Word of Salvation - Vol.49 No.9 - March 2004

The Lord Reigns

Sermon by Rev M Flinn

on Psalm 93

Scripture Readings:  Psalm 93; Mark 4:35-41

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We often face moments when it's time for reflection and for planning. When you're young, then you have to think about what you will be studying at school and whether or not you will achieve your goals. Some of you have left school and you are thinking about the changes that you will bring into your life. There may be a measure of uncertainty there - doubt about the future - and you find it hard to make plans because you don't know exactly what the Lord's will is for your life. Or you may have dreams and desires but you don't know how you are ever going to realise them. So it may not be uncertainty that you face, but frustration and discouragement. There may be others who are beginning a new job and you can't wait to get started.

But the apostle James has a warning for us in James 4. He speaks to enthusiastic businessmen who plan to go to such-and-such a city and make a profit. But they leave God out of their plans. They do not realise that they are but a mist; their lives and their achievements are nothing in relation to eternity, and what they ought to do is say, "If the Lord wills, we will do this or that."

And that is something we need to remember, isn't it? The mind of man plans his way, but it is the Lord who directs his steps. God is sovereign in our lives. He is the one who is working out his divine plan and we are instruments in His hands.

We can be very thankful to the Reformers for stressing this. The theme of divine sovereignty is a hallmark of the Reformation. God is the King. The Lord rules in our lives and in the world. But this truth did not originate with the Reformers, or even with James. It is a theme that runs right throughout the Scriptures. From Genesis through to Revelation we are confronted with the truth that the Lord reigns as King.

This is the main point of Psalm 93 that we have before us. It leaps out at us from the opening words of the psalm. The Lord reigns! God is a King who possesses a throne that was established long ago. And He is robed in majesty and armed with strength. The picture is that of a great ruler, seated upon His throne in glory and majesty and He is armed and ready for battle, able to defeat all opposition.

This is a very different view of God from that which many have of Him. This God is not weak and ineffectual, there to go to only if we desperately need Him, but at other times we can forget all about Him. This God is reigning supreme from His throne. He always has and He always will. This is a God who commands respect. He is the sort of king that you need to know and serve. And if you don't know Him and serve Him, you are the one who loses out. This King loses nothing. He continues to reign and to work out His sovereign plan. But you lose everything.

Why is that? Well, let's look at this psalm in a little more detail. The first point that I want to stress is that God reigns, not man. It is clear from the opening verse that when the psalmist wrote this, he was thinking about the time of creation. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved. Of course, the book of Genesis tells us that it is God who has established the world, and given the parallelism of the psalm; it may well be that the psalmist was thinking of the world itself as God's throne.

This is the way Hebrew poems were constructed. There are various parallel expressions in which one idea is expressed again in similar language. So here it reads: The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved. And then restating that in similar terms: Your throne was established long ago; you are from all eternity.

One of the other interesting things about this psalm that I discovered in the past week was that apparently in the ancient world, the Jews used to sing this psalm on the sixth day of the week. This was the day on which God's creative work was completed, and it was also the day on which God made man in His own image. Let's turn to this in Genesis 1. In verse 26 we read this: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground'."

Notice how being made in God's image is linked to the aspect of rule. Man is to be a king in creation - he is the king over the created world. Why? Because God is the King over all that He has created. And just in case we are in any doubt about this, it is repeated in the next two verses. Whenever anything is repeated in Hebrew narrative, it means this is something important and not to be missed. God is the great King of the world that He has made. Man was created to be like God. Therefore he was to rule under God and for him.

But we know the rest of the story. Instead of ruling under God and serving Him, man rebelled and went his own way. But - and this is the point of the psalm - God is still on the throne. God reigns in spite of human opposition and betrayal. We are not the lords of our life. God is. We do not determine the future by our actions. God does. The Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty.

Yes, the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength. Why do we worry about our weakness and frailty? Why do we become anxious when we don't have everything in control or we are facing uncertainty about the future? Do we somehow think that we are kings independent of God? Do we somehow think that we rule our lives and this world? Should we not sing this song on day six and remember and celebrate the sovereign lordship of God?

Let your anxious minds be put at rest. God is the King. He is the Lord and He knows what He is doing in your life and mine. And if you still think that you are in control and that you do not need Him, think again. The only reason why you have this drive to control things and overcome obstacles is because you are made in the image of God. This is a divine attribute. The Lord is King. But ever since the fall, we human beings have been denying our Creator and thinking that we can control things without Him. And we become disillusioned and maybe even angry whenever we face problems that we cannot fix by our own efforts. So you might as well face this fact now. You are not in control. You can't fix everything by your own efforts. God is the King. He rules, and what we must do is bow before Him and honour Him in our lives.

The second thing we should notice is that God is stronger than all opposition. Sometimes we are reminded of the power of the sea in storms. Television pictures might show a cyclone pounding small islands in the ocean and wreaking havoc on coastal towns lying in its path. The waves of the sea can bring devastation when aroused. And in our text the psalmist paints a picture of this in the words in verse 3: "The seas have lifted up, O Lord, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves." The repetition conveys the idea of the waves building up, with each one getting higher and more terrifying as the storm mounts. But in verse 4 the waves become breakers. They thunder against the Lord and his people, but in the end they dissipate and come to nothing. "Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea - the Lord on high is mighty." Yes, God's throne stands secure. The wind and the waves cannot prevail.

What we have here is a picture of all the forces of opposition mounted against the Lord and His kingdom. They howl and they rage and sometimes they are terrifying. But no amount of opposition can harm the Lord or unseat Him from His position of sovereign rule. Human kingdoms come and go. Not so, the Lord's.

If we find ourselves worrying about the future of the church in the day in which we live, we need to sing this psalm. We do live in a spiritual battle and the devil is attacking the church from within and without, but God's throne stands secure. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church - to use a New Testament picture that expresses the same truth.

And if it seems as if the winds of the storm and waves are pounding at you in your life, you need to remember that God is sovereign also over these things. Nothing catches Him by surprise and nothing can shake or undermine His purpose. Remember that when it appears to you as if you are in the middle of a cyclone.

There is something else as well. God's truth stands forever. Verse 5 says, "Your statutes stand firm; holiness adorns your house for endless days, O Lord." The royal decrees of this sovereign King stand firm. His laws are sure and certain. They do not falter with changing human times and cultures. They do not bow to what is politically correct. And if this is so, then His house must be adorned with holiness - separation from the world and from the world's ways of thinking and acting. And if we want to dwell within His house as His subjects, we must live according to His laws in our lives. This means going against the tide and it may well be the cause of the storm rising up around us. It is not an easy thing to be a Christian in the world of today.

Younger people need to take notice of this. God calls you to be different. He calls you to be a non-conformist. Don't go with the crowd when the crowd walks in ungodliness. You know what is Christian behaviour. You can read your Bible as well as anyone. But being different - standing out from the crowd - this is the hardest thing. Older people, you need to remember this, too, and be comforted by it. Sometimes older folk look back and they say, "what is the world coming to?" How the values and principles have changed since they were young. Well, this is true, but it was no different in the days of the biblical writers. Read the history of God's people in the Old Testament and you will see. How easily and how frequently Israel conformed to the ways of thinking and religious practices of their neighbours.

The problem is not the particular age in which we are living; it is the human heart in its rebellion against God. Yet, in all of this, God's statutes do not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and so is His truth. Generations from now, there will still be people hearing of the sovereign majesty of God and they will be seeking to conform their lives to His holy statutes. So do not give up on the truth and change your thinking in your latter years.

Let me close by reminding you of the reaction of the disciples when Jesus calmed the waves and the wind on the Sea of Galilee. They were seasoned fishermen, but this storm was far greater than they. They lost control and they were terrified. But when they woke Jesus, He simply spoke to the wind and the waves and they responded. And the disciples? They were gripped with a new fear. Just who is this? That even the wind and the waves obey Him?

Indeed! Only God is greater than these forces of nature. Only God is the rock that stands firm in the midst of all opposition. And therefore it is appropriate and necessary that we worship and adore Him. The Lord reigns! He is on the throne. He is active and involved in all our lives, from the greatest to the smallest detail. And He is working out His plan and purpose. Let's remember this as we face the year and make our plans.

Amen.