Introduction

I spoke with a man this week who was an intelligent, highly educated, type-A engineer. He told me that the he didn’t understand why the Bible focused so much on looking backward all the time. He said that it’s full of too much history about Israel. He explained that he is concerned about tomorrow and making a lasting impact on the future and that ancient history seemed to be of no relevance to his life.

I explained to him that we look at what God has done throughout history to help us understand better how to make decisions today and tomorrow. When we look at God’s interaction with Israel, we can see in precise detail the path of righteousness. If we want to be on the path that God blesses and avoid the heartache and pitfalls of sin, then we look at God’s Word.

Today’s passage is Psalm 93. Psalm 93 (as well as Psalm 95-100) was written during a difficult time in Israel’s history. It was a time when Israel was faced with trials and storms. The text seems to line up with a period in history right after the nation of Israel was released from slavery and captivity in Babylon.

The Jews were captured by the Babylonians and taken back to Babylon as slaves. You may remember reading about those stories in the book of Daniel. After some time, the Babylonians were overthrown by the Medes and Persians. The New King, Cyrus, allowed the Jews to return home to their land in order to rebuild Jerusalem. Returning home to Jerusalem may have been a time of celebration, had it not been so difficult. The Book of Ezra recalls how rebuilding the temple and the city was met with physical challenges, political challenges and spiritual challenges.

It is important to understand that this Psalm was not written during an easy time in Israel’s history. It was likely written when they were pressed down hard on every side and they were desperate for God to make a break through. The leaders and the people in Israel needed encouragement to continue the work that God had given them to do.

Instead of focusing their attention on the depths of their difficult circumstances, this Psalm was written to help them focus their attention on the height of the glory of the God. Here is the first lesson we learn today from looking at Israel’s history:

• We don’t try to understand who God is by looking at the storm.
• We try to understand the storm by looking at who God is.

Here is what I mean:

• If I look at the storms that rage all around me, I can become consumed with the storm and forget all about God. I could convince myself that God doesn’t really care about me and that the storm is too much for Him to be able to control. When I focus on the storm, I can quickly begin to question God’s sovereignty and God’s power.That’s why we don’t focus on the storm, but instead we focus on God during the storm.
• If I keep my attention focused on the Lord in the midst of the storms, I see His power and His sovereignty. I understand that He either authored or allowed the storm that I’m facing right now and that He is totally in control. If He is allowing me to walk through a difficult time, it must ultimately be for my good and His glory. Even if I don’t understand what God is doing, I know that I can trust his character. Nothing that I face is outside of His control and His power.

We don’t try to understand who God is by looking at the storm. We try to understand the storm by looking at who God is. We can trust what God is doing when we understand who God is. The purpose of this psalm is to expand our view of who God is and to help us fix our gaze on Him during difficult trials. The first truth we need to understand about God, is that the HE reigns over the heavens.

The Lord Reigns over Heaven

The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.

First of all, how does God reign? He reigns in Majesty.

In Majesty

The best illustration of God robed majesty is found in Isaiah 6:1. Isaiah is allowed to see a glimpse of the glory of God in a vision. He says,

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

When this passage was written, Kings wore elaborate robes to display their military strength and to show the expanse of their authority and influence. After a king defeated another army in battle, he would cut off a portion of the defeated Kings robe and have it sewn onto the train of his own robe. So, the longer a kings robe was, the more victorious the king had been in battle and the more authority and influence he possessed.

When Isaiah caught a glimpse of the majesty of God, the train of His robe was not just long, but it FILLED the temple with glory.

God has been totally victorious in every battle in all of eternity past. The train of His robe was enormous…bigger than any train Isaiah had ever seen. God is undefeatable. He holds influence and authority over every power and every nation. When the Psalmist says that God reigns in majesty, it means that He reigns in a level of victory that has never been seen before because He has power that is unmatched in this world.

God reigns in majesty and He reigns in power.

 In Power

The kings of this world are puny when compared to the strength of our God.

• If God sets His mind on doing something, is there anyone who can keep Him from doing it? No king and no army can or ever will be able to overthrow God’s kingdom.
• If God decides that he going to stop an army in its tracks, is there any weapon or any military strategy that can push God’s hand aside?

He is the master. He orders everything to line up with His eternal purposes. The enemies of God may respond in rage but God’s plans will still be accomplished. Look at Psalm 2:

Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
² The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
³ “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”

⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision (distain).

God’s not just dressing the part of a king while having no real power. He’s not just a ceremonial King (That job is reserved for the King of England).

• He is powerful.
• He is majestic.
• His rule is not in appearance but in reality.
• Nothing else would exists if He had not placed it there.
• We exist only because God willed for us to exist.

(Here’s one for the philosophers) The very basis of reality rests in the fact that God is in control and He reigns over the earth.

The Lord Reigns over Earth

If God did not reign over the earth, the earth would not exist. Picking up the end of verse 1, let’s continue:

Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
² Your throne is established from of old;
you are from everlasting.

Inauguration: This passage stands in stark contrast to one of the ceremonies observed by the nations who worshipped a certain pagan god. Every year, the unbelieving nations celebrated the anniversary of the beginning of the reign of their false god.

We don’t celebrate the beginning of God’s reign. Why is that? We don’t celebrate it because His reign is eternal. He is not a new upstart deity. He never overthrew another deity, because no other god has ever existed nor will one ever exist. Before time began, God’s throne was set up and He was in charge. The Lord is eternal. He reigns from everlasting to everlasting. We sang a song this morning called Glory to God. It says:

Before the world was made
Before You spoke it to be
You were the King of kings

The government of God’s kingdom is set up to reign for all of eternity. When all the things of this world have faded away, God will still be on the throne. He will still be ruling. Any rebellion against God is in vain because the kingdom of our God cannot and will not be shaken.

So let the storms come. There is no nation, no weapon, no army, no disease, no disaster that can stop God’s plans from moving forward. God is never surprised… He never says, “Huh?! I didn’t see that one coming.”

God not only knows about the storms, but no storm happens that is not cleared by Him first.

The Lord Reigns over the Storms

The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
the floods have lifted up their voice;
the floods lift up their roaring.

“The Floods, The Floods, The Floods!!!” They are in trouble. Three times the floods are mentioned to emphasize the severity of these trials.

Twice the floods are in the past tense and the third time the flood is in the present tense.

There are floods in the past and we have floods now….

“The floods” could refer to physical, political or spiritual storms (or all 3), so let’s look at all 3 of those possibilities:

Physical

Physically and literally speaking, there were few things more terrifying to an ancient Jew than the open sea….specifically sailing on the Mediterranean Sea. Paul was not the first Jew to be shipwrecked. It was common for small sailing vessels to be overwhelmed by the wind and the waves out in the open water and for everybody on board to drown.

Ancient Jews were not sea-farers. There was no Hebrew navy. The Egyptians and the Phoenicians ventured out on the open seas. The Jews did not. Generally, they stayed on the land. They did their fishing in the Sea of Galillee – which is in essence a large lake and not really a sea at all.

The psalmist is pointing to the waves and the wind and the destructive forces of the water and saying, “our God is more powerful than even that.” Our God is more powerful than the most terrifying thing you can imagine. Turn over 2 chapters to Psalm 95:5. When it come to the sea,

⁵ The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

(He handles the land and the sea like it’s a sandbox)

⁶ Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

We can trust what God is doing in nature when we understand that God is good and that He reigns over nature. We can look to God and trust His power in literal storms and literal floods. The floods lifting up could be taken literally, but often in Hebrew writing, the tossing sea refers to the changing of political power

Political

When a storm is bearing down on the land, the waves swell and roar. When the waves get really big, it is powerful and is very frightening. BUT, after all of its rage and destruction, what comes of that wave? It disappears. It breaks. It just retreats back into the sea. It turns into mist.

The Hebrews sometimes used ocean storms to illustrate the shift of the balance of power. There have been empires that have arisen that have threatened nations and who have threatened the church. A new king with his army rises up and everyone is scared. He roars and destroys and then after a while, his army retreats back to nothing. After a moment, these rulers break and disappear. They seem as insignificant as the mist after a storm. Proverbs 21:1 says,

The king‘s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

The sea can rage and surge and swell and come upon the land with devastating force and yet the Lord can still control it. If he can control something as seemingly uncontrollable as the raging sea, then think of what the Lord can do with a mere man who is proud and full of rage!!

Kings, mobs, celebrities and savages are all subject to the Lord’s hand. Every crisis that we are alerted about on the news is still under subjection to God’s control. We have a choice when we watch the news.

• We can see our world in trouble and say “where’s God?” How come He’s letting this all happen? Is He powerless?
• Or we can focus our attention on the power of our King and say, “I wonder how God is going to use this crisis in His sovereign, unfolding plan for the universe.”
  And then pray, your Kingdom come, your will be done!

Disciples don’t try to understand God by looking at the news. Disciples try to understand the news by looking at God.

I’m not telling you to check out from reality. I’m telling you to take the troubles of this world to a powerful God. He is REAL HELP in time of crisis.

• He has the power to alter the course of any nation.
• He can overthrow any power.
• He can even forbid evil men touching even a single hair of his elect if He so chooses.

When we see trouble on the horizon, is our job to worry or to pray? Do we turn to the almighty God in faith or do we turn to anxiety?

I’ve talked to many men who are really upset by the news and I’ve given them this challenge:

• Watch the news for 15 minutes.
• Takes note on every story you see.
• Be totally informed.
• Then turn off the TV, get on your knees and pray for 15 minutes.

Your prayers will have a greater effect on our country than anxiety and worry could ever produce. If you watch the news without praying, then, as a believer, you have wasted your time. After your prayer time is over, turn off the news, pick up your Bible and fix your attention again on the greatness of our God.

We can trust what God is doing with Kings and nations when we understand that God is Good and that He reigns over politics.

There is a third aspect to the sea. The sea was very important to a very popular the false religion of the nations that surrounded ancient Israel.

Spiritual

Yamm and Baal: Without getting into a great deal of false, mythological stories that have long sense been discredited, there was a pagan belief in a Sea god named Yamm. This passage may have been written as a response to this false belief in Yamm.

In ancient mythology, Yamm, the sea god, was in constant conflict with Baal, the fertility god and Mot, the god of the underworld. Yamm was unpredictable, impulsive and supposedly responsible for violent ocean currents when he was having a bad day.

Was Baal or Yamm or Mot going to threaten the sovereignty of God?

The stories of the conflict between Baal and Yamm and Mot are really good drama for their day. It makes for good ancient fiction. BUT, that’s all it is. It’s just fiction. It’s entertainment. It’s myth and legend that is no more real than a ghost story around the campfire. The sea god was nothing to be afraid of because nothing in this world is more powerful than our God! The sea is subject to our God.

False religions will come and go. People are always making up new stories. We are facing a religious storm in our country right now. Leaders parade around as prophets and teachers while they are leading many people astray. Fad?: A lady once asked me how much longer I thought that Christianity would still be around – like it was yet another passing religious fad.

There is no false religion that can stop God’s purposes and no false teachers who will delay God’s plans. The church remains immovable in the midst of the storm – like a massive boulder on the shore of the beach. The waters of persecution are never so high that God’s power still isn’t greater. Look at verse 4:

⁴ Mightier than the thunders of many waters,
mightier than the waves of the sea,
the Lord on high is mighty!

The church may be beaten and bruised by the waves of this world, but the Lord will see to it that His church remains, because the Lord reigns over His people

The Lord Reigns over His People

Even through God is unbelievably powerful, He is still right here with us. He does not remain far off, but he is near and He wants to be known and He care deeply for you. So the first thing he did, was He gave us His commands. Verse 5

⁵ Your decrees are very trustworthy

When we are captivated by the Glory of our God and King, the appeal of this earth starts to become pretty small. When we really believe that Our God is greater than anything else in the entirety of the universe, then we want to do things His way. He’s greater, so his way must be better.

Then, when we do the things in the way that our Almighty Creator, God and King designed them to be done, then He is glorified and we are blessed as a result.

The only way we can obey God and the only way we can have peace in the midst of our trials is by fixing our eyes on Christ.

Trial Hands:

• If I focus my attention on my trials, God looks pretty small
• If I fix my eyes on God, my trials look pretty small.

When we take our eyes off our distress and put them on the deliverer, then the glory of our King make the troubles of this earth seem tiny by way of comparison. Remember that old song:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

As we become more and more consumed with who He is, it draws us to become more and more conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus. The process of being more like our Savior and our Deliverer is called holiness. Look at that last verse 1 more time:

Your decrees are very trustworthy;
holiness befits your house,
O Lord, forevermore.

Life Application

• Maybe today you are overwhelmed with the storms of this life. Maybe you are so focused on your problems that you can’t even see God and you need this encouragement:
  Take your eyes off your distress and cast them upon the deliverer. To do that, you are going to need to read your Bible! If you understand who God is, then you can trust that whatever He is doing is for your good and His glory. He is greater than whatever storm you’re facing today.
• Maybe today you are facing a trial physically or spiritually. Perhaps you are worried to death over politics and the future of our country and you need this encouragement:
  We can trust what God is doing when we understand that God is Good and He reigns sovereignly over all things

If we really trust the sovereignty of God, it will drive us to be people who pray!

Teaching Outline

The Lord Reigns over Heaven – v.1, Isaiah 6:1, Psalm 2

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Isaiah 6:1

The Lord Reigns over Earth – v. 1-2

The Lord Reigns over the Storms – v. 3-4, Psalm 95:5-6, Proverbs 21:1

The king‘s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. Proverbs 21:@

The Lord Reigns over His People – v.5

Application

Take your eyes off your distress and cast them upon the deliverer

We can trust what God is doing when we understand that God is Good and He reigns sovereignly over all things