's over the ocean, even way off in the distance at night, you can see the storm, and the lightning is flashing, and you can hear the thunder. Even though you're miles and miles away off the coast. And you can see that storm is rumbling over the waters. Verse number three. The Lord's voice is upon the waters.
[00:25:43] And then that Storm rolls powerfully over the shore. It comes over the mountains of Lebanon. And Hermon, Hermon is Sirion, that's a reference to hermon in Deuteronomy 3, verse 9. So it rolls over the mountains of Lebanon, which is in the northern part of Israel above the Sea of Galilee. And in those mountains of Lebanon, there are tall old growth cedar trees over 100ft tall, 150ft tall, large cedar trees. The cedars of Lebanon you've heard of in this area.
[00:26:18] These trees are the largest trees that are in the Holy Land. They're huge, they're large. So this represents the biggest things that there are, right? And this storm comes over. God's voice is described as a storm comes over and it breaketh the cedars, lightning strikes them, the wind blows them and they fall over. They can't stand, they're thrown down and they're broken, even though they're the largest of the trees in the mountains of Lebanon. And then in verse number seven, the voice of Lord divided the flames of fire. And that speaks of lightning striking and causing fires similar to when the. The plague of Egypt of the hail. And the Bible describes that there was hail that fell on the ground. And the Bible also describes that there was fire mixed with the hail. Do you guys remember reading that in the Plague of Egypt? You know what that is? That's the lightning striking from the storm, the hail coming down and the fire from below because of the lightning. That's what this storm is coming over the land of Israel.
[00:27:26] And as you keep going, the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness. So it passes from there and it goes over the desert and the thunder rolls from it. And the thunder. How many of you have ever heard thunder? Like really, really loud thunder. And it's like your whole house just shakes, right? Like things shake.
[00:27:46] And that's what's happening in verse number eight. He's shaking the wilderness in the wilderness of Kadesh. And it scares the animals, it scares the hinds, the deer, and they calve, they bring forth their young before the time because of the fear from the. From the noise of the storm. And then finally the water comes down in torrents, leading to a flood in the dry ground. And it says, the Lord sitteth upon the flood.
[00:28:16] You know, here's the thing. You know what the Lord wants us to think of when we see that storm coming over the horizon? Like it's going to come on Saturday. I love scary storms on Saturday night or on any night, don't you? I love it. I love Hearing the noise. I love seeing it coming. I love seeing it. It's like so much power. And that's what's being described for God's voice. God's voice is powerful. You think about, you know, what he just got done saying with to the mighty. He says, give unto the Lord glory and strength, O ye mighty. And the Lord says, I'm mighty. How do you know you're prove that you're mighty? And he says, look at the storm. What power does Donald Trump have when a storm rolls over Washington, D.C.
[00:29:09] he has none. He has none. He can't stop it. He just gotta. He's gotta go get in his basement, go get in his bunker. He has no power at all. God says, this is my voice. Your voice is powerful. This is my voice.
[00:29:26] You know what the idea is? It's so that all of us, including the mighty look at the Lord and say, you deserve the glory. You are mighty. I am but a man.
[00:29:39] All you people who look to me, look to him. He is mighty. He is mighty. That's what the Lord wants us to see.
[00:29:48] He shows it by his voice. But as I was thinking about that, I also thought about the voice of the Lord first mentioned in Genesis 3, verse 18, when Adam and Eve fell, right? The voice of the Lord came walking in the cool of the day. And then on Mount Sinai, when God spoke audibly to the children of Israel, the ten Commandments, you guys remember that? God spoke, and that was called the voice of the Lord. Not just in Deuteronomy and in Exodus, but later in scripture, Moses told them, and other leaders of Israel said, you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord. What is the voice of the Lord?
[00:30:25] The voice is a little bit different than the Word, is it not?
[00:30:30] Because a word can be written, right? A word is written like it can be spoken or it can be written. The word of God can refer to what God speaks, or it can refer to what God preserves in Scripture, right? But the voice of the Lord is not the same as the Word. The voice of the Lord is what God is saying now, right? It's what you hear.
[00:30:54] The voice of the Lord goes out and it's. You might say it's living. It's active right now because you hear the sound right? When it's spoken. The idea, it's alive. And you know what I thought about? I thought about John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and the words was with God. And the Word was God. Here the voice of the Lord is described as a powerful voice, much more powerful and mighty than the mighty men of the earth.
[00:31:25] And so the message being conveyed by this voice. What message? Because remember, a voice does what? It conveys a message. It conveys a message. That's the purpose of a voice. So when God speaks in this psalm, he's conveying a message of power.
[00:31:37] You know what he's using? He's using his nature. He's using the power over the storm to show, you know, when I see the storm, that's what I think. I think man isn't God. Isn't he amazing? Isn't he powerful? Look at what he did.
[00:31:54] But it also, when Jesus came, he was the living word, just like a voice, right?
[00:32:03] He was a living voice, the voice of God, very God, in the flesh. Everything he said was the very message of God at that moment, alive, right? And we have that recorded in the New Testament.
[00:32:18] But when Jesus came, the message was not power, although he had power. It was a message of compassion. It was a message of love and of grace. The voice of the Lord Jesus, indeed, being the word of God alive. That's a voice, right? But there's one other thing. Isn't it neat? I don't plan this kind of stuff. What did we talk about just recently in Matthew chapter 8, Jesus calming the storm.
[00:32:46] Remember that? Jesus calm in the storm. And I thought about, you know, in this psalm, it talks about the voice of the Lord and it describes it as the storm. And so God's voice is powerful and he raises the storm, the mighty storm, and it does all of those things. But then when Jesus is in the boat, he says, peace, be still, and it goes silent.
[00:33:17] The same one who has the power, Psalm 29, to raise the storm has the power to quiet the storm.
[00:33:27] See that? The connection.
[00:33:30] And so that people said to Jesus, as you well know, people said to Jesus, and they feared exceedingly and said one to another, what manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? And our answer to that is, he's God manifest in the flesh. He is the one who commands the storm. He is the living voice of the Lord, right? As shown by His. His power over the storm. Let's pray together.
