The Lord Reigns A message by Wes Morris • True Hope with Ten9 • Psalm 97 Broadcast Introduction Welcome to True Hope with Ten9 and Wes Morris. God has revealed Himself to every person, and He reigns over all creation, every idol, and every soul. Today, Wes asks how God can reign in your heart and in your life. “This is the only way, the only truth, and the only life, and nobody comes to the Father except through Jesus. He reigns over all false gods, and our commission, our call, our eternal responsibility to the world is to tell the nations that the Lord reigns.” Now, here’s Wes. The Lord Reigns Over All the Earth Good morning, everybody. If you have a Bible today, turn with me, if you would, please, to Psalm 97. I want to tell you today: the Lord reigns. There is no place that is out of His sight, no circumstance out of His reach, and no person He does not know—including you. The Bible tells us that the Lord reigns over all the earth. Psalm 97, verse 1: “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many islands be glad. Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries round about. His lightnings lit up the world; the earth saw and trembled. The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples have seen His glory.” Psalm 97:1–6, as read in the message The Lord reigns, and the Bible says all people have seen His glory. The book of Acts says He permitted all the nations to go their own ways, and yet He did not leave Himself without witness. Everybody—regardless of where they live, how they were raised, or what knowledge or technology they have access to—has some impression upon their heart in the course of their life that there is a God. He does not leave Himself without witness. For everyone, at a basic level, it is the creation of God: the creation of the world, the beauty, the complexity, the unique nature of God’s design. It speaks. For others, it is the soul. We all, the Bible says, have eternity written in our hearts. We all have a sense that there is something beyond this life. Tribes in faraway places have all developed some custom, some ritual, some religiously flavored idea of what happens to the soul when people die. They may be wrong. It may be a corrupted, blinded view, but there is something in their hearts. We all sense there is more than what we see, that existence extends beyond our present lives. He has written eternity in our hearts. That’s a witness. The Bible says our conscience bears witness. The book of Romans says that people who don’t even believe in God instinctively do the things of the law of God. It says they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness. There’s a certain baseline code of morality stamped on the soul and heart of every person. One day you just realize, without necessarily being taught, what is right and what is wrong, what is and is not proper treatment of another person. People know this. It doesn’t matter whether you had a good government or a bad one, whether your parents taught you well or not, or whether you had parents at all. People know what’s wrong, and they know what’s right. They see wrong, and something happens in their hearts to recognize it. There is a natural outrage in the human spirit toward that which is evil. This is the witness of God in the conscience. It can be corrupted. The Bible says it can be seared as with a branding iron, until you can’t feel it anymore. You can numb it, dull it, and destroy your good conscience, but we are all given that witness. Justice and righteousness are the foundation of His throne, and there are places waiting for it. People may not even know from whom justice will come, but there is something in their hearts asking for it. The hungry, the destitute, the exploited, those who have been enslaved—there is something in their hearts crying, “Somebody come and fix this. Set it right.” The Bible says all people have seen His glory. The book of Nahum says, “He knows those who take refuge in Him.” He knows those who have been convicted and have responded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, turned from sin, believed, and now belong to Him. The Bible says the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth, beholding the evil and the good. He knows those who belong to Him. From every tribe, tongue, people, language, skin color, and culture, He knows those who have called on Him, surrendered, and come to Him by faith. They belong to Him. For others, it says, “Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of the righteous judgment of God.” Stubborn of heart! There are some who have seen His witness, seen creation, and felt the eternal longing in their souls to know the God who breathed into them the breath of life, who imprinted consciousness on their souls, and yet they have calloused themselves to all of it. They have become stubborn, refusing to repent even though convicted, refusing to come even though drawn. The Lord reigns, and all people have seen His glory. The Lord Reigns Above All Gods Verse 7: “Let all those be ashamed who serve graven images, who boast themselves of idols. Worship Him, all you gods.” Zion, the assembly of the righteous, heard this and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of Your judgments, O Lord. “For You are the Lord Most High over all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.” The Lord reigns above all gods. Because we have an innate sense that there is a God who made us and the world around us, we have a natural desire to worship. Everybody here is worshiping something in some way, somehow. Whether it is the true God who reigns over the earth, I do not know. But when it is not, we manufacture other gods in His place. Our hearts and souls will do it. Some will be imagined, conjured up in our own minds; some may be material possessions. Somebody here may have a god that is not real in any spiritual sense, yet you have set it up as an idol—a car, a possession, a house, an ambition. Others will install false gods for themselves that are not imaginary. They are real spiritual powers; they are demonic, but they are not the true God of the whole earth. This has been going on for a long time. The Bible tells many stories like this. In the Old Testament, people often struggled with the worship of Baal. They would set up altars to idols that had no power, could not see, hear, speak, or save. But behind those idols, perhaps there was a real power. I happen to believe there was—a power of darkness, a power of evil, deceiving the masses, blinding their minds, and luring them into validating the sinful desires of their flesh. Broadcast Break You’re listening to True Hope with Ten9 and Wes Morris. Our name comes from Romans 10:9, which says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” If you would like to receive a free Bible, text TRUEHOPE to 97000. Again, text TRUEHOPE to 97000. Now, once again, here’s Wes. The prophet Elijah came one day to people who were deceived by Baal and his false prophets. There was a debate, and he said, “Why don’t we find out who the true God is? Why don’t we find out today? Let’s build two altars. You build one to Baal, and I’ll build one to God. The God who answers by fire—He’s real.” How about that? They foolishly said, “This sounds like a good idea.” That’s what they said. And Elijah said, “Well, you go first.” They built an altar meticulously—with wood, stone, and an animal sacrifice—and they called on Baal: “Answer us! Answer us, O Baal!” But he didn’t answer. Elijah came and mocked them: “Maybe he’s asleep. Yell louder!” They yelled louder, but he still didn’t answer. They cut themselves, bled, danced, and jumped on the altar, making themselves the sacrifice. “Please answer us, Baal! Answer us!” I wonder what you’ve been pleading with to give you peace. What altar do you dance on? People’s approval never seems to be enough. You plead for promotions, work yourself to death to ascend, accomplish, accumulate, and consume. For what? You still don’t have joy. You still don’t have this happiness; it’s a mirage in the desert you cannot grasp. You bleed out on the altar of one failed relationship after another, drunkenness, and highs of every kind, and yet you’re still in the basement of loneliness and despair. The Bible says they danced, jumped, cut themselves, and bled all day. Yet there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. The prophet Elijah came and said, “Stop this nonsense. That’s enough. Stop.” He built an altar, placed an animal on it, and said, “You know what we’re going to do here? We’re going to dig a ditch around it and soak this altar with water, just so you know for sure.” Then he knelt and prayed to God, and a pillar of fire fell from heaven and consumed the altar, vaporizing the water, the stone, the wood, and the animal. The Lord reigns over all gods. The Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy that they sacrificed to demons who were not God. They sacrificed to demons. Somebody here may be seeking happiness, pleading with demons, sacrificing your life, your resources, your mind, and your energy to demons that have deceived and blinded you. So many religions have different names, but they sacrifice to demons. I’ve sat in a car in foreign lands and watched starving people—children, babies, mothers, and families—hungry and desperate, with no safety net, in the chains of Hinduism and the demonic names of their demon-inspired idols. They walk around a fattened cow lying in the middle o
