OK, let's turn in our scriptures
to Psalm 93, one of the exercises. I don't know if it was an exercise,
but something I used to do and continue sometimes to do is that
if you actually begin at the beginning of the month reading
five psalms and one chapter of Proverbs, you actually get through
all the psalms and all the Proverbs each month. There are about that
number of them. Like many of you, I've journeyed
through the Psalms, but I love them. I love the simplicity of
them. I love the majesty of them. And
as we'll see today, I love the completeness of them. I think
one of the things that is so endearing about the Word of God
is that our great God can say so, so much with so few words. One of the comforts of a preacher
is that you're actually dealing with a word which is living and
active. And so you can expound it and
you can spend hours and hours and hours studying and writing
and reading and then you can speak on it for hours and hours
and hours and you can come back the next week and all of a sudden
there are things in there that you have never seen. It is a
glorious word from God that we have before us. Some of the most
unnerving moments I've had in preaching is when I've prepared
and prepared and prepared and then I've read the passage that
we're looking at and I find that there's something in there that
is so obvious and sits on the surface of it and neither I nor
the commentators I've read had seen it. Such is the beauty of
this psalm before us. If you look at the opening phrase
it says, It begins with our great God. That glorious word, isn't it? The Lord reigneth. He reigneth. He reigns. He's always reigned. He always will reign. And it
finishes in verse 5 with a description of the Word of God that you have
before you. Thy testimonies are very sure. They are amen. That's the word, amen. They are
our men. They are our men. Holiness. becometh Thine house, O Lord,
forever." It begins with His reign and then His reign is wrapped
up in the holiness of His being. And remarkably, brothers and
sisters in Christ, the holiness that becometh His house is the
holiness that He clothes His people with. Let's just pray. Our Father, we thank You. We
thank You for the opportunity that Your Word brings to us to
take our eyes off the things of our lives and the eyes off
the things of this world, Heavenly Father. And just for this brief
time, if you might allow it, Heavenly Father, that we might
come into the court and the throne room of Heaven, and that we might
have our eyesight adjusted, that we might be brought by your grace
and your mercy and your love to your people to see things
yet again from Heaven's perspective, and that we might find ourselves
at rest and at peace in who you are. And your word would be for
us something of certainty and a place of safety and refuge. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that rock is cleft and you hide your people in that. We pray,
Heavenly Father, that You would work in our hearts quite simply
to cling to the Lord Jesus and be turned by Your grace in our
lives, Heavenly Father, from looking at anything that we ever
have done, can do right now or can do into the future. We would
simply find ourselves at rest on Him. who holds us in everlasting
arms. We praise you for the sure and
certain salvation of all of your people, saved from eternity and
now in time called to be your people and your witnesses in
this world. We pray Your blessing upon us,
Heavenly Father. And again, we pray for all of our absent friends
and our friends overseas. We thank You again for the sure
and certain victory of our Lord Jesus in all things. And we praise
You that we might join and can join with the Psalmist and say,
Our God reigneth. Let's read the whole psalm and
then we'll go through it briefly, but I trust profitably The psalm begins, The Lord reigneth,
he is clothed with majesty. The Lord is clothed with strength,
wherewith he hath girded himself. The world also is established,
but it cannot be moved. Thy throne is established of
old, thou art from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O
Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice, the floods lift
up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier
than the noise of many waters, yay than the mighty waves of
the sea. Thy testimonies are sure. No, thy testimonies are very
sure. Holiness becometh thine house,
O Lord, for ever. It's a great declaration of the
scriptures, isn't it? That there is a God. There is
a God who rules over this world. This creation is not an accident. This creation is not the magic
concurrence of multitudes of miracles over time. is a creation that reflects the
glory of our great God. The Lord reigneth. His throne,
verse 2, is established of old. His throne is unmoved. The throne of God is secure. You can read about it in Revelation
4 and 5. Our God reigns in heaven right
now and thankfully He reigns over all creation and thankfully
for God's children. He reigns over our stubborn hearts
and our rebellious wills, and He turns His people to Himself
despite all of their opposition, all of the opposition from men,
all of the opposition from Satan, all of the opposition from this
world and its so-called superpowers and empires. Our God reigns. Our God reigneth. Above all the
clouds of this temporary world, the Eternal King sits above all
in supreme serenity." Does that comfort your hearts, brothers
and sisters? It comforts my heart. I love the fact that despite
everything that happens here, He reigns right now. His throne is unmoved by all
of those things. His throne is unmovable. All of the activities of earth
can't get to move and disturb the throne of our great God. He is the first cause of all
things. He is the mighty mover of all
things. And all things are ordered according
to His eternal purpose. That's why we pray that way.
His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is being
done in heaven. His will reigns on this earth. And it so often appears not to
be the case. So often, as the enemies of God
in the scriptures said, where is your God? They said it today,
but didn't they? They accused the Lord Jesus of
all sorts of things. Where is your God? I remember
Henry Mahan suffered much opposition from people who didn't believe
in the sovereignty of God. And his son, I think it may have
been his eldest son, went to Vietnam. And almost as soon as
he arrived in Vietnam, he was shot and killed. And one of these
people, one of these people had the extraordinary insensitivity
and callousness to ring Henry Mahan up and say to him, well,
where is your God now? And Henry said, He's exactly
where he's always been. He rules all things in this universe. He's still absolutely sovereign. He is. He is the God who reigns. He is the God who reigns. I love
the beginning of the Bible, doesn't it? It just begins with a phrase
which is so remarkably profound that we could ponder it for years
and not reach the depths of it. How does it begin? How do the
scriptures begin? Just the simplest phrase, in
the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. Some of
us still have some of those old clocks in our houses. And in
the beginning is like turning on that clock, isn't it? You
wind the handle up and you wind the handle up and then you open
the thing and you flick the pendulum to one side and it begins ticking. Well, this earth and this creation,
it was moved and it was controlled and ruled by that God. He set it in motion. It all works
according to the counsel of His will. It's not out of control. I love the ETH endings. It just means that the Lord reigned
in the beginning. And His first words were, Let
there be light. In fact it was light be and light
was. The light didn't need any permission.
God didn't need to cajole it into creation. He just speaks
and a multitude of stars beyond numbering are put in order and
perfectly so. I don't know if you saw it on
the news the other night but there's a rocket they've sent to an asteroid and
I think it takes 7 years to go to an asteroid. It might take
7 years to go and it's going to land on the asteroid and it's
got a vacuum cleaner type thing on it. So it's actually going
to pick up some dust and somehow it gets itself off the asteroid
and comes back to Earth and then they'll be able to study where
we came from. They'll be able to study the
origins of life, won't they? And here we are with a simple,
simple word from God. There they are, playing around
with this. It's an extraordinary thing,
isn't it, how often now when it comes to any voyages of discovery,
they're actually trying to find where it all came from. Where
did we all come from? What was the beginning of the
Big Bang? Where did it all come from? Our God was there. It only exists because of Him. Our God reigns. I love the last few verses in
Romans chapter 11. You don't have to turn there,
I can read them to you. I trust that they... It says, Romans 11.33, are the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments
and His ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of
the Lord? For who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to him
that it shall be recompensed unto him again? And then this
marvellous statement in Romans 11.36. For of him and through
him and to him are all things. to whom be glory forever and
ever." It means that everything came from Him, everything exists
through Him, and everything exists to rebound to His glory, to Him. All things to whom be glory forever. Amen. I'm so pleased that Paul
wrote in Philippians 3.1 as people think that we talk
about the sovereignty of God and the absolute sovereignty
of God in all things, and the absolute sovereignty of God in
salvation, and the absolute sovereignty of our great Saviour as He reigned
and ruled over this world when He came here, and the great and
absolute sovereignty of our God as He reigned upon the cross,
as wicked men mocked Him and shed His blood, our God reigned. Our God reigns. He reigns majestically
in resurrection glory right now. Paul says, finally, my brethren,
rejoice in the Lord. And then he says, to write the
same things to you, to me is not grievous, but for you it
is safe. It is a safe thing, as we read
in Luke chapter one. It is a safe and certain and
secure thing. to hear the same things again
and again and again. The Lord reigneth. The Lord reigneth. He is clothed with majesty, with
majesty itself, not just the emblems of majesty as the high
priests were, but He is clothed with majesty. Everything that
surrounds Him is majestic. Go home and read Revelation 4
or 5 and you'll read of the majesty that he has right now in heaven. What glory, what glory there
is in our great God. He's clothed with majesty. That's
one of the beauties on the Mount of Transfiguration is that Peter,
James and John were just given a glimpse, a short glimpse of
the glory, the real glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And those
clothes shone brighter than the sun. He appeared in a similar
way to Paul on the road to Damascus. And when people meet him they
are overwhelmed and overcome and words can't describe it. Everything that surrounds our
great God is majestic. His church is majestic. His throne
is majestic. His very being is majestic. In nature, in providence and
salvation, everything He does is majestic. Look at this glorious
creation that we have the joy to see, and Mira and others have
the joy to paint. It is remarkable, isn't it? It
is just continually beyond our understanding, the best thing
we can do is just to be in awe of He who made it and He who
sustains it. All those little birds that dance
around on our garden and probably in your gardens as well, every
one of them, God's feeding them. He feeds hundreds of birds around
our house every day and they sing His praises in remarkable
ways. He has Absolute sovereignty. He has his way in the whirlwind. The most chaotic thing that we
can think of here is a whirling tornado. All that dust, all those
sheets of tin, everything picked up and thrown all over the place,
houses destroyed and trees and all sorts of things. and it says
he has his way in the whirlwind. There's not a tiny speck that's
moving there outside of his control. And some of his majestic activities,
he says it's the hiding of his power. It's the hiding of his
power. Our God is all together. beyond this world's understanding. He is majestic. He is clothed
with majesty. The Lord is clothed with strength. wherewith he has girded himself. The picture again, of course,
is of power and the girding of himself is to gird himself as
a warrior going out to battle. He's lord of lords and king of
kings and he rides forth triumphantly and he's doing it in this world
right now. May God give us eyes to see. He's always strong, but He displays
His strength and at special times and in special ways to the glory
of His people. It's a good thing to remember,
isn't it, that when the Lord Jesus came back from the grave
and He was gloriously resurrected and He revealed the depth of
the reality of His humanity and His compassion for His people
and He only ever visited his children. He only ever visited
his children, and he only ever reveals himself. He only ever
reveals himself to his own. But when he does, he reveals
himself as clothed in majesty, as reigning, as strong, in the
saving of sinners, in the putting down of errors, in the honouring
of His name. He's coming, isn't He? He's on
His way back to be admired by all them that believe. The Lord is clothed for action. He's wearing His omnipotence.
He reveals Himself and He defends His own. He's jealous, brothers
and sisters, he's more jealous for his glory and he's more jealous
for your good than any of us can possibly imagine. He's more
concerned about the salvation of our souls than we are of our
own. He loves His own, as we'll see
a little bit later on, with an unquenchable love. He defends
His own. He leads them. He leads them
by still waters. He makes them to lie down in
green pastures. He takes them to His Word and
He reveals Himself in His Word and in the proclamation of the
Gospel of His glory. So that's why with His power
and His reigning, the prayer of God's children, isn't it,
is, thy kingdom come, thy kingdom come. And the praise of God's people
is that the Lord Jesus Christ does reign. That is our prayer,
isn't it, is that the kingdom come, but our praise is the fact
that our Lord Jesus Christ does reign. He goes on to say, the
world is also established. As I said earlier, it didn't
create itself. It wasn't the result of happy
accidents for millions and billions and however many years you want
to add to it. It's established by our God. He holds it all in
orbit. Those people who are sending
this rocket to this asteroid are able to send it to the asteroid.
Why? Because the asteroid is not wobbling
all over the place. It's actually set. It's set by
God in a particular place. God holds it there. He upholds
all things by the word of His power. He restrains, doesn't
he? He establishes the world and
he restrains the evils of men and the evils of Satan and he
orders all things. He holds it together perfectly
and establishes it, as I said earlier, in the beginning God. Therefore everything that comes
out from the beginning is God's and under His control. Someone
said, I'm not sure who it was, that atheism is the mother of
anarchy. And it's interesting in our world
and in our societies how we publicly move away from the acknowledgement
of God. Rather than becoming better and
better, we are in terrible danger by the public mockery of our
God to bring upon this society of ours the fierce wrath of God. Thy throne, thy throne is established
of old. It's interesting because there's
so many television shows and so many books are written about
all these great kingdoms, aren't they? And you can watch them
again and again and some of them are extremely fascinating. But
what are they all now? These great superpowers are generally
rocks in the desert, aren't they? lumps of rock in a desert. And
we go back and we say, wasn't that magnificent? Wasn't that
magnificent? Its magnificence was just temporary. It's like a bubble, wasn't it?
It looks bright and big and has seeming to have some substance
and all of a sudden it pops. And the mighty Egyptian empire
was reduced to some old monuments. The mighty Babylonian empire Thy throne is established of
old." It's an established throne, isn't it? The thrones of men
have come and gone, but the throne of God is permanent, is secure. is unmoved and unmovable. The throne of God is established
of old because thou art from everlasting. There was never
a time, if time could be measured in any sort of meaningful way,
there was never a time where there was not God. And there never was a time since
the fall of Satan and the fall of all of humanity in our Father
Adam that there hasn't been opposition. And that's what these next verses
go on to talk about, don't they? The floods have lifted up. Oh Lord, the floods have lifted
up their voice. Oh Lord, the floods lift up their
waves. And it's very interesting, isn't
it? The waves typify the sort of opposition and the enmity
of this human race, this fallen race and all of Satan and his
demonic hosts against our God. And when the psalmist sees the
floods immediately and thinks of the floods and the waves,
his reaction is a great reaction, isn't it? He turns to the Lord. I love, and I do repeat it often,
I love what Hezekiah did. There was this mighty army of
Sennacherib, a superpower, had encamped around Jerusalem. And
they came and they mocked not just Hezekiah, but they mocked
the God of Israel. We have marched all this way,
we have marched thousands of miles, we have trodden down this
empire and trodden down that empire and all of these cities
and here we are now and your God is unable to defend you."
And Hezekiah gets these letters and hears these mocking things
and what does he do with them? He takes it into the temple of
God and he lays it out before God. It's a great thing to ponder,
isn't it, that when opposition comes to us and we're in a place
where the world and others are opposed to us, we just lay your
case out before God. Just lay it out before Him. When
the waves are lifted, when the floods are lifted up, and the
floods lift up their voice, and the floods lift up their waves,
just lay it out. Lay your case out before the
throne of grace. The love of Hebrews 4.16 says,
let us therefore, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of
grace. Why do we come boldly to the throne of grace? The verse,
the proceeding verse says, we have. You come boldly to the
throne of grace because we have, not that we might have, we have
a high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted
in every way that we were. He knows what it's like to live
in this world with the floods lifted up, the floods lifting
up their voice, the floods lifting up their waves against him. We
come boldly to the throne of grace because that's where he
is. seated on that throne, unmoved, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need." That's where it's found,
brothers and sisters, isn't it? The floods lift up their voice
and we go to the throne of grace. The floods lift up their waves
and we go to the throne of grace. We are, by God's grace, put in
a place of being in times of need over and over again. And it's his delight, it's his
delight to take us to those places and then in those places reveal
himself. So the voice probably refers
to the fact that men sometimes are furious with their words.
They spoke such words against the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
the waves are reflective of the fact that having taken their
words to the end of their limits, they then act with physical violence. as they did against the Lord
Jesus and they do against His people. As Spurgeon said, the
ungodly are all foam and fury, noise and bluster during their
little hour. Then the tide is turned and the
storm hushed and we hear no more of them while the Kingdom of
the Eternal abides in the grandeur of its power. The other thing to note about
the waves is the Jewish people were not seafaring people, so
waves represented chaos and destruction and uncertainty and insecurity. But the interesting thing about
the waves is they come to the rocks. As they come to the rock, both
their noise and their ferocity are greatest, aren't they? As
they come to the rocks, and so is their destruction. The louder
the noise and the more they are raised up, the more they are
about to break. and they bring all their ferocity,
don't they, to the coasts of this world and they beat and
they beat and they beat and the rocks are unmoved. The rocks
are unmoved. I don't know if you have done
it often but I've called in at Coama. Sometimes when there are
big storms in the south you go to Coama and that little bay
near the blowhole is just full of seemingly meters of foam in
there. And those rocks, those waves
are beating enormously with such power that send up that blowhole
in extraordinary ways. And yet it remains unmoved. The Lord Jesus, of course, showed
us in the calming of that raging sea of Galilee. When God's people
think that they are about to drown and think that He doesn't
care about them, our God from His throne above just says a
word, just says a word, and the wind and the waves stop. Someone wrote that this This
picture of what the Lord Jesus did on the Sea of Galilee is
a picture of the Church and all its members throughout time and
he says that it's a summary of the past. If you look back through
biblical history to the time of Adam and Eve and the Fall
and Abel, you look back through it and there has just been a
raging sea, foaming and rising up against God's people. It's
a summary of the past. It's a prophecy of the future. It will be like that until the
Lord returns, but it's a type of the end. There'll come a time
when the Lord Jesus Christ will come back and He'll speak a word,
and to His people it will be peace, be still, and all will
be still. Because, verse four, the Lord
on high is mightier excuse me, mightier than the
noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea. Neither the number nor the noise
of those who oppose our God affect the Lord on high. The noise and
the waves, they come and go, and His throne is unmoved. His people might be tossed around
down here in this world, but their security rests in someone
who is unmoved in heaven." It's an extraordinary thing, isn't
it? He's mightier than the noise of many waters. There was a time
2,000 years ago where the one who was the mightiest and the
one who made the most noise and the one who orchestrated the
mighty waves of the sea against the Lord and his people was a
man called Saul. It's wonderful, isn't it, to
think that the Lord Jesus Christ, just by His sovereignty, our
great triune God, takes the things that were determined in eternity
and the things won by our Lord Jesus on the cross and the things
that are applied to the hearts of God's people by the Blessed
Holy Spirit and that stony heart that was cold Cold to the things
of God and cold to God's people, that cold and stony heart that
raised its fist against the Almighty was just overcome, was just overcome
not by a battle of the swords of men, but by the mere presence
and the Word from God. The Word of God. The Lord is
mightier than the noise of many waters. Yea, the mighty waves
of the sea. In Song of Solomon, this is the
description of the love of God. Song of Solomon, chapter 8, says,
Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon
her beloved? I raised thee up unto the apple
tree. There my mother brought thee forth. There she brought
thee forth to bear thee. And the shulmites, the church
says, set me to seal upon mine heart as a seal upon mine arm.
For love is strong as death. Jealousy is cruel as the grave. The coals thereof are coals of
fire which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench
love. Neither can floods drown it. Isn't that a great picture of
the love of our Lord Jesus Christ? That unquenchable love. Many
waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man
would give all the substance of his house for love, it would
be utterly treated with contempt." So the love of Christ is unquenchable. The waters of shame and suffering
and humility seemed at times as if they would drown him. The
waters of death swelled over the great lover of our souls. And neither death nor the grave
could weaken his love. The great waters of our unworthiness
could not quench his love. The great swelling waters of
our sin and our rebellion and our long, long rejection of him
couldn't quench his love. And the beauty of the Gospel
is that the love of God is not only unquenchable, but it's unpurchasable. There's great comfort in the
fact that it cannot be bought. The love of God is not a piece
of merchandise. It's not something to be paraded
around and marketed. Nothing we offer God could ever
persuade Him to love us. Nor can we ever do anything or
offer anything as a bribe to keep the love of Christ. See,
nothing can buy off His love and nothing in His people can
cause Him to cease from loving us. Unquenchable. The waves will rise. The waves will rise, the mighty
waves of the sea, but the Lord is where? He's on high, verse
4. He's mightier than the noise
of many waters. And then this verse that we looked
at earlier on, verse 5. Thy testimonies are very sure. My testimonies are Amen and Amen. The testimonies that the Lord
reigns, the testimonies of the Lord's throne being established,
the testimony of the Lord has established this world. He's
established it, He rules it and controls it. And it be moved
when He decides to move it and it cannot be moved until then.
With all these things established of old, So are the revelations
from Heaven. His word, His testimonies, the
word of His witness sealed by His blood and sealed often by
their blood in this book before us is a great description, isn't
it? It's a great description of our
God. His testimonies, Thy testimonies
are sure. They're always sure. They're
established of old and they're revelations from heaven. We read about it in Luke chapter
1. The revelation comes from above. The revelation that confirms
in the hearts of God's people that this is God's word. And he speaks through his word. And all of the waves of opposition
from an unbelieving world for millennia, for thousands of years,
have not had the slightest impact. God's people pick up this Word
and have it proclaimed to them through the Gospel and God speaks
to the hearts of His people and He doesn't need the permission
of anyone here. He just sovereignly, wonderfully
in sovereign grace and mercy speaks to His people and His
people are moved. They are moved by God to love
His Word and to find in it comfort, and as we read earlier, to find
in it the safety, the safety of their security in Him. It's not just sure. as the verse says, it's very,
very sure. We don't follow, as Peter says,
we don't follow cunningly devised fables. We don't have to follow
the confessions of men. In fact, Peter has a remarkable
description of the Word of God which is in your hands. He says,
for we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For we received from God the
Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him
from the excellent glory. He's speaking of that time on
the Mount of Transfiguration. He says, the voice from heaven
said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And
this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him
in the holy mount. And then listen to the next words
from the Apostle Peter, his last witness and testimony to the
Church of God. We have also a more sure word
of prophecy. in the Gospel of the salvation
of God's people in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a more sure word
of prophecy, whereunto you do well, you take heed, as unto
a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and
the day star arise in your heart, knowing this first, that no prophecy
of Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy
came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke,
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." a more sure word of prophecy. We have right now a more sure
word of prophecy. We don't follow therefore man's
confessions or creeds and we don't need the comfort of denominations.
We simply hold his word as true. Let God be true and every man
a liar. Thy testimonies are true. My testimonies about God and
His character are true. My testimonies about man and
his nature after the fall are true. My testimonies about man
in Christ Jesus are true. That's why he finishes in this
glorious way. Holiness becometh thine house. His task is adorned in holiness. becometh Thine house, O Lord,
forever. The Lord reigns, His throne is
unmoved, it's established in majesty and strength, the Lord
is mighty in His word, and over all this is His holiness, the
greatest attribute of God, the one that can be prefixed to all
of them. is holiness. It is holy sovereignty
and holy love and holy grace. It's called in the scriptures
the beauty of holiness. Who is like unto thee, O Lord,
among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Those priests
wore on that extraordinary apparel a plate of pure gold upon the
crowns of their heads, and on it was inscribed, Holiness to
the Lord. And what does he say of us? You
are a royal priesthood. The children of God are priests. I love what Colossians 1.22,
the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of his blood and
the application of all of that by the blessed Holy Spirit to
the hearts of his people. We were sometime alienated, an
enemy in your mind by wicked works, yet he hath now reconciled. This is the reconciliation of
God's people in the body of his flesh through death. through
death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in His sight. He sees the children of God united
to the Lord Jesus Christ unblameable and unapprovable. That's how he sees it. That's
how he sees his people according to his word. You can read it
in Colossians 1.22. Sanctified is the same root word
and it means to be separated. Out of all the mass of Adam's
race, he has separated to the Lord. Holiness to the Lord. holiness to the Lord, separated
out of all this creation for His purpose and His glory. May our great God help us and
make us to find His character delightful. May we rest with
everlasting arms under us, supporting us forever May our lives be hidden
with Christ in God. He has the power to do it. He promises he will do it. His testimonies are sure. Let's pray.