Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Psalm 97. Psalm 97 on page 584 in most of the pew Bibles. This psalm came to mind during Firestorm 2007, both because of its imagery and also because of the comfort it offers for those for whom all seems lost. Psalm 97 is one of eight psalms known as enthronement psalms that celebrate the sovereign rule of the Lord over all creation, but especially for his people. Six of these are all clustered together here in what is the fourth book of the Psalter, a collection of psalms that offer hope in the face of adversity, and which first offered hope to the people of Judah when they came back from the exile in Babylon. If you remember the story of the exile, King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and he took the people away. But you may not remember that in 597, according to 2 Kings chapter 25, he set fire to the temple of the Lord. The royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. The whole Babylonian army broke down the walls around Jerusalem and he carried into exile the people. And it wasn't until 70 years later, at the appointed time, that the Lord brought them back to Jerusalem. And it was great to get out of Babylon. But to what did they return? To the aftermath of Firestorm 597. To a burned out temple, a burned out palace, a broken down city, and the charred rubble of homes and shops. Not only did they have no homes to live in themselves, but there was no palace and no son of David to rule over them. And they questioned the faithfulness of the Lord, who, by the way, had no temple, that he might dwell among them. It seemed that they had lost everything. And it's into this void that Psalm 97 speaks, along with all the enthronement psalms, It's a clear reminder that the Lord, who was their king long before David, who was among them before the temple was ever built, was still their king. The temple had been but his footstool. His throne was in the heavens. And this was reason for rejoicing and to be glad for the people of God in their desperate circumstances. And it remains true today. The Lord is king. And it is He who reigns in glory over all. Therefore, He is the one in whom His saints rejoice. Let us hear the Word of God, Psalm 97. The Lord reigns. Let the earth be glad. Let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround Him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him and consumes His foes on every side. His lightning lights up the world, the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim His righteousness, and all the people see His glory. All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols. Worship Him, all you gods. Zion hears and rejoices, and the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments, O Lord. For you, O Lord, are the Most High over all the earth. you are exalted far above all gods. Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful people and delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name. Here ends the reading of God's word. The psalmist begins, The Lord reigns. The Lord is King. And then he goes on in this psalm to refer to the Lord 20 times. Six of them by name. He certainly is wanting to turn the attention of God's people away from their earthly circumstances to the heavenly things where the Lord is on His throne. And we must, I don't know why I feel like I need to remind myself and others that when we read in the Bible, Lord, with all capital letters, we need to remember that we're dealing with a proper name. Our English Bibles translate the name of the one true God of creation, the one true God who reigns, and that name is Yahweh. It's not just any God who sits on the throne. It's not Vishnu, it's not Allah, it's not the Force, it's not a God of our own choosing that sits on this throne. It's the Yahweh God, it's Yahweh God. who created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. It's Yahweh who established the covenant of grace with Abraham. It's Yahweh who revealed his name to Moses in the burning bush so that Moses would later sing, Yahweh will reign forever and ever. The Lord is king. Yahweh is king. And the psalmist wants Judah in their desperation as well as you and me in our trials and our difficulties to remember that Yahweh, the Lord, is king and he reigns in glory. over all. What does that mean that he reigns in glory? That's how verse 6 ends. It's the center of the psalm. It's the focus of attention in a certain sense. What's it mean that the Lord reigns in glory? Glory is one of those simple words to spell or to say, but it's one of those difficult words to define. And so I took that question, what does it mean that, what do we mean by the glory of God? I took that to my biggest Bible encyclopedia, which, by the way, is very thick. And I found this answer. There is difficulty in trying to analyze God's glory because of its many aspects. No simplistic answer can be given to the question. The answer must come in multiple terms. Only then can the comprehensiveness of this concept be, and I would say begin to be, understood. the psalmist uses this word that is so hard to comprehend and we must admit that we will never know the glory of God comprehensively we can't get our mind around it but the psalmist expects us to understand something about it truly and so to help us with this difficult concept he paints us a picture of God's glory he paints us a picture of what we call a theophany a visible presentation that God gives to His people so that they might see something of His invisible character and His attributes. When I read the Law of God this morning, I reminded you of the theophany of the Lord at Mount Sinai. There was thunder and lightning. There was thick cloud over the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire. See, those are all things we can relate to. They're all given by God to help his people understand something about his glory. According to Deuteronomy chapter 5, when Israel heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leading men and the elders came to Moses and said, The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty. They understood. And so should we. The Lord announced His active presence among His people by this revealing, this revelation of His glory, not only at Mount Sinai, but throughout their life with Him. According to Exodus chapter 40, when Moses finished building the Ark of the Covenant and the tabernacle in the wilderness, the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Visible. After the Lord established him in the Promised Land and he gave Solomon authorization to build the temple for him. He continued to make his presence known after the Ark of the Covenant was seated in the temple. Again, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord, visible for the glory of the Lord filled the temple. It's these images that the psalmist brings to our minds this morning. He wants us to recall these visible and powerful displays of the past in order to remind Judah and us today of the invisible and all-powerful presence of the Lord in the future when he'll come in glory, but also in the present. He's in our presence. He begins in verse 2 by focusing our attention on invisible attributes set in parallel with the visible, just like we saw the cloud for the glory, the smoke for the glory. Here he sets in parallel clouds and thick darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. So he's using the visible to point us to the invisible, to the character of God. And he closes in verse 6, this Theophany, with another parallel that also focuses our attention on righteousness. A particular attribute of God's glory. The heavens proclaim his righteousness and all the peoples see his glory. And between these two bookends, he highlights all the visible characteristics of a theophany to paint the whole picture. The fire goes out before him to consume his foes on every side. His lightning lights up the world. The earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, for the Lord of all the earth. But when we take it all together, he's given us this picture to point us to something that's not visible. And that is the particular attribute he wants to call to mind that we very much need to remember when times are tough and when life seems unfair and that is the righteousness of God. The Lord is upright and he is true in his character and in his being. And he's perfect and he's unbiased in his justice, how he judges things and handles things and governs things according to his nature. The Lord is who He says He is and He does what He says He'll do. Therefore, we can be confident that He always does right even when our circumstances seem to go so wrong. The Lord reigns in glory. And the psalmist wants to focus on His righteousness in particular. And there's one more thing the psalmist wants to point out about the Lord who reigns and that is that he reigns in glory over all. He doesn't rule in a corner. He rules over all. Solomon, at the height of his wisdom, when he dedicated the temple and the glory of the Lord filled the temple, he raised and he answered an important question that day. He said, will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built. Solomon understood that the temple was just a picture, a pointer, a visible reality that pointed to a greater and invisible reality of the throne room of God in heaven. That he reigned not only over Israel, who he had chosen to live with in the temple, but he reigned over all creation. And the psalmist makes his point this way in verse 1. He says, Let the earth be glad, let the distant shores rejoice, And in verse 2, his lightning lights up the world. The earth sees and trembles. And then he states it very directly in verse 5. The Lord, again all capitals Yahweh, is the Lord, the ruler of all the earth. This is why Solomon prayed that day. He prayed for the Gentiles when he dedicated the temple. He prayed that when he comes and prays toward this temple, He prays to the Lord that he would hear from heaven. That he would hear from his dwelling place. And that he would hear and do whatever the foreigner asked. And why did he pray this? He prayed it so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you. That all the peoples of the earth would know that Yahweh is king. The Lord reigns. And Solomon did not pray in vain that day. it was the hope of God's people. It was the purpose to which they had been called, that they would be a light in the darkness, that they would be a beacon to the peoples and that people would come to them to worship their God. So when was that prayer fulfilled? When was it answered? Well, it wasn't answered by the time the temple was destroyed in Firestorm 597. All the nations did not worship the Lord. In fact, today they still don't worship the Lord. So when the Jews returned from exile, they built another temple. And they hoped that the glory of the Lord would return. And that they could get on with the job that they had been given to do. And the glory of the Lord did return to his temple. But it took 500 years. And it wasn't in the way they expected. It was Simeon who recognized it, who recognized him, Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal word of God, who came in the flesh and dwelt among his people. Simeon cried out in Luke chapter 2, Sovereign Lord, my eyes have seen your salvation, which have been prepared in the sight of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, in the glory of your people Israel. The king of glory had come. And he was dedicated in the temple in Jerusalem. But only Simeon saw. And it took another 30 years before Jesus himself would announce that the kingdom of God had come near. But its glory was veiled. It was hidden by his humanity in which he'd come, not in glory, but in humility. He'd come to serve and not yet to reign. And Paul explains this beautifully in Philippians chapter 2 when he says that Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God in the flesh, came into this world, the glory of God veiled in his humanity to live a life of righteousness that the Lord demands of his people. And to die the accursed death that our sin deserves, and he did it in place of his people. He served us, he suffered for us, and he died. But before he went to the cross, before his humiliating death, he promised that even though he would go away, he would come again. And he would come again in glory. He said in Matthew chapter 20, I think it's 25, didn't write it down, when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. All those pictures from the past that the psalmist wants us to remember in the present are pointing to that day when it won't just be smoke and fire. It will be the unveiled glory of God that will march upon this earth. And the psalmist anticipates that day when all the peoples will see his glory in verses 7 and 8. He speaks of the goats without calling them that name. All who worship images and boast in idols are put to shame. The coming of the Lord in glory will expose their gods for what they are, things that owe worship to the true God. The Lord is king and he reigns in glory over all of creation and over every authority whether real or imagined. All ye gods worship Him. And then in verse 8, the sheep who are glad because of His judgments, who rejoice to hear of His glory, who will confess with the psalmist in verse 9, You, O Lord, are the Most High over all the earth. You are exalted above all gods. That day is coming. And it will come to pass because of what God has already done. Again, in Philippians chapter 2, He has already exalted His obedient Son, Jesus Christ, to the highest place and gave Him the name that's above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus Christ reigns. Even now. But until the day he comes in glory, we, like the psalmist, must endure circumstances in this life that are hard. That are the result of sin and the misery it brings and the curse against sin in this world. But we should not be surprised, the scriptures say. Peter tells us in his first letter, he says, dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you. but rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. That's the time in which we live. That's the time to which the psalmist anticipated and in which the people of Judah pictured for us a time where everything seems lost when in fact our Lord is on the throne. And today we know what the inspired psalmist only anticipated that the Lord Jesus is the King. And He reigns in glory over all and He is the one in whom His saints rejoice. Now in verses 10 through 12, the last part of this psalm, the psalmist turns his attention to God's people. He's already pointed them to the Lord and he's named Him by name and made it very clear He's the focus of attention. But now he turns his attention to the saints, to the people of God. And he mentions them seven times in this psalm, five of which are in these last three verses. If you start paying attention to that, he's laying heavy right here on the people of God. He wants your attention. He wants you to listen. And of these seven references, they all center on one statement in verse 10. The NIV translates His faithful ones, which the King James and the English Standard Version more helpfully translate His saints, His holy ones, following the Hebrew, talking about our status, not necessarily our behavior. Through faith in the Messiah, who for the psalmist was yet to come, and who for us has already come, believers of all ages are holy to the Lord. We are His saints. We're set apart for His use. Through faith in the Messiah, God declares His people righteous as just as if we'd never sinned, children. You know that statement, right? Just as if we'd never sinned. And always as if we had always obeyed. Just as if we'd always obeyed. Sorry, I mangled that. As Christ obeyed for us. God has declared us to be that in Christ Jesus. That's who we are in Christ Jesus. And therefore, as we hear this litany of attributes that the psalmist gives to us, God's people, we must know that it is because of what God has done that he may say this, not because of what we have done. But he describes the saints of God as the citizens of Zion, the city of God. As the daughters of Judah, God's chosen people. He refers to us as those who love the Lord, the righteous, the upright in heart, and finally, you who are righteous. Does he have your attention? He's speaking to each and every one who through faith in Jesus Christ is all of these things. It is our status. It's who God has made us to be. And it's an unchanging status that cannot be taken away. And it's a status that remains regardless of our circumstances. We are the saints of God. And therefore the psalmist presses us as God's people to live like saints. Live like the saints that we are, regardless of our circumstances. That we would be holy, just as he who called you is holy. And so he concludes this psalm with two exhortations, two directives. In verse 10 he exhorts us to hate evil. to hate evil. And right on the heels of that, he gives us the reason that we can, the reason that we will. It's because the Lord guards us. He guards our lives and he delivers us from the hand of the wicked. We are in his care. We are in his charge. We are under his protection so that we may hate evil. We may fight. The Apostle Peter expresses the same confidence in his first epistle. When he says that the saints through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. That's what the psalmist is talking about. Because this is so, because we are guarded, because we are kept, and because vengeance belongs to the Lord who will come in judgment at the end to take care of evil, the saints are called to and enabled to hate evil without being evil. To hate evil by loving good, by loving righteousness. And Paul expands on this in Romans chapter 12 when he says, Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath. Do not be overcome by evil. but overcome evil with good. Hate evil, the psalmist says, because you are the holy ones of God. And in verse 12, the psalmist exhorts us to rejoice in the Lord and to praise His holy name. It's really just one command set in parallel for emphasis. It's the last note of this psalm. It's the note that He wants to ring in our ears that we would praise the Lord, We rejoice in the Lord. And this, too, comes with a reminder of what the Lord, our God, is already doing for us. Not only is he guarding us along the way, he also shows us the way. And he gives us joy on the way. When we read in verse 11 that light is shed upon the righteous and joy upon the upright in heart, we're to understand that these are benefits from the Lord. This is something God is doing for his people. And so what is this light and this joy? Words kind of like glory, very simple to say and spell, but hard to define. So we look to God's Word. And Psalm 19, verse 8, sums it up best. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The Lord gives us light, and He gives us joy in His Word. It's what we have today as we wait between the comings of Christ. The Old Testament testifies to Christ before he came. The New Testament testifies to his coming. Together they give us light and they give us joy. The light of the Lord given through his word is a lamp to our feet and a light for our path. We like to sing that psalm. He does so so that we will know what to hate and we'll know what to love. And as we follow His path, His leading, as He sheds light on our path and we see right from wrong and we hate evil and we cling to good and we step forward in the power of the Spirit, we are more and more transformed by His Word into the people that He has called us to be, His saints. But not only that, it's not all work, saints. It's not all work. He gives us joy. He gives us joy to sustain our hearts in the face of adversity and hardship. He gives us joy to face the setbacks of the sin that still clings to us. He gives us joy to know that we are His and He is ours, no matter what our circumstances. He gives us joy to know that it is He who preserves us, even as we persevere in holiness. It is He who will bring Him to Himself when our faith will be sight. And we will behold his glory without mediation. The Lord, our King, is making our way secure as we wait for his glory to be revealed. He is guiding us on the way by the light of his word and he is sustaining us on the way by the joy that he gives us through it. The psalmist wrote to Judah. Judah in despair. And though their houses, the temple, and the palace were no more, the psalmist called for the saints of God and Judah to rejoice in the Lord. And this call permeates this psalm. It begins the psalm. It's the resonating note at the end and it's smack dab in the middle. And it's for us today. Praise the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Praise His holy name. And the psalm is written to those who have reason to rejoice. the saints of the Lord the holy ones of God through faith in Jesus Christ we have been rescued from the eternal wrath of God against our sin which would be our total and eternal loss we've been rescued from that and we've been given life in Christ we are heirs and children of God so that we inherit heaven and glory our total and eternal gain rejoice in the Lord praise His holy name the psalm was written to direct our eyes above the fray that we cannot control the circumstances of life that bounce against us and it points our eyes to the heavenly throne of the one who controls all things the Lord who reigns in glory so that we will rejoice in Him and praise His holy name even as we persevere in the pursuit of holiness and even as we look to him for the joy we need to sustain us as we continue through this life. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work in us to him be the glory in the church the saints of God and in Christ Jesus through all generations. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are humbled this morning by the displays of your glory. Availed though they are, incomplete though they are, ancient as they are, we see in them what you want us to see, that your glory is magnificent. Your glory surpasses anything that we can conceive of. And that apart from our Savior Jesus Christ, it would consume us as a consuming fire. And we thank you, Father, that we can hear from the psalmist this morning, those of us who have our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, and we can know that you are the God who reigns in glory over all, and that we may rejoice in you, for you work for our good. You are sovereign and in control over all of our circumstances. Delightful and dreadful. You are able to do all things and you are willing to do good things for us, your people. We thank you for what you've done for us in Jesus Christ that we might be called your saints, your holy ones. That you have given to us his righteousness. That you have cleansed us of all of our sin. And that, Lord, we have a fixed and certain hope that when Christ returns in glory, all our misery will be relieved. The sin that still clings to us will be gone away. And we will behold your glory. And we will behold Christ face to face. We will know him as he is. What an amazing and wondrous thought, Lord, that that is what we look forward to. So help us, Lord, to fix our eyes in the heavenlies. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ that we might rejoice in Him and praise His name throughout all the days of our life. It's in His name that we pray. Amen.