seventh Psalm this morning. I've decided I'm not going to
have the issue that I had last Lord's Day morning, and that
is cooking. At least not up here. Well, we're very thankful that
we can open the scriptures this morning and meet together for worship, and we
rejoice in the goodness of God, the providence of God that has
brought us together today. Well, let's once again ask God's
blessing upon the service. Lord, help us this hour to be
worshipers, and as the Savior said, help us to be true worshipers. For God seeketh such, and if
we are to worship and be true worshipers, we must worship in
spirit and in truth. We must, of necessity, have the
presence of the Spirit of God. And we must worship in a spiritual
way. And we must worship in truth. And that is, worship you as you
are, as you have manifested yourself in your word. It also means that
we worship you through him who is truth, our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, forgive us for our lack
of spirituality. Forgive us for our being so carnally
minded. Help us always to keep our minds and our hearts
upon the Lord Jesus Christ, upon things of the spiritual nature,
upon those things which are forever. And as we sit before you this
morning, Lord, give us a seriousness about being here, and may we
understand how blessed we are to sit under the pure Word of
God. And Lord, as we meet together
here in this building, and as folks from various locations
join us through the Internet, Lord, we ask that you would favor
us with a revelation of your grace and your glory to us. Lord, be merciful. Be gracious to all of us. And may our minds now be open,
our hearts open, Be receptive to that which you have for us
today. And with the desire that our
great substitute be magnified, we go forward now with the message. We ask these things in the name
of the Lord Jesus and for his sake and his glory. Amen. Now, you will find my text in
the very first verse of Psalm 97, and you'll find the name
of this message in the first three words. In essence, I want
to speak on God our Savior reigns, and so here's the basis for the
message. The Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of the isles
be glad thereof. It's very interesting the way
Psalms are put together and we must not make the mistake of
thinking that they're kind of disjointed or there's no flow
to the Psalms. That would be an incorrect conclusion
because as you look back in the end of Psalm 95, David sets forth
the rebellion of Israel. And due to their own unbelief,
due to the hardness of their hearts, the Lord forsook them. And he said that they would die
in the wilderness because of unbelief. Let me read the last
four or five verses, four verses of Psalm 95. Our God says in
verse 8, Hard not your heart, as in the day, as in the provocation,
as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers
tempted me and proved me, they put me to the test. In other
words, God is saying, and they saw my work. Then he says, 40
years long was I grieved with this generation and said, it
is a people that do err in their heart and they have not known
my ways under whom I swear in my wrath that they should enter
into my rest. And so at the end of Psalm 95,
we see the rejection of Israel of our God. of the worship of
God, of the sacrifices that God Himself had directed them to
offer, which every sacrifice, as we know, pictured the death
of our Lord Jesus, His sacrifice unto God for the sins of His
people. And so, having set forth at the
end of this psalm 95, the rebellion of the people of God. Then in
Psalm 96, which our brother just read to us, we have the gospel,
therefore, going forth to all of the earth. That is, to the
Gentiles as well. Notice again in verse 1 of the
psalm that Ron read to us, O sing unto the Lord. A new song, sing
unto the Lord all the earth. And we've got to note those words
all the earth. You see, before the Lord can
find His message of grace, His message of mercy, His message
of salvation to the Jewish nation almost exclusively, Once in a
while, you would hear of a Gentile brought into the kingdom of grace,
brought before the Lord to worship Him and to believe the way of
approaching God through a bloody sacrifice, which pictured the
Son of Man. But by and large, the gospel
was confined to Israel. But the gospel now goes forth
to all the earth. And it was as a result of the
rejection of the gospel by the Jews. Oh, the ways of God are
mysterious. And you can read in Romans, especially
Romans chapter 11, where the apostle Paul goes into some detail
about these people who would not have the gospel. who would
not believe God, and therefore God sent forth the word of truth,
the word of salvation to Gentile folks just like us. And this
is really what the rejoicing is all about in Psalm 96. Note, therefore, he says in the
second verse of Psalm 96, we should sing to the Lord and bless
His name and show forth or manifest His salvation from day to day. And then he makes this statement.
He says for us to declare His glory, watch it, among the heathen. among the heathen. Who are the
heathen? That's us. That's Gentile idolaters. And yet God gives the word to
set forth His glory, the glory of His person, the glory of His
works of creation and providence and grace, the glory of Messiah,
the glory of who he is and all that he has accomplished. The
Lord says, declare his glory, proclaim his glory, shout forth
his glory among the heathen, the heathen, folks who don't
know, folks who don't have the word of God. And that would be
all the Gentiles. And you know yourself, when our
Lord Jesus came and died for us, and He was raised again,
and before He ascended into heaven, He said to His disciples, go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel. Behold the glory
of the grace of God. Behold the wonders of His mercy. He sends the good news of this
great salvation to folks like you and me who are by nature
heathens. that we may speak of the heathens
in the center of Africa or some other, some of the nations that
are isolated and they're still idol worshipers and things of
that nature, but really all of us are by nature heathen, we're
cut off from God and we're ignorant. There is the darkness of our
spiritual ignorance that plagues all of us. We're heathens by
nature, but the good news is the Lord has sent forth his word
to his preachers, hey, declare his glory among the heathen. That's the glory of his grace,
the glory of his person. When Moses said to the Lord,
Lord, show me your glory. God says, I'll make my goodness
pass before you. And then he talked about being
gracious to whom he would be gracious and being merciful to
whom he would be merciful. This is his glory that God would
save. that God would stoop down and
through a suitable substitute who died in the stead of his
people, that God would raise us up to life in Christ Jesus
and bring us to faith and wash us in his blood and robe us in
his righteousness and throughout our lifetime on this earth, he
will be always with us by his gracious presence and then one
day take us into glory. That's marvelous. This is what
he does for the heathen. Now, as far as the gods of the
nations, look at verse five, they're idols. But the Lord, This one who reigns,
he made the heavens. And so David, after going through
this, then he gets to the next Psalm and he says, the Lord reigneth. And the implication is, over
all. He reigns over all of Israel.
He reigns over all the heathen. There is nowhere that our God
doesn't reign. No wonder the Psalm begins with
this declaration, the Lord reigneth, that is God our Savior. The word
Lord, as it is written here in our English Bibles, is Jehovah,
the ever-existent God. That is God, our savior. Who is the one who reigns? Is
it Satan? Is it the devil who reigns over
all things? Now he's real and he is a thorn
to many a child of God. And he is said to be in the scripture,
the prince of the power of the air. But he doesn't have universal
reign. Well, who does? Well, what about
luck or chance? Do they reign? Who controls things? Who's in charge? Is anybody in
charge? That'd be a good question to
ask most people today. Does anybody sit upon the throne? Is there anyone who has universal
authority and direction over everything? Does anybody reign? And the word of God comes back
with these clear words, the Lord reigneth. And you'll notice it
ends with E-T-H. He always reigns. He has reigned
always. Well, where was God when Adam
fell? He was reigning. Before that,
where was God when Lucifer fell? He was reigning. Where was God
throughout all of the Old Testament? When Israel ultimately threw
up their hands in rebellion against God and said, we will not have
this God rule over us, where was God there? He was reigning. When Jesus of Nazareth was born
into this world in Bethlehem's manger, coming into the world
from the womb of a virgin, And all of the hierarchy of civil
government and religious government lifted up their hands against
him to kill him. Where was God then? He was reigning. And when they arrested him, this
perfect man who went about doing good, this man who was altogether
righteous and perfect and sinless, when they arrested Him and nailed
Him to an awful tree, when they mocked Him after they
had spit upon Him, and He died in darkness, where
was God then? He was reigning. He was reigning. And today, ha, preacher, what a mess this world is in. Well, to our eyes, yes. To our
understanding, I have no argument with you. Disease, this virus, deaths, destruction, rioting, all manner of blasphemy, hatred
of God, hatred of men. Where is God now, preacher? Oh,
He's still reigning. When I'm sick on my bed of affliction,
And I hurt. And I ask for more morphine. And they can't ease my pain. Where is God then? He's still reigning. He has never left His throne
of glory. Not for a moment. And be sure you understand this,
whether we comprehend what God is doing or not. And most of the time we don't. Still, we must always fall back
on this. God our Savior reigns. Our Savior reigns. He reigns. Reign is the root word for sovereign. He reigns everywhere, at all
times, over all things. He reigns in the kingdom of creation. I would propose to you that,
and I wouldn't set one verse of scripture among any verse
of scripture, but I'll just throw this out to you because I was
listening to a sermon, excuse me, reading a sermon this week,
Thursday. And this man, he said the most
vital verse in the Bible is John 3.16. Well, all verses of scripture
are vital and necessary, and they're all profitable. He went
on to say John 3.16 is the gospel. I beg your pardon. John 3.16
is the reason for the gospel. The gospel is that as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. That's the good news. He's died.
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal
life. Now here's the reason for all
of that, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but
have everlasting life. But I wouldn't elevate John 3.16,
which most every son of schooler knows from the time that they
can begin to memorize and then they grow up still quoting and
remembering John 3.16, and then when the preacher says something
that in their minds doesn't kind of line up with John 3.16, then
they show what great theologians they are and say, whoa, John
3.16 says. They always fall back on that.
He does love the world of his elect, and I'm thankful for that. But I'll tell you a verse that
in many ways is more weighty than that. And I wouldn't want
to categorize verses and lift one above another, but you can't
get any more important in the Word of God than Genesis 1-1. In the beginning, God. And if
you can, if I can grasp by the enablement of the Spirit of God,
that in the beginning God created, God reigned, he showed he reigned
right from the beginning because he spake and it was done. And he rules over all things.
and most especially he rules and reigns in the kingdom of
grace. This is his greatest glory. Our God reigns. He reigns. Now there are those,
bless their hearts, who of course, when it comes to the sovereign
reign of the Lord, they have some advice for preachers. And
hey, I'm not above needing some advice from time to time. I don't
deny that. But the advice of some people
would be don't preach sovereignty to the lost people. And especially
don't preach sovereign grace to those who don't believe the
gospel. Tell them of the Lord Jesus,
tell them of his death and tell them of his resurrection and
tell them of his ascension, but don't tell them of his reign. And I've had people say that
to me. And in essence, their advice
is, we want you to hide from people the very character of
God until they're more spiritually mature to receive it. Well, our Lord Jesus didn't subscribe
to that notion. When speaking to the multitudes
in John chapter six, most of whom didn't believe him, didn't
trust him, he said, you have seen me and believe not. All that the father giveth me
shall come to me. They will believe me. And him
that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. David would absolutely disagree
with this idea. Don't tell people about the sovereignty
of God. It's too offensive. Go with something
softer. Something easier. Something less
offensive. Well, David didn't agree with
you. Look what he says back in verse 10. He says, say among
the heathen, among those who know nothing about God, who know
nothing about salvation, who know nothing about the grace
of God, say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth. So you see, those who have objections
about preaching the sovereignty of God, especially the sovereignty
of God in salvation, that he'll be merciful to whom he'll be
merciful, they seem to know better than the Lord himself. And even
more, they know, or they say they appear to know more than
an inspired writer of scripture. David says, tell everybody. Tell everybody. Oh, listen to
me. The only hope we've got is in
the God who reigns. And if He doesn't reign over
Satan, you're a goner. And if He doesn't reign over
your rebellious heart and your stubborn will, then you'll perish
in your sin. The word of the inspired writer
is, the Lord reigneth, our savior reigns. Let's tell the world he's king.
Let's tell anybody who'll listen to us. Let's tell the heathen
he reigns. In this Psalm, faith is encouraged
to joyfully think upon the extent of the kingdom of our God and
that he reigns over all. Notice how often in Psalm 97,
there is a, the writer speaks of being joyful
and being glad in this good news. Look how he says it in verse
one, the Lord reigneth. Let the earth rejoice. This is
a cause for rejoicing. This is a cause for thanksgiving.
Let the multitude of the isles, because to Israel, all of the
nations were but islands. Let the islands be glad. Drop down to verse eight. Zion
heard, what did Zion hear? Zion heard that the Lord reigns. And she was glad. That didn't
make you glad that he reigns? And the daughters of Judah rejoiced
because of God's judgments. And notice in the last verse,
Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous! Rejoice in Him who reigns! Ah, this fact may be hidden to
the world, but the fact that our Savior reigns brings great
joy and stability and steadfastness to all of the people of God.
When troubles befall us, let us remember, the Lord reigneth. When Satan attacks us, like he
attacked Job, let us remember, the Lord reigneth. when our world
seems turned upside down, and things happen that we can't understand
that are beyond our comprehension, and it leaves us scratching our
heads and saying, what is going on in the world when things like
that happen? Remember, the Lord reigneth.
When sorrow makes our hearts heavy with grief, when we have
to go to the cemetery, and bury our dead out of our sight, and we're broken, and we're filled
with grief. Let us remember the Lord reigneth. This is where Job got his consolation. When all of his children died,
10 kids died. And I say kids, they were grownups.
But they're still your little ones, right? They're always your
little ones. And all 10, God wiped them all
out at one time. He said, the Lord gave. He worshiped
God and he said, the Lord gave. Lord gave them to me. than the Lord had taken away.
I tell you, the only one who can give you children and then
take your children away from you has got to be the God who
reigns. I know he had a broken heart.
I know he wept rivers of tears. There's no question about that.
But he didn't attribute all of this to the devil. He didn't even say, you know,
if I'd have had armed guards outside or somebody watching
that has seen the storm coming. He didn't say that. He's not going to second guess
the providence of God. The Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
He blessed the name of God. This is what we must always do. When events come to pass that
you don't understand, when it seems that evil is on the rampage,
when wickedness appears to abound, let us still remember the Lord
reigneth. The Lord reigneth. Let me give
you a breakdown in this Psalm. Verses one through six, God our
Savior reigns in majesty. Verse one, again, the Lord reigneth.
Who is the Lord? Well, this is God, our Savior.
This is Christ Jesus, the King of kings. His reign is the fulfillment
of all prophecy. Go back at your leisure and read
the second Psalm. Oh man, they went after our Lord
Jesus Christ and they mocked him. They defied Him. God said, I have set my King
on my holy hill of Zion. I've set Him there. It's a fixed
position. He reigns. He reigns. Well, how did He come to reign?
Well, as God, He has always reigned. But then He took our nature into
union with Himself. And in the nature of a man, he
lived on this earth. And then, having come to do a
specific work, that is saving his people from their sins, then
he was nailed to the cross of Calvary. All in the purpose of
God. God was reigning there. The issues
of life and death belonged to God. Our Lord Jesus said, no man takes
my life from me. You can't take life from the
God-man. He is life. It is preached. Christ said, I'm the way, the
truth, and the life. You can't take life away from
Him. He said, I have the power to
lay it down. I've got to lay down my life
for the sheep. I know the justice of God will
only be satisfied in my death. So I lay down my life for the
sheep and then I'll take it back again. He reigns there. The cross of Calvary was not
his defeat. That was not his Waterloo. That was not a victory for the
forces of darkness. The cross of Calvary was His
victory. Oh, victory in Jesus, we sing
sometimes. That was His greatest triumph.
He who died conquered our sins and He brought in righteousness
for us. He died, He gave up the ghost,
and then that life He laid down, He had the power to take it again. He ever lives, he's gone back
to glory. Where is he now? He's on his
throne. He's the king who reigns. How extensive is his reign? Psalm
103 verse 19 says, his kingdom ruleth over all. All events obey
his scepter. Everything that happens, happens
according to his will. I know they may have a severe
appearance to us, but rest assured, people of God, everything is
a blessing, even when it is disguised as a severe trial. Because you
see, back behind a dark and gloomy trial, is our savior who reigns. Which brings us to this in verse
two, clouds and darkness around about him. And what are clouds? Clouds, well, we can sometimes
see a little bit through the cloud, but you can't see anything
through darkness. And isn't that the way it is
with the troubles of life, the events of life that are burdensome
to us? They're either very cloudy or
they're just outright dark. You can't see. But back behind
the cloudiness and back behind the darkness is always our Savior
who reigns. No wonder Paul in Romans 11 says
his ways are past finding out. It sets forth the providential
reign of our Lord Jesus and you know as well as I do providence
is dark and mysterious isn't it? You tell people tomorrow and
your family, so you know, in the midst of all this COVID-19,
in the midst of all these riots, trouble, uprisings, even murders,
you tell them, ultimately, the Lord reigns. and they're not
going to agree with you. That's just too big a pill for
them to swallow. A lot of folks, they choke on
that. This is a blessing to the people
of God. Be glad. Be glad. Rejoice. Yes, there are clouds
and darkness that envelop Him. They're round about Him and His
ways. Well, you know, even the death
of our Lord Jesus, when he told his disciples that the priest,
he must be betrayed and then denied by the chief priests and
then crucified, he told them that. Those statements were so
cloudy and so full of darkness to his disciples that they said,
no, that'll never happen. But it had to happen. Now the ways of God are mysterious,
dark and very cloudy quite often. But our Savior had to die and
that's in the purpose of God too. And even when he died, darkness
enveloped Mount Calvary. And people didn't understand,
where'd this darkness come from? Well, God is dealing with God
over sin. God is pouring out His wrath
upon God. The enmity of God against unrighteousness
and the iniquities of all of His people, that's being heaped
upon the substitute. No wonder he said the Son of
Man must be lifted up. That saying was so obscure to
the people, so filled with darkness, even his disciples did everything
they could to block him going to Calvary. But he says in the end of verse
two, righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. Ah, the throne of this king,
is firmly rooted and grounded and established in righteousness
and judgment. And that throne is forever. Righteousness. He always does what's right. Always. And His justice is always carried
out. You say, well, but he shows us
mercy. Yes, he does. He's gracious and
forgiving to us. Yes, he is. But not at the expense
of his judgment or his justice. Never. Never. Let's don't ever be guilty of
pitting one of the attributes of God against another. God is
all justice, He's all love, He's all grace, He's all holiness,
He's all sovereignty. You can't divide Him up into
bits and pieces. It's not like cutting up a piece
of pie and, well, here's His sovereignty and here's His mercy
and here's His justice. No! He's one God and He's all
of those things at all times. And if He shows mercy and grace
to us, it must always be consistent with righteousness and justice. Behold a cross of Calvary. righteousness and justice, a
habitation of the very throne of God being carried out. He says in verse three, fire
goeth before him and burneth up his enemies round about. Perhaps
this is the fire of his holiness as it went forth from Mount Sinai
when the law was given. We do read in the New Testament
in the book of Hebrews that our God is a consuming fire. Or this
may refer to the gospel, the fire of the gospel that goes
forth, a fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies. The fire of conviction. the fire of convincing us of
our sins. In verse four he says, his lightnings
enlightened the world the earth saw and trembled. I tell you
when God sends forth his lightnings and his thunder people stop and
take notice. You've been outside on some hot
summer day, and all of a sudden the dark clouds begin to roll
in and you hear thunder and then you see lightning, it gets your
attention. And I'm telling you, God, even
through His gospel, He can make it be like thunder to you and
lightning to you, putting the fear of God in your heart. Notice he says this, verse five,
the hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, the
presence of the Lord of the whole earth. And the word Lord, if
you'll notice, though it's spelled the same way, the letters are
a little differently, are different because the first in the presence
of the Lord, it's all capital letters. That's God our Savior. This is the ever-existent God.
at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth." That word,
Lord, is master. Master. And all of the creatures
of the earth are his servants or his slaves. Everyone. Everyone serves the
purpose of the master. Everything does. Every event
serves His purpose. Every single thing that exists
in the universe serves the purpose of the Master, Christ Jesus. And He got to be Master as a
result of His death upon the cross of Calvary. This is His
reward. He's the Master. And I'll tell
you what, it's wonderful to be his bond slave. We're his slaves. We're not independent. Our nation,
you know, we celebrated our independence and I understand what all of
that means, but really we're a dependent people. Everyone
is dependent upon God who alone is independent. None of us are
totally independent. We're very much dependent. We're
dependent upon people. We're dependent upon the government. And ultimately, we're all dependent
upon God. God depends on nobody. He's independent. He only is independent. His will
is independent. Yours isn't. He's the master. We're the slaves. And so he says
in verse six, the heavens declare his righteousness and all the
people see his glory. All of creation bears testimony
to the righteousness of the reign of King Jesus. He does all things
well. And then we get to the second
thing in this psalm. The second point is Zion rejoices
at his reign, verses seven through nine. Who is Zion? That's us. That's the people
of God. And so he says in verse eight,
David says, Zion heard. What did Zion hear? What has
Zion heard? Well, what have you who are Zion
this morning, the people of God, the daughters of Jerusalem, God's
true people, what have you heard that makes you glad? Well, that
which I have heard from this particular Psalm that makes me
glad is this, my Savior reigns. That makes me glad. Brother Scott
Richardson, we quote him quite often, faithfully pastored in
Fairmont, West Virginia for many, many years. He would say, I haven't
heard any bad news since I heard the good news. There's no bad
news. People I've talked to, they'll
start talking about how bad things are today. And I was talking
on the phone with somebody this week, just a couple of days ago,
and I said, you know what? It's all good. It's all good. Because all things come from
the hands of Him who is altogether good. Nothing bad can come from
the hands of my Savior to me. He's not going to give me anything
bad. Now, He may give me things that I don't understand. He may
give me things that are very painful or He may give me things
that are very pleasant. That's up to Him. What he will do through his providence,
he will arrange things in such a way as to keep our attention
focused on him. And when we lose that focus,
he who reigns has a multitude of ways of getting our attention
again. And you know that, and I know
that. We rejoice in his reign. He says in verse eight, Zion
heard and was glad. The daughters of Judah rejoice
because of thy judgments, because the Lord is just. The Lord is
just. And then hear what he says in
verse nine, for thou, Lord, art high above all the earth. Thou art exalted far above all
gods. You know, Peter in Acts chapter
two, he preached about the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus and his resurrection. And then Peter said to all of
those thousands of people who were listening to him preach,
he said, God has made this same Jesus whom you crucified, both
Lord and Christ. You know what kind of effect
that had upon many of those people? Thousands of those people. Their
hearts were rent by the Spirit of God. This is the Savior we
need. The one that we crucified, the
one that we murdered, this is the Savior we need. God has highly exalted him. The
last statement of verse 9, because he was obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. And so that brings us to the
final section of the Psalm. Instructions to Zion, verse 10.
Ye that love the Lord, do you love the Lord? That's just a
very important question. And you see, this is the same,
this is worded the same way, spelled the same way, with the
same capital letters. Ye that love the Lord, the Lord
reigns. Do you love the Lord who reigns? That's a really big question
right now. Do you love the Lord who reigns? Not the Jesus who's a hell insurance
policy. You know, you took care of believing
Him years ago, and it's kind of like all your other insurance
policies. You have health insurance? Sure. I see your insurance card. Yeah. You have life insurance? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got life insurance. Have you got a death insurance
policy? Yeah, I got that too, because
I made my decision many years ago. That's all people, most
religious people have got. They think they've got a death
insurance policy. I'll pull out my health, my death
insurance policy when time comes to die, my hell insurance policy. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He's the Lord. You bow to him. You worship Him. Ye that love the Lord. Now, if
you love Him as Lord, He says, hate evil. Hate evil. And you know what? If you love
the Lord, you can't help but hate evil. Wouldn't you agree
with that? If you love the Lord, if you love the Lord who reigns,
you will necessarily hate evil. First of all, you'll hate it
in yourself. and you'll hate it wherever you
find it. And you'll look forward to that
day, you'll long for that day when evil will be done away with,
especially this evil. And understand this, he preserved
the souls of his saints, preservation. You know why I'm going to be
preserved? You know why the life that I have in Christ Jesus is
everlasting? Because our Savior reigns. God, our Savior reigns. He's
the one who preserves us. After all, He delivered His people
out of the wicked, out of the wicked one's hands. and light
is sown for the righteous and gladness in the upright in heart,
he sowed light into us. Where there was once just darkness,
he sowed light, which has resulted in gladness
in him. And so he finishes the Psalm
by saying, rejoice in the Lord. Well, there's none else to rejoice
in, is there? Rejoice in the Lord. Ye righteous. Bible has many
ways of referring to the people of God, but this is a blessed
way right here. Ye righteous. You're made the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And he says, not only rejoice,
but give thanks. Give thanks at the remembrance
of his holiness. How delightful that God, our
Savior, reigns over all. Let sinners believe him. Let
sinners bow down before him. and let the saints of God rest
easy. Our Savior, God our Savior reigns. Let's bow together. Once again,
O Father, we come to you asking that you would take the things
of the Lord Jesus Christ reveal them unto us. Oh, how we rejoice, how our hearts
are made glad to once again be reminded, God our Savior reigns. And though much of what we see
going on in the world today seems to defy human understanding
or logic. We leave these things, O God,
with Thee, knowing that in ways far above our understanding and
comprehension, all things are fulfilling Your will. And we
remember the words of our Savior, to Simon Peter when he came to
washing his feet, the Savior said, what I do now, thou knowest
not, but thou shalt know hereafter. Maybe in eternity you will show
us what you were doing during this dark and dismal period of
our lives. But it is enough for us to know
at this point that all that is happening is under the reign
of the Master. And all men and all circumstances
and all events serve your purpose. Before such a God we bow in worship
We thank you for all things through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.