FBC Daily Devotional – August 23, 2021

Well, good morning here. We are off to a start of a new week and trust your week.

It's off to a good one. And so today, um in psalm 97 As one of our passages to read for the day in our bible reading plan the psalm begins with a statement that may seem like It's a dream

It says the lord reigns The lord reigns

Now i'm sure you're theologically astute enough to affirm that that the lord does reign

But when you look at our world and you look at all the chaos Um that's going on in the world all over the world here in our own country and the um the created crisis related to the pandemic to The situation in afghanistan and in the middle east and all of these different things and then you look at the the problems of you know climate related problems with The fires out west and so on and so forth all this chaos

And catastrophe going on in our world And then to read this opening statement in psalm 97.

It says the lord reigns It can give us pause and certainly the skeptic would read that and Say yeah, right that that There's obviously god is not in control of anything.

The lord isn't reigning at all But you need to continue on reading in that psalm because if you look at the

Evidences or expressions of his reigning It doesn't look like It doesn't look like the garden of eden.

It doesn't look like paradise Listen to what it says as you continue. It says a fire goes before him and burns up his enemies round about His lightnings light the world

The earth sees and trembles The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the lord at the presence of the lord

Of the whole earth. Does that sound like? paradise Hmm fire going before him burning up his enemies lightnings lightning the world earth trembling mountains melting like wax, it sounds like earthquakes and volcanoes and You know weather related chaos.

It sounds like it sounds like a lot of conflict

Burns up his enemies before him and so forth So when you read that in the context of the lord reigning

Doesn't that help to put some of what you hear on the news into perspective?

The lord reigns therefore The white house is a mess the lord reigns

Therefore the situation in afghanistan is horrific The lord reigns therefore

The drought in the west is out of control As are the fires and so forth the lord reigns therefore mount etna is

Beginning to show signs of eruption the lord reigns therefore the world is in a state of seeming chaos

That's not a contradiction the fact of the matter is The lord uses all of those things in his sovereign rule and reign

To accomplish his divine purposes. I mean, let's stop and think about it for just a moment

Why in the world? Should the united states of america? Expect to be a land of eden.

I mean consider how many millions of human beings we have slaughtered in this nation under the aegis of The the freedom of choice

A woman's right to choose what to do with her body. And so she becomes pregnant after she has chosen, you know

To behave in in certain ways that resulted in pregnancy She decides she wants to Kill that child inside her womb.

She has perfect freedom to do so She can go down to the local abortion clinic and she can take you know exterminate the life and lawmakers and courts have upheld that right and consequently millions of human lives have been snuffed out and that's just one example of the

Of the ways in which we as a nation have snubbed our nose at god's

At god's law at god's revealed will at god's desire and so Why should we expect him to bless us with prosperity and peace and comfort?

Why shouldn't we expect the god who reigns to allow various forms of chaos to come to our shores

So that we reap what we have sown as a nation I don't say that with any sense of glee or any sense of You know, nanana now or any sense of satisfaction.

I say that with a heavy heart That you know god is not going to wink at evil forever the god who reigns

Deals with it His lightning goes forth and as verse 5 says his fire goes before him and he burns up his enemies

Because he reigns these things happen And that's a sobering way to start the to start the new week and uh

If it gets you off it gets you gets you thinking in a bummer way Then i'm i'm sorry for that, but I don't want you to think that way.

I want you instead I want you instead to think about the the fact that the chaos is not chaos

All of the despair is not reason to despair It is all reason to look up and to Glorify our god who reigns and is accomplishing his purposes even even when those

Even when those sovereign purposes are painful for so many human beings to deal with They are because he wants us to turn from sin and turn to him

Our god reigns Let's worship him and praise him

That in the chaos he's in control And so father we do thank you and praise you today that you do reign and though From a strictly human standpoint if we leave you out of the picture

It may seem like you don't may seem like chaos reigns We thank you that even as we see in this brief psalm

That chaos is under your control Now lord may that truth Encourage us today to trust you all the more and this we pray in jesus name.

Amen All right. Well Again, I hope you have a good start to your day and I hope that just the realizing that our god is in control