I Will Praise You in the Storm
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Dear Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
HAPPY Thanksgiving. Normally we say those words and the emphasis falls on the happy time we are to have the big gathering, the big turkey, but smaller gathering, with small people. We are in the midst of the storm of COVID 19. And so this Thanksgiving we have an opportunity to put the emphasis less on our happiness, and more on the God to whom we give thanks and praise, even in the midst of the storm. And that is clearly the purpose of this Psalm, unique among all 150 of them. Most other Psalms of course have praise, but the mix it up with appeals to God for help, applications of the greatness of God on how we should live. But this Psalm perhaps only like Psalm 150 the fitting conclusion to the Psalm is pure praise! Perhaps it is the one which brings Hebrew poetry to its height with parallelism and repetition. And it is appropriate now in the midst of the storm. Can you praise God in the storms of life? Why and how?
Key Truth: God is to be praised in the storm because of His power over & purpose through the storm!
The short answer to why praise God in the storm, is because he reigns over the storm! This Psalm traces his reign over three regions, the heavens, our lands, and most intensely over His people the church. Are experiencing God’s reign in these three regions?
A) In the heavens, angels help us give worthy praise & worship!
The Psalm begins with the heavens. And you may think well obviously angels in heaven praise God -that’s there job. But David commands them to two actions, two responses to God’s reign - that he himself feels inadequate to give sufficient honour and glory and praise and thanksgiving. We here that from time to time, ie. Saskatchewan Premier - accident, my words fail to say how sorry - I just don’t have enough in me to show how I wake up - ache that I stole your loved on e away. Well, in opposite way as David sees God’s work, character, His glory in creation, and in His reign - he’s got this ache - I just don’t have words enough, but I want them, so You Sons of God, (HEb, could be either us down here, or the ministering spirits up there, You who are perfect and so much more aware -
Psalm 29:1
Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe glory and strength: There are things that take our breath away - so weighty and awe inspiring. You may think hockey is great game, but then you see that Russian go behind the net, flip puck on stick, and swing it around in mid air like lacrosse - or fly stick around between the legs top shelf - whole other level - You go WOW - I don't get how he did that! Pure genius, what instinct, what perfect precision and practice - kavod
But then second part there is to ascribe strength to the LORD. Here David is watching a Hurricane with all its awesome but also destructive power - and He sees it not just as mother nature , the forces of nature, not just describes laws of weather - which we think can predict so well. But He sees in all the powers on display in the universe, he hears in thunder and sees in the lightening, feels in the blast of wind and the eerie stillness before the storm hits - God is in control of all things. This storm may have power - but it comes mysteriously at God’s command, nothing happens by chance, use even evil to serve His good purposes. If God controls the storm, as the disciples said of Jesus - the wind and the waves obey His command, what kind of power must He have! And that brings him to call for angels to ascribe to the Lord something greater than glory in creation, greater than power over a storm. What could that be? Psalm 29:2
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.
In these short 11 verse, the name of the LORD, all capitals so holy Jews not pronounce it Yahweh , Jehovah, I AM WHO I AM - personal and covenant name of God - it represents all of God’s character and all of His works- everything revealed in nature and in salvation history Name that before God revealed it first to Moses -take off your sandals!
Not just see forces of nature, like God wound up world like clock work, just watching the gears turn. NO God working through it and behind it all. His judgments not always understandable , but in all the earth! Do you know and see the attributes of God - do you think of them - in all the working of history of your life, of creation - Ascribing is that work of thinking on God. Our worship be God-centred and this thanksgiving - look into the eye s of God - not just give me happiness - but God I see who you are even in this storm. I Recognize your glory, it weighs so much in my life, it weighs on my heart. And so the last thing beyond just ascribing that David calls the angels to do, and you and me in response to God’s glory in creation is Psalm 29:2b
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.
Worship is too abstract, more earthy word - would be to bow down - act of the will to show humble acceptance - submission - Yes You are God and I am your creature. Yes, you are glorious above all - yes you are what? HOLY - like when Isaiah in Isaiah 6 saw the glory of God’s throne - splendour.
By way of application, David called for help in giving the living God the glory he deserves, because he knew this whole world and his own heart is in a glory war! How appropriate that we pause and don’t jsut say: There are good things in life and I am thankful for them. That’s not true thanksgiving and praise to God. That could just keep us in idolatry of appreciating and worshipping the things of earth - as if what is holy in our life is stuff, status, created things. But all the stuff including the storm, the beauty of this fall time and seed time and harvest , the beauty of outward objects and inward joys - where ever you see the weight of glory - all just big sign posts pointing to God - to ultimate glory. Little fingers in this world pointing to only true and real humiliate glory! You are a glory thief if take God’s glory and give it to the lesser objects of your heart. Thanksgiving is to brings us to the God who alone is supreme in holiness and glory - and David says, you need the help of the angels to do that well. You need the help of the sons of God, your brothers and sisters who know this God to do that.
But then the storm itself breaks out in earnest over the earth and we ushered into the hear o f the Psalm and its significance for our lives. There may be glory in he highest in the heavens, but is there glory, God’s glory on earth, in the nittygritty even in the storms of life? Where would you find it? What is the phrase repeated the perfect 7 times at the heart of this Psalm? It is there you will fin God’s glory in your storm. THE VOICE OF THE LORD! And it is here that you need to tune your ears,in the chaos of life - to hear that tune of Gods voice amid the clamour and tumult of life!
B. In Life’s Storms below, we must tune our ears to the VOICE OF THE LORD
What we have in the center of this Psalm must first be interpreted literally, and it has hard for you to envision this without having been Israel. David is survey a storm, like none other in his. It would be like people here recalling the afternoon in 1986 when the skies turned that yellowish, green, and on this very spot the hurricane hit. Or Hurricane Hazel. But its like David is up in the high country surveying the storm from safety. It starts over the Mediterranean, hit the northern majestic mountains and forests Lebanon Galilee; but watch out here it come towards him moving south, until it passes to the wilderness of Kadesh. Like greatest display heard God speaking through, biked up to Moraine Lake, at the foot of the 10 peaks buy Columbia ice-fields, road shut down, had it to my fl. Get up top - sunset gave way to purplish sky, but above the ten peaks, even as I took my Gideon Bible out to read of God’s glory, wham oh - lightening in pinkish sky on the side, above the ten peaks. Lightening show like I had never seen before. But through it all its the voice of the Lord that is the focus.
You hear the waters - ancient accounts - sea not only chaos, but flash floods in these wadis - crashing down mountain side wipe away whole villages. And the word says, here, the voice of the LORD is over, above those waters. Judgments of God in the earth - but God reigns above the chaos. Do you have that spiritual sense though that the chaos is not ultimate, that God who brings judgment on evil also not let evil have its way, it won’t win.
But now the storm makes landfall. And look what happens: Psalm 29:5
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
Have you ever been in the forest when it gets windy? You here that creaking? How about afterwards, see mighty tree and whoel root ball uprooted, lying fallen like Goliath face dwon in front of the lORD, THE POSTURE OF WORSHIP! Symbol of wealth, pride of man, greatness of culture the cedars of labanon - The Lord brings down that pride by the His voice, the Word of teh LORD. Look at the next verse:
Psalm 29:6
He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.
Do you know what Sirion is? Look I saw from a distance, a mammoth mountain range with the highest peak. Like St George and Dragon when finally slayed they measured it said it was mountain. Do you get that poetry - the most stable enduring ancient trustworthy thing in the world, a mountain - God voice comes - and the mountains themselves tremble .
Why we say the grass withers, flowers fade, but the Word of hte Lord endures forever! Have you ever felt that.. most important symbols of earthly strength are nothing compared tot he voice of God that accompanies the storm. that as surely as the early church would read this Psalm together when a storm happened in the service and say we hear the voice of God moving this storm, they also were saying this Word of God is what endures and and really shakes the earth! Psalm 29:7
But the storm passes from there over Jerusalem - and strips bare the forests and wilderness of Kedash. Psalm 29:8-9a God’s voice is there giving new life to a deer, his voice is there stripping bare the landscape for a new creation
What is this poetry from the physical storm really pointing towards. 7x the voice of the Lord, not just his voice in creation, but the Word of the Lord is heard echoing and flashing in the storm through the Prophets and the Christ and His Apostles - Holy Scirpture. Do you here it it? What is it doing?
Let me paraphrase Spurgeon who says, read this Psalm to yourself in front of a real storm and understand the VOICE of teh LROD. You read the voice of the Lord breaking the mighty cedars in the most inaccessible wilderness and mountain regions: The gospel of Jesus has over the most inaccessible of mortals, and when the Lord send the word, it breaks hearts far stouter than the cedars.” He read about the storm’s effect on the mountains and wrote, “The glorious gospel of the blessed God has more than equal power over the rocky obduracy and mountainous pride of man.” He read about the lightning and observed that “flames of fire attend the voice of God in the gospel, illuminating and melting the hearts of men; by these he consumes our lusts and kindles in us a holy flame of ever-inspiring love and devotion.” He observed the progression of the storm to the desert and noted, “Low lying plains must hear the voice of God as well as lofty mountains; the poor as well as the mighty must acknowledge the glory of the Lord.”
I don’t pretend to know all of God’s ways with storms of life in this world, He is all powerful and He is good. Jesus taught us not to ask who sinned this man or his parents born blind. Taught not to ask are these people in that tsunami more wicked than us. Repent lest you perish - and not having heard the voice of God you go to a sinners-hell, without He who is the Word. No we can’t read the working of his Providence with 20/20 vision but we can see is glory an Hear His Voice.
And that brings us to the third and concluding way this storm is to speak to us, the God behind the storm, because:
C. In the midst of God’s people, we rest in God’s reigns over the storm
God’s people see all this. And where are they? Psalm 29:9b
The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
And why? Psalm 29:10
The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
that word flood, is only used one other time in the Bible and that is in Genesis 6-8 the deluge, the global flood! Where God’s judgment on a world gone mad with sin, washed it clean. Where He provided an ark - and sent out preacher of righteousness Noah - come in from the storm of God’s wrath against sin. And then the waters from above and below cam - And the LORD enthroned above the chaos made a saving way through the Flood, like later made a saving way through the waters of the Red Sea, like He made away in Jesus through deep ark waters of death!
And the question comes this morning, do you think the arm of the Lord is shortened, do you think he is no longer in the business of rescuing His creation and you and I in it from the destructive storms and floods of evil and suffering and sin! It is easy to say God is king when times are good, it is easy to give God our thanks when the sun is shining and we can emphasize the happy part of thanksgiving. But if you have heart the seven fold Voice of the LORD in the Storm, if You have heard the glorious gospel of grace that is greater than all my sin, all my suffering, all the death in this world.
If you Hear the Voice of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and know As we sang in yesterday's morning O come and see the wondrous works the hand of God has done, come see what desolation great he brings beneath the sun. Listen In every corner of the earth he causes wars to cease. The weapons of the strong destroyed , he makes - what - abiding peace.
Here is the application of the Psalm- yes its pure praise but look at he best reason ive hnaks today: Psalm 29:11
May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!
Like Elijah after the spiritual storms of his life and work, like after made the fire and wind pass before him in the cleft of that Rock by Mt. Sinai. God said I am not in the wind or the fire. But still small voice: and Elijah received it and God met him in his depression - strengthened, him, restored him to place of peace shalom, wholeness.
All creation says Paul is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed - for the victory and peace that Christ won over the serpent and we enjoy in part, to be made full . For now the winder can bring th lightening , the lightening going to being the rain. Storm is going to be frightening . But the same wind is gong to blow this storm, and every storm of life away -
Until that day comes in fullness with the King coming riding on the clouds, do you believe it in the eye of the hurricane, the LORD has strength for his people.. He will bless his people w tih peace!