May God bless us as we consider
his word this evening. We'll turn to the chapter we
read together, the first book of Chronicles and chapter 16,
and we'll read the three words at the end of verse 31. First
book of Chronicles, chapter 16 and the end of verse 31. The
Lord reigneth. The whole verse reads, let the
heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice and let men say among
the nations, the Lord reigneth. Well, as we read, this psalm
was written by David and it was written at a time of great rejoicing
for Israel. The time had finally come when
the Ark of the Covenant now was being brought into Jerusalem
It was being brought, firstly it would be put within the midst
of a tent that David had erected and made ready for the ark in
Jerusalem, but of course eventually that ark would be placed within
the temple that Solomon was to build. They, of course, as they
brought the ark up, must have had very much in their minds
the sadness of the first occasion. that they tried to bring the
Ark. On that occasion, they had not done it correctly. They had
put it on a new cart, and we know that there was the great
sadness of the judgment of God, really, when the Ark stumbled
and the hand was put out to steady the Ark. And the Ark, therefore,
for some time remained outside of Jerusalem. But now, properly
and rightly, In accordance with God's way and commands, now the
Ark is brought into Jerusalem. And there was that time of great
rejoicing for Israel. And David therefore writes this
psalm of thanksgiving, this psalm of praise. And as we went through
it, it's so interesting really, isn't it, how David opens up
this psalm as He seeks to praise God for so much and he praises
God for who he is. He praises God, as we read, for
his covenant, for his promise to Israel, his promise to Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, saying, Will I give the land of Canaan the
lot of your inheritance?" And he promised the Israelites that
they would finally come into Canaan and that they would inhabit
the promised land. Of course, a promise made many,
many years before to Abraham. And yet, now here is David. He is king of that nation. He
is in the land. that God promised to Abraham
those years ago and finally now, the ark itself, the very symbol
of the presence of God, was finally being brought to its final resting
place, to be inside Jerusalem. So what a time of rejoicing,
the promise, the covenant of God to Abraham and to his people
was now finally fulfilled. the covenant, the ark, was to
be in Jerusalem. He then goes on and he praises
the Lord for who he is, not just for his covenant, but for who
the Lord is. Verse 25, for great is the Lord
and greatly to be praised. He also is to be feared above
all the gods. All the gods are the people,
are idols, but the Lord made the heavens praises the Lord
now for his greatness and glory and who he is and what he's done
in creating the heavens, creating the earth and all that is therein. And then he goes on and joins
all the elements of creation together to praise the Lord,
the sea's roar, the fullness thereof, let the fields rejoice
and all that is therein. then shall the trees of the woods
sing out of the presence of the Lord and so on. So this is a
psalm of great thanksgiving to God for his fulfilling of the
covenant and for his glory in who he is and he joins creation
together to praise the Lord. Well, for David and for Israel
as they, I'm sure, saw the Ark of the Covenant being carried
into Jerusalem, its final resting place. Here, for David, was the
clear evidence that the Lord reigneth. The clear evidence
that God was reigning. The clear evidence that God was
the King on the throne. because only he could have brought
it all to pass. Only he could have known the
promise to Abraham and how it was all to be worked out to the
fulfilment and to this time of thanksgiving. Clearly, the God
who they believed in, the God who they trusted in, the God
who they looked to, that God reigned. and it was displayed
so clearly to Israel as the Ark was brought into Jerusalem. Well, that is the situation of
the context of this chapter. If we think about it in the context
of this time of year, this Easter time this year, you think of
the day, the Sabbath day, between the death and resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you try and imagine how the
disciples and the women, the followers of Christ, felt on
that day? It was a day of great sadness. They had seen the Lord Jesus
Christ crucified and died. Not all of them had physically
witnessed it, but they knew that he had died by the end of that
Good Friday. and they go to observe the Sabbath. But what a Sabbath it must have
been. For through their minds they
must have been thinking all the time of their hopes which had
been dashed in their minds. Of how they had trusted him and
yet it seemed now that things had come to a sad and tragic
end. Of how the Lord who they loved
and had heard speaking but days before now laid in the tomb. And not only that he had died,
but the horrendous and horrific circumstances surrounding his
death and the suffering that their friend, their Lord, had
gone through. And on that day, I'm sure there
must have been very sad, upset and probably confused hearts
amongst the Lord's people. What was he doing? Where was
the Lord's hand? Where was the Lord's power? Where
was the Lord's sovereignty in this? Where had their Jesus gone? What sadness on that day. But
you see, like as the coming of the Ark, in a sense brought a
sense of completeness for the Israelites that finally they
had fully inhabited the land and God was there on Mount Zion,
the place where his praise was to be. So when the resurrection
morning comes, it comes as they start to realize what it means
and that it's true. It comes as they realize all
things are now being brought together. All things are starting
to come to completeness. It's all starting to fit together
as he opens their understanding and as he expounds the scriptures
to them and shows them why he needed to suffer and showed them
why he must rise again. Now, as it were, the pieces come
together and the plan of salvation in its glory comes together in
that glorious conclusion that he is risen and that God's work
has been done on that cross and that the Lord is victorious. Surely, as the Lord Jesus Christ
stood there and as they came to realise what had happened
and what he had done, they could join with David and say, yes,
the Lord reigneth. The Lord reigns. He has not been
defeated. He has not been destroyed by
the hands of the Roman soldiers. All along, from beginning to
end, from his birth in Bethlehem, through his walk in this world,
through his walk to Jerusalem, through his crucifixion, through
his resurrection, now we can see it all comes together and
over it all is the hand of a sovereign God. The acre joined the Lord
reigneth. I'm sure they must have, as it
were, melted as they stood in wonder at this God. As Thomas,
he did, didn't he? When he saw those prints in the
Lord's hands and feet, he bowed down and said, my Lord and my
God, my Lord and my God, before Him is His glorious King. Before
Him is His God. He is now reigning triumphant
over the grave. You see, the glory of the Lord's
resurrection tells us that He reigns today. It's not the Lord
reigned and that His reign came to an end like it would be with
a kingdom in the world and another king comes along to take the
place of a previous one. It's not that He reigned. He
reigneth. It's present tense. It's today.
And it was true here, it was true when he rose from the dead,
that glorious morning is true today. This Lord's Day, the Lord
reigneth. Well, I want to consider how
he reigns today. How does this God reign today? Well, in one sense, he reigns
over all today. He reigneth over everyone, every
man, woman and child in this world. He reigns over us all. He is your King. The Lord is
your King. He is the Creator of the heavens
and the earth and we read in Genesis of how He spoke the world
into being. that there is nothing in this
world that came by chance. It all came by his creating voice. Everything in this world is made
by the Lord. All that we see, all the earth,
the entire universe, the size, the expanse which we don't understand
and grasp, it was all spoken into being. all the animals,
all the creatures of the earth, created by the Lord, and you,
and me, made in the image of God. He is your Creator. He is your King. And most people
would not accept it, and many people would deny He even exists,
but denying it does not change the fact. He is your king. He is our creator. And as well as that, He is our
sustainer. He sustains our life. He gives
us, as the Lord taught us to pray, give us now our daily bread. And He does give us our daily
bread. The food that we have to eat
has come from God. No one else is His hand behind
it all. he has brought it to pass, he
has brought it to you, he's given you the ability to pay for it,
the food on your plate and everything you have has come from God, he
reigns and in his sovereignty he could, if it was his will,
remove it from us. He also gives us our breath,
our life, day by day and of course he could also take that from
us at a moment as well. When Paul was preaching at Athens,
he told them how their entire being belonged to God. He said, God that made the world
and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and
earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped
with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth
to all life and breath and all things. He's speaking to a gentle
audience, people who are worshipping the unknown God, they didn't
know him and yet Paul declares to them very clearly, this God
I declare unto you, he giveth to all, he gives to you as well
as me, life and breath and all things. The fact that your life
has been sustained for the number of years that each of us have
is down to God. It's all thanks to Him. All that
we are, all that we have, is from God. He is your king. And as a king, He is your ruler.
He is your sovereign. He rules over you. He knows the
beginning to the end of everyone's life. he knows when we'll be
born, he knows when we will die, he knows what we will do, he
knows where we will go, he knows every part of our life, of the
whole world and every being in that world, he knows it all,
he rules over with his hand and all events are subject to his
will, subject to his command. When Job was tempted by Satan,
Satan was still in the hand of the Lord. He could go no further
than God allowed. And you read all of the accounts
of the histories, the lives of the Lord's people. You can see
his hand above it all. He is in control. He knows what
he is doing. And as your ruler, as our king,
he has the sovereign right to lay down his commands. to all
mankind. He made us, He sustains us, everything
about us belongs to Him and He therefore commands us how we
must be, how we must live. And as the King has a right and
authority to declare laws upon the land, so He has a right and
authority to declare His commandments to the world and He has done
so through the law of God, especially the Ten Commandments. that's
the king's rules and they apply to all mankind everyone all of
us and everyone outside and we all therefore stand before this
king none exception we all stand before him and denying him as
I say does not change the fact so in one sense he reigns as
king over all But particularly, particularly he reigns over his
people in a particular, in a special way, he reigns over his people,
the church, whom he has loved and called and saved. And here
he reigns as a loving, as a saving, as a personal, a knowable king,
not far off, not distant, But to his people, he reigns over
them as a king who has revealed himself to them and as a king
who loves them. He reigns over his church because
he has done a great work for them. Not just the work of creation,
which he's done for all mankind, not just the work of sustaining
our natural life, which he does for all mankind. For his people,
he has done a greater work than that. He's done the work of salvation,
the work of love, the work of grace, to bring them to life,
to bring them to himself. This king particularly, in a
special way, is king over his church. And for his church then,
he reigns as king and he reigns as a victorious king. A victorious
king. a king, not really today but
you think of kings in the past who used to ride out to battle
on their horses with the army, there would be times when those
kings needed to go to war and they needed to lead the army
into conflict to fight the battle and of course sometimes they
would lose but sometimes they would win and they would come
back as victors over the enemy This King, the Lord that reigns
today, has fought the battle, the fight against the enemy. He has fought a great battle,
a great enemy. The Lord Jesus Christ who reigns
today and rose from the dead, he fought the greatest battle
against Satan. The enemy who rose up to rebel
and works against him and his people today, he came to fight
a battle against temptation. When the enemy, the devil, would
come and tempt him to sin, he fought a battle and withstood
the fight and did not fall under his temptations. He came and
fought a battle over the curse which is upon the earth, the
curse of death that sin has brought. He came and fought the battle
to the death. He rode, as it were, into that
battle to fight for his people. And what a battle it was. What
he had to go through, what he had to endure, and what he had
to face in that fight And he came to the cross, the very heat
of the battle itself, and he came to suffer, and he came to
bear those people's sins, and he came to endure what they deserve,
and he seemed to be defeated. He seemed to have been defeated
in the battle. He died on that cross. And for his people, They must
have wondered what had happened. And for many, many others who
had mocked him on the cross, despised and rejected him, they
thought that that pretender, Jesus of Nazareth, had failed
and was a nobody and that all would be forgotten. It seemed
as if he had been defeated in the battle, in the great fights
he had to fight. And yet, the Lord reigneth. He fought the fight and he won
the battle because he's alive. He rose from the dead and the
resurrection tells us such glorious truths. It tells us that the
enemy is defeated. It tells us that Satan no longer
has a hold over the Lord's people, can no longer drag them with
himself into hell. It tells us that the prophecy
of Genesis 3.15 has been fulfilled and that the head of Satan has
been bruised, has been crushed. He's defeated. He's won the fight. The battle has been won. He is
alive. And the resurrection tells us
that there will be no more death for his people. No death. That's not to say there will
be no death in a physical sense. His people will die unless if
he returns before. There will be a physical death,
but there's no spiritual death and ultimately there's no eternal
death. Because the Lord tells us that his people shall be brought
together with their bodies, ascended into glory on the resurrection
day. Death has been defeated. shall reign, shall live in glory
with him forever. The resurrection tells us that
sin and the curse no longer reigns upon this earth. The Lord has
fought. The Lord is the victor. He reigneth. The Lord reigneth. You think of it in the image
of the account of Goliath. And David stood before Goliath.
Think what he saw. He saw a giant so strong so well
acquainted with warfare, so well armed for the fight, for the
battle. There he was, this great enemy,
Goliath. And yet, through David, the Lord
strikes him down without them even coming hand-to-hand combat,
and he is destroyed. Well, you think of the great
enemy which is before us each by nature, the Goliath which
is in front of us, of death. and of judgment, and of the wrath
of God. And we cannot defeat Him. We
cannot defeat this death, this curse which is before us. We
stand helpless before Him. And yet, the Lord, He came to
fight the battle. He went to the heart, the heat
of the battle, and won, the victor. We have it in the resurrection,
the proof. The Lord reigneth, the impossibility, the giant
has been removed. He reigns as a victor and he
reigns a victor today in heaven. We know that after his resurrection,
after 40 days, he ascended into glory, in through the clouds
and He sat on the right hand of his father, an ascended saviour,
a real saviour in his body, his resurrected body. There he is
today in glory, the real Lord Jesus Christ, still with his
wounds in his hands and his feet, the real man who they saw on
this earth. That same Jesus is in glory today. He's ascended, a victor over
the enemy which held his people. We have it gloriously, I think,
spelled out in these words in Psalm 24. I often think of these
as the Lord ascending into glory, and the cries and the shouts
of heaven, lift up your heads, O ye gates. Be ye lift up, ye
everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is
this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty. in battle. Lift up your heads,
O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the
King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The
Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. As he
enters into glory, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. The victor has ascended and he
has sat down at the right hand of God. His work is done. He reigns, the Lord reigneth. And as we see him there in heaven
this evening, we have the promise that his people shall reign with
him, that his people shall ascend to be with him. I think it's
something we don't think about enough. Maybe it's because it's
difficult to grasp, difficult to understand, but yet the scriptures
clearly tell us that his people shall rise bodily to be with
the Lord. Resurrected bodies, but with
him in a fully human state like we are today. Man was not created
to die. Body and soul, as it were, were
not created to be separated. and there will come a day when
body and soul will be reunited and that his Lord's people shall
rise in their bodies, resurrected to be with the Lord. His resurrection tells us that
that is a certainty. As he is risen, so his people
shall rise. Paul tells us, for since by man
came death, By man came also the resurrection of the dead,
for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive. But every man in his own order,
Christ the firstfruits Afterward they that are Christ's at his
coming. He's the firstfruits. He's the
promise of future blessing to come. He's the first one to rise.
And then the Lord's people shall follow when he returns. Oh, surely, as Paul sums it up,
behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound,
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For
this corruptible must put on incorruption, this mortal must
put on immortality. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God which giveth
us the victory. through our Lord Jesus Christ.
He reigns the victor. He reigns today as a victor. The promise, the earnest, the
first fruits of them that slept, that his people shall rise to
be with him. By grace we receive this blessing. The Lord reigneth. But as he also today reigns as
a victor, particularly for his people, he reigns as their sovereign. Their sovereign. Our monarch, really not so much
today, but in the past at least, is a sovereign, is in control,
is the highest authority. And for the Lord's people, He
is their sovereign. Everything is subject to His
eye. Everything is subject to His
command. Their entire life from beginning
to end, as much as the entire life of every man, woman and
child is subject in a sense to Him. Yet for the Lord's people,
our entire life is summed up in this, that all things for
you are working for good. They're working for your good. And He reigns as our Sovereign
who works all for His people's good. It's difficult to believe,
it's difficult to grasp sometimes in something that we might be
dealing with and walking through in our life, but even those difficulties
before us, we have to remember that the Lord reigneth and therefore
He knows about it. And therefore, for his people,
he certainly cares about it. He cares about them. He's in
control of the situation. It hasn't come by chance. He
knew it would come. He knew when it would come. He
knows how it will be dealt with. He knows the blessing which will
flow as a result. It's not by chance. All things
work together for good. The Lord reigneth, remember.
Your Lord reigneth. There's nothing out of his control,
there's no event, there's no person, there's nothing outside
the control of the Lord. When Moses spoke to the people,
when he comes towards the end and he recounts the events of
the Lord's people in the wilderness and so on in the book of Deuteronomy,
he tells them and reminds them how the Lord had dealt with them. He says, thou shalt remember
all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years
in the wilderness. And then he reminds them the
way and why God had led them in that way in the wilderness.
And we must remember that. The Lord reigneth. How did he
lead them in the wilderness? And how does he work in our life?
Well, he led thee these forty years in the wilderness to humble
thee, to humble you. and he's working in his people's
lives, by circumstances and in their hearts and in their thoughts
to humble us. So it might be a great difficulty,
it might seem impossible and we might wonder why God is working
this way and yet he's working to humble. Remember, he led thee
these 40 years in the wilderness, he's leading you as your sovereign,
as your king, to humble you, to bring you down. to bring you
to your knees so that you will appreciate more your need and
the goodness of God. He's worked to humble thee, to
prove thee and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou
wouldest keep his commandments or no. He's working to test you
and to show you where you fall and to show you where you don't
meet his commandments and he's working to prove you. to bring
you more into conformity with Him, to bring you more in line
with the ways He would have you to walk. He's working to chastise
you and to bring you, to prove you, to see whether you'll walk
in His commands or not. He humbled thee and suffered
thee to hunger and fed thee with manner. He made you hungry and
then supplied the need. And remember that. There may
be a time when He's, as it were, making us to hunger, showing
us our need, showing us that we need Him to appear. There's
nothing we can do for ourselves. There's a difficulty in front
of us. And as it were, He's suffering
us to hunger. He's withdrawing something. He's
withdrawing a blessing that we've been enjoying. But He suffered
thee to hunger and fed thee. with manna. Our sovereign king,
our Lord who is reigning, is working perhaps to make us hungry,
that we then appreciate when he appears and blesses us. And
then he reminds them of all the possessions that they had. That their raiment waxed not
old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell. The Lord gave you
what you needed. your raiment, your footwear,
your shoes and so forth. And the Lord may even work in
that natural way to remind us all that we have, all our possessions
are from the Lord. And he's been working, as it
were, these 40 years in the wilderness to teach us, and we have to keep
on learning the same lesson, that all we have has come from
the Lord. He will not suffer us to lack. He will not desert
us. He is with us. He has chastened us. Thou shalt
consider in thy heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so
the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. So the Lord reigns over his people
to chasten us, to show us where we're wrong, to bring us back
to the Lord. And he works in our lives as
well to remind us of the future. Moses says, the Lord thy God
bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of
fountains and depths. the spring out of valleys and
hills, he reminds them of Canaan to come, the blessing to come. So it's good for us, good for
the Lord's people today to remember the Lord reigneth and he reigns
over our lives as our sovereign and he will work in various circumstances,
in various ways, different for different people, but he will
work to humble us, to test us, to remind us how much we need
him, to chastise us, to remind us of what's before us. He is
our sovereign, the Lord reigns, the Lord works for his people's
good and we can believe that they are safe in his hands, safe
in loving hands, safe in wise hands and as the Lord reigneth
today, Therefore he reigns over all our difficulties, he reigns
over all our enemies, he reigns over all our uncertainties, he
is our sovereign king. The Lord reigneth. Let me just
ask the question this evening. Do we consider that the Lord
is king over all in one sense and the blessings of his people
knowing him as victor and as sovereign Let me ask, is he your
king? Is the Lord your king? Or maybe I should say, are you
his willing subject? Are you his willing subject? If you know your history, you
think back to the time of the Civil War in this country, when
Parliament Topal, essentially King Charles I, at the end of
the Civil War and he was executed, or I think a little bit later,
the French Revolution, when the king was deposed and he was executed. At the time before their execution,
those kings were legally still king. They were still the king. The problem was, they were not
king in the people's hearts. They were not respected as king.
They were not acknowledged as king. Legally they were king,
But no one acknowledged them as king, no one wanted them as
king and ultimately they were deposed and got rid of. Well
the Lord reigns, but do you acknowledge him as king? Are you his willing servant,
his willing subject? Because most today would not
acknowledge him as king. They would not acknowledge that
they even need Him. They would not acknowledge perhaps
that He even exists. They do not love Him. They would
say, that's your God, that's not my God. Nothing to do with
me, that's your God. It's not my God. I don't follow
Him, I don't want Him. But the Lord still reigns. Whether
we acknowledge Him or not, does He reign in your heart? Does He reign in my heart this
evening? Because for His people, though
sin remains and though sin still, as it were, gets us down, sin
does not reign. It is not the dominant force
in the heart of the Lord's people. The Lord reigns. The Lord is
our King. Let me ask you, do you realise
you need a King? Do you realise you need the Lord?
And do you look to him and him alone to conquer, to be your
victor over the great enemy of death and of sin which is in
your heart? Let me ask you, what about his
sovereignty? What do you think of his sovereignty?
How do you respond to the fact that the Lord is sovereign? Is
that a comforting thought? that the loving, all-wise, saving
God is the sovereign of your life? Or is it a terrifying thought? I don't want the Lord in control,
I don't want the Lord knowing about me, I don't want the Lord
judging me, I want freedom, I want my life. How do you respond to
the truth of the sovereignty of this king? What about his
commandments? Are they a joy? Do you strive
to obey them? Are they a joy to walk in his
ways? Are they grievous? Are they a weight? Are they something
you want to shake off? Are they something you want to
forget? Something you want to ignore? How do you think of His will?
Of His commands? Do you desire to love? Do you
want to obey Him? Do you desire and pray that you
might be given help to trust Him and put your hope in Him?
Do you fear to offend Him? What do you think of this King? Reigneth, does he reign in your
heart? Or if you're honest this evening,
are you running away from him? Running in the opposite direction,
wanting your way. You want to be King. The Lord reigneth. Well, for
a believer, this is a wonderful truth. Wonderful truth. That our Lord Jesus Christ is
risen. that our Lord is a victor, that
our Lord has conquered, and that our Lord reigns over us today. And may we have the same desire
as David did, as we realise the blessing of this truth. He said,
let the heavens be glad, let the earth rejoice, let men say
among the nations, the Lord reigneth. And let us, as we are joined
with that desire, that all things would praise and that we may
declare among the nations the truth, the Lord reigns, it's
a glorious, wonderful truth, we have a King, a sovereign,
wonderful, loving, gracious, eternal King who loves us and
we love Him. What a wonderful truth for the
believer and yet unbeliever Remember, He still reigns. The Lord still
reigns. It's a fact. It's a truth. Tonight, consider where you are.
Consider where you stand before Him. Consider where you are if
you're rebelling against this King. This King who will deal
with rebellion. This king who will put down opposition,
this king who will judge the unrepentant sin, he still reigns
and he will always, forever reign. May we each be led to cry for
mercy to this king, this gracious king. While it is time, while
there is yet room, the Lord reigneth well. He reigns today. and he
reigns in the hearts of his people, he reigns in the hearts of sinners,
he reigns in the hearts of those who were once rebellious and
fighting for the opposition, he reigns in the hearts of those
who once ran in the opposite direction, who once hated him,
he reigns because he has come by grace to them and revealed
himself in his glory, revealed himself in his mercy, He has
led them to the cross. He has led them to the empty
tomb. He has ascended to glory for them. He reigns for sinners,
not the self-righteous, not the good in themselves, for sinners.
He reigns today to receive sinners and one day will bring them into
glory. The Lord reigns for sinners. Why not for you?