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I. THE TRANSCENDENT GREATNESS OF THE PSALMIST'S GOD.

1. He is great in the eternity of His existence. God "only hath immortality." Finite beings are always going forward to further immortality; but God possesses it in the most absolute sense. Other beings depend for their immortality on the will of their Maker, and flow of their duration; but He is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." And as He is infinite in essence, He must necessarily be indestructible in the nature of His existence; for the power that destroys must always be greater than what is destroyed.

2. He is great in the immateriality, unity, and immensity of His existence. These are all necessarily implied in His eternity.

3. He is great in Omnipotence. Creation, in all its works of greatness and grandeur, falls infinitely short of a full exhibition of omnipotent power. For no finite substances, however multiplied and extended, could ever fill boundless space, or circumscribe the efforts of God Omnipotent. Here we might contemplatively roam after the ways and works of the Almighty Architect, until we were bewildered and lost in the magnitudes, mazes, and mysteries of creation. His power is also manifested in upholding all things created. He commands all the suns, systems, and planetary orbs, and they move in obedience to His sovereign pleasure.

4. He is boundless in love. Our first parents proved His goodness in the Garden of Eden, where His benevolence lavished around them every charm. There the "Tree of Life," in grand and conspicuous pre-eminence, unfolded its verdant glories, and invited the human pair to partake of its immortality. The redemption of this fallen world is another proof of Divine love — into which angels desire to look, and in which we are everlastingly interested.

5. He is gloriously great in holiness. All the works of His creation, holiness of His laws, dispensations of His providence, influences of His Spirit, and condemnation and overthrow of wicked men and devils, proclaim that He is holy. And "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," will be the sublimest song that immortal millions can endlessly sing in the heaven of heavens.

6. He is incomprehensibly great in omniscience.

II. HE IS A "GREAT KING ABOVE ALL GODS."

1. His right to the empire.

(1) Right of eternal priority. As there can be but one absolute and endless monarchy, so there is but one supreme and independent King.

(2) Right of eternal sufficiency. His "throne is for ever and ever." It is founded in infinite wisdom, and upheld by everlasting strength. Amidst the revolutions of ages it stands the same.

(3) Right of universal inheritance. In His administration no law can be defective, no faithful subject go unprotected, and no enemy be triumphant. The thunders of the throne shall prevent all invasion, and His omnipotence defy all usurpation, until His right to reign shall be indisputably acknowledged, and the God of everlasting sovereignty be gloriously magnified.

2. His extensive empire.

(1) He reigns in the Kingdom of Nature. He reigns over inanimate nature by those fixed laws which regulate and revolve all matter; and carries forward as undeviatingly His superintendence over an atom as over a magnificent world. He reigns over animate irrational nature by instinct. He reigns over man by reason, conscience, and revelation.

(2) He reigns in the kingdom of providence.

(3) He reigns in the kingdom of darkness and damnation.

(4) He reigns in the kingdom of grace, for the protection and complete triumph of His Church.

(5) He reigns in the kingdom of glory — the heaven of heavens, the home of all the saint.

(W. Barns.)

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KJV: For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

WEB: For Yahweh is a great God, a great King above all gods.