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-4-
The God Who Is
Chapter 1
GOD IS GREAT
"Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all" (I Chronicles 29:11). The Bible here tells us that all things, whether in heaven or in the earth, belong to the Lord. They are His.
Lord Of Creation
In Psalm 29, verse 10, the psalmist declares, "The LORD sitteth King for ever." Since the beginning of all things, there has never been a time when the Lord was not King. "The LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land" (Psalm 95:3-5). The Lord is sovereign over all the earth. Even the sea obeys his commands.
"`The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,' saith the LORD of hosts" (Haggai 2:8).
The psalmist confesses, "The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun" (Psalm 74:16). The day and the night belong to the Lord because He made them. "Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter" (Psalm 74:17). The summer and the winter belong to the Lord. He owns them, because He made them.
In Psalm 89, verse 12, the Bible declares, "The north and the south thou hast created them..." The Lord says, "Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine" (Job 41:11). "Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills" (Psalm 50:10). "In (His) hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind" (Job 12:10).
God is the Lord. He "sitteth King for ever." There is nothing over which He is not Lord, and there is no place where He is not Lord. There has never been a time when He was not Lord, and there will never be a time when He is not Lord. He rules over all and therefore possesses power and authority over all. He alone has the right to issue commandments to men and to punish all who refuse to be governed by Him. As He is Lord of nature, so He is Lord over the nature of men; and it is He who is sovereign in their salvation. The psalmist declares, "Salvation belongeth unto the LORD" (Psalm 3:8).
The prophet Nahum testifies, "The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm..." (1:3). What comfort it is in times of calamity to know that God bears rule even in the midst of winds and storms! William Cowper expressed it well when he wrote,
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
The stormy wind fulfills His Word (Psalm 148:8c). It does exactly as it is supposed to do.