Well, if I'm a treat, I must
be a scone. Because I don't know if you've
ever had a scone, but they're the most disappointing thing
in the world. Because people call them treats, and then you
bite into them. They're hardly sweet at all. They're generally
dry. So maybe, you know, I'm among that. Since I was coming to help Nathan
with some construction work, I had to bring tools. And of
course, you have weight limit on your suitcases. Tools tend
to be kind of dense. So I couldn't pack much, which
means also I didn't pack a Bible. I knew there'd be one here. So
I went back there and picked one up. And it's a Thompson chain
reference Bible. But I looked in the front of
it to see whose it was, and evidently with annotations and highlights
by John Seball. So this is quite a Bible. And there's not many of the verses
that haven't been underlined or colored or something like
that. Let's open our Bibles to Romans
chapter 10 verse 13. In verse 13, it says, for whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now that's a remarkable promise. It's an absolute promise. And
I don't think there's any problem saying it's a universal promise.
That is, no one in the world is barred from making use of
that promise. And if they don't, we know that
that means that God just left them to themselves. If they do,
we know that God did a sovereign work of regeneration in their
hearts. But that's not the issue at this point. The issue isn't
why people call upon the name of the Lord, simply whether or
not they do. And that's the way promises go. They are not addressed
to us as any kind of particular person. He doesn't say, if the
elect shall call upon the name of the Lord, they shall be saved.
It says, whosoever. And we're allowed to preach it
that way. We are allowed to preach the promises as fully as God
declares them. And we know that God is able
to make His sovereign purpose and His wide open promise reconcile. But that's not our job, is it?
If you have not called upon the name of the Lord, you are not
saved. You are not in a state of having
been regenerated, born again. But I know this, if you call
upon the name of the Lord, no harm will ever come to you from
the Lord. You will be saved from all wrath. And then he goes on
and he says, How then shall they call on Him in whom they have
not believed? You know, you can't believe an
unheard of Christ, an unheard of God. You know, Paul said,
I see that you have a shrine to the unknown God. Let me tell
you about Him. Because they can't trust someone
they don't know. How shall they believe in Him
of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? Now, I want to make a statement
here. I've seen this statement. I've heard it from pulpits. I've
seen it in bulletins. I know what the people mean,
but it needs to be worded better. The greatest blessing God ever
gave to a town was to send a preacher. Sorry, that's not it. The preacher
is unimportant. You see, the problem is we hear
things like that, we who are preachers, and we start to think
we're important. I'm not. I'm not any more important
than anybody else, and I suppose not any less important. My job
is to preach. It's important that someone preach
it. It's irrelevant who does. And if God is pleased to give
someone the gifts to make His gospel known, it had nothing
to do with who that person was, had nothing to do with their
natural talents, and if anything is accomplished through that
preaching, it's not because of anything that person can do naturally. I have preached there in Iowa
now for 35 years, and I mean, you know, well, in today's religion,
you couldn't boast in that congregation because I guess we have about
20 households or something, and that's counting everybody shows
up just once in a while. And, but there have been some
people converted, but I've never converted anybody. There have
been some people who heard the gospel with the heart and believed
it with the heart. But that wasn't because of me.
Now they heard the gospel in their ears maybe because of me.
They got the doctrines in their brains because I taught it to
them. But I cannot preach the gospel
in such a way that people are compelled to believe it. And
so while we speak of how important the gospel
is and how important it is that it be declared, let us never
give undue honor to those whom God has chosen to preach it.
They're doing what they cannot do. And then verse 15, and how shall
they preach except they be sent as it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. Now, Paul is quoting Isaiah. Now, of course, Isaiah was written
in the Hebrew language. Paul wrote this in the Greek
language. And in the Greek language, in two cases, the same word appears. How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach, and then who bring glad tidings, the word
glad tidings, and preach. Actually, you'd have to say bring
glad tidings. And the reason it has to be worded this way
is there is a word, the Greek word, that's normally translated
gospel. It's simply used here as a verb.
Now the gospel means good news. Euangelion. The EU part means
good. Angelion. It's related to the
word for angel, but it's a messenger or a message. Good message. In fact, our English word, gospel, it's changed over the years.
Originally, Godspell, spell or spiel, story, message. And God, not meaning God's message,
that's just the way they said good. a long time ago. So a good
message. That's even what our English
word means. And so it's saying, how beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him who gospelizes peace, who gospelizes good things. Now actually, our word evangelize
comes from that word. Today, what does evangelize mean?
Got there and shoved tracts in people's nose and tried to get
them to say the printer's prayer. Printer's prayer. Sinner's prayer,
but it's printed, so maybe that works too. But what I mean is,
that's not evangelization. That's insurance sales. We have
a message. It's good news. Everything about
it is good news. Now consider that. Everything
about the gospel is good news. There are people who know the
gospel or know what it is, doctrinally speaking, and there's parts of
it they don't particularly care for. And I think if there's something
in the gospel you don't like, maybe you don't know the one
who designed it. I mean, it's not my job to judge
their hearts. I'll leave that to God. But if that certainly
does sound suspicious, doesn't it? I don't like that part. There's
nothing in it that's not good news. And if you are a believer
and understand those parts of it, you'll think it's good news. There are people who believe
that doctrine called limited atonement, but they're a little
ashamed of it because they don't understand its significance.
And also it's very badly named, because the Bible does not talk
about the limitations of the atonement. The Bible talks about
the absolute success of it. And since we know not all people
are saved, then it cannot be that the sins of all people were
atoned for. So I don't even like to use the
phrase limited atonement. I like successful Savior a whole
lot better. Nonetheless, they act as though
limited atonement is some aspect of the gospel that embarrasses
them to acknowledge that they believe that. And they see no
glory in holding it forth. Well, with the way I've heard
it held forth sometimes, I can understand their feeling. But
friends, that doctrine, poorly named, limited atonement, you
know what it means? What it says to the believer?
There's no way you can be lost. That's what it says. You are signed, sealed, and you're
being delivered by the Holy Spirit who cannot fail either. So the fact that God's grace
and mercy are sovereignly controlled by Him, that they are not universally
dispensed, that His various graces are not universally dispensed,
that is not bad news. That's good news because if they're
universally dispensed and yet the majority of people perish
under God's wrath, what good is the grace? It fails most of
the time. And who knows if in the end it
won't fail for you. But everything about it is good
news. When the angels came and said
to the shepherds, fear not, we bring you Glad tidings, euangelium. We bring you gospel. Now nearly everybody likes Christmas.
My favorite time of year. I always enjoyed it as a child.
My mother worked hard to make sure we had a nice Christmas.
She was the kind, you know, through the year, things that we needed,
she'd put them off to Christmas to make sure there's lots of
presents under the tree, you know. And I'll admit, I never
got terribly excited over a package of new underwear, but, you know,
it was at least one more package that was under the tree. But
I like that time. I like it that despite the world's
hatred for the person whose birthday it's supposed to celebrate, despite
their hatred, everybody acts a little nicer then. Unless,
well, not on Black Friday, but the other times, you know? And
there's pretty music, and people want to be happy. And, you know,
there's even stories, was it World War II? I can't remember
if it was World War I, World War II. Okay, Germans and the
Allied forces, they just, they stopped fighting, went out in
the field, enjoyed. Company with one another. And
I'm thinking, why didn't they go, let's just keep doing this.
Let's not go back to the trenches. But that's the power that simply
even the holiday can carry because it's such a powerful reminder
of Christ. How much more the truth of Him,
the reality of Him. I bring you good news. Unto you
is born this day in the city of David a Savior. Not a wanna-be,
not a tries-to-be, not gonna give it his best shot. A Savior. And the angels have told his
parents, you shall call his name Jesus. I like that, said, we
suggest you call his name Jesus. Didn't say that, did it? You
will call his name Jesus. Why? Because that's the right
name for him. It means Jehovah is my Savior. Or Jehovah is salvation. You call His name Jesus because
He shall save His people from their sin. Now this is all good
news. But now let's go back to Isaiah
52. Paul didn't quote what the message was because that wasn't
his point. Here, you know, that wasn't the
point he was trying to make at that point in the scriptures.
He just wanted to point out the necessity of the Gospel being
preached. Isaiah 52.7. John's got it circled. And Romans
10.15 written by it. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, and publisheth
peace." Now, they didn't have cell phones. They didn't have
telegraph. I don't even know if they learned how to use, you
know, pigeons and doves to carry messages. If you wanted to get
a message from one place to another, you wrote it down, you rolled
it up, you put a seal on it, and you put it in the hand of
a runner. And those guys, they were marathon runners. They'd
run and run and run. This was particularly Important
in wartime when there's a battle going on and here's everybody
behind the walls of the city, you know, and they wonder how
goes the battle. And so they look off in the distance and
they see dust and here comes some guy running. And they watch
and he gets closer and closer. Why are they watching? Because
it's important. Whatever this guy has got to
say, it's important. Now you can imagine what those
feet looked like. They're running barefoot, maybe
got sandals, but not nice, you know, arch support, you know,
$300, $400 running shoes. Their feet are dirty, calluses,
but they come and they bring that message. And whoever has
authority to open that seal opens it up and looks at it. And he
says, victory is won. Our king, our captain has prevailed
and we are safe. And whoever that guy was, he
may be as ugly as mud and his feet may be covered with mud.
But at that time, to those people, that's the most beautiful set
of feet ever was. And it says, how beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings and publisheth peace,
that bringeth good tidings of good and publisheth salvation,
that says unto Zion, God loves you and has a wonderful plan
for your life. That God's done all He can and
now it's up to you who says to Zion, Your God reigns. Now, you who trust in Him, know
this, the God in whom you trust is God indeed, and He reigns. Period. He's not going to come and reign
someday. He's reigning today. He was reigning
yesterday. He was reigning before the stars
were in the sky. In fact, it's because He was
reigning that the stars are in the sky. It's funny to me that many who
claim to be conservative Christians, and they're creationists. I'm
not opposed to that. I believe in creation. But they
make a big deal. God spoke. Let there be light. And there was light. Oh, the
power of God. And He put this, you know, this
is not the right order, but He caused the earth to bring forth
vegetation, caused the sun, the moon, and the stars to shine,
you know, all this. The psalmist put it this way.
He spoke and it was. He commanded and it stood firm.
And then the writer of Hebrews says, by faith we believe that
the worlds were created by what? The Word, the command of God.
And they go on and on about this and God's power. You know, when
he said, let there be light, the darkness did not say, well,
you're going to need to sing a few more hymns. I've got to
be convinced. When He put the sun, the moon,
and the stars in place, nobody pushed back. It just was. And yet, when it comes to men,
they don't think that God reigns over the hearts and minds of
human beings. But He does. Everybody today
is doing exactly what God ordained for them to do. You say, that
means God's responsible for everything men do. No, it doesn't. If you
wrote a book and in that book you told a story about one guy
who killed another person, are you responsible for murder? You
say, well, the book isn't real. Well, that book's as real to
you as we are to God. That's one thing you have to
understand about God. He's the author of our reality. He's not
just a big version of us. He doesn't exist in this creation,
that is, as Henry used to say, in his absolute essence. He was
here before the creation was here. And this, what we call
reality, is to him a story. And he wrote it, and he wrote
Pharaoh to be a rebel, and Moses to be submissive. And yet Pharaoh cannot justly
shake his fist in the face of God and say, why did you make
me like this? Everything that happens, I remember
Brother Don Fortner saying it, everything that happens, God
did it. Some people like to... distinguish between his active
will and his permissive will. There is no such thing with God.
There's his will. And everything he thinks is going
to happen will happen. And if he doesn't think it's
going to happen, it's not going to happen. That's why it's so silly. I mean,
I don't want to act like our actions are insignificant, but
their significance does not lie in we determine the course of
the world. But here we are, we're coming up on the midterm elections,
and everybody, you know, who's going to, you know, will the
Republicans sweep the House? Are the Democrats going to be
able to hold it? When Nathan asked if I'd come up and help,
I said, sure. And Friday night, excuse me,
Saturday night, The night before I was going to, well actually
I left Monday morning, but it was too late to do anything about
this. I told Bonnie, I said, I'm going to be gone on election
day. I thought, I don't care. I used to care a lot about that.
And I'm not telling you don't vote. I'm sure glad we're allowed
to vote. But I know who is going to fill
every office. Whoever it is, God wants him
there. And whether they get in by hook
or crook, however they got in there, God put them there. And they will do exactly what
He intends for them to do, to bring about His eternal purpose,
which is the glorifying of His Son through the salvation of
His elect. And we may get upset at what
they do, And you know, on a natural level, I'm not even saying that's
bad. I mean, if all at once they said, well, everybody's taxes
are doubled, I'm going to go, that would upset me. But then
I'd think, you know something, God's got all the money he needs
to pay double taxes. I hear people get, you know,
they say, well, so and so gets in, and I've heard this since
I was like 20 years old. Well, so and so gets in office,
they're going to start taxing churches. You know, churches
are tax exempt, property taxes and things like that. I looked
at the guy and said, okay. I said, God can pay his taxes.
I said, the ones who won't be able to pay the taxes are the
phony churches who build enormous buildings which they own free
of property tax. And like someone said, it's country
clubs for poor people. They're the ones going to have
a tough time of it. Not the churches that worship God. And who knows? A lot of those churches, a lot
of faithful churches might have to say, well, we've got to get
rid of the building because we can't pay the property taxes.
And they do, and they start meeting at homes and find out that works
too. Our God reigns. He reigns universally. There is not an atom or subatomic
particle that we know about or don't know about yet that is
not under the direct control of the God who said, let there
be light. And there was light. I watched a show one time. It
was about a documentary on tornadoes. And they were used as the central
documentary. Well, you know, a particular
tornado that had gone through a small town and really, I mean,
it killed some people. You know, a real tragedy for
a small town like that. And part of it, showed this woman
priestess of one of the more formal churches,
you know, because she had her collar turned around backwards
and all that. But she was at a funeral, conducting a funeral
there at the grave site. And she read that portion of
scripture where God spoke to, I'm 99% sure it was Elijah, but
could have been Elisha, I'm not sure. But it says, you know,
the earthquake, you know, and a whirlwind, a tornado, and says,
the Lord was not in the whirlwind. And she said, I'm not lying to
you, she said, God wasn't in that tornado. And I said, poor little city. Now, we live in what's supposed
to be a really bad tornado area, but really, in my 35 years there,
one tornado kind of clipped the southwest corner and messed up
one building, I think. That was it. Nobody got hurt.
But my house faces west. The back of it faces west. And
if I look back, well, I don't have anybody living there. We're
out in the country. So I'm just looking over a cornfield
and then some trees and then there's a rock river, you know.
If I see a tornado coming, I want God to be in it. Even
if that means it's going to go right through the middle of my
house and suck me up and throw me five miles away and kill me.
I would rather die from a tornado that God sent. And look at that
tornado and say, maybe I can outrun it. Why? If God's in it, it can't hurt
me. It may bring pain. It may even kill me. It can't
hurt me. Because He works all things together
for the good of them who love Him, who are the called according
to His purpose. All things, that even means tornadoes. God says, I kill and I make alive. Now, we always like it when God
makes alive. We have a hard time with He kills. But everybody dies. Why do you
think they die? God kills them. But it's just
natural processes. It's his natural processes that
bring it about. And it's as easy for him to make
alive as it is for him to kill. I mean, you know, in a sense,
all you got to do is think it. But we have safety. We have comfort
in this, no matter what God is doing. If we love Him, if we've
trusted in Him, whatever He does, it's good. I heard the story
of a seminary professor whose wife had cancer, and he had told
the men in his class, and they had prayed with him over time,
you know, as this professor's wife was going through all the
treatments and everything for it, and one day he came in, And
he said, I'd like to tell you that my wife, they've done a
nose scan. She's clear. She has no cancer. Well, of course, the young men,
they were so glad to hear about that. And they, you know, I don't
know if they clapped or said amen. Somebody goes, God is good. They said, oh, professor. And
he said, God's goodness will not be held hostage to my wife's
health. Yes, he's good, and I'm glad
he spared her. But if he had let her die, he's
still good. We can look at whatever's happening,
whatever we are experiencing, whether it lifts us up with joy
or puts us in a, I don't know what other way to say it, but
a hell of deep depths Whatever it is, our God sent it, and there's
good in it, even if we can't yet perceive it. Brother Scott Richardson said,
if we had God's power, we'd change everything. If we had God's wisdom,
we'd change nothing. Nothing. This day, know of a certainty,
you whose trust is in God. exactly the right thing is happening
to you, to bring you eventually to be in the presence of Christ,
conformed to His image. And any alteration in it, any alteration in the providence
that God has laid out for you would mess things up. And you know what I take great
comfort in? even when I mess up." That was part of God's purpose
too. And He reigns in that. And even though I messed up,
I'm not going to mess Him up, and I'm not going to mess up
His purpose. I was told so many times in the religion I was raised
in, you know, now here's what God says, and if you do it this
way, things will work out good for you. Well, if that's the
way it works, friends, What do we need a Savior for? We can thoroughly mess up, and
God is still going to accomplish His purpose. And while that does
not excuse us of the sinful and hurtful things we do, nonetheless,
you know, we're not looking for excuses, are we? We've already
confessed we're sinners and nothing other than sinners, but we can
say, though I've sinned, though I've fallen, though I've messed
up, though I followed my own wisdom rather than the wisdom
that God has declared in His Word, still my soul is safe. The Lord God is working His will. He reigns. There's a fellow in
our church. He's probably 71 now, 70, 71. And suffering from one of those
neurodegenerative diseases. And, but he's one of these guys,
he likes everything kept absolutely simple. You know, he's just not
interested in all the complex, abstract arguments of theology
that people get into. And the same thing with regard
to his life. And when he found out about this,
his response, well, my sins are gone. Now, could you say that? Like
I said, we did some scans. You've got two months. I'm sorry,
there's nothing we can do. Could you smile and say, well,
my sins are gone. If your sins are gone, nothing
bad can happen to you. It may be unpleasant, but it
won't be bad. Here's the good news. You're
God. reigns absolutely universally
and graciously for his people. God's sovereign reign is the
motive of the church's worship. Instead of turning to these verses
Just let me read you several things from the Scriptures here.
Revelation 11, 15, And the seventh angel sounded, and there were
great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall
reign forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders,
which sat before God on their seats, fell on their faces and
worshiped God. And what did they say? We give
thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art
to come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast
reigned. Paul ended his great diatribe
against humanity that began in Romans 1 and ends about two-thirds
of the way through chapter 3. in describing the wickedness
of man, and the final summation was there is no fear of God before
their eyes. You know why? Their God doesn't
reign. They don't need to be afraid
of Him. Thy God reigns. And those who
are opposed to Him, and we'll see that here in a second, that
ought to scare them to death. But we rejoice in it. Do you know what? People say,
oh, I long to go to heaven. I understand. I have no problem
with that. I understand what they mean.
And I hope this isn't bragging, but there's probably enough fleshly
pride in it, but I'm going to say it anyway. What I want to
say most of all is every knee And every tongue confess that
Jesus is Lord. They've been dragging His name
through the mud since He showed up in this world. The only time
you hear His name on TV is when somebody's cussing. And they'll
even add the most vulgar, non-religious words to it to make it worse.
And you know, you want a little entertainment, everybody likes
to relax, you turn on the TV You know, every one of us, I
guess we've got different levels, but you're just going to have
to put up with so much, you know. But to hear that name, so horribly
maligned, know this, our Lord will be vindicated. God will
vindicate Him. And everyone, including the devil
and everybody else, is going to say, we were wrong. He's the
Lord. It wasn't me after all. They
aren't going to like saying it. It's kind of like in our country,
you know, when we have an election, a presidential election, roughly
half of the people are going to be upset with how it turned
out. But you know what? I know a lot of people say, well,
that's not my president. I'm sorry. Yes, it is, like it
or not. It may not be the one you wanted,
but it's the one you've got. And there will be a majority
of the people born into this Earth are going to have to say,
Jesus is Lord, but they're not going to like that truth any
more then than they are now. But they will have to admit it.
That's the Lord. Oh, to see Him come in power
and great glory. To see Him come with that shout
of the archangel. And for Him to say, Solomon said
to Shulamith in the Song of Solomon, come away with me, my love, to behold His glory and know
that all the world is seeing it too, even those who pierced
Him, who rejected Him. They are going to say, we messed
up. The Lord reigns and it makes
us worship The Lord's sovereign reign is
the joy of the earth. Romans 19 verse 6, And I heard,
as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of
many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings. We had
a thunderstorm the other night. Now usually, you know, once I
get to sleep, and it's not hard for me to sleep, but when I'm
asleep, you could just about set off a bomb in the front yard.
It won't bother me. But I don't know how close that
cloud was, but one of them just about made me jump out of bed.
That's loud. The voice of many waters. I don't
know how many of you have been to someplace like Niagara Falls.
You can talk. If you want to say anything to
anybody, you've got to shout. And so here, in the presence
of God, there's this great multitude, like the voice of many waters
saying, look, Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Now that word hallelujah or hallelujah,
they just transliterated it from Hebrew. Hallelu is a command. It's in the imperative mood.
It means praise as a command and then the Yah is just a shortened
version of God's name Yahweh. So what does it mean? In fact,
the King James translates it. Praise ye the Lord. It doesn't
say I got a good idea. If you want to go along, let's
praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Now, we say
it, you know, we use it flippantly for small matters. You know,
such and such happened. Oh, hallelujah. This ought to
be reserved for the greatest of blessings. That song, Hallelujah,
by Leonard Cohen. You know, it actually wasn't
well-received when it first came out, but then it gained some
popularity when some guy released it on an album. And it is, it's
a beautiful tune. If you listen to the lyrics,
it's horrible. But Scott and I keep repeating that word, hallelujah,
and I thought, that's blasphemy. Of course, the guy didn't know
what he was saying. And so I preached a message about hallelujah and
its significance. And here's the truth. There's
only one kind of human that really can say hallelujah. And when
he does it, not take the Lord's name in vain. And that's a sinner
saved by his grace. That's one who relies upon the
sovereign, omnipotent God who sits on the throne. And he shall
reign forever and ever. And they say, hallelujah, the
Lord God omnipotent reigns. I forgot and got worried. I looked
around me and got upset. I saw persecution. I saw danger. I saw the church shrinking. I began to wonder about the next
generation. Is there going to be someone
else to come along and preach the gospel when I'm gone? Hallelujah. The Lord God Omnipotent reigns. Always has. Always will. It's the joy of the church. It's
a reason to say hallelujah. When something you don't like
happens, and that happens a lot, doesn't it? Even big things. If your guy doesn't become president or senator
or congressman or whatever is being voted on at that time,
when you hear the returns, you can say hallelujah. The Lord
God omnipotent reigns. And even though I thought the
other guy would be better, Turns out this guy is going to be better
for God's purpose than the other guy. And then you go on about
your business. And I tell you, that's a better
way to live than to spend four years of anticipation hoping
your guy gets in the next time. God's guy always gets in. All
right. The Lord's sovereign reign is
the message that grips the hearts of people. People say, well,
it's offensive to man. He doesn't want to hear it. That
doesn't mean it's not true. It doesn't mean it's something
they don't need to hear. And we know this when they hear
it. Even if they do not become believers
in the sense that we would describe that, it will have an
effect on people. It brings to them that sort of
natural fear of the Lord. And by the fear of the Lord,
men depart from iniquity. You can moralize people to death.
And death's all you're going to get. People won't moralize over moralizing
sermons. You set before them that God
reigns. What does it say, Psalm 99.1?
The Lord reigneth. Let the people tremble. Now that's
King James Version. The word is not people singular,
it's peoples. Now we think that in modern English,
people is the plural of person. But really, a people is a group
of persons. So there's the American people.
You know, there's the Jewish people. And peoples means all
these groups over all the earth. So the Lord reigneth. Let the
peoples tremble. All the peoples. The Jew wrote
this. Let the Jewish people tremble
at this thought. And let the Gentile nations and peoples tremble. The Lord reigns. You've got your
gods of thunder and not so much anymore, but people used to divide up the
universe and they had gods that were in control of certain parts
of it. And one of the unique aspects
of the Jewish God was He's in charge of all of it. He's the
rain god and he's the drought god too. But men have a general sense
of God, most people do, and if you declare it to them, the Lord
reigns, they know it's true. And it may anger them, but the
more it's kept before their minds, it causes them to tremble. which
causes them to restrain some of the worst outbreak of their nature. People say,
oh, religion makes people violent. No, religion gives some people
an excuse for their violence, that's all, because their God
doesn't reign. Let the peoples tremble. The
Lord's sovereign reign is the joy of the earth. You say, well,
that sounds the other way around. Well, it's the joy of the earth in
two senses. Number one, it's the joy of the earth as a physical
entity. Paul says the whole creation
has been made subject to corruption. And it groans and travails just
like you and I do. Now, I realize earth is not conscious.
But what he's saying is here, the Lord reigns, let the earth
be glad. The earth can't do a thing about
the curse that Adam brought upon the entire creation. Not just
humanity. Everything. All the animals in
the field, they suffer because of what Adam did. All the little
creepy crawly things, the birds in the air, all that. The earth
itself suffers. And all it does is wait. But
let the earth rejoice. The Lord reigns. Yes, there's
an idiot race spreading all over the globe. He's got that under
control too. It will all be restored. But
also let the earth be glad. Even though people will not express
gladness when they hear about God's absolute sovereign rule, nonetheless, they should. Let the earth be glad. You say,
well, God's so strict. Why would we want Him to be in
charge? Well, who else do you want in charge? People like to divide it up.
You know, all the bad things, well, the devil's in charge of that,
you know. Good things, God was in charge of that. Now He's in
charge of all of it. And I'm glad. I'm glad. Now, you know, I went
through the whole COVID thing, never got it. Never did a whole
lot to try to avoid it. Got the vaccine when it came
out, both doses, you know. All it did was make my arms sore,
so far as I know. But one thing I'm glad about,
that was God's virus. And if I had got it and been
permanently disabled by it, I hope I could have with Equal joy,
said the Lord reigns. And He put me in this bed of
affliction, and I suppose I'll remain here the rest of my life.
But it's the Lord's will, and it's good. For if I realize that
my time on earth is short, and my loved ones are around the
bed, wait for me to breathe my last. I can say, I know what
grieving is, and you have to go through that. But understand
this, nothing bad is about to happen. Our God reigns. And before I came into this world,
this day was written down. And nothing could have made me
die before today, nor will anything be able to make me live till
tomorrow. This is the day the Lord made.
It's His day, every day. Let us rejoice. And then, the
Lord's sovereign reign is the church's message to this world.
Psalm 96.10, Say among the heathen that the Lord reigns. Oh, you don't go out and tell
that. That's what you teach them later. But if you go out there
and preach the gospel and say God's sovereign over His grace
and God sovereignly controls everything, people aren't going
to accept that. Some of them are. And you want to know why? Because the Lord reigns. Let the earth be glad. Hallelujah.