Psalms 97:1 - Homiletics

God's sovereignty.

"The Lord reigneth." To a thoughtful, loving, earnest Christian heart, the spectacle of prevailing disorder, wrong, misery, in this world (today as in past ages) is a source of sometimes almost unbearable wonder and grief. Then it is unspeakable consolation to remember "the Lord reigneth" ( Psalms 11:3 , Psalms 11:4 ). As from his own sin and trouble he takes refuge in God's love; so from the apparent triumph of evil, in God's righteous rule. God's Kingship or sovereignty involves these three:

I. SUPREME POWER . "If we speak of strength, lo! he is strong." "With God all things are possible." No design, no emergency, to which his power is not equal. He is the Source—the Creator—of all other power. The forces of nature, the wills and faculties of men—of all creatures, lower or higher than men—have their root and being in him; hang on his sovereign will ( Psalms 33:8 , Psalms 33:9 ). We must not think of God's power apart from his wisdom ( Psalms 147:5 ). Nor of these apart from his love ( Psalms 145:9 , Psalms 145:10 ). Blind unconscious force—the universe of atheism—is the most frightful of all conceptions. Force guided by loveless wisdom is an impossible idea, for it would have no motive for exercise. But it is "the Lord" who reigns; and "God is love."

II. RIGHTFUL AUTHORITY . The righteous self-evident claim to absolute and universal obedience. Power without right would be tyranny. Right without power would be an empty shadow—crown without sceptre. The right to obedience, and power to enforce it (or punish disobedience), together make up authority. Therefore to those attributes of power, wisdom, and love, we must add righteousness. "The sceptre of his kingdom is a right sceptre." While nature and Scripture proclaim that he does reign, reason and conscience declare that he ought to reign.

1 . The right of absolute ownership is his ( Psalms 100:3 ). He has created us.

2 . Of infinite benefaction. All we have or hope for, or ever can enjoy, is his free gift.

3 . Of perfect and sole fitness, infinite ability, to rule the universe he has created and owns. Knowledge which nothing, great or small, escapes. Power which upholds all in being, and which, if he please to exert it, none can resist. Goodness which no demand can overtax.

III. ACTUAL EXERCISE OF GOVERNMENT . ( Psalms 103:19 .) "He doeth according to his will," etc. ( Daniel 4:35 ). He has bound all nature with a chain of love which natural forces and existences cannot even seek to break. He has given to man and other spiritual creatures, with reason to apprehend duty, and conscience to approve our fulfilment or condemn our neglect, a will endued with the mysterious power of disobeying his law, resisting his will. Without this we should be incapable of willing, reasonable, loving, conscientious obedience. Men therefore do disobey God; and the direct result of disobedience is the misery and death which fill our world ( James 1:13-15 ). But man's disobedience cannot relax God's authority, or alter the fact that over all he reigns and rules. And this supreme authority is in the hands once nailed to the cross ( John 5:22 , John 5:23 ; Matthew 28:18 ; Ephesians 1:21-23 ; Revelation 5:12 , Revelation 5:13 ).