Turn back to Psalm 99. Psalm 99. I titled this message, The Lord Reigneth, Let the People
Tremble. Look back in Psalm 93. Psalm 93, the Lord reigneth. He is clothed with majesty. The Lord is clothed with strength,
wherewith he hath girded himself. The world also established that
it cannot be moved because the Lord reigneth. Look in Psalm
97, the Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. Let the
multitude of isles, the islands, the coastlands be glad thereof.
And here in Psalm 99, another one of those enthronement psalms,
the Lord reigneth. We don't get tired of hearing
that, do we? That is the best news that you can hear in the
morning and the best news you can hear as you retire at night. The Lord reigneth. The Lord reigneth,
let the people tremble. See, the first one, he's clothed
with majesty. The second one, let them rejoice.
And now, let them tremble. Let them tremble. This is the joy of the Lord's
people. The Lord. Now, the one spoken
of here is Jesus Christ. He's the Lord. He's Jehovah.
This is the one spoken of. God said, I have set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion. He has been made both Lord and
Christ. It says, and Paul said in the
book of Acts, was written in the book of Acts. I don't remember
if Paul or Peter said it, but it doesn't matter, does it? We've
been saying it ever since. But the Lord reigneth, the Lord
Jesus Christ reigneth, and there's no better pillow to lay your
head on tonight than the sovereign reign of Jesus Christ our Lord. That makes a soft pillow to lay
on in this ungodly world. We live in an ungodly world.
We live in a world that I was going to say they'd kill God
if they could. Well, Calvary's proof of it, isn't it? They said,
crucify him. Crucify him. You want to see
what this world thinks of God? Look at Calvary. Just look at
Calvary. That's what this world thinks
of God. The Lord reigneth and ensures
our safety as we journey home. And this ensures our eternal
salvation. The Lord reigneth. The Lord reigneth. He'll bring this to a close and
he'll bring us home. And it says here, the Lord reigneth. This is a declaration. It's a
declaration. And this is what we declare week
after week. The Lord reigneth. He reigneth. He reigns presently. right now. He reigns continually. There's
never a check on his reign. There's never a time that he's
not reigning. He reigns continually. He reigns positively for our
good. That, to me, is a great comfort
to know that the reign, the sovereign reign of the Lord Jesus Christ
is for my good. It's for your good, His children,
those who believe. It's for our good. He reigns
for our good. He reigns righteously. He's a
just king. He reigns righteously. He's no
tyrant. And He reigns sovereignly. He
does as He will, when He will, with whom He will. It says in
Job, He gives no account of any of His matters. He's not subject
to His creation. His creation is subject to Him. He reigns sovereignly. And this
being so, the Lord reigneth considering who He is. Let the people, the
congregation, that's what it means, the congregation, where
it could mean the nation or the nations, let the people tremble,
tremble. Now there are two types of people
on this earth, just two types, the lost and the saved. There are only two types of people
on this earth. Now the lost have no fear of God, There are no
bands in their death. There should be. There should
be. There should be great fear in
their death. They're about to meet a holy God. They're about
to meet God who said, I will by no means clear the guilty. And I say to the whole world,
I say to everyone that listens to me, you need to tremble. If
you don't believe, you better tremble. You're about to meet
God. Be like Belshazzar, when he saw that handwriting on the
wall, it says his knees knocked together. His knees, his legs,
he shanked. They shook. And then there's the other type
of people, the saved. They have a holy fear. They have
a holy reverence of God. They know him in his person. They know him as the great God,
the great and terrible God, as he's spoken of in two or three
places throughout the scriptures. Great and terrible. They know
him. They know him in his person.
He's not just a figment of their imagination. He's not a figment
of our imagination, is he? God's real. This God is real.
God said in Isaiah 66, He said, this man I'll look to, he that
is poor and trembles at my word. He trembleth at my word. He's sober-minded. This man is
sober-minded, this person here. Let the people tremble. He sitteth
between the cherubims. Now look over in Exodus 25 to
refresh your memory of this. In Exodus 25, yeah, Exodus 25. In verse 21, and thou shalt put
the mercy seat above upon the ark and in the ark thou shalt
put the testimony that I shall give thee and there And there
on the mercy seat, above the mercy seat, I will meet with
thee, I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat from
between the two cherubims. If you read the earlier part
of that chapter, they were told how to make these cherubims.
He said there, they said, I'll meet with you between the cherubims.
Now that mercy seat is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
where I'll meet with you is in Christ. Jesus Christ is the mercy
seat. He's the mercy seat. He's where
God meets sinners and sinners meet God. And they can do business
in mercy. But any place else, God's a consuming
fire. But there are, and I will commune
with thee from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubims
which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which
I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
Now he says here, the Lord reigneth, let the people tremble, he sitteth
between the cherubims, above the mercy seat, delighting to
show mercy. But now listen, the scripture
says there's mercy with the Lord that he what? He may be feared. We don't take that for granted
now. Don't take his sovereign mercy for granted, it's sovereign
mercy. I'll have mercy on whom I'll
have mercy, and whom I will I'll harden. I'll leave them alone.
I'll leave them to themselves. You know, our Lord could just
as easily and righteously sit on the throne of justice and
meet us there. But here is the mercy seat. He
sitteth between the cherubims. And this being so, let the earth
be moved. That word means stagger. Stagger. Speaking of the people on the
earth that have offended their creator, if people could only
see that they are under condemnation, if they could only see that right
now, he that believeth not is condemned already. Just waiting
on execution day. That's all. Just waiting on execution
day. Ready to be executed. If they could see that, they
would stagger, wouldn't they? They would stagger. But here's
something else too. Let the earth be moved. That
is the people. It's not talking about the globe
itself, but the people on the earth. Those who believe not,
let them stagger. Let them be moved at the terror
of God. at meeting God. But now, you
who believe, you and I who believe, let's be moved to adoration.
Let's be moved to thankfulness, to truly be thankful to the Lord. Moved to worship. I was thinking
of this, this comes up in this Psalm here. To worship. Have I ever really worshipped
God? I mean, you know what it is to
worship something. You adore it, you think of it all the time. If you worship, if you love somebody,
there's a form of worship in that. There really is. If we love the Lord Jesus Christ,
if we love Him, we will worship Him above all others. That's
why he said, he that loves mother, father, sister, brother more
than me is not worthy of me, because if you love whatever
you love more than Christ, that is exactly what you worship. And here it's just, move to worship,
move to thankfulness, move to adoration. There's such a one,
there's such a God, there's such a person who is holy, who is
beyond comprehension, would delight to show mercy to a wretch like
me, that He would call me by His grace, that I'm allowed to
come to the throne of grace and not the throne of justice. Now,
we are going to meet God one place or the other. We are going
to meet Him at the throne of grace in Christ. We are going
to meet Him at the throne of justice. And there's no hope. There's no hope there. And he
says here in verse 2, the Lord is great in Zion. The Lord is
not great in the heart of the world. We know that. We know
that. But He is great in the heart
of His redeemed. Zion here is the church. It's
the redeemed of the Lord. Is not the Lord great in your
heart? Is He not the greatest person?
that you know, is he not the greatest person? He's great in
his person. They said, we know you. You are
the carpenter's son. Well, it's evident they didn't
know him. But now some of you know him as the son of God, as
God incarnate. You know him as the only mediator
between you and God, don't you? You know Christ as the only mediator
between you and God Almighty. You know Him as your prophet,
priest, and king. You know Him as your sacrifice.
You know Him as your high priest. You know Him. You know Him. He's great in Zion. The Lord
is great in this place. We're not putting on a program. We are not entertaining sinners
on their way to hell. Week after week after week, Jesus
Christ is great in this place. He's great. He's great in Zion. He's our message. He's the only
reason we come together. He's the only reason we are together. He's great. He's great in Zion. Hannah said, there's no rock
like our God. There's none to be compared to
Him. He said, to whom will you compare me? There's none to be
compared to the Lord Jesus Christ. They said, never a man spake
like this man. When He calmed the waves of the
sea and the wind and made it to be still, they said, who is
this? What manner of man is this? And you know what manner of man
He is. He's the God-man. He's God in human flesh. That's
who He is. He's great. And there's no searching
of His greatness. He's unsearchable. The only way
that you and I can know anything of God is for God Himself to
make Himself known to us. For Him to reveal Himself to
us. That's the only way. Because
there's no searching of His greatness. Listen, whatever He is, In all
that He is, He is great in it. He's great in everything. He
was great in the miracles He performed. He was great in the
sermon He gave, sermons He gave. He was great in everything He
did, the redemption He accomplished. He's great in it. The Lord is
great in Zion. And He's great in His mercy,
He's great in His grace, He's great in His love. It says in
Micah 7, verse 18, I marked this down, let me read it to you.
Over here in Micah 7, verse 18, listen to this. Who is a God
like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity? and passes by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger forever,
because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have
compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities,
and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham,
which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.
Who is a God like unto thee? Who is no other God of all these
other gods, all these other idols, none of them ever came into the
world and took the sins of their people and then went and died
for them? None of them. But the one God
of heaven and earth did. He did. He came in this flesh. And He went to the cross, and
He died for a multitude of sinners. Now, they're sinners, every one
of them. Ungodly, they're called in Romans. They're called ungodly.
They're called sinners. Christ died for sinners. He died
for sinners, and He's going to save sinners. He died for the
ungodly. He's going to save the ungodly. He's never saved a good person
yet. If you're really good, you don't
need saving, do you? You don't need it. But there's none good. Scripture says there's none good,
no, not one. But who's a God like unto thee that pardons iniquities,
takes them away, and casts them to the depths of the sea, and
they are no more? And then He's great in power.
All power belongs to Him. He said He had power over all
flesh, that He may give eternal life to as many as the Father
gave to Him. No power like His power. He's
the embodiment of power. The power we have He gives us,
but nobody gives him power. He has it. It emanates from him. The Lord is great in Zion and
he's high above all the people. You know what? He has no peers.
He has no peers. He has no competitor. You know,
we've been looking in Acts and, you know, Paul encounters all
these Greek gods, these You know, we call it Greek mythology. Well,
it wasn't mythology to them back then. They worshipped these gods.
They gave offerings to them. They even offered some of their
children at times. They gave great offerings to these false
gods. It was real to them. But our
God has no peers. I am the Lord and beside me there's
what? None else. There's no one beside me. He's it. He's it. Before He created heaven and
earth, it was just Him. The one God of heaven and earth.
In the Trinity of His person. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
but one God. That's all. That's Him. That's
who He is. He's high above all the people.
He's high in his thoughts. He's high in his ways. I have
learned as I've gotten older to quit trying to figure out
why. Why? Why or why not? He said, my thoughts are not
your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. As heaven is high
above the earth, so are my thoughts and my ways above yours. He's
on a different level. a far greater, listen, an infinite
level, a level that can't be measured. You know, we can measure,
we measure our intelligence. You know, you have an IQ of 110,
somebody's got 115, somebody's, you know, this and that, somebody
down there under 100, you know, it's this and that. But God can't be measured. See,
my intelligence has a limit, and you can tell it when I'm
preaching to you. You know, I only know a little bit. Paul said,
we know in part and we preach in part, but not God. He gives us the parts that we
know, but he knows... You know, we will spend eternity
knowing the Lord. We will spend eternity knowing
the Lord. The unsearchable riches of Christ, He's high. He's high above all
the people. High in His thoughts and His
ways. You know, Christ said this in John 8, 23, I am from above,
you are from beneath. High above all the people. And
for this reason now, listen, let them praise thy great and
terrible name, for it is holy. Let them praise in song, in preaching,
in prayer. Thy great, there's no name like
His name. God has given Christ a name that's
above every name. No name compared to His name. Let them, that is all people,
especially His redeemed, praise His goodness and mercy. You know,
most of this, there's over 7 billion people in the world. And you
know, most of them don't even have a glimmer who God is. And listen to this, listen to
scripture. Psalm 145, 9, the Lord is good to all. And his
tender mercies are over all his works. How many people have gone home
to a good meal, they've got a job, you know, they've got their family,
you know, how many, and they don't give a second thought to
God, they'll praise luck. They will praise luck before
they'll praise God. Well, I was lucky. How lucky
I got that job. Well, when they stand before
God, they're going to find out who lucky is. And it ain't lucky,
it's God. I make rich and I make poor. I lift up and I bring down. Hannah said this, I think I'll
put this in next week's bulletin in 1 Samuel chapter 2, go home
and read it. The Lord killeth and maketh alive. You think you're alive because
you're healthy? Do we think we're alive because we're healthy or
because we're young? No, you're alive because God
has given you your life and he has determined the end of it.
And when that time comes, it's over. Every person that has existed
and will exist, every person is in the hands of Jesus Christ,
the Lord. The Lord reigneth. He reigneth. And He's high above all the people,
and let them praise Thy great and terrible name, for it is
holy. Holy. Thy great and terrible
name. You won't find this in modern
day preaching, will you? You won't find Joel Osteen talking
about the terrible majesty of God. You won't hear them talking
about God of consuming fire. You know, this is a reason why
no one has any fear of God. Not only because they're dead,
but what they hear from the pulpit, there's no God to fear. There's
no God to fear. You know, when I was thinking
of this today, they always say, why don't you accept Jesus as
your personal Savior? He loves you and He wants to
save you. You know, I can't imagine Noah
saying that. God loves you, why don't you
come into the ark? But I can't hear him saying this because
he was a preacher of righteousness. Anybody not in that ark, you're
going to perish. Anyone that's not found in the
ark is going to die. You're going to die under God's
wrath, under the flood of God's wrath. They laughed at him. But
they weren't laughing when the door was shut. And the flood
came. We got to preach God as he is. Outside of Christ, if you meet
him, in Christ. In Christ. In Christ, he's a God of mercy.
He sits above the mercy seat. That mercy seat is Jesus Christ.
He doesn't sit in mercy anywhere else. Nowhere else. Great and terrible. Let them
praise thy great and terrible name. Terrible. Charles Spurgeon
said this. Many profess to admire the milder
beams of the sun of righteousness, but burn with rebellion against
its more flaming radiance. So it ought not to be. We are
bound to praise a terrible God and worship him who cast the
wicked down to hell. We are bound to praise him whether
he's on the throne of justice or a throne of mercy, God's to
be praised. Just like Job said, the Lord
giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He can do nothing wrong. It's
impossible. It's impossible. He says here, for His name, His
name, for it is holy. You know that word means, it
means other than, but it also means, it has this meaning, separation. You know when the Lord says sanctify,
separate, consider to be holy or to make holy? Holy, His name
is holy. It's separate. There's none like
Him. There's none holy. Hannah said
this, there's none holy but the Lord our God. I'm going to paraphrase.
There's none holy but Him. He's holy. It's His character. Both divine and human, He's holy.
Christ was called what? The Holy One of Israel. He's
the Holy Son of God in the flesh. His name is holy. The most, listen,
this most describes His character. The one thing we should be most
thankful for is this. Our Lord is holy. I'm glad He
is. There was a time I would not
have said that because I knew that was against my lifestyle,
the things I like to do. At least that's the way I saw
it. And I realized one day I didn't even have a life. I was just
a walking dead man waiting to be executed. I'm glad he's holy. This ensures
he'll do right. This ensures he'll do right and
he'll show mercy. You know, holy describes his
character. It's his absolute perfection. And God being perfect, scripture
says he's love. The scripture says God is love. Well, his love is a holy love.
You know what that means? It means more than that, it's
just pure and perfect and without sin. It means that his love must
be shown. He has to show it. If God is
love, he has to show it. And he has. He has. For God so loved the world, Jew
and Gentile, that he gave his only begotten son. He's holy. I believe one writer
said this, Stephen Sharnock, I believe is the one that said
it. Holiness is the nobleness of his nature. It's the nobleness
of his nature. I like that. And you know, it's
mentioned more times than any of his other attributes. Because
without holiness, his other attributes wouldn't be any better than ours.
It wouldn't. And listen here in verse four.
The king's strength also loveth judgment. This is why we can
trust him. The Lord reigneth. He reigneth. But can we trust
him? Yes, we can. You know why? Because
he loves justice. He loves right. The righteous Lord loves righteousness.
I thought about this today, and this is so. I believe this is
so. A person's strength or weakness is in what they love. I never
thought of that until I was reading this today. Your strength or
weakness is in what you love. If you love sin, that's what
you're going to go after. That's what you're going to go
after. If you love righteousness, you know what you're going to
do? You're going to go after the Lord. You're going to follow after Him. Our King loves righteousness
and judgment. I can read it like this. Let
me read it to you like this. The King who has all power loves
justice. It can be read like that. The
King who has all power, the Lord reigneth. He has all power. He
reigns over all, the universe, everything, everyone. He reigns
over it. He loves justice. This ensures us that he will
never be a tyrant. Charles Spurgeon said, he is
a sovereign and he is absolute in his government, but his might
delights in right. His force is used for just purposes
only. That's a good statement. His
power, if we had absolute power, what do you think we would do?
Any of us here, we would corrupt it. And a person in here that
wouldn't corrupt absolute power. And a person on this earth. But
the Lord Jesus Christ, who loves justice and righteousness, he
can be trusted with this absolute power because he'll only use
it for right and for our good. And because of his love for judgment
and righteousness, it says here, thou dost establish equity. Thou
executes judgment and righteousness in Jacob. Our Lord does not just
execute judgments. He establishes equity. He establishes equity. He keeps the right. He keeps
the right. I have to say this. Did you ever
think you would see abortion overturned? Did you ever think
you'd see that in our day time? I didn't think it'd ever be overturned. He keeps the right. Man goes
off track every time and he has to put it back right. He keeps it right. Now listen,
he keeps it right first by his own obedience. He proved it by
his own obedience. He kept the law perfectly. He
did that. He did that. His kingdom is a
kingdom of righteousness. And our Lord, listen, and our
Lord executes judgment in His kingdom, in Jacob. He keeps rule
in His kingdom. He corrects, look, go read the
letters to the churches there in Revelation. He said, you don't
get this straightened up, I'm gonna remove the candlestick.
He corrects, judgment begins at the house of God, it says.
He corrects, and when need be, He chastens His children. He
chastens them. You can see that all through
the Scriptures. And upon this note, because what has already
been said, in verse 5, Exalt ye the Lord our God in worship
at His footstool, for He is holy. There it is again. This word
keeps coming up. Exalt him. Listen, let's exalt
him in our preaching, in our witnessing. But you know, this
starts in the heart first. If we don't exalt him, if he's
not exalted in our hearts, it ain't gonna happen here. It'll
just be dead formality. This will just be a dead service.
It'll just be a religious service. It'll be a boring service. And
we just go home. And you got nothing out of it.
And it had no effect on your life out there or your home. Exalt ye the Lord our God and
worship at his footstool. Worship Him. Listen here, because
you've got to get this in your mind. The kings in the older
days, they had their throne, and they would have a footstool,
and they would put their feet upon that footstool, you know,
to rest their feet upon. He said this, Thus saith the
Lord, in Isaiah 66, Thus saith the Lord, Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool. Now this is what I gathered out
of this, looking at this today. Worship him with joy and humility. Worship him with humble adoration.
Bow. Prostrate yourself. This is a
form of worship. I was looking up the word worship
and it had to do with prostrate yourself. Get in the dust. But that leper, that leper fell
down on his face. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. Bow before Him who is holy and yet our Savior. He's our Savior. And at His footstool,
listen, worship Him while here on earth. Worship Him now. If you don't
do it now, you're not going to do it later. It ain't going to
happen later. Worship starts here. For He is holy. Second time this
is mentioned. It's mentioned three times about
Him being holy. We are not to forget that he's holy. It's not to forget the one we
were coming before, that he's holy. His character demands our
worship. You know that? You know, such
perfection demands worship. We don't have those perfections,
so we can't command worship, but he can. God said, let all
the angels of God worship him. If there was one flaw in him,
God would have not said that about his son. Only a sinner
saved by grace will do this. The proud won't do it, they're
too proud to bow. They're not going to bow. They're not going to bow to the
One, even to the One who holds their life in His hand. You know
the Lord holds His life in His hand, whether you believe it
or not. Listen to Job 12.10, In whose hand is the soul of
every living thing, and the breath of all mankind, in His hand. I do this. I do this. I'll lay
in bed at night and I'll take a breath. You know, I'll take
a breath and I'll blow it out. And I realize and I think the
Lord gave me that breath. And then he gives me the next
one and the next one. In his hand is the breath of
every living thing. Listen to Daniel 5.23, but hast,
he says here, but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of
heaven. Daniel's speaking here, I think it's to Belshazzar. You've
lifted up yourself to the Lord, it's either him or Nebuchadnezzar.
And they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and
thou and thy lords, thy wives, thy concubines have drunk wine
in them. This is Belshazzar he's talking
to. And thou hast praised the gods of silver, He's drinking
out of that cup, praising the God of silver. And then praising
the God of gold and of brass and iron and wood and stone. Listen, he's giving praise to
silver, gold, stone, and brass, which see not, nor hear, nor
know, and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are
all thy ways, thou hast not glorified. You glorified everything else.
You glorified a stupid stump. You glorified a cup. You glorified
a bar of gold, but you haven't glorified the God of heaven and
earth. Now what do you think God ought
to do with you? I can tell you exactly what he's going to do.
He's going to put you in hell if you don't flee to Christ. Then he gives us encouragement
here to pray. And he mentions three men, Moses, Aaron, and
Samuel. Moses and Aaron he mentioned
as priests, because Moses even acted in part as a priest as
far as being an intercessor. Remember, he prayed for Israel.
He said one time, if you're going to block them out, block me out.
He interceded for them. And Aaron, we know, was a priest,
and Samuel was a prophet. Now, these men were his servants,
and they prayed. They prayed, listen, they prayed
large prayers. They prayed, they asked for great
things. And listen, they prayed, and
this struck me here today when I was reading this and thinking
about it. They prayed for their nation,
the nation of Israel, and God heard them and spared Israel.
God was going to kill Israel one time and Moses prayed for
them. Remember Aaron made that golden calf. How many times has the Lord interceded
for us when we ought to be put to death because of our sins? How many times has the Lord interceded
for us? All the time. He intercedes for
us all the time. Not once in a while, all the
time. But these men prayed and their prayers were heard. You
know, they prayed large prayer. They prayed for the nation. That's
what we ought to do for this nation. Bruce has a good one on that. Well, pray for the nations that
complain about it. God hears prayers. And this ought to encourage us
to pray. When we read this, when we read
these things that are written for our examples, when we read
these things and these prayers. Was it Elijah that prayed for
the sun to stand still? For the sun to stand still while
they're fighting a battle. And it stood still till they
won the battle. The sun, this one right here,
that comes up every morning and goes down. That sun, God suspended
the laws of nature until Israel won that battle. He prayed, again,
He prayed that it would not rain for three years. And guess what?
It did not rain for three years. You know when it rained? when
He prayed again for it to rain, and it rained. Oh, I tell you, if we could just
get a hold of the one we're praying to, we might pray more often.
He spake to them in the cloudy pillar, just as He speaks to
us in Christ. That cloudy pillar was a representation
of Christ. But listen, we have it better.
He speaks to us in Christ, He speaks to us in His Word. And this ought to encourage us
to get into his word. But notice verse 7, they kept
his testimonies. And I kept thinking about that
and I thought, well, they were obedient. Obedience is the evidence
of faith. It's a key to, it's one of the
keys to answer prayers. He's sure not going to answer
disobedient people. But here's what I thought, here's
what hit me later. They remained faithful while
others did not. They remained faithful while
others were leaving. They kept His testimonies. They
got into His Word. And here's the evidence they
were heard. Thou wast a God that forgave us them. He delights
to show mercy. Yes, He heard them. They prayed. He heard them. He forgave Israel
in a sense that He didn't destroy them. But now listen. He's still chasing them. He heard them, listen, He forgave
them. If we confess our sins, He's faithful just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But
now listen, though thou tookest vengeance
of their inventions. As a nation, they were spared
through the intercession of these men, even as we are spared through
the intercession of Christ when we sin. Remember that God forgave David. He forgave David of that adultery. He forgave him of that murder.
God forgave him. Thou shalt not die. That's what
Nathan the prophet said to him. But he said, the sword will never
leave your house. There are some things, though the Lord forgive
us of, they have consequences. They have consequences. Choices
have consequences now. I'm telling you, they do. We
need to think long and hard and soberly and pray when we make
choices because they have consequences. And then last of all, and I close.
Exalt the Lord in verse 9, because of all that's been said. Exalt
the Lord our God and worship at His holy hill, for the Lord
our God is holy. Worship at His holy hill. Exalt. We can never exalt His name too
much. We'll never be in danger of that.
Not in this life. We will never be in danger of
lifting up His name and exalting Him. We'll never do that too
much. But we are lift up his name,
do it in our hearts, in our speech, in our conduct. And listen here,
here's something that's humbling. He is our God. How condescending it is for God
to be our God. Would you be the God of a bunch
of wretched people like me and you? Listen, listen to Hebrews
11, 16. But now they desire a better
country that is a heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called
their God. God's not ashamed. He's not ashamed
to be called our God. And there's times when we've
been ashamed to own up to him. There have been times we've shut
our mouth when we should have opened it. We should have defended his
name when we didn't. But he's never been ashamed of
us. Never. He's not ashamed to be called
our God. For he hath prepared for them a city. Worship at his
holy hill. Worship at his holy hill. This
is a church. Worship at church. You know what
he's saying here? Worship him publicly. Forsake not the gathering
of yourselves together. Worship at his holy hill. Gather
together. This is the holy hill of Zion
right here, the church. You're it. And what he's saying
here is worship him publicly. Go where the gospel's preached.
Let it be known who your Lord is. And for the third time, he's
called holy. His nature is holy. His work
is holy. His salvation is holy. And such
perfection is to be worshipped privately and publicly. Privately and publicly. Rejoice. The Lord reigneth. The Lord reigneth. Let the people
tremble. You and I who believe, let us
stand in awe of Him. And those who don't believe,
let them tremble at meeting God Almighty, who's a consuming fire.