Psalm 97:1-12 The LORD reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.… I. THE FACT. 1. The sacred singer here speaks of a God who exercises a personal agency in the universe. The Lord "reigneth." That implies power. All energy that has play anywhere is in a true sense His. Gravitation, electricity, heat, what are these but names which we have given to the operations of the everywhere-present Deity? Even that force of will, and nerve, .and muscle which we and other creatures exert is from Him "in whom we live, and move, and have our being." 2. This personal agency of God is carried on in a regular and orderly way. The history of the universe is the development of His plan. He sits at the great loom, and, while the shuttles that carry the threads move, so to speak, consciously and of purpose, it is God who weaves the broad result, fabric and design being His. He reigns over beings who have not respect for His will, but are opposed to it, by working out, in His superior wisdom, His plans by means of their very opposition. II. ITS MYSTERY AND AWFULNESS (ver. 2). The symbol here expresses three ideas. 1. The majesty of the Divine government. Great clouds and darkness are ever suggestive of the sublime. And God's is a lofty and glorious rule. When we try, by the aid of astronomy, to realize the extent in space of God's material universe, and by the aid of geology to conceive of its past duration; when we think of the different generations of the human race which have existed, and of all the higher intelligences; and when we try by imagination to explore the eternal future, with its ever-opening vistas of life and crowding events which are to form history as real as that of the days that are gone by, we feel a necessity of adoration to relieve our hearts of the burden of their awe. 2. The incomprehensibility of the Divine government. God is within the "cloud and darkness." We do not see Him at all. His rule in every department is to us a thing of faith. Philosophers cannot tell what is the connection between cause and effect in the material world. And how, in the moral world, God works out His purposes by means of the free action of His rational creatures, and makes "His people willing in the day of His power," while their wills are still theirs, we cannot comprehend. But such are the facts. God does rule in these ways, as the uufoldings of history show. 3. There is the idea of the Divine government being characterized by judgments. Out of the "clouds and darkness" proceed "hailstones and coals of fire." "A fire goeth before Him, and burneth up His enemies round about." I, for my part, could not understand God's dealings with the world if I did not recognize the fact of there being sin in it, which leads to the expression of the Divine displeasure, and also to the use of the means of discipline. III. ITS MORAL EXCELLENCE (ver. 2). This "King" can "do no wrong." It is impossible from His very nature. That nature gloriously necessitates the working of righteousness. To a properly constituted mind there is no sight more sad than that of an unjust judge, an unrighteous government. The world has not been, and unhappily is not now, free from the baleful presence of such miscalled governments. But it is consolation, in view of them, that "justice and judgment are the habitation of God's throne." (W. Morrison, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.WEB: Yahweh reigns! Let the earth rejoice! Let the multitude of islands be glad! |
    |