Text: Psalm 29:1-11, Title: The Thunder Rolls, Date/Place: NRBC, 12/5/10, AM
A. Opening illustration: video ill, what words would you use to describe that? Story about the commentator’s son who did a back flip while watching the storm after a close bolt and a loud peel of thunder.
B. Background to passage: in Ps 27, David asks for an answer. In 28, he pleads that God not be silent. And here in 29, God relinquishes silence, answers, but not in a still small voice, but in tree-splitting power. “These verses march to the tune of thunderbolts.” -Boice
C. Main thought: God’s presence and voice explode our highest thoughts of His power and command awe!
A. Acknowledge His Worth (v. 1-2)
1. David calls on the heavenly beings (angels and possibly fallen angels, other gods) to acknowledge that there is a greater power and presence than themselves. One upon whom they and the rest of creation owe its existence. The word used here is “ascribe” and it means to give, but more to proclaim the glories, excellencies, and perfections of God. This is not the giving as though God lacked anything, for He doesn’t; but a giving that declares what He already is. And David knows that when we see Him, “the beauty of holiness” we will worship (Hebrew word means to bow down in prostration and submission), because His stunning, overwhelming splendor will compel it.
2. Rev 5:9, 12, Matt 13:44-46
3. Illustration: the man who described his car to the therapist, and was asked if he felt guilty, I asked an elderly woman once, “If I go to church and the preacher says nothing worth hearing, is it any use for me to go?” “Of course not,” she replied curtly. But a young man overhearing our conversation intruded, “I don’t see why a man, when he goes to church to worship God, would let a preacher butt in on his worship!” the story behind The Heart of Worship,
4. Just as much or more so, you and I are called to worship God by ascribing to Him all His beauties. You are worshippers. You were made for this. You were made to sense God, to find your joy in Him, to raise your hands in glorious voluntary love and devotional overflow making much of His great name! This is one of the reasons that hymns are so important—choruses tend to reflect our inner desires and feelings of longing for God, prayers to be answered, need for His presence, but the old hymns do a spectacular job of what David is calling us to do. Important: love the hymns, not simply for sentimentality’s sake, but for their declaration and worship of God. Worship is not about getting (ex: I didn’t get anything out of the service today), but it is about giving. We give him our praise, declaring His glory. We get knowledge, encouragement, etc from the teaching, reading, studying, but the result/goal is always worship. The goal of every sermon, every offering, every video, and every song is worship in your hearts pouring forth from your lips declaring among the people His very being.
B. Acknowledge His Power (v. 3-9)
1. The bulk of this psalm describes the voice of the LORD in terms like a severe storm. The main point is found at the end of verse 9: everyone says, “Glory!” Maybe David was in a cave at night in the wilderness watching a downpour during the rainy season by lamplight. Or maybe he was in the palace listening to the crashing of thunder and the lights as it lights up the sky. (Even Eddie Rabbit love “rainy nights”). But he pictured the voice of God as the deafening peals of thunder, snapping the strongest of trees like toothpicks. He sees the creation that the voice of God spoke into existence trembling and being shaken by that same voice. By the language, it is obvious that David was in awe with the beauty, the power, the destructiveness, the replenishing nature, the sense of something much bigger, and way out of your control; yet that something is strangely attractive even though it could kill you.
2. Ex 19:16, Ps 18:13-15, 77:16-18,
3. Illustration: “The voice of God is the most powerful force in nature, indeed the only force in nature, for all energy is here only because the power-filled Word is being spoken,” –Tozer, “Electricity (lightning) of itself can do nothing; it must be called and sent upon its errand; and until the almighty Lord commissions it, its bolt of fire is inert and powerless. As well might a rock of granite or a bar of iron fly in the midst of heaven, as the lightning go without being sent by the great First Cause.” –Spurgeon, Pride and stupidity cause some to stay despite hurricane evacuations and chase tornadoes, but some do it because of the strange attractiveness of the forces of nature, which are under His control. "Too often today God has become our 'buddy' and 'pal'...it is easy to emasculate our understanding of God until He is like our human buddies...(Isa 6:3) Isaiah did not grin and slap God on the back. He did not even give Him a friendly hug or handshake...but was prostrate, fearful to even look at God."
4. Do you serve and worship a God who rains fire down on wicked cities? Who sends the death angel to snuff out the lives of all the Egyptian firstborn or 185,000 Assyrians? Who splits the Red Sea or the Jordan River? Who makes the mountains melt like wax before Him? Who builds up nations and tears them down? Who speak the worlds into existence, calling all the stars by name and giving the moon and planets and sun their orbits? Read parts of Ps 147-150 and Job 38. "I should think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with." –Edwards. Whenever you see the power of nature, know that it is God who controls it. But don’t stop at knowledge, let it lead you to worship! Meditate on a God who can/does control this kind of power, and who ordains the rains, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, and all the destruction that comes from them. When you think of God think of this power, and know that there is nothing He can’t do, no one who can thwart him or restrain His hand, no problem too big, nothing that He doesn’t control. When you think of a God like this you are drawn to Him. We find shelter in this all-powerful warrior God!
C. Acknowledge His Sovereignty (v. 10-11)
1. The final scene in David’s worship is a picture of God high and lifted up, exalted on His throne as King forever, giving strength and blessings to His worshipping people. The power of God in this psalm sets it all up. He is the King! He reigns! In the first of the psalm we are giving/ascribing glory to God, and in this last part, God is doing the giving, blessing people with strength and peace. The storm has passed by, and God still remains, standing firm.
2. Matt 8:24, Rev 4:2-11
3. Illustration: “When we really see God as he is there should be no appropriate response but to get on our knees in acknowledgment of just how far our lives, even at their very best, are removed from the holiness of God and just how undeserved is the gracious love and salvation that God pours out on us day by day.” “gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,”
4. Don’t picture God as a weak and needy deity that is humbly waiting on you to come and rescue Him from His crisis of workers. He doesn’t need us; we need Him! We are totally dependent upon Him for life. Try to picture God in this way, while you sing, pray, give, or minister. And we must constantly remind ourselves that God has ordained the storm, is in the storm, controlling the storm, and will be there long after the storm He ordained passes by. He is our gracious, reigning, eternal and everlasting King of kings and Lord of lords!
A. Closing illustration: Michael Utley in May 2000 was playing golf in MA at the Cape Cod Golf Course with some friends. That’s his last memory before what his friends described as the biggest bang they had ever heard, and turned to see him smoking and stumbling to the ground. No heartbeat, no pulse, but quickly thinking, good friends, CPR, and AEDs allowed him to remember things again 38 days later as he was being moved to a rehab facility. He had to relearn how to walk, talk, feed himself, virtually everything. He founded the Struck By Lightning organization, and the first Lightning awareness week, because His life has never been, will never be the same. “The glorious gospel of the blessed God has more than equal power over the rocky obduracy and mountainous pride of man. The voice of our dying Lord rent the rocks and opened the graves: his living voice still works the like wonders. Glory be to his name, the hills of our sins leap into his grave, and are buried in the red sea of his blood, when the voice of his intercession is heard.” –Spurgeon, “God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature.” –Tozer,
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
