Psalm 93, it's a very short psalm, only five verses, but it packs a punch.
Very forceful psalm. Let me read it out loud. Talk about it briefly.
The Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty. The Lord is robed. He has put on strength as his belt.
Yes, the world is established. He shall never be moved. Your throne is established from abode.
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.
It's a structure of the psalm as five triads, roughly following the verse divisions.
And in the first two-thirds of the verse one, we're told three times about God clothing himself, right?
Robing himself. The Lord reigns. He's robed in majesty. That's the first time.
The Lord is robed. Second time, and he has put on strength. That's the third time.
He's putting on strength. And that last phrase, putting on strength, is used throughout scripture to refer to being equipped for battle.
So, for example, in 2 Samuel 22, 40, he says,
For you equipped me with strength. It's the exact same phrase in Hebrew.
Equipped me with strength for the battle.
Same thing is said in Psalm 18, 39.
So, it's the image of God basically clothing himself as the warrior king.
He's clothing himself, roping himself, girding himself with the belt, the strength to go out for battle.
And the Lord is robed with majesty and strength.
And he has established his rule, his throne, forever over this world.
And that's what we see in the second triad, which begins from the end of verse 1 to all of verse 2.
It says,
Yes, the world is established. That's the first thing that's established.
Secondly, it shall never be moved.
Your throne is established from of old.
And then lastly, you, yourself, is from everlasting.
You are from everlasting.
And the Lord established the world.
He established his rule over it.
And then he himself is from everlasting.
That triad really is kind of talking about the fact that the world is immovable and that God is unchangeable.
He doesn't change.
His rule is not up for grabs.
It's, right, someone was, I saw somebody talking about the election, right?
All those house seats, they're up for grabs.
God's throne is never up for grabs.
He's sovereign.
He's established his rule forever.
And in verse 3, we find a challenger to this warrior king.
And repeats three times, right?
The floods have lifted up, O Lord.
The floods have lifted up their voice.
The floods lift up their roaring.
I mean, the floods really, in ancient Near Eastern kind of mindset, in imagery, represent all the forces of chaos and evil.
And so you can really attribute, kind of substitute that with that word, the floods, with anything in your life that's really evil, suffering, difficult things, results of sin, that are kind of rebelling against God and his creation order in our lives.
And all the things in the world, rulers and empires that set themselves against the Lord, evil, suffering in the world, difficult circumstances of our own lives that make us question God's sovereign rule over us.
All of these are floods that lift up and raise their voice against God.
And then verse 4, we find the outcome, right, of this challenger.
And verse 4, mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty.
Once again, three times, mighty, mighty, all-powerful.
You might think that the enemies that we face are mighty.
You might think that the problems you face are mighty.
You might think that the evil and sin in your own heart and in this world are mighty.
But the Lord is mightier still.
He is the one that's mighty.
He's on high.
In fact, he says, right, he's on high.
The Lord on high is mighty, meaning beyond the reach of these thundering waves, thuring waves that are below us.
The challenger has thrown his best punch, but the Lord is not phased in the least, right?
The waves can't even reach him.
That's the picture that's being painted here.
And then verse 5 is the application for the believer.
For these reasons, it says, your decrees are very trustworthy.
Holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.
Because God is king forever.
Because his reign is established beyond doubt.
His decrees, his word, his testimonies are very trustworthy.
It's really exceedingly trustworthy.
That's what that expression means.
And do we really believe that, right?
Do we believe that when the waves of our lives are thundering around us, roaring about us,
that what God has said is very trustworthy, right?
Do we take God at his word, right?
When our circumstances don't seem to match up with the things that God has told us, God has promised to us,
do we still live by what he has said?
Do we still live by what we believe, or do we live by what we feel and see, right?
And because God's decrees are very trustworthy, it says holiness befits God's house, right?
Holiness captures the idea of something that is sacred, set apart from things that are common.
And God's house is something that is set apart for God, set apart from the rest of the world.
And the word house also can mean, it contains the idea of a household.
And that idea is taken up in the New Testament because it describes the people of God as the temple of God, right?
The dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
And we are also the family of God.
And because God's decrees are very trustworthy, God's people should follow them.
And following God's very trustworthy decrees, we should become increasingly characterized by holiness.
People who are set apart for God, for his special purposes, consecrated to him forevermore.
And when we examine our own lives, right?
If someone were able to get kind of a long view of our entire life, right?
And to see all the details, everything we say, everything we do, everything we buy, everything we watch.
Would we look like people who have been consecrated to God?
Set apart for a special purpose.
Would we look like that?
Someone that is given wholly to this God who is robed in majesty and strength.
Or does it look like we belong to another?
Someone else.
And the predominant metaphor in the psalm of God as the warrior king, right?
Who subdues, deceives, is fulfilled by Jesus in the New Testament.
And you guys can probably think of instances where that comes out.
Right?
It's well known in the Old Testament that only God can tame the sea.
Only God.
God is described as the one who walks over the seas.
He's the one that sets a boundary for the sea.
And then throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus silencing the winds, right?
And causing the storms to cease.
In Mark 4.39, it says that Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea,
Peace, be still.
And the wind ceased.
And there was a great calm.
It shows that because Jesus is the Son of God.
Because he is the Lord of creation that the Jews have been worshipping throughout the Old Covenant.
But the greatest storm that he calms is not the physical storm, right?
But it's what did Jesus come to do?
He came to seek and save the lost, right?
He came so that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, right?
Of whom I am the worst, Paul says, right?
And I think that's when the unrelenting waves of our sins are lifting up their voice against God
and they're clamoring for justice.
Jesus is the one that proves mightier than the thunders, mightier than the thundering waves.
He's the one that proves mightier than the waves of the sea.
And he died on the cross for our sins.
So that our sins can be forgiven by God.
So that our sins on our part are dealt with.
And then so that God's wrath can be satisfied.
So that his wrath against us can be satisfied.
So that both barriers, keeping us from God and keeping God from us, is removed in Jesus.
And we are able to reign with him, join him, be united with Christ.
And so Jesus, having been raised from the dead and ascended to the heaven,
he's the one that reigns as this eternal king.
And the main message really of this psalm is that the Lord Jesus is the eternal king whom we should trust and follow.
That God, the Lord God, is the eternal king whom we should trust and follow,
no matter how difficult things might get.
That God has been saved from the dead and conc kneading.
of His life, the end of Jesus, for the dead and of his life,
He is the eternal kingdom where God has secured.
That a long term Holy Wolf will chant,
Capricult and times its doom God.
ong Espero for all our things
and he continues to cheer you to force him.
We do, we do, chattering and show God.
Is that right now?