The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble.
– Psalm 99:1
So if you follow this podcast each day, the last episode was from Psalm 97:1, which said, “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice.” Just this picture of joy over the fact that the Lord reigns.
Psalm 99:1 Proclaims God’s Sovereign Majesty
Well, in Psalm 99:1, you see the same first three words, “The Lord reigns,” but then after that it says, “Let the peoples tremble.” So that’s a little different picture. Let the earth rejoice, the Lord reigns and let the peoples tremble before Him because He is the one who rules overall, and we are sinful people before Him. We’ve rebelled against Him. Therefore, we need His mercy. We need His grace.
When you read later in Psalm 99:4, it says, “The king in his might loves justice,” and you realize you are a sinner who deserves eternal justice, eternal judgment for your sin that’s cause for trembling. And then, oh, when you realize the good news, the greatest news in the world, the Gospel, that the King who loves justice and whose holy judgment will come upon all the earth loves you and has made a way for you to be saved from your sin and brought into His family as His child, but just think where you would be without that grace, without that mercy. You would be lost, totally and eternally lost, condemned in sin.
And so I just want to encourage you, even as I process this in my own life today, to look at people around us and realize that those who don’t know Jesus as Lord will one day bow the knee to Him as Lord. And on that day, if they have not met Him as savior, they will meet Him as judge. Oh, let’s share the gospel today with urgency with the people around us, and let’s live to spread this gospel to the ends of the earth.
Psalm 99:1 Encourages Us to Proclaim God’s Kingship
Let the peoples tremble. You think about 3 billion people in the world, thousands of people as we pray for one of them a day, on this podcast who need to know the good news of God’s grace, who need to submit to Him as Lord now before it’s too late, when they will bow the need to Him as Lord in eternity and experience judgment for their sin.
Think about the Osfel Bania people of India, 500,000 of them, no known followers of Jesus, no known churches. They’ve not been reached with the gospel yet. They’ve never even heard it. Oh, the Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble. So let’s spread the gospel to them that they might be saved and they might come to know the Lord as savior and come to know God as Father through the gospel, because we have worked, prayed, given to get the gospel to them.
Oh God, help us to rejoice over the reality that you reign overall and to tremble at the reality that you reign overall. In God, we praise you for all of us who are in Christ, that we don’t have to fear before you, that we have a healthy, holy fear of you, but we rejoice at your lordship and your grace in our lives, and we know you as our savior. We’re not worried about our eternity.
Praying for the Osfel Bania People
God, we pray that you would help us to share the gospel with urgency with somebody else today. God, we pray that you would draw people today around us to faith in Jesus. And God, we pray for the Osfel Bania people of India, 500,000 of them. God, you love every single one of them. Let the peoples tremble, let the Osfel Bania people and all the other people groups of the world that have yet to be reached with the gospel tremble before you. God, they need your salvation. Help us to spread the gospel to them. We pray that they might bow the knee to your loving Lordship now, not just when it’s too late.
God, we pray. Help us to live to spread the good news of Your Lordship to all the peoples of the earth and to people right around us today. We pray all of this in light of Your Word in Psalm 99:1. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
