We’re going to be in Psalm 93 this morning. I’ve been trying to be diligent to read through the Psalms with my family at night. I’m not perfect with it by any means, but it’s something I learned from the pastor that baptized me years ago. He was adamant about reading through the Psalms and the Proverbs every month. You take the Psalms and you read on the first of the month. You read Psalm 1, 31, 61, 91, 121, and so on. Every month you’ll read all five books of the Psalms. The same thing with Proverbs. According to the day, you read that. I have never lived up to that. Sorry, Pastor Rick. That was basic nutrition for him. That was supplemental to. That was supplemental to your other studies and whatnot. He was demanding. I love Pastor Rick.

In my reading through the Psalms this past week, the Psalms struck me. It’s been a sweet time sitting with the Lord on it. I hope that he will speak through me and show you what he has here in this wonderful Psalm. Let’s read it. Psalm 93. The Lord reigns. He’s robed in majesty. The Lord is robed. He has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established. It shall never be moved. Your throne is established from of old. You are from everlasting. 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. Your decrees are very trustworthy. Holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.

The drive and the force behind the whole Psalm is this. The Lord reigns. It’s an exclamation. It’s something to be proclaimed. The Lord reigns. Hey, the Lord reigns. The Lord reigns. It’s a proclamation. It’s an exclamation. There’s an exclamation point on the end of that.

It parallels awfully close with Jesus when he comes on the scene and he begins his ministry. What is he doing? He’s walking through the city and through the towns and the villages. What is he proclaiming? The kingdom of God is at hand. And a kingdom. Has to have what? Has to have a king. Jesus came and the first thing that he does when he arrives on the scene is to start proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand. And by saying that, he’s saying, hey, the king is here. The king is with us. It’s something to be heralded. The Lord reigns. It’s something to be said as it is a fact. It’s not a suggestion. It’s not something to be timid with. It’s something to be bold and to own like you really believe it.

It’s something to the lost and the heathen world, those who would make war on the Lamb. It’s something to be proclaimed with force. The Lord reigns. It’s non-negotiable. And to those who know him and are downtrodden and are hurting and they’re lowly and they’re broken, it’s something, as one commentator said, you whisper it in their ear. You say it softly as a comforting reassurance. Hey, man, the Lord reigns. Don’t worry about that. The Lord reigns. If we can grasp this, Calvin says it, he says everybody will confess with their mouths that this is true. The Lord reigns. But do you really believe it? And that’s going to be proven by how you go about your life. Because if we really believe this, we would use it as a shield to defend against all the enemy’s arrows. We would use it as the shield to fight and to battle all of our fears and our anxieties. If we really, really, really believe this, with faith, unshakable, nothing would stir us up. Nothing could come against us and knock us off course. Nothing could take my mind and cause me to doubt and to fear and to worry. Because the Lord reigns and I know it.

It’s an exclamation. The Lord reigns.

He says he reigns. The Lord reigns in the present. It’s a perfect tense verb. It’s something that is happening right now, almost with the idea that it is already accomplished. He reigns.

It’s not only true that the psalmist who penned this through the Spirit was saying that the Lord reigned then. It’s ever true. The Lord reigns. It is what he does. It is part of who he is as a Lord. So just know that there’s never an ending point to the exclamation. He reigns presently. And tomorrow, he will still be reigning presently. And tomorrow, after that, he will still be reigning presently. Amen.

An unending, never-ceasing reign.

The Lord reigns according to his person. When I say person, personally, he reigns, he rules in line with his nature and who he is as God.

He does it. He does it. We all do this, right? We all behave. We all act out and do things according to our nature. Ephesians 1, going into 2, talks about how we were given over to the passions and the lusts of our flesh, and we were children by nature, children of wrath. We do the things that we do because it is our nature. The Lord reigns because it is in his nature to reign. And he does it in a few different ways, lined out in this psalm. I’m sure we could go on and on and find more characteristics of his rule. But here we see that the Lord reigns in majesty. He clothes himself. He robes himself in majesty. Think about kings. Royal mantles is what they wear. That’s what the robe is called, the cape. It’s a royal mantle. And just doing some brief looking up what kings would have worn. I think one of the big ones was silk, a robe of silk. It’s a sign. It’s a sign of status. It’s just an indicator. If you go to McDonald’s this morning, you get to the cashier, they’re going to be wearing a particular shirt. I only know this because I worked at McDonald’s. They’re going to be. They’re going to be wearing a red button-up shirt with a little black hat. And they’re going to serve you, and you will know that they are a cashier. And the grill worker is probably going to be wearing the same. But if you look over to the side, you’re probably going to see somebody in a blue shirt with like a red scarf or a red tie around their neck. That’s the store manager. You know that by the way that they are dressed. There are indicators about them that tell you who they are.

That’s common. Probably in all societies, in all times, and it’s certainly true in our day. You distinguish yourself from other people based on things like the way you dress, the way you speak, the things that you do, the places you go. Kings distinguish themselves in this time by wearing a robe. Not everybody gets a robe. I’m sure you’re walking down the street with a robe on. It ain’t going to go well for you. You’re stepping on the king’s territory.

But what is a robe of silk to a robe of majesty?

You think of majesty, it has the idea of rising above. It has the idea of loftiness, superiority. It has the idea, as Merriam-Webster would put it, sovereign authority. There is nothing that rises above it. The Lord paints a picture for us. His robe is a robe of majesty. The highest. To go even further, Revelation 19 tells us about the rider on the white horse that comes down. And his name is faithful and true. And he has many crowns on his head. And his eyes are like flames. And he has a robe dipped in blood. Only King Jesus is fit to wear the robe dipped in blood because it is his own. He has a whole host coming after him. An army coming after him, following on white horses as well. But their robes are as white as snow. Not even the hosts of heaven are fit to wear the robe that Jesus Christ wears. He alone clothes himself. Himself in majesty. Jesus Christ alone can distinguish himself from all others with a robe dipped in crimson blood that is fit to wash away every sin and every stain on everyone that he saves. Jesus alone wears the crown of many crowns. He alone bears the name, the Word of God.

The Lord reigns in a distinguished way.

He wears strength as his belt. The King James says that he girds himself with strength. Again, referencing Pastor Rick, I’m thankful for that man. Lord bless you, Pastor Rick. I remember him. He’s a gentle man. He’s soft and he’s quiet. He’s big too. I remember he’s the first person. He’s the first person that made sense of the word girded. We don’t use it because it’s not modern English. But it means to get it ready. So people would wear these baggy clothes, right? The men would have these baggy clothes on. And you can’t run or do anything or fight or whatever and all this stuff. So you’ve got to roll it up and tie it up and get ready to move. Like you watch a sport and you see the athlete kind of adjust their clothes and get into a crouched ready position. They’re girding themselves. They’re girding themselves up.

The Lord is girded with strength. The belt has the same idea. It has the same form and function. I put my belt on to tighten up my pants so that when I’m walking down the sidewalk, I ain’t falling around my knees. It helps me to get ready for what I’m about to do, right? The Lord, by His nature, is ready and able. He girds Himself with strength. The Lord possesses the strength and the power necessary to both exert force on those He would exert it on and withstand those who would attempt to come against Him. The Lord, by His nature, by who He is, is girded with strength. And He, above all others, is ready to withstand all the forces of evil, all the hosts of hell that would assail Him. And His church.

The world is established and it shall not be moved. The Lord, by His nature, being the Creator that He is, established the world. Not only did He establish it, but it says that it’s held together by the power of His Word. King Jesus, created and sustains the world as we know it. The sun comes up every morning. The moon comes up when it does in its phases. It sets in the evening. Because the Lord holds it in those patterns. You think about the patterns that you see in space. The way years resemble. I mean, almost to the day you can detect weather patterns and temperatures and all these things. And these bodies in heaven are roaring around at thousands of miles an hour and spinning around another body. And this galaxy is twisting with that galaxy. And the Lord Jesus, by the power of His Word, is holding all of those things together.

He reigns over everything.

And it shall not be moved. I don’t need to worry about hurricanes and earthquakes and all of these things. I don’t need to worry about comets smashing into the earth at 100,000 miles an hour because it’s up to the Lord to decide those things. It’s up to the Lord to control the weather patterns. Whatever He sees fit to do, He is sovereign over it. I just need to trust Him. I need to believe that the Lord reigns.

His throne is established from of old. It’s from everlasting.

Lord, by His nature, because of who He is, has no beginning and He has no end. He is not new to governing. He is not new to ruling. He is not new to overseeing a kingdom. He’s not figuring this out as He goes. He’s been doing it. He’s been doing this for a long time. That should be comforting to us. Again, if we truly believe this, it’s going to impact the way you just are. You will wake up tomorrow morning in a state of peace. You will go to sleep tonight in peace because you believe that the Lord is presently reigning according to His will. nature. And He’s good and He can be trusted. He knows what He’s doing. You’ve got to believe. You’ve got to believe that.

But, we all know, floods come.

The floods have lifted up. But, yeah, yeah, I know the Lord reigns. I know He’s good. But, that’s where we always fall off the wagon. But, well, you just don’t know what’s going on in my life. I know, I know, I need to get right with the Lord. I know, I know, I know, I know I can trust Him. But, there’s no but to it. There’s no exceptions. And again, again, this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where your faith gets tested to decide whether it’s genuine or not. And thank you, Lord, that you have so much mercy and patience with us when our faith is weak. As Rebecca prayed, we’re so often unfaithful. We’re so often doubting. We’re so often fearful and anxious. And we fret, Lord, Lord, because the floods have lifted up. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a flood. There’s something about water. For the first many years of our marriage, me and Rebecca, it seemed like once a year, something with water always happened. Like our first year married, it was Christmas Eve. And we were getting ready and I was putting some stuff in the bathtub for Rebecca and turned the water on and shagged out the door. And then I get home to find out that my door had been kicked in. And Papa locked or something. And they had shut the water off. And the lady downstairs got the pleasure of being dripped on and poured on for however many hours we were gone. One time, the same apartment, the same lady living below me, my washing machine decided it wasn’t going to cut off. It was just going to keep filling up. The waters were coming. And water finds cracks you didn’t know existed. Water will find a way. It’s just what it does. Right?

A handful of years ago, Christmas again. It was Christmas Day. We woke up Christmas morning. My brother-in-law and my sister-in-law were sleeping. In our previous house, we had a garage that was converted over the livable space. They come up there talking about there’s water on the floor. I was like, alright. There’s probably three, four, five inches of water on there. They were sleeping on some cots. And they got up and their feet got wet. I said, what’s going on? There was so much rain in my backyard. It just piled up. It moved dirt against the fence. The water couldn’t get under the fence. And it just came up. And guess what? When it came up so high, the door was there. And it was going to find a way in. There was just water everywhere. I think there’s two or three more probably. Just a few months ago, I think some place just north of here in Tennessee got some record like 18 inches of rain in 24 hours. The previous record was 14. The videos for that are insane. This water is just rushing down the street. It looks like a river has just taken over the middle of this city. There is nothing you can do when the floods come up. You might as well just grab something simple and just head on down the road. You ain’t about to save nothing. It’s ruined. It’s gone. You can’t stop it. Once the water starts rising and it’s coming, you can’t build a barrier fast enough to protect yourself from it. And the floods come in more ways than just literal. Floods seem to come all the time. If it’s not a literal flood, it’s a financial flood. And you can’t figure out how you’re going to pay the bills. Your car broke down and then the next week all your appliances in your kitchen go out. And then the next week you got $5,000 in medical bills. And then the next week on and on and on.

You have floods in your relationships. It seems like things are going well and then all of a sudden this person is mad at you and you offended them. And your boss doesn’t want to have it with you no more. You can’t deal with people. It just seems like people just overwhelm you. And you don’t know what to do.

Sometimes you got a sin of your old dirty stanky flesh coming back to life. And this flood just… This flood just wants to overwhelm you. And it seems like it can like nothing else can. It just grips you and it seeps into every area of your life. Whatever that besetting sin is that you can’t get off your mind, you just can’t get it off your mind. And when you’re at work, you’re thinking about it. When you’re at home, you’re thinking about it. When you’re having conversations with people, you’re not having conversations with them because you’re thinking about it. And on and on and on. The enemy, the devil is a roaring lion seeking those whom he could devour. He never sleeps. He never takes days off. He’s got the water hose full blast. The floods have come up. You got two choices now. You can believe or you cannot believe. Look who the psalmist calls on. He says, The floods have lifted up, O Lord. When you find yourself in that spot and you know, I know I’m done. There’s nowhere I can go. The water’s in. I ain’t going to try to sweep my floors no more because they’re ruined. You got to know who to call on. You have already got to be convinced and fully persuaded that the Lord reigns. You got to know that. Because if you don’t, it’s going to overwhelm you.

Jesus was in the boat. Oh, no, I’m sorry. The disciples were in the boat crossing across the sea, the lake. And a storm comes up and then they see Jesus walking on the water. And they’re all afraid. And Jesus is like, hey, hold on. Don’t be afraid. It’s me. In the middle of that storm, when the waves are crashing over and your boat’s filling up, and the flood’s rising, you got to know that it’s Him. He’s there. Another illustration in Luke is that Jesus is with His disciples and they’re crossing the sea. And He falls asleep. And the storm starts welling up. And it says that the boat is filling up with water. And His disciples start freaking out. Lord, Lord, how are you going to be sleeping in a time like this? What does He say?

Such little faith. Such unbelief. That’s what it boils down to. When you and I fret. When we try to work it out ourselves. Or even when we’re content to just stand in the water. And just moan and moan. Gungus move. Grumbling. Grumbling. You just don’t believe that the Lord is there, raining over you. You just don’t believe that the Lord is over that. The Lord reigns in providence. We talked about this a few months ago. Providence is to have great care or concern over something. In the middle of my storms, in the middle of what’s going on in my life, the Lord is not unconcerned. He has great concern over it. And He has great concern for me getting through it. You got to believe that. The psalmist repeats it three times. The floods have lifted. The floods have lifted up, oh Lord. The floods have lifted up their voice. They’re taunting you and hollering at you. And then they start pounding on you. He says, floods lift up their roaring. Some translations say pounding. They’re pounding waves. They’re just beating you down.

It’s not out of the control of the Lord who reigns. That’s a tough one. Honestly, when I preach these things, I preach them with fear. Because, I’m weak. I’m the first one to start fizzling out when stuff gets rough. I get overwhelmed easily by life at times. But I just got to keep reminding myself that the Lord rules and He reigns. And He does it in providence. It’s no surprise to Him. He’s working it out already for you. Whatever it is, He’s going to get you through it. Because He knows exactly why it’s happening. And it’s for a purpose. And because He cares for you greatly. He loves you like no other. And so whatever flood is overwhelming you, you’ve just got to trust the Lord and get in the boat.

It says that He’s mightier than the thunders of many waters and mightier than the waves of the sea. The Lord on high is mighty. There are no contests with the Lord of providence.

Lastly, the Lord rules with precision.

I learned this at work. And last night, late last night, I did it. And I’d already had the word and I knew about what it was and I started thinking about it and then it just made all the more sense to me and I hope that it will bless you. At work, we have control targets. You have something that you know is true. And then you take a measurement and you compare it to it. However close it is, that is the accuracy of a single measurement. Accuracy is how close one measurement is to the truth, to the standard. Any knucklehead can get something right once. Any two-bit king can follow through on what he says one or two times.

Only the Lord is trustworthy in the sense that He rules with such precision that everything He says comes to pass. Everything that He says He will do, He will do. Exactly how He said He’s going to do it. With great precision. The Lord has not only hit the mark once, He hits it over and over and over and over again. New Testament says that all God’s promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. Everything that the Lord has purposed to do, He will do. And He does it over and over and over and over again. Praise you, Lord. There is none like you. There is none like you.

The Lord reigns and His kingdom is fit for Him. The psalmist says that holiness befits your house, O Lord. God reigns in such a way that He works things out in His kingdom that are fit and pleasing for Him to dwell in it. Ephesians 1 again says that we are the body of Christ. Do you think Christ would be content to have a body that is anything less than holy? Anything less than fit for a sovereign, righteous, just king? No. His kingdom has no shenanigans in it. His kingdom has nothing unworthy of Him in it. And so as we pass on through this world, as we pass on through this world, As the Lord is working all of these different things out, He is preparing His kingdom to be fit for Him to dwell in for all of eternity. So whatever it is that you’re seeing, whatever floods it is that you see rising up, you just better trust the Lord that He’s getting you ready to be fit for a kingdom such as His. He will not have it any other way. The Lord has such great care and love for Himself and for His church that He will make it so. There’s no plan B. There’s not another option as how it’s going to happen. Forevermore.

The Lord, what He does is He rules over His creation with sovereignty. And He has a plan to purchase a people for Himself. And He accomplished that plan by sending His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin, to live a sinless life of righteousness, to lay that in exchange for our filthy, dirty rags. He was buried and He rose again to ever live. And anybody, anybody who will, anybody who will could just believe that the Lord reigns and come and inherit this kingdom that He’s prepared for you. Anybody, come and receive the kingdom that Jesus Christ has purchased for you. Look at that robe dipped in blood. I’m going to worship Him with me. Lord, You reign.

Would You make Your kingdom to come, Lord, so that You would have a fit, dwelling place. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your goodness toward us. I thank You for Your constant mercies toward us. I thank You for how You rule, Lord. Your people are graced with You ruling in a tender and merciful way. Lord, You provide every need. You provide every want for those who love You and seek You.

You’re a good and a gracious King.

So, Lord, we just pray that Your will would be done and that Your kingdom would come here on earth as it is in heaven. We just bless Your name, Lord Almighty. Amen.