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July 2/3, 2016
Jason Meyer | Psalms 29:1-11
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!—Psalm 29:1–11
Introduction
This Is My Father’s World
I sometimes think I have the musical taste of a 70-year-old woman. Why? My two grandmothers have had such a formative impact on me. They both loved hymns. I mean really loved hymns. They were always humming a hymn or singing them softly while washing dishes or making meals. We would sometimes sing them together or just listen in and try to figure out which one they were softly singing. In fact, God once used something my Grandma Gert said during a car ride to thaw my heart to the reality of a relationship with God.
I was sitting with her in the backseat. I can’t remember what song was on the radio. Suddenly she said to my dad, “Hey let’s turn the radio off and sing some hymns together.” I vividly remember being perplexed by that statement and I reasoned through it in my little 6-year-old head. “Can we do that? It is a Tuesday, not Sunday or even Wednesday night.” What began to dawn on me from that point on was that maybe there was something here that was more than just religion—this was like a relationship. These things were in her; they were part of her; they were not things she did only when she picked up a religious red hymnal in a religious space like church.
One of the hymns I remember singing was “This Is My Father’s World.” I especially loved the line, “In the rustling grass I hear him pass, he speaks to me everywhere.” Is this true for you? When you get alone in nature, and slow down long enough to listen, what do you hear? The psalms are a gift from God to help you hear.
I love what C.H. Spurgeon said in his commentary on the Psalms (The Treasury of David, vol. 1b, 21):
Just as the eighth psalm is to be read by moonlight, when the stars are bright, as the nineteenth needs the rays of the rising sun to bring out its beauty, so this can be best rehearsed beneath the black wing of tempest, by the glare of the lightning, or amid that dubious dusk which heralds the war of elements. The verses march to the tune of thunderbolts. God is everywhere conspicuous, and all the earth is hushed by the majesty of his presence.
But I know that there are others here that are skeptical about finding God or hearing God in creation. They will hear something different in the storm. If there is no God, then all things are reduced to natural explanations. Lightning becomes a simple scientific summary: The friction caused by frozen raindrops crashing together.
This psalm says goes beyond a mere scientific summary of a storm. It says something much bigger is happening. The strength of the storm is a clue as a pointer to the power of God. The rain and the storm show that he reigns as King above it all. That is why the psalm uses the name Yahweh 18 times in 11 verses. It is his storm. This is my Father’s world. Don’t miss his glory as seen in the storm.
Therefore, the main point of Psalm 29 is as follows:
The King of Glory shows his royal strength and splendor in the storm.
Let’s look and see together how the psalmist makes that point in the flow of the psalm. The heavenly beings ascribe glory to the LORD (vv. 1–2), then those in his temple on earth ascribe the same thing to him (v. 9). Then the Psalm ends by going all the way up to see the King of Glory enthroned over heaven and earth.
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.
Verses 1–2 are a quatrain. Notice the first three lines of parallel praise. Each use the term “ascribe.” What do the angels ceaselessly do in heaven? Do they get bored? Heavenly worship is a reverent response to God’s self-revelation. They see God’s glory and strength and in shock and awe, they say back (ascribe) what they see. All theology is immediately translated into doxology in heaven—and the same should be true on earth.
But what does the fourth line mean? Worship is a word that means to bow down. The heavenly beings bow in humble amazement before the splendor of God’s holiness. What does the phrase “splendor of holiness” mean? Let’s define both “splendor” and “holiness.”
The term “splendor” means a beautiful brightness or a shining, radiant majesty. It is a synonym for the word “glory” or “beauty.” Holiness is a little harder to define or describe. “Holiness” and the adjective “holy” occur more than 900 times in the Bible. Don’t worry. We are not going to look at all of them. We are interested in seeing what holiness means as applied to God. God as holy signifies his transcendent and absolute separation from creation. He is in a class by himself as Creator, far above everything else. This separation as the Creator from his creation includes his separation from the sin of this world. Unlike everything else in this fallen world of imperfection, God reigns in complete, sparkling, radiant perfection and purity.
We can see both aspects of holiness in Psalm 99:1–5. His holiness means he is separate from creation and separate from sinful impurity found in this world:
Separate From Creation:
The LORD reigns; let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
The LORD is great in Zion;
he is exalted over all the peoples.
Let them praise your great and awesome name!
Holy is he!
Separate From Sin, Evil, and Injustice:
The King in his might loves justice.
You have established equity;
you have executed justice
and righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt the LORD our God;
worship at his footstool!
Holy is he!
We now need to put these two words together. Notice that the first word (splendor) comes from the second (holiness). Have you ever wondered how to connect the terms glory and holy? How do the glory of God and the holiness of God relate? God’s glory is the bright splendor that shines out from the sum total of God’s perfections. Why does the sun shine? Because the sun is a burning, massive ball of fire! God’s holiness is the sun, God’s glory is the shining, blinding light of the sun. The sum total of God’s transcendent, undefinable essence has a cumulative effect: a bright, blazing glow. This is called the glory or splendor of God.
Compare that with the picture of worship we have in other places. What is God in his essence called? Listen to how the two terms come together in Isaiah 6:3.
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
The image I have used before in everyday language to help is to imagine a treasure. What do you see when you open a treasure chest? A bright, shimmering beauty. The sum total of the gold is collectively shining out. The splendor of God’s holiness is the glow of his greatness.
We now follow a storm in three stanzas – starting at sea (vv. 3–4), then blowing over the length of Palestine from the north (vv. 5–7) to the south (vv. 8–9). Pay attention here to the poetry. The phrase “voice of the LORD” occurs seven times. The constant repetition of the poetry with its staccato-like seven-fold repetition represents the thunderclaps. The repetition of the poetry evokes the echoing of thunder (vv. 3–4).
The Storm at Sea
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.
Notice the parallelism of verses 1 and four: Splendor and power (v. 4) are synonyms of glory and strength (v. 1). Verse three: The first two parallel lines (over the waters, thunder) are combined in the third (the Lord thunders over the waters). Here the sound of the thunder represents the voice of God. Now the storm begins to sweep inland in the north (vv 5–7).
The Storm in the North:
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 wind lashes the tall trees of Lebanon. Sirion is Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in Palestine. It is sometimes called the “anti-Lebanon” range. Most commentators think that verse 7 refers to flashes of forked lightning. The two short lines of verse 7 represent the forked flash of lightning.
The Storm in the South:
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!”
Kadesh is in the extreme south of Judah. The Israelites spent some time in that wilderness journey under Moses. The ESV footnote for verse 9 is very helpful because it says that another rendering would be “The voice of the LORD makes the oaks shake.” I prefer this reading because of the parallelism in verse nine between the trees shaking and the leaves being stripped from them (“strips the forests bare”). This helps locate the time of the storm as the fall. Any leaves that were left on the trees after the dry season would be stripped off by the first storms of the fall.
Scientifically-minded people look at a storm and explain it solely at the particle level. They will say that you need moisture, unstable air, and lift. (That is why so many thunderstorms start from fronts or sea breezes). Lighting is an electric current formed when frozen raindrops in a cloud bump into each other. These collisions create an electric charge. The whole cloud begins to get amped up with a cumulative electrical charge. The positive charge (or protons) form at the top of the cloud and the negative charges (electrons) form at the bottom of the cloud. Eventually the cloud builds up enough electricity to build up on the ground beneath the cloud. That electrical charge will become fixated and concentrated upon things that are sticking up from the ground (like mountains or trees or people). The charge coming up from these things on the ground will then connect with a charge reaching down from the cloud and ZAP—lightning strikes.
Thunder is the sound of a shock wave caused by that lightning strike. A lightning bolt travels from a cloud to the ground, rapidly heats up the air, and it opens up a hole in the air (called a channel). The heated air expands explosively and compresses the air. The air comes rushing back into fill in that hole and creates a sound wave (which we call thunder). Sometimes people simply explain that the compressed air means the air pressure is higher, and when the difference in air pressure reaches your ear, that is when you hear thunder.
The average lightning strike is six miles long and reaches temperatures of more than 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That may mean nothing to you, but that number is 4–5 times the temperature of the surface of the sun. The voltage of that electrical blast is anywhere from 100 million to 1 billion volts.
There is a wow factor in seeing such awesome realities. This psalm says the wow factor is translated in worship when our awe is turned Godward: He is glorious in splendor and strength. The heavenly temple is the original and the earthly temple is a copy. The Psalm says that both the heavenly temple and the earthly temple are worshipping in harmony as they both ascribe glory to Yahweh. But how are we to apply this vision of glory? Verses 10–11 give the answer.
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!
Then suddenly the storm is gone and there is a great calm and peace that comes over the land again. In the calm, we look past the place where the thunderclouds gathered and we gaze upon the Lord God Almighty who rules as the King of Glory, enthroned over it all.
The word used here for “flood” is only used in Genesis 6–9. The reference is to the Great Flood—the waters of judgment. The text is a reminder that God was sitting in judgment at the flood—and that same God is still enthroned as King—and each storm that bears down upon the earth from heaven reminds us that a final great storm of judgment is coming. All storms are small moments of revelation, teaching us to get ready for the one massive storm that is coming at the end of all history.
Application
I want to ask you a very searching question for a moment. Have you ever been really wronged? What happens in your heart at that moment? There is a stirring in your heart like a storm and that rumble is a cry for justice. That is also the connecting point of Psalm 28 and Psalm 29. David lifts up his voice (qol; Psalm 28:2) in a cry of distress for justice in Psalm 28 and asks that God not be silent. Psalm 29 is the response. God is not silent or deaf. We hear his voice (qol) a perfect number of times (seven, in Psalm 29:3–9). Psalm 28 is like sending the bat signal and Psalm 29 is like seeing batman speeding through in his batmobile. But Psalm 29 is much better because God rides his thundercloud chariot and shows up in the storm that blows throughout the length of the Promised Land.
The rumble of thunder as God’s passion for justice also helps connect Psalm 28 and Psalm 29.
Psalm 104:3 says we should see the glory of God in the storm because …
He makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind.
Deuteronomy 33:26 glories that there is none like God because he “rides through the heavens to your help, and on the clouds in his majesty.”
But go beyond one person’s cry for justice and the rumble that happens in someone’s heart. Think for a moment about the difference between you and God. First, think about your level of concern for justice. Do you really believe that the passionate concern of your heart for justice (the rumble for justice) is greater than God’s passion for justice?
Second, think of all of the injustice that you see or have seen—the sum total of the injustice you have seen. Your sense of injustice is partial—you have not seen all the unjust acts and you have not seen all the unjust motives of the heart. He sees all of it all of the time. His eyes are too pure to behold sin. Can you imagine the storm that has been brewing for all eternity?
Now add this to the equation. We tend to react most when something hits close to home. We even have a phrase like “now it’s personal.” Do you realize that about all sin and injustice? It is all personal to God. David saw clearly in Psalm 51 that all sin is first and foremost against God: “Against you, you only have I sinned.” The greatest injustice in the world is the rebellious refusal to ascribe glory to the King of glory. Humanity wants to rule itself. We don’t want to bow before anyone. We want to be the captain of our souls, call the shots, find our own way and have it our way. We refuse to acknowledge God or give him thanks.
The rumble of thunder as God’s passion for justice also helps connect Psalm 28 and Psalm 29. The way that the poetry connects the thunder of the storm and the terrors of God’s judgment. There is a song from the world of country music that connects a physical storm and a stormy rumble for justice arising in a heart.
She’s waitin’ by the window, when he pulls into the drive
She rushes out to hold him, thankful he’s alive
But on the wind and rain, a strange new perfume blows
And the lightin’ flashes in her eyes, and he knows that she knows
And the thunder rolls, the thunder rolls.
The thunder rolls, and the lightnin’ strikes
Another love grows cold, on a sleepless night
As the storm blows on out of control
Deep in her heart, the thunder rolls
The storm is very personal. The storm raging outside the home and the storm raging inside her heart have come together in the song to tell a story. Thunder and lighting from the throne in the book of Revelation often represent the storm of judgment that God is bringing upon the earth.
The storm of God’s wrath is brewing against both the irreligious and the religious. It is building against all those who deny his existence in their commitment to be their own boss and live however they please (Romans 1:18). And his wrath is brewing against all those who presume upon their self-righteousness and his kindness and patience: They are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed (Romans 2:4). There will be no secrets on that day; they will all be disclosed and judged (Romans 2:16).
In our pride, humanity would rather hold the scepter than kiss the scepter. Humanity in rebellion against God wants to call the shots. The greatest injustice in the universe is how humanity refuses to ascribe to God the glory due his name. Humanity in sin believes they are holding the scepter, but it is really a lightning rod for the lightning storm that is coming at the final judgment.
How is it that the psalm can end on the note of peace (Psalm 29:11) for God’s people? How can anyone have peace in a lightning storm while holding the lightning rod of sin in his hands? The answer in the Psalms is Psalm 22. The righteous king was forsaken so that the people of God could be accepted. The storm clouds of God’s wrath gathered at Mt. Calvary, and the storm’s full fury fell upon him.
And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—Mark 15:33–34
The Son of God left the courts of glory and came to earth to save his people. He saved them by taking the lighting rods of sin away from them and sacrificially carrying them all the way up to the cross of Calvary. The lighting bolt of God’s wrath struck the sinless Savior as a substitute sacrifice for his people.
Therefore, the beauty of holiness is best seen in the cross of Christ. The pride of man is humbled at the cross. Spurgeon said that heaven’s gate is very wide and expansive, but it is very low because the proud and self-righteous must be humbled. The humbling of damnation will come to one part of humanity, the redeemed have their moment of humbling when they see the wrath of God poured out on his Son at the cross. They are never the same again.
The great earthquake of the resurrection announced the rumbling of Jesus’ victory over all of our enemies: sin, the devil, and death. The power of the resurrection is the greatest manifestation of power in history. Paul says that same power, that “incomparably great power,” is at work in us who believe:
And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.—Ephesians 1:19–21
Resting in the death and resurrection of Christ results in peace with God, the calm after the storm has subside—God’s power is no longer turned against us. God’s splendor and strength shine best in the cross and the resurrection as the ultimate display of God as powerful and merciful. The Power of God on display as our King means the people of his kingdom are at peace. Psalm 28 asked that God be the strength of his people (28:8) and Psalm 29 says that he blesses his people with peace as they rest in his great strength and splendor, knowing he is for them.
Conclusion
We do not want anyone to leave this sermon still holding the lighting rod in their hands. Run to Jesus. Flee from the wrath to come. God’s perfect power and justice will be displayed either on the cross or in hell. If you take the lighting storm seriously and the lighting rod you are holding in your hand, you will look the cross and see Jesus take your lightning rod away and ascribe “glory” to the Lamb who was slain.
Sermon Discussion Questions
Main Point: Worship the King of Glory! When and why would you worship him? Answer: Worship him when you see his royal strength and splendor stand out in the storm.
Outline
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to ascribe to the LORD glory and strength and to bow before the splendor of his holiness.