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Matchless King - Psalm 93

Throughout history we have seen examples of extraordinary power. On some occasions we have seen examples of the devastating power that natural disasters can bring. In AD 79 on the Gulf of Naples in Italy, Mount Vesuvius erupted in violent fashion, burying and destroying two Roman cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum, including many of their inhabitants. On January 23, 1556 an earthquake struck in Shaanxi, China that brought devastating destruction. It is the deadliest recorded earthquake in history in which it was reported that “the identifiable death toll of soldiers and civilians was 830,000 and the unidentified was uncountable.” On November 12, 1970 the Bhola Cyclone made landfall on what is modern day Bangladesh killing an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people. Some of the reports of the devastation included reports that some villages and their crops in the low lying islands were completely wiped off the face of the earth. And on December 26, 2004 a 9.1 magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia setting into motion the worst tsunami in recorded history. As the tsunami came violently onto the shore it killed an estimated 230,000 people and caused over 10 billion dollars worth of damage.

On other occasions we have seen in history examples of powerful men who have exercised extraordinary power over peoples, nations, and even large parts of the world. Our memory calls to mind men like Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Adolf Hitler. While these men were exercising their power and rule there didn’t seem to be any others who could match their strength or influence. They stood out in the world as men of incredible might, who were accountable to no one, and who suppressed anyone who tried to stand in their way.

These examples of extraordinary power elicit different responses from different individuals. Some think on these devastating disasters and powerful men and are humbled by their seeming insignificance and lack of ability to influence, control, or prevent these things from happening. Some think on these devastating disasters and powerful men and are inspired. They look to science for ways of predicting natural disasters and look to politics for ways of preventing dictatorships so that in the future people will be spared from the devastating results of both. And some think on these devastating disasters and powerful men and fear. They see humanity’s inability to predict and prevent these things and fear the time when the next natural disaster may strike or next world leader may rise to power and they find themselves in the path of a force that they are unable to influence or protect themselves from.  But fear should never be the response of those who are believers in and followers of Christ. For while the natural disasters and world leaders of the past have certainly put extraordinary power on display, at no time have those natural or political powers ever surpassed the might and supremacy of God. And one of the greatest reminders of the surpassing might and power of God comes from the text of Psalm 93.

Psalm 93 begins this way, “The Lord reigns” (Psalm 93:1). The first three words of this Psalm speak volumes – they declare that God reigns as King. The word our English texts translate as ‘Lord’ in these verses is (in the Hebrew) the name ‘Yahweh,’ which in the OT is the divine name of God. Now note that the psalmist doesn’t begin by saying that the Lord ‘has reigned’ (in the past), or that the Lord ‘will reign’ (in the future). The psalmist begins by declaring something far more encompassing, “The Lord reigns!” The psalmist declares at the very beginning of this psalm the eternal sovereignty and supremacy of God - God has reigned as sovereign King in the past, God is currently reigning as sovereign King in the present, and God will continue to reign as sovereign King in the future. There has never been and never will be a time in which God does not reign supreme. What a declaration! What a remarkable truth! That in every moment of human history, including the times when we have seen great demonstrations of natural and political powers, God has never been off of His throne. There has never been a time when God has lost control of nature or been subject to the political leaders of the time. The most powerful natural disasters and the most powerful leaders throughout history have all had to take their place under the power and might of God the Father. It is a simple and yet profound statement – “the Lord reigns.”

The psalm continues by shedding further light on God and highlighting the unique ability of God to do what no other has ever done. “He is robed in majesty” (Psalm 93:1). Merrian-Webster defines ‘majesty’ as (1) “sovereign power, authority, or dignity,” or as (2) “greatness or splendor of quality or character.” It’s a word we often think of in terms of describing royalty. But for those world leaders who have been ascribed majesty throughout history, they have only possessed their majesty for a season. They did not possess sovereign power, authority, or dignity as children and after their death they no longer possessed sovereign power, authority, or dignity. It was an attribute that was only possessed for a season and one that was attributed to them by others (i.e. it was passed on to them from their family or attributed to them after taking rule and control from other rulers which they overpowered). Yet as the psalmist continues to describe God in the first verse of this psalm, he declares that the eternal God is robed in majesty. Majesty is the clothing that God, the eternal King, wears. And if these are the clothes of the eternal God it means that His majesty isn’t His only for a season and that it was not attributed to Him by others. God clothed Himself with majesty and it has been and will always continue to be His possession. His ultimate majesty was not given to Him by others, nor will there ever come a time when it is passed on to another. Because God reigns sovereignly and eternally as King, He alone is clothed with ultimate majesty.

Additionally the psalmist tells us that “He [Himself] has put on strength as His belt.” In the same way that majesty is a temporal possession of those who have it on earth, so is strength. The strength of natural disasters – even the greatest natural disasters – eventually dies out. Volcanoes stop erupting, earthquakes stop shaking, hurricanes stop blowing, and tsunamis return to the sea and take their place once again in the steady beating rhythm of the tides. The strength of powerful world leaders – even the most powerful ones of history – has departed from them when they encountered old age and death. But this doesn’t hold true for God. The psalmist tells us that the eternal God and sovereign King has Himself put on around His robe of majesty unparalleled and eternal strength. He has possessed unmatched and unimaginable strength from eternity past and will continue to wear it as a belt for all eternity future. Try for a while to fathom that! Eventually you’ll come to realize that our finite minds, try as we may, will never be able to fully grasp these amazing truths. And yet our inability to fully understand them doesn’t impact or change the truthfulness of these statements. God alone eternally reigns as THE sovereign King, and true, unmatched majesty and strength are, and will continue to be, His eternal possessions.

It is because of these truths about God that the psalmist can then continue to say, “Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting” (Psalm 93:1-2). The psalmist goes on to declare that the world that God, by His unimaginable power created and sustains will never be shaken or moved by anything other than Himself. Give some consideration for a few moments to the creation process. God created everything that there is out of nothing! It wasn’t that God had a Rubbermaid tub of stars, another one of space, and another one of planets and decided one day to mix them together to create the universe. There was nothing! It wasn’t that God had a Rubbermaid tub of sand, another one of water, and another one with fish and decided one day to mix them together and create the beach. There was nothing! Genesis 1 tells us that creation happened when God in His unimaginable power simply spoke and things came into existence. God simply uttered the words and instantly those things came into existence. God spoke the word ‘stars’ and the stars (themselves filled with incredible power and might) instantly filled the universe. That’s power on a level that our finite minds won’t ever be able to fully grasp. But God’s power goes beyond the power to simply create. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians Paul reminds the church that it is also God’s power through Christ that sustains and holds all things together. “And He [Jesus] is before all things and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). So not only is it by God’s extraordinary power that creation came into existence from nothing at all, but it is also by God’s extraordinary power that it is held together moment by moment. The psalmist who wrote Psalm 93 understood that the world was created by God, the King who reigns supreme for all eternity who has clothed Himself with majesty and put on strength as the belt around His majesty. The idea that any natural power or any world leader would ever be able to shake or move the world which God, Himself, supernaturally created and continuously holds together is absurd.

As the psalmist moves on to verses 3-4, he narrows his focus for a moment to look at perhaps the most powerful and the most deadly of natural powers – water. “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring. Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!” Throughout history it has been the natural disasters which have involved water that have been the most devastating and which have caused the greatest loss of life. Volcanoes, tornados, and earthquakes have brought great disaster throughout history – but the disaster those physical powers have caused pale in comparison to the disaster that hurricanes, cyclones, floods, and tsunamis have brought. Water is the most powerful of natural powers and there are great reminders of this even in our most recent history. On December 26, 2004 an earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia that sent a tsunami racing toward the shore line that resulted in the death of approximately 230,000 people. On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina passed over the city of New Orleans, breaking multiple levees around the city that resulted in a flood that nearly destroyed the entire city. And on March 11th of last year many of you will remember the tsunami that struck Japan, killing more than 18,000 people, displacing approximately 452,000 more from their homes, and causing over $235 billion dollars worth of damages. These are just a few recent reminders of the power of water and the destruction that it can cause. To go even further, you can recall the most destructive natural disaster in all of history found in Genesis 6 when God destroyed the entire earth not with fire, or an earthquake, or a tornado, but with a flood. So when the psalmist in verses 3-4 begins to describe the floods lifting up their voices and lifting up their roaring, and the might of the waves of the sea, he is calling to mind the greatest and most powerful force that nature has – water. But while calling this great power and force to mind, he also declares in verse 4 that the Lord is mightier! That’s awesome! Particularly as you think back on some of those images that perhaps you saw of the Japanese tsunami last year. As you saw the waves sweeping over landscapes or rushing through city streets, carrying ships inland and pushing cars as if they weighed nothing at all, what can you imagine that could stop a force as strong and as powerful as that? It’s hard for me to imagine anything at all. And yet the psalmist says that God, Himself, is mightier. And in declaring this the psalmist sets the stage for an encounter Jesus, Himself, would have with a mighty storm and a raging sea recorded in three of the four NT gospels (Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25; and Matthew 8:23-27). Listen to how Mark recalls what took place in his gospel account. [Read Mark 4:35-41]. Most of Jesus’ companions were accomplished fishermen – men who had grown up fishing on the Sea of Galilee and who had experienced its fast and hard hitting storms. Yet this storm was more intense than any other they had experienced. It was so powerful that even these experienced fishermen believed that they were going to die. The wind was blowing fast and hard and the waves were crashing over the boats with brutal force. There was absolutely nothing that these men could do to resist the power of the storm. But Mark goes on to say that after waking Jesus from His sleep, Jesus “rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’” And immediately after speaking these words the wind stopped and the sea was completely calm! Here was One who indeed was “mightier than the waves of the sea.” The One and only eternal God, who exists in three Persons, is not a timid or tame God who is constantly worried about losing His power or control, or the commitment of those under His authority – He is an incredibly mighty God!

The psalmist concludes the psalm with these words in verse 5, “Your decrees are very trustworthy; holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.” In verse 5 the psalmist briefly shifts his focus off of God’s majesty and strength in order to make mention of a few of God’s other character traits. And while the psalmist doesn’t do much to explain or develop these character traits, mentioning them in the context of this psalm is important. Mentioning the unparalleled majesty and strength of God alone wouldn’t necessarily encourage the heart and faith of others. We know that unmatched strength and authority can be used for evil purposes and have unfortunately seen examples of that throughout history. So the psalmist concludes his psalm about the majesty and strength of God by putting it into context. The psalmist reminds us first that all of God’s decrees (or testimonies) are trustworthy. It’s a reminder that God, by nature, is true. All that He has revealed about Himself and all that He has declared to us (His creation) has been 100% true and is therefore completely trustworthy. Additionally, holiness is proper for God’s house because God, Himself, is holy. God’s holiness means that He is set apart from all that we know because He is without any hint of sin and is completely and totally righteous. This then becomes the context in which we are to see and understand God’s majesty and strength. God isn’t sitting on his throne in heaven plotting ways to use his majesty and strength to deceive His creation and to do evil. God is the holy and trustworthy God who is constantly using His majesty and strength to declare His goodness and glory, and to make know the reconciliation and personal relationship that we can share with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. God is awesome, and when He opens our spiritual eyes to see Him as He is, we will love Him, worship Him, and savor Him all of our days!

 

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