Sovereignty The Lord Reigns Psalm
93, verse 1 No rainbow of promise in the
dark and cloudy day shines more radiantly than this. God, my
God, the God who gave Jesus, orders all events, and overrules
all for my good. When I, says He, send clouds
over the earth, He has no wish to conceal the hand which shadows
for a time earth's brightest prospects. It is he alike who
brings the cloud, who brings us into it, and, in mercy, leads
us through it. His kingdom rules over all. The lot is cast into the lap,
but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. He puts the burden
on, and keeps it on, and at his own time will remove it. Beware
of brooding over second causes. It is the worst form of atheism. when our most fondly cherished
gourds are smitten, our fairest flowers lie withered in our bosom,
this is the silencer of all reflections. The Lord prepared the worm. When the temple of the soul is
smitten with lightning, and its pillars rent, the Lord is in
His holy temple. accident, chance, fate, destiny,
have no place in the Christian's creed. He is no unpiloted vessel,
left to the mercy of the storm. The voice of the Lord is upon
the waters. There is but one explanation
of all that befalls him. I will be mute, I will open not
my mouth, because you, O Lord, did it. Death seems to the human
spectator the most capricious and severe of all events. But
not so. The keys of Death and Hades are
in the hands of this same reigning God. Look at the parable of the
fig tree. Its prolonged existence, or its
doom as a cumberer, forms matter of conversation in Heaven. The
axe cannot be laid at its root until God gives the warrant.
How much more will this be the case regarding every tree of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord? it will be watched
over by him, lest any one hurt it. Every trembling fibre he
will care for, and, if made early to succumb to the inevitable
stroke, who knows not, in all these things, that the hand of
the Lord has wrought this? Be it mine to merge my own will
in his, not to cavil at his ways, or to seek to have one jot or
tittle of his will altered. but to lie passive in his hands,
to take the bitter as well as the sweet, knowing that the bitter
cup is mingled by one who loves me too well to add one ingredient
that might have been spared. Who can wonder that the sweet
psalmist of Israel should seek, as he sees the rainbow spanning
the lower heavens, to fix the arrested gaze of a whole world
on the softened tints of this rainbow of comfort? The Lord
reigns! Let the earth rejoice!