WWUTT 989 God is My Strong Fortress?

Sometimes, we need to stop thinking of the interruptions that happen in life as interruptions.

It's just simply life. But if there's one who we can depend upon, it's God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the

Psalms, we're up to Psalm 29 today. I'd like to get through 29, 30, and 31.

We'll see how far we get. 31 is going to be the longer of the three. I'll start out here by reading all of Psalm 29, a

Psalm of David. 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 cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf and Syrian 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. You know, sometimes we complain about modern worship songs being rather repetitive, but you can hear some repetitiveness in this particular

Psalm and kind of some poetic meter as well. The certain rhythm and the way that things are laid out.

We start off by singing kind of the prelude to the Psalm to ascribe to the

Lord, give to him what is due him. He alone is worthy of our praise.

And what is first sung is that the heavenly beings would worship him. Even they must lift up praise unto

God. He is worthy of worship, even from the holy beings. And we must also worship in holiness.

As we go down in verse two, it says, ascribe to the Lord, the glory due his name, worship the

Lord in the splendor of holiness. He is holy and he deserves holy worship.

And fortunately for us, he makes us holy by the giving of his son, the righteousness of Christ that we are clothed in so that we may offer right worship unto

God. Verse three, the voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders, the

Lord over many wonders. I don't know if you've ever been real close to a lightning strike before, like within a few feet.

I have a few times and that thunderclap is really, really loud.

It doesn't have that low, appealing rumble. Rather, it is a very loud and sudden crack.

Like a very loud, I don't know, slap or something. It's extremely loud.

It's terrifying, really. And so you think of the power that is demonstrated in that sharp, that loud a sound.

It's almost deafening. My ears ring whenever I've heard thunder that close. Well, the voice of the

Lord is even more grand than that. It's devastating. It even levels forests, as we see talked about here.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon, which were the best cedars.

Those were the best trees, strongest wood. The cedars of Lebanon that were used to even build the temple.

So now David prepared that. He prepared those cedars for Solomon to be able to build the temple.

He didn't get to build the temple himself, but he understands. He knows the cedars of Lebanon. That's the best wood to build with.

He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf and Syrian like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. It's consuming. There is judgment in God's voice.

It shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh, the vast span of land, as far as the eye can see, beyond even the horizon.

And yet the voice of the Lord could shake it. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth. So we've talked about all these kind of devastating things, the voice of the

Lord levels things, but here it takes care of nature.

Those things that God has created, all of which is under his watchful eye.

Things that happen that we would not ordinarily be able to behold in our common everyday settings.

Like how often are you out in the forest to see a deer give birth, let alone have anything to do with that deer giving birth.

But God's eyes are upon even these things and they happen according to his sovereignty, his decree over all that he has made.

He strips the forest bare and in his temple, all cry glory.

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as King forever, enthroned over the flood.

In other words, this flood, this natural disaster that has taken place has happened by God's hand.

And as it says elsewhere in the Psalms, these kinds of things happen to strike fear in our hearts so that we would repent and worship the

God of glory. The Lord sits enthroned as King forever. No one's gonna unseat this wonderful King that has made all and everything.

So highlighting the hubris of man in that sense as well. May the Lord give strength to his people.

May the Lord bless his people with peace. As King overall, he governs all the nations, even the one that he has appointed to himself, which in this particular case is

Israel. And so God is the one who ordains peace even for his people.

And we have peace. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 30, verse one, a

Psalm of David, a song at the dedication of the temple. I will extol you,

O Lord, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my

God, I cried to you for help and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol.

You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. Sing praises to the

Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name, for his anger is but for a moment and his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. As for me,

I said, in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong.

You hid your face, I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I cry and to the

Lord I plead for mercy. What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you?

Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me. O Lord, be my helper.

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.

O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever. Now, perhaps the title of this psalm might have puzzled you a little bit.

A psalm of David, a song at the dedication of the temple. Well, I had just said earlier when we were reading through Psalm 29 that David didn't even get to build the temple.

It was Solomon that got to do that. Well, David wrote this psalm and he wrote it for the dedication of the temple.

So he wouldn't get to be the one to sing it. That would be a generation after him, just a few years after his death.

But nevertheless, it was not from his mouth that he got to declare this dedication unto this house that was made for God.

Solomon would make it and this psalm would be declared there. But that's the reason why

David wrote it so that it would be a psalm of dedication when the temple was completed. It begins with,

I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

So you think of all of the enemies that David had conquered and even the occasions in which he had to flee from his enemies.

David experienced quite a bit of war and a lot of unrest. And so he knew that the building of the temple meant peace.

He knew that all of this had come to fruition in the building of the house of God so that he might dwell with his people there in Israel, specifically in Jerusalem.

And so the foes have not succeeded. If there was enough peace to be able to put a building project like that together, it just shows that God's faithfulness was with his people.

Verse two, O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help and you have healed me.

O Lord, you have brought me up. You've brought up my soul from Sheol. You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.

So you think of all the stress and anxiety of running away from his enemies and fearing the enemies that might come against him.

All that anxiety that David feels would make him feel rather sick. But he says that the

Lord has healed me. I cried to you for help and the Lord has healed me. Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol, from the grave.

I felt like I was a dead man because of all the anxiety that I endured. You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.

Those are his enemies. They live for death. They go down to the pit, but David didn't go down with them.

He was restored up by God who is faithful to his servant. Verses four and five, sing praises to the

Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name, for his anger is but for a moment and his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Verse five again, where it says, his anger is but for a moment.

There's a video I just put together. It'll come out, I don't know, today or tomorrow, sometime. It's on the

Extended What Channel, W -W -U -T -T -E -X -T. But I talk about a teacher there who says that God is not angry.

God is not an angry God. But that contradicts what scripture says. Psalm 711 says that God is a righteous judge who feels indignation every day.

And David indeed says here that God is angry, but his anger is but for a moment and his favor is for a lifetime.

It shows that the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness of God lasts a lot longer than his anger against unrighteousness.

And praise God for that, that we might receive mercy in such a way. Weeping may tarry for the night.

We may weep for the night. We may soak our pillow with tears, but joy comes with the morning.

As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. By your favor, oh

Lord, you made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face. I was dismayed.

Now, David says in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. Of course, he was very prosperous, he was a king.

We are prosperous as well in the sense that Christ has died for us and in Christ, we will inherit the eternal kingdom of God.

So in this way, we are indeed also very rich. I shall never be moved if I am in Christ.

By your favor, oh Lord, you made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face.

I was dismayed. To you, oh Lord, I cry. And to the Lord, I pled for mercy.

What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit?

He would lose everything. Person who goes down to the pit loses the things that God has blessed him with.

The steadfastness in particular, since he made the reference to the mountain. Will the dust praise you,

David says? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, oh Lord, and be merciful to me. Oh Lord, be my helper.

You have turned for me my morning into dancing and you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.

The weeping that endures for the night is gone. Joy has come with the morning. That my glory,

David says, may sing your praise and not be silent. Oh Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

Now let's consider Psalm 31. We'll go through this one a little more quickly. 24 verses.

To the choir master, a Psalm of David. In you, oh Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.

In your righteousness, deliver me. Incline your ear to me. Rescue me speedily.

Be a rock of refuge for me. A strong fortress to save me.

I'm a kind of person that loves consistency. I love stability. I want one day to be the same from one day to the next.

I'm perfectly happy living where I am and being here for the rest of my life.

Now, I'm certainly not the kind of person that's gonna fight with God if he calls me to move on and he's got another place, another time for me, says, hey, now

I want you to pastor this church. I'm not gonna be bitter or upset about that.

I would go with joy and serve the Lord with gladness. But overall, in my heart,

I like things to be the same from one day to the next. I don't really go out a whole lot. I'm happy sitting at home reading a book or typing or watching a movie with my kids.

Maybe we'll go play at the park or something like that, but I don't really like to go far if I don't have to.

And so as a person who likes constancy, whenever things change, it can get a little bit hectic.

Stuff can start to get chaotic just when little things happen.

And there is a sense when I just need to suck it up, but when in my spirit,

I like things to be stable and then things get unstable, it's easy to shake me when stuff like that happens.

And so it's in those moments that I find very much comfort in passages about God being a rock, a rock of refuge, and a strong fortress to save me.

You are my rock and my fortress. And for your name's sake, you lead me and guide me.

You take me out of the net that they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.

Into your hand, I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

By the way, that passage, Psalm 31 .5, is exactly what Jesus prayed from the cross before he breathed his last, according to the

Gospel of Luke. Jesus said, into your hand, I commit my spirit. And it was

Psalm 30, Psalm 31, that he was quoting from. Verse six,

I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the

Lord, the living God. An idol can't do anything for you. An idol is something that you have made, but the

Lord God made us. And he is the one who saves. An idol can't save, you made it.

But the Lord God who made us can save us from destruction, can save us from chaos, can save us from instability and stress and otherwise.

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction.

You have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy.

You have set my feet in a broad place. Be gracious to me,

O Lord, for I am in distress. My eye is wasted from grief, my soul and my body also.

In other words, you know, David, as he looks out, as he sees things, what it is that he sees grieves him.

He doesn't even see peace and prosperity happening in other places.

All he sees is sin and death and destruction. And my eye is wasted from this.

And because this is what I see before me, my soul and my body also languish because of what is before my eyes.

For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing.

My strength fails because of my iniquity and my bones waste away.

Because of David's sin, he's not even able to sustain himself.

The sin that's happening around him and the sin that is within himself, how in the world could he possibly find strength?

Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, David says, especially to my neighbors and an object of dread to my acquaintances.

Those who see me in the street flee from me. I have been forgotten like one who is dead.

I have become like a broken vessel for I hear the whispering of many terror on every side as they scheme together against me, as they want to take my life.

There's some messianic aspects in here, of course. These things even look forward to Christ who was one forgotten like one who was dead, who had become a broken vessel.

Verse 14, but I trust in you, O Lord. I say, you are my God. My times are in your hand.

Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors. Make your face shine on your servant.

Save me in your steadfast love. O Lord, let me not be put to shame.

For I call upon you. Let the wicked be put to shame. Let them go silently to Sheol.

Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt.

Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind.

In the cover of your presence, you hid them from the plots of men. You store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues.

Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when

I was in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, I am cut off from your sight.

But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help. Love the

Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.

Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the

Lord. Amen. This has been, When We Understand the

Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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