FBC Daily Devotional – March 12, 2021

Lord’s Day Worship and Sunday Schedule

Well, a good Friday, finally. Thank goodness it's Friday, the end of our work week. This week's wrapping down very quickly, and before you know it, it'll be the Lord's Day. We'll be able to gather together to worship and serve him.

I do hope you'll be able to join Sunday for worship service. We have Sunday school at 9 .30, and we're currently working our way through a book entitled With All Your Heart by Craig Troxell, and that's been quite an insightful and helpful book to really understand what we are, what drives us, what moves us, what controls us.

It's our heart, so we've been studying that. Sunday morning at 10 .30, the last several weeks I've been sharing messages on the church, and that will continue this Lord's Day as well. Then in the afternoon, we're doing these afternoon services that are really kind of like psalm sings, if you will.

We're going through some of the psalms, we're reading the psalm, and then have been using what's called a psalter, where the psalms are set to music. That's been a blessing, and I just encourage you to join in with that if you can.

If you can't, the first two things are live streamed. We're now live streaming the Bible study hour at 9 .30 and then the morning service at 10 .30. Whatever the case, I hope you'll be able to join with us on the Lord's Day.

God’s Sovereignty Over Storms, Wind, and Fire

Well, there are some weather phenomena that I have not personally experienced, and I really don't have any desire to experience them. One of them is a hurricane. I've been through a tropical storm. We were in Florida one time on vacation years and years ago.

Our kids were like three and four years old, something like that. While we were there, a tropical storm came through and came up the west coast of Florida, and it created a lot of rain and some wind, but it was not a hurricane.

I've never lived through or experienced directly a tornado. Now, here in Sterling, we had one come through. We've had a couple come through the area, a few of them actually, since we've lived here, moved here 18 years ago, but never really directly affected where I was living, saw some of the aftermath of the tornadoes and so forth and the effect of them.

Then I've also never experienced firsthand a forest fire. Again, like you probably have seen the video footage and pictures of the devastation that forest fires can cause, but as far as living in an area where I had to evacuate my home because the fires were coming, that's never been my experience.

Now, I bring all that up because of what we read in Psalm 29, if you're doing our Bible reading schedule, Psalm 29. This psalm, well, it begins telling us to ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, and then it goes on to explain how his power and his glory, his strength and his glory, is seen in immense ways as he sovereignly is in control over things like the weather and fire.

So, for example, in verses 3 and 4, he says, 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.

And so what the psalmist is basically saying is, the Lord is the one who's over the storms at sea, these hurricanes that can reach to level five categories and create horrific storm surges and wind damages and all the rest of that stuff, and flooding, et cetera.

He's saying the voice of the Lord is over the waters. He's saying the Lord, with his voice, controls the waters. Consider the immensity of the Lord's sovereignty to be in control of the oceans and their currents and the storms at sea and all that is involved in the sea and the weather cycles that are generated by the seas of the planet.

But then he also goes on to say, in verses 5 and 6, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. And this could be, you could think of, for example, the effect of a tornado.

And it doesn't even have to be as powerful as a tornado. We've had storms come through our area that were very powerful. There were no tornadoes involved in them, but they were so powerful that trees were uprooted or broken down or quite significantly damaged as the wind broke the branches and so forth.

Some I've seen where they break at the trunk and the wind was just so strong, the tree was so damaged. And the psalmist is saying that the Lord, with his voice, uses that imagery of his voice, the Lord controls the winds that bring down the trees in the forest.

And then in verses 7 to 9, he says the voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. He shakes the wilderness of Kadesh, and the forests end up being stripped bare from these flames in the forest.

And he says the voice of the Lord sparks the flames of a forest fire. Now, we've seen some pretty devastating wildfires in our country in the last few years, the last couple of years. And some of them we know were set deliberately, and some are caused by lightning strikes and so forth.

But what the psalmist is saying is, ultimately, God is sovereign, and he's addressing and extolling the Lord for the immensity of his sovereignty. But here was an interesting statement that brings the sovereignty of God from its immensity and its control over the ocean currents and the storms of sea and the wind currents and all the rest of that, to a very specific, narrow event.

He says in verse 9, the voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth. Makes the deer give birth.

Wow.

Consider the immensity and the specificity of the Lord's sovereignty, that he is in control even over the birth of a fawn. So no wonder the psalm ends by saying, 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. May God, in his sovereign power and authority, may he so direct that power and authority that he grants strength to his people and he blesses his people with peace.

I trust that we'll experience that. We'll know that powerful work of our sovereign God. I hope this is an encouragement to you today. I don't know what you're going through, what life is throwing at you, but I would just encourage you.

Turn to the sovereign Lord who, in the immensity of his sovereignty, controls all the facets of the big things of this planet, but also in the specificity of his sovereignty. He controls even the birth of a fawn.

A Prayer for God’s Sovereign Power and Peace

Our Father and our God, we thank you. We praise you. We extol you today for your power, for your control, for your sovereignty. And I pray that just the knowledge of your control, the knowledge of your power and your authority, will be an encouragement to us today.

This we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your Friday, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and trust the Lord will bless you in it.

Take care.