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Psalms 2, 45, 72, 110

Psalms
PsalmsSteve Gregg

In this study, Steve Gregg discusses four Psalms, which he believes are Messianic and portray the Kingdom of the Messiah. Gregg explains that the Old Testament does not explicitly state the idea of a future kingdom, but it became a traditional Jewish view. He also emphasizes the present ruling of Jesus in the midst of his enemies until they are destroyed, as mentioned in Psalm 110, and the importance of loving righteousness and hating wickedness, which make one fear God. Gregg encourages trust in God and expanding His kingdom through prayer and preaching.

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Transcript

Alright, you can be turning to Psalm chapter 2, and I'd like to say we're going to study four Psalms tonight, I trust, if I can. I don't know if I really can, but I'm going to try to cover four Psalms, and the reason for is because these four are in a class by themselves. We mentioned that the Psalms are subject to categorization.
The Psalms that we've studied already, beginning with Psalm 1, and we included also Psalm 19,
and Psalm 119, had to do all with the virtues and the glories of the Word of God, and the value of the Word of God. But, when we get to Psalm 2, we come to a different category of Psalms altogether. This one is clearly what we call Messianic.
That is, it has to do with the Messiah, or Christ. Messiah, of course, is the Hebrew word, which means the anointed one. Christos, from which we get our word Christ, is the Greek word for the same thing.
Messiah and Christ are the same word, only in different languages, and they both mean the anointed one. And, right at the beginning of this Psalm, the psalmist makes no delays about introducing us to the one of whom the Psalms are all about, really. The one that they all are trying to disclose to us, and that is the anointed one, as it says in verse 2, the Lord, and against his anointed, that is the Messiah.
So, this is a prophecy about the Messiah, and if there is any question about it, in our minds as we read it, we can be quite convinced by looking at the way that it was quoted in the New Testament. This Psalm was quoted very frequently in the New Testament, and it's always quoted, of course, about Jesus when he came the first time. We'll talk about some of those quotes in a moment.
I intend to cover Psalm 2, Psalm 45, Psalm 72, and Psalm 110 in the next hour and a half. Now, those Psalms, most of them are very short. Psalm 72 is a little longer than the others, but even it is not extremely long, and we should be able to cover them if I can avoid the temptation to tell you everything that I want to talk about on these things.
These Psalms are so full, you see, I could spend easily a whole class on them, on each one, but we just would never finish the book of Psalms. So, we'll take these as a group, and hopefully glean from them a united picture. These four Psalms are not only Messianic, as many other Psalms are Messianic, but these four are particularly a picture of the Kingdom, of the Messiah.
Now, the Messiah, of course, I said means the Anointed One. He was to be a king. That's what the Jews expected.
They expected a king. God would send a king, and a promise was made to David, in fact, that it would be one of his offspring. God had told David in 2 Samuel 7 that he would raise up unto David a son who would sit on his throne in his stead, and who would reign forever and have an eternal dominion.
Well, obviously, Solomon, David's son, who sat on his throne in his stead, didn't have an eternal dominion. And it came to be understood by the Jews that this promise had to do with a future king who would be a king to end all kings. That he would be the great king, the final king, the great deliverer of the Jews from their enemies, and that he would come and save them from the hands of their enemies and rule over them.
Many of the Jews later began to think in terms of him ruling for a thousand years during the post-exilic period, that is after the Babylonian captivity. Many of the rabbis began to teach that when the Messiah comes, he'll reign a thousand years. That's nowhere stated in the Old Testament, but it is, nonetheless, became a traditional view of the Jews.
But this Messiah was to be a king, and the word anointed, of course, literally means one who has oil poured over him. An anointing was a ceremony during which oil was poured over the head of an individual. It was a symbolic act of consecration to that person or installation of that person into an office.
There were three classes of people in the Scripture who were installed in such a way by the pouring of oil over them. There were kings. Every king was installed in this way.
Samuel the prophet, for instance, poured oil over the head of Saul, and the anointing came on him to be the king, the first king of Israel. After that, every king succeeding him was anointed, including David. David was anointed to be king by Samuel before Saul even ever finished his term in office.
But each king was anointed as a part of his installation, and so an anointed one might refer to a king. There were others who were anointed even before there were kings in Israel. The priests were anointed by God.
Moses was the one who poured oil over them, actually, but they were anointed by God and installed into their office, and the symbolic gesture at their ceremony of installation was the pouring of oil over their heads by Moses, Aaron and his sons, and later the other priests.
So, anointing was also a ceremony for the installation of priests, and there's only one other class of people that I know of that were installed in an office in this way, and most of them were not installed in this way, but we have only one case, and that was Elisha the prophet was entered into the prophetic office when Elijah poured oil over him. Now, we don't have record of any of the other prophets being installed in that way, but we have at least one case of a prophet being anointed to be in the ministry, and that was Elisha.
So, kings and priests and prophets were anointed, and when the Messiah was spoken of as the anointed one, that term carried with it all those thoughts. He would be a king, a priest, and a prophet.
Now, that was not fully understood by all Jews at all times, but that thought was developed throughout the scriptures.
Moses, for instance, had spoken of him as a prophet. In Deuteronomy 18.18, he said, The prophet like unto me shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, and he was speaking of the Messiah.
In the Psalms, I don't believe we have a reference to Jesus being a prophet, but we have reference to both his kingly and his priestly ministry, and in the Psalms that we're going to look at today, we have reference to those things.
In fact, the main focus of these Psalms is the royal priesthood, that is, the kingly and priestly office of the Messiah and the kingdom that he brings in, that he establishes.
And, of course, one thing we need to find out right, perhaps from the beginning, is when this kingdom is said to begin, because there are two basic theories among Christians today, two interpretations of scripture, that see this point differently. Some believe that the kingdom has been established from the first coming of Christ, that he established the kingdom of his coming, and that his kingdom is present, that he is presently ruling over his people.
He's not ruling in a literal sense, that is, he's not visibly sitting on a throne that men can observe, where men can actually bow literally before him, and hear his voice, and see him, and have him hand down decrees and so forth, such as they might from a physical, mortal king. But, that he is ruling spiritually over his people, through his spirit, and that we are born into his kingdom, and that we are, that is, born again into his kingdom, and that we are now parts of his kingdom. That's, of course, one of the views, and that is my view.
There is also the view that the kingdom is yet future. That the kingdom was offered to the Jews by Jesus when he came the first time, but by crucifying him, they basically relinquished their privilege of having him install the kingdom, and he took it back to heaven, and that he will bring the kingdom when he comes.
And that will be a future thousand year millennial reign, where Jesus will reign on the earth, and it incorporates the Jewish tradition of a thousand years, and seems to find support, in the eyes of some, from Revelation 20, where there's a reference to a thousand years, though it doesn't necessarily identify what period of time that thousand years is.
At any rate, those are the two views. One view is that Jesus established the kingdom when he came, and that it was a kingdom that was to include people from all nations, and it is a spiritual kingdom, not a physical kingdom, and that is the view that, as I said, is my particular view. The other view is that it is more of a physical kingdom, that Jesus is really supposed to sit on a literal throne in Jerusalem, and that it's going to be a Jewish kingdom, and that the Gentiles can have a part of it only in so far as they subject themselves to the Jews, to the Jewish nation, because it will be a Jewish kingdom.
According to that view also, there will be a temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, and sacrifices will be offered, animal sacrifices will be offered again, and a whole lot of other things that, to me, seem very much out of accord with anything the New Testament teaches. But, those are the two views, and as we study these psalms, we'll see how the Jewish expectation of such a kingdom came to be developed. The psalms were one of the places that predicted such a kingdom, and, of course, the prophets also did.
If I might read these psalms, and comment on them one at a time, then I would like to try to summarize the basic things we get about the Messiah from these psalms. Now, remember, all these psalms were written at least a thousand years before Christ. They were written by David, the ones we're going to read, except for one of them was written by Solomon.
Psalm 72 was written by Solomon. Actually, Psalm 45, the authors, I don't think, know them, but 2 and 110 were both written by David, so that was about a thousand years before Christ that these were written, and gave rise to the Messianic expectation, which Jesus fulfilled.
Okay, I'd like to read Psalm 2, first without comment, and then to make comment.
Now, this is a wonderful psalm, once you understand what it's talking about, and probably even if you don't understand fully what it's talking about, there were parts of it that struck you as interesting. But, once you understand the whole psalm, it will be, I believe, one of your very favorites, because of the things it says about Jesus and his kingdom. Now, it is divided up very naturally into groups of three verses.
Just as we saw in the first psalm, which had six verses, it divided into two halves of three verses each. So, in this psalm, which has twelve verses, it breaks up into four equal parts of three verses each.
And, if I might summarize the content of each group, the first three verses talk about the rebellion against God and against Christ that is conducted by the kings and rulers of the earth.
Those are the first three verses.
Then, in the next three verses, verses four through six, we have the response of God in heaven to this rebellion. How is he responding? Is he threatened? Is he frightened? Is he wondering whether his kingdom is going to continue? There we read of it in verses four through six.
Then, in verses seven through nine, the next quarter, we find God's commission to the resurrected Christ. Now, I'll defend that statement from the scriptures in a moment. But, it is verses seven through nine, we shift now from God's response to the rebellion.
We now have him responding to Christ and giving Christ a commission to, basically, ask for the world. And, he'll give it to him.
And, then the final three verses are good advice to rulers.
The first three verses show that the rulers are rebelling against God. And, the last three verses tell them, you better submit to Christ before he gets angry, basically.
And, so we see it breaks up into these three sections.
I'd like to quickly go over the verses. And, then what I want to do is, in the meantime, I guess, look up some of the New Testament scriptures that deal with this psalm. It is quoted probably at least nine different places in the New Testament.
I believe it has at least nine different quotes, as I review in my mind now. It's quoted in Acts chapter four and verse twenty-five. This is where parts of it are quoted.
Acts four twenty-five, Acts thirteen thirty-three, Hebrews one five, then three times in the book of Revelation, Revelation two twenty-seven, Revelation twelve five, Revelation nineteen fifteen.
And, then the other three times that it appears, I believe it is alluded to rather than quoted. And, that is in the references to Jesus' baptism and his transfiguration that are found in the three synoptic gospels and also in 2 Peter chapter one.
So, we'll talk about those when we come to them.
Let's look at this first three verses that talk about the rebellion. What is it actually saying? It says, Why do the heathen rage? Remember, the word heathen means the Gentiles.
And, the people imagine a vain thing. In the scriptures, especially in the prophets and the psalms, the people is an expression that usually refers to the Jews. And, in this verse, it is especially obvious that it does because it's saying the heathen and the people.
That is, the Gentiles and the Jews, both categories, which includes all humanity, are rebelling against God. They're raging, they're imagining or plotting a vain plot. What is their plot? It tells us in verse three, they want to break off the band.
That is God's band. We'll see.
In verse two, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together.
That is, the leaders of worldly nations are in a conspiracy against God. As we'll see, they're taking counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed or his Christ, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.
Now, God has put bands and cords on us.
That is to say, he has brought us into his service. God has certain claims upon our lives. He created us, after all.
Therefore, he has given laws, which some people find very binding. Some people don't like having rules. They like to be a free agent and independent of all authority.
But, God, obviously, does not intend for that to be the case with us. He intends for us to be under his authority.
For some people, this is a slavery.
They don't love God. Therefore, they find his bands and his cords unpleasant. He does make reference to his cords in Hosea chapter 11 and verse 4. In that place, it's interesting because it mentions his cords are cords of love.
This is Hosea 11.4. Hosea 11.4. God is talking about his dealing with the Jews after he brought them out of Egypt and as they were wandering in the days of Moses through the wilderness. He says, I drew them with cords of a man and with bands of love. And I was to them as they that take the yoke from off the jaws.
And I laid meat unto them. In other words, I fed them and I took their yoke. I released them from slavery.
He says, I drew them with cords of a man and bands of love. What cords of a man means is not the clearest possible interpretation or thing to interpret. But, obviously, he's referring to cords of love.
The thing that he bound them to him with was love. But, they don't want his love. They cast off his love.
They don't want his authority. They don't want relationship with him.
They say, let's break these bands off of us.
Let's cast his cords from us. We don't want to be under him. As the Jews said in one of the parables Jesus told, we will not have this man to rule over us.
And when Jesus was standing before Pilate and Pilate was trying to release him, the Jews said, we have no king but Caesar. When Pilate said, shall I destroy your king? Shall we crucify your king? They said, we have no king but Caesar.
They didn't want Jesus to be their king.
They didn't want Caesar either to tell the truth. But, they figured since Pilate would more likely submit to them, if they said they were loyal to Caesar, that they might as well just say what was convenient. If you'll turn to Acts chapter 4, we'll see that these verses are quoted for us.
And, it's important to know how they are quoted.
This is when the apostles were praying. They had been threatened by the Sanhedrin that if they would preach any more in the name of Jesus, it would not go well with them.
And so, they go together, they get together and they have a prayer meeting. And, that is found in Acts chapter 4. And, in the midst of their prayer, in verse 25, they say, who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. Notice, they translate the word anointed as Christ.
Because, in the psalm we read, against the Lord and against his anointed. But, they translate the anointed as his Christ.
Now, that's the quotation from the first two verses there of Psalm 2. And then, they interpret it.
They say, for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.
In other words, they're reflecting back on how Jesus was condemned in court and crucified. He says, it was Herod and Pontius Pilate, which were the Jewish and the Gentile kings or governors.
And, he says, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel. So, he's saying, the Gentiles were involved and the Jews were involved. And, they're saying, this surely fulfills Psalm 2. That these people all conspired together to overthrow the authority of Christ.
They said, we don't want this man to rule over us. They said, let's break his bands of thunder and cast his cords from us. That was their attitude.
And, we must say, that is certainly the attitude of kings of the earth today as well. As well as most people who aren't kings as well. Most people don't want to obey God.
They don't want to be under his authority.
And, they spend, in some cases, their whole lives trying to be rid of him. Trying to find excuses not to believe in him.
Trying to find excuses, even if they do believe in him, excuses to disregard him because they consider him unjust or they're bitter against him or one thing or another. All kinds of ways people find to try to cast off God's authority. But, how does God respond to this?
That's what we read of in the next three verses.
He that sitteth in the heaven shall laugh. Now, the picture of God laughing is not a frequent one in the scripture. The only other reference I know of in the Bible to God laughing is in Psalm 37.
Psalm 37, 13 where God is seen laughing at the wicked again.
Now, God laughs, we might say, not because it's a funny thing, but because it's a pitiful thing. I mean, it's ludicrous really.
It's a laughable matter. What is? Their arrogance. The arrogance of the people is laughable.
That they think that they could overthrow the king.
See, it's not up to them. God doesn't run his kingdom as a democracy.
You don't elect him or vote him out. You don't say, we want to cast this ban off us so that we'll vote in another God. There's only one God and he has the right to rule because he is our creator.
Therefore, it's not a democracy. He can't be voted out. Therefore, he just laughs at the arrogance of those who think they can dethrone him.
Now, that's the only thing that's laughable. The punishments that he pours out on them, he doesn't laugh at. The Bible says he has no delight in that.
But, he's not laughing in delight. He's laughing almost at the ridiculousness of their arrogance. But, it doesn't bring him any delight.
He just finds it strikes him funny that people could be so blind.
As it might strike you funny momentarily if a two year old kid walked up and said he was going to punch your lights out. You know, you'd think that you might laugh.
Although, you'd think that's a pretty ugly attitude. You know, pretty ugly attitude for a little kid to have that you might laugh just at first at the arrogance of it. And, that's God's initial response when he hears people or sees the people trying to overthrow him.
As, for instance, the communist governments are doing today. And, our government is not doing a lot better in the sense that they are permitting abortions and things like that. I mean, the laws of our land are not exactly honoring the authority of God or the authority of Christ.
And, all the kings of the earth are said to be in the same boat. They are all conspiring together against Christ. That means there is no such thing as a Christian nation.
Because, all the kings of the earth, that is of the earthly nations, are against Jesus. Because, they don't want to submit to him.
And, every nation's government wants to be autonomous.
Wants to be sovereign in itself. And, doesn't want anyone else giving them orders. It's true that some of the founders of our country were interested in this being one nation under God.
And, there's a lot of people today who would like to see it live up to that ideal. But, we'd have to admit that at this point, that's not a description of our country. Nor is it a description of any other country in the world today.
And, these nations, especially the nations like Russia, but even in our own nation, we find laws being made by the Supreme Court to take children from their parents if they put them in Christian schools that aren't credited. And, things like that. In other words, to say that the state owns the children instead of the parents owning the children.
This kind of thing is definitely defiant of the principles of the Word of God. And, trying to make the state a God in itself.
And, God laughs at that initially.
But, then he stops laughing. Says, the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak to them in his wrath.
He doesn't laugh forever. He laughs at first as an initial reaction. But, then he just can't.
There's no more laughing now. He gets angry.
In his wrath, he'll speak to them and he'll vex them in his sore displeasure.
And, he'll say, yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. In other words, in spite of all your futile attempts to cast off my authority, even still, my king is still sitting there. He hasn't been shaken.
He hasn't been nervous. He's still there. He's seated firmly there.
He's not going anywhere. His kingdom has been established and you can't shake it off.
I laugh at your arrogance.
But, I'm angry at your rebellion. And, I'll tell you very plainly that my king is still on the throne. And, he's never going to remove himself from that throne.
And, that's what God says to them. He speaks to them in his wrath and says, yet, or even so, or in spite of all your efforts, I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion.
Now, is this referring to something yet future? Is this referring to a time after the second coming of Jesus? When Jesus will sit on a literal throne in the literal Jerusalem for a thousand years in the future? Well, that's not how the apostles understood it.
God makes this statement, I have set my king on the holy hill of Zion. In other words, the king is already installed at the time that God is speaking this. The king is there and has been even challenged, but is still there.
Now, what is going on at the same time that he's sitting there? The nations of the earth are trying to break his authority. The nations of the earth are trying to cast him off. In other words, all this resistance in verses one through three are taking place while the king is on the throne.
And, God laughs at the futile efforts and says, even in spite of those, my king is there. He's seated there on the holy hill of Zion. Now, we know from what we read in Acts chapter four that that rebellion is taking place even now.
It's not some future thing that's going to happen after Jesus comes back and after he sits on a literal throne.
The apostles understood that that rebellion began to be fulfilled even in the crucifixion of Jesus by Pontius Pilate and Herod and the Jews and the Gentiles getting all together and crucifying Jesus. They said, that fulfills this scripture, but not completely because the thing has been being fulfilled ever since.
The Jews, for about a century afterward, kept persecuting the church, or actually about forty years afterward, and then the Romans did for a couple of centuries. And, ever since then, it's been some other group. The Muslims, the Communists, one group or another, the Nazis.
There's always been some government trying to overthrow the authority of Christ.
And so, you can see that the psalm is not talking about a future time after Jesus comes back where he'll be seated on a throne and that the people of the earth will be trying to throw him off. It's talking about the present time and that's how the early church understood it as they quoted this psalm in Psalm 25-27.
Now, for further confirmation of this, we get to the next section. And, I might want to add this one thing. Zion, you might say, what is Zion? Zion was the name of a mountain.
It was the name of the mountain in Jerusalem. Actually, Jerusalem is a city and the temple was built on the mountain called Zion. It was an actual fortress mountain.
And so, Zion is used frequently to describe Jerusalem. Sometimes, the city of Jerusalem is being spoken of when the word Zion is put in there. But, there are also times when the term Zion is used figuratively, not of the city itself, but of the people of the city.
Now, we get an example of that. You can see in Isaiah 51-16.
This will be important to us in our understanding of many things in the scripture.
To understand what Zion is because it appears many times in the scripture. But, in Isaiah 51-16, it says,
In other words, the term Zion refers to God's people. And, I believe that in the New Testament, the term Zion, though it is hardly used at all in the New Testament, the few cases where it occurs, looks at the church.
One place where we find the word Zion is in Hebrews chapter 12.
And, I believe that in this context, it is very clear that Zion is the people of God today, the church. It says in Hebrews 12-22, Hebrews 12-22 and following, it says, Now, I believe that this is basically identifying Mount Zion, that spiritual Mount Zion, with the church.
And, if we are identifying Psalm 2 and verse 6, Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion, with the present time rather than some future time, then we are spiritualizing Mount Zion. We are saying Zion refers to the church here. Jesus has been established as King over the church.
And, in spite of the fact that the church has been attacked by Communists, by the Romans, by so many governments, Idi Amin tried to wipe them out, and many others have tried to wipe them out throughout history.
The church has been under attack, the authority of Christ has been challenged, but Zion is still standing and still has its King. There is still a church that has survived every assault, and Jesus is still the King of His people.
Upon Zion, there remains the King.
Now, here is the commission given to the King, or to Jesus, verses 7-9. I will declare the decree, this is actually Jesus speaking, we will find, I will declare the decree the Lord has said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
Now, notice that the word LORD is in all capital letters, as also in verse 2. The word LORD, whenever it is in all capital letters in your Bible, it means that in the Hebrew it is Yahweh or Jehovah. It is actually only four letters, J-H-W-H, which can be pronounced, if you have vowels, Yahweh or it can be pronounced Jehovah, and different Bible translations prefer one or the other. But whenever you see LORD in all capitals, it is this name of God, it is the eternal triune God being referred to here.
And Jesus is speaking now, He says, I will declare the decree, Jehovah has said unto me, you are my Son, this day have I begotten thee.
Now, what is that talking about? Some people have thought that this refers to Jesus being born in eternity past. And that Jesus, they say, has been the Son of God ever since, as long as eternity has been around.
The problem with that though, is that this cannot be speaking of something that happened in eternity past, because it says this day. And days were created when God created the world. In eternity past, there were no days or nights, because there was no sun to measure them, and no earth to turn in order to cause darkness to come upon one side of it, and so forth.
The whole terms day and night have to do with human history. So, we are talking in this place about a point in human history. When did Jesus, when did God say, this day I have begotten thee? Well, of course, it is conceivable, if we just did not have any clues from the New Testament, to suggest that maybe that was the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
But it is not referring to that either. We have the answer given to us in Acts 13.33, where the Apostle Paul tells us, with apostolic authority, what this verse is talking about. Acts 13.33, Paul said, God has fulfilled the same unto us, their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again.
That is, raised him from the dead.
As it is also written in the second psalm, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Now, it is very obvious, Paul understands this statement in the second psalm, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, he refers to the resurrection of Jesus.
He says, God has raised Jesus up from the dead, even as it is written in the second psalm. In other words, the second psalm predicted that very thing. And he did it even as it was written.
So, when he says, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, he is talking about the resurrection of Jesus. Now, that also confirms to us that the setting of the King on the holy hill of Zion has already occurred. It is not a future thing, because Jesus was resurrected to take that throne.
And that is confirmed also in Acts chapter 2, where Peter mentions that Jesus was raised up to sit on the throne of David.
So, Jesus, in coming out of the grave, took the throne. And now that he is on the throne, now that he is risen from the dead, the Father says to him, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
That is Easter Sunday, was the day that God begotten him from the dead, that is, because Jesus is called in the New Testament from time to time, the first born, or the first begotten from the dead. So, that needs to be understood. He is saying, I have begotten thee from the dead.
That is what is implied here.
Then he says to Jesus, now that you have been raised from the dead, now that you are on the throne, ask of me and I will give you the heathen, or the Gentiles, for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Now, David wrote this psalm, and it must have blown his own mind, as the Lord gave him this message, and even as it must have blown the other Jews' minds, because the Jews were spoken of in the prophets as being God's heritage.
They were God's inheritance. His inheritance was to be Israel. The Messiah would inherit Israel, they thought.
But here, the Messiah is saying that the Father has said to me, if I ask him, he will give me the heathen for my inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Not the Jews, but the Gentiles will be largely the ones that are his inheritance. Notice the condition, ask of me.
The Father is saying to Jesus, just ask, and I will give you the heathen. Just ask, and I will give you the whole world. So, we can say that the dominion of Christ is to be universal over the whole world.
It doesn't mean, necessarily, that every individual will convert to Christ. Some will be judged in the last day when he comes back, but in the meantime, he is gathering heathen to himself. The heathen are being given to him.
His gospel is going out to the whole earth. That's why Jesus, on the day he ascended, said to his disciples, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every nation, and make disciples of them. Why?
So that you can teach them to observe all things whichever I have commanded you.
That is, bring them under my authority. I am the king now. I have raised from the dead.
I have authority. He said, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. Go out into all the world and make all those people into my disciples.
Teach them to do what I said.
So, the task of the church has been, for two thousand years, to go out and tell the heathen that Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth, he is the king, and that they must learn how to do the things he said. They must come under his authority as king.
They must, in fact, become his inheritance. And that's what's being said there in verse 8.
And then, this statement is made in verse 9, Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, and thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Well, break there, the Hebrew word for break is not correctly translated here.
The word in the Hebrew actually means shepherd, as a verb.
So, the father is saying to Jesus, I'll give you the heathen and the uttermost heart of the earth to be your possession and your inheritance, and you will shepherd them with a rod of iron. The word rod there actually refers to a scepter of a king.
A king who holds a rod or a scepter, which shows his authority. And to say it's a rod of iron doesn't mean that he's going to be bashing people over the head with it necessarily. It just means that it is something that his authority cannot be broken.
The scepter is the symbol of a king's authority. And his is made of iron, which means no one can possibly break his kingdom. No one can break or demolish his authority.
So, he's saying essentially that Jesus will shepherd the nations with an unbreakable authority.
You see, remember the nations are trying to cast his chains off him, trying to break his bands off. And he says, no, my authority is not to be broken.
The king, the father has already commissioned me to run this show. And he's said that I'm going to rule it. I'm going to shepherd the people.
And that's what he is doing, of course. He's the good shepherd. He's shepherding the church today.
You and I were some of the heathen that were promised in this thing.
Notice, a thousand years before Jesus was born, David records this statement that the father would make to Jesus at the point of his resurrection. Jesus was raised from the dead.
The father said to him, you're my son. This day have I begotten thee. Just ask me, I'll give you the heathen.
And he's apparently been asking, because the Bible says he ever lived to make intercession for us.
He's asking the father to give us, to give the heathen to him. And in the two thousand years that he's been asking that, many have come in, including all of us.
We are some of those that he asked for and that he was given. And he is now shepherding us with a scepter that will never be broken. His kingdom is forever.
And therefore, we don't have to fear that maybe someday some other kingdom will come and overtake the kingdom of God and we'll be on the losing side.
We're on the winning side. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, we're told in many places.
And we are being shepherded by him. Now, that latter statement, thou shalt dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel, it's not entirely clear what's referred to there, but it certainly reminds us of a verse that Jesus said, when Jesus said concerning the rock that the builders rejected, the stone that the builders rejected and becoming the cornerstone.
His statement is found in Matthew chapter 21.
And he says concerning himself, who he terms the stone, in Matthew 21, 44, he says, and whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
Now, that sounds like dashing them to pieces as a potter's vessel. It will grind them to powder.
Now, he spoke of himself as a stone. He said, anyone who falls on this stone, that's Matthew 21, 44, will be broken, but anyone that this stone falls on will be ground to powder.
The first line of that is not all that easy to understand.
What does it mean to fall on him and be broken? It may refer to actually casting yourself upon him and letting him break you and remake you. But as far as him falling on them and grinding them to powder, it's very clear it's talking about irreparable damage, talking about total destruction.
Jesus is presently shepherding those Gentiles who will submit to him with a rod of iron.
Those that will not submit to him, he will ultimately grind to powder at his coming. That's how I understand this. And so, since that is the case, we are told in, and by the way, this reference to him ruling with a rod of iron is quoted three times in Revelation in those verses I gave you earlier.
There are three references in Revelation that speak about him ruling with a rod of iron. And the statement of the Father saying, you are my son, that was alluded to by God at the baptism of Jesus and at his transfiguration when the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. It's reminiscent of these verses.
Now, going down to the last three verses, they are a warning to the kings. At the first three verses, the kings are in rebellion. And so, the writer, David, says, listen, you're not going to throw off the authority of Christ.
You might as well submit. You might as well give it up. God's just laughing at your puny efforts.
His king is there for good. In fact, Jesus even says that he's going to rule with a rod of iron.
No one's going to break his dominion.
And God has already promised him that he's going to have the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. So, why fight it? You're fighting God. And so, in verses 10 through 12, he says, Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings.
Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Now, much more could be said about these verses, of course, than we have time to say tonight. One thing that's interesting is that the last line in the psalm, blessed are they that put their trust in him, shows just the opposite attitude of the people mentioned in the first verses.
The ones who don't want to trust or submit to him, they are really missing out on the blessing.
They don't want him to rule over them, but if they did let him, they would be of those who are said to be blessed or happy. And it's very clear they're not going to be happy as long as they're trying to throw off a king who will not be thrown off.
And so, we see in this psalm, and I would just love to go deeper into most of these verses, but because of the other psalms we needed to talk about, I won't take time.
But you can see that this psalm starts out talking about how the nations are universally in rebellion against God and against Christ, which is seen in history. Nonetheless, God says it doesn't change anything.
Jesus is still the king. And Jesus then says, yes, that's true. The Father told me I'm the king.
I've got a rod of iron. I'm going to shepherd the nations with a rod of iron. I'm going to grind some of them to powder someday because they won't submit to me.
And he says, basically, I've got a destiny to rule the world. Jesus is destined to rule the world. God has already said to me, ask of me and I'll give you the heathen for your inheritance.
All I have to do is ask. Now, by the way, when we pray in Jesus' name, we are asking in his place, you see, because to do anything in someone's name is to stand as their representative doing something.
And since God made the conditions for Jesus' conquest of the world simply that he should ask, those of us who have his name to act as his agents can also ask.
And that should be part of our praying. Praying and asking God in Jesus' name, asking in Jesus' stead, that he will give the heathen to Jesus. We can even name specific heathens and say, God, you said that if Jesus asked and we're asking in his name.
That you'd give him the heathen. And so intercessory prayer is seen here as a means of expanding the kingdom of God. OK, now we need to quickly turn to another psalm.
This one is a lovely one in a very different sense, a different flavor. It's Psalm 45. The one we just read talked about God's brute force and how that through his sheer superior power he will cause the nations to submit to Christ.
In this one, we see the beauty of the king and the attractiveness and how those who serve him will be attracted to him like a bride is attracted to a husband. And in Psalm 45, it says to the chief musician upon Shoshan, which probably that title, Shoshanim, for the sons of Korah, those probably really belong, that first two lines of the title probably belong to the previous psalm. But this psalm is called a song of love or a love song.
It's very evident from reading it that it is talking about a king. In fact, it says that in the first verse. I've made, these are, well, we'll see what it says in a moment, but it tells us in the first verse that this is about a king.
If you get down to verse 6, that king is spoken to and he's called God. So, it's evident this isn't just some ordinary king. This is a king who is also God.
The only king that can be so described as God would have to be Jesus. And sure enough, this verse in verse 6 is quoted in the New Testament as being about Jesus.
In Hebrews 1, 8, we have the quote of this verse, Psalm 45, 6, and that's talking about Jesus.
So, we have a clear New Testament interpretation given to us that this psalm is about Jesus, a king, Jesus. And it's talking, it's a wedding song. It's almost certain that this song was sung at the wedding of a king.
And most people believe, most scholars seem to believe it was when Solomon got married to one of his wives that this song was sung there. It's a song about a king marrying a queen, and a queen leaving her people to be joined to him. And the images are very rich here where we see Jesus the king and the church, his bride, coming to him and forsaking her past life to have a brand new life.
The prevailing message in this song is that for both the king and his bride, there's an end and a beginning. It's an end of something old and a beginning of something new. And in the case of the girl, it's said to her that she's ending her former loyalties to family and such in order to take on new loyalties to her bridegroom.
And to the man, it's said in the end of the psalm that he is leaving his father and mother also, and he's taking on new responsibilities as a parent or as a head of a household himself. And these things refer to Jesus Christ, as we'll see. Let's read the psalm, first without comment.
My heart is indicting a good matter. I speak of the things which I have made touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
Thou art fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured into thy lips. Therefore God has blessed thee forever.
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O Most Mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.
And in thy majesty ride prosperously, or successfully, because of truth and meekness and righteousness. And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.
Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee.
Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter, or a righteous scepter.
Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
And thou art the queen of the king's daughters.
All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad. King's daughters were among thy honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of ulphur.
Harken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people in thy father's house. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy lord, and worship thou him.
And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift. Even the rich among the people shall entreat thy favor.
The king's daughter is all-glorious within.
Her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework. The virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee.
With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought. They shall enter into the king's palace.
Now, the last two verses turn and speak to the man again.
The reason this is evident is because in the Hebrew, all the pronouns, the U in every case is a masculine, where it's been a feminine in the verses 10 through 15. It has feminine pronouns speaking to the queen or the woman, but now we have back to masculine pronouns speaking to the king.
Instead of thy father shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore shall the people praise thee forever and ever.
Now, we don't know who wrote this psalm.
He's writing and it's said his heart is bubbling over. That's the literal meaning of my heart is indicting a good matter. It actually means bubbling up.
He's just full of emotion. It's the wedding of his king and he just loves his king so much. He's so excited at this celebration of his king that he's just bubbling over to write something to be sung there, a love song is what it is.
He just wants to write something to celebrate the matter and so he does so. He begins, of course, by speaking to the king. Now, we are told, as I already said, that the king here must be seen as Jesus Christ.
We base that on the quotation of verses 6 and 7 that is found in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 8 and 9.
These two verses, 6 and 7 here, are found in Hebrews 1, 8 and 9, where they are quoted as being about Jesus Christ. So, there can be no question, as we look at this psalm, that it's talking about Jesus and his bride, the church. Notice, he's already seen as a king.
He's already got a throne. He's not waiting to take a throne because it says, well, the king's daughters were among his honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir and so forth.
It says that, well, he's already called a king, in other words. He's already taken his kingly position and he's now taking a bride.
And this is a picture of Jesus, having resurrected from the dead, having taken the throne upon his holy hill in Zion, where he now sits with the right hand of God and rules in the church.
He's now gathering his church. He's gathering his bride. And concerning him, it is said in verse 2, thou art fairer or more handsome than the children of men.
Now, that doesn't mean, of course, that Jesus was handsome to look at. The Bible indicates he didn't have any comeliness in the physical. But here we're getting a highly figurative and spiritual description of him.
He is fairer than ten thousand, we're told, in other places. And so, we can be quite sure that it's talking about his spiritual loveliness, not necessarily his physical looks as a man when he was on the earth. He is fairer than the children of men.
Grace is poured into thy lips.
There's an interesting statement in Luke 4, in verse 22. Luke 4, 22.
When Jesus preached in the synagogue in Nazareth, it says that the people marveled at the gracious words, or in the Greek it's the words of grace that came from his mouth. Now, it's fascinating to speculate what is implied by those words, the words of grace that came out of his mouth.
But, whatever it means, it's obvious that this means the same thing.
Grace is poured into thy lips. That is, God has put grace into your mouth. And when Jesus spoke, the people marveled at the words of grace that came out in Luke 4, 22.
It says, therefore God has blessed thee forever.
Now, the amazing thing about this, and without understanding the incarnation of Jesus, that is, the coming of Jesus to earth at Bethlehem, being God and man, without that understanding, which the Jews must have lacked, of course, it would seem incredible that you could speak to this king and say, you're God, or God has given you this. In other words, talking as though God is a separate person from him.
And yet, in verse 6, to say to him, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. That is, the king that is spoken to can be spoken to as God, but can also be spoken to as separate from God. And the only solution to this great mystery, of course, is in the incarnation.
That God became a man, but still God remained aloof in heaven as well. There was still the Father in heaven as the Son was on the earth.
And the Son was God, and the Father was God.
And Jesus spoke of the Father as my Father and your Father, and my God and your God. When he rose from the dead, he was talking to the women, he says, go tell the disciples and Peter that I'm risen, and I'll go before you into Galilee, and I'm going unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
Even though Jesus was God, the Son, in the flesh, God the Father was yet his God.
So that it's a strange phenomenon, and it couldn't be said of any other man, of course. This psalm would have to refer to Jesus, and no one else, because he is the only one of whom it could be said he was God, and yet he was with God, as it says in John 1.1.
Okay, well, it says God has blessed thee forever. Then he talks about his war-like activities in verses 3 through 5, and we don't have to read those again, we just did.
He's basically talking about putting on his weapons and going out and smiting his enemies, which of course is one way of looking at the present activity of Jesus. There is spiritual warfare going on.
He does have his sword, which is his word.
Another time this image is drawn is in Revelation 19, where the sword is seen coming out of his mouth as he rides on a white horse, and he slays his enemies with that. Well, the sword coming out of his mouth is obviously the symbol of the word of God, and he slays his enemies in the sense that he causes them to die to their old life and cease to be his enemies. Then they have to become new people.
And so he goes about, and his battle is conducted by the preaching of the word. His sword is at his side, and he goes out with his sword and his arrows, and I don't know what we would equate arrows with. I'm not sure we're supposed to make some direct connection.
But I would say that arrows are not very much unlike prayers, because prayers can hit a target at a distance, whereas a sword can, you know, someone has to be within earshot for him to preach the gospel to him, which is what the sword is. But the prayers can actually go some distance and hit targets at some distance. And I believe that praying and the word of God are the two weapons that we use in our warfare against the enemy of God, and that Jesus is, through his people, of course, through us, his body, conducting warfare, and that's described in verses 3 through 5. Then this statement in verses 6 through 7, which is so remarkable, is made.
It says, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. So he has a throne already, and he is God. He is God in the flesh.
And he has an eternal throne, so this is obviously a kingdom psalm about the Messiah.
So the scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter. That is to say, he has the right to rule.
There was a prophecy made by Jacob on his deathbed, found in Genesis 49.10, and he was prophesying over Judah, his son Judah.
Jacob, in Genesis 49.10, said to Judah, he said, The scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. He said, The scepter will not depart from Judah, that means, of course, the kingly rule will remain in the tribe of Judah and will not be in some other tribe, until Shiloh come.
Now, Shiloh, in Hebrew, means him to whom it belongs, or him whose right it is. That is to say, of course, the one who has the right to the scepter will come, and that is a reference to Jesus. He said, The scepter will be in the hands of the tribe of Judah until then.
That is, no other tribe in Israel would have a kingly authority, and the tribe of Judah would be hanging on to the scepter until him to whom it belongs comes, namely the Messiah.
Him whose right it was. Now, here in this statement, it refers to the scepter, and it says, The scepter of your kingdom is the right scepter.
That is, you have the right to this scepter. You have the right to be the king. And it's sort of playing on the words from Jacob's prophecy in Genesis there, about him whose right it is to hold that scepter now has it.
Then he describes the character of Christ in verse 7. You loved righteousness and hated wickedness. This is a description of the fear of God according to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 13.8. I'm sorry, it's not 13.8. I thought it was 13.8. What is it then? Yeah, okay, I had it backwards. It's chapter 8 of Proverbs, verse 13.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy and evil, the evil way and the forward mouth I do hate. So, the fear of God is defined as a hatred for evil.
So, looking back at this psalm, Psalm 45.7, it says, compared to Jesus, you love righteousness and you hate wickedness. So, he had the fear of God. Now, you might think that someone who feared God would not be a very joyful person.
Always walking around in fear, you might think. He'd always just be in terror. He'd always have a frown on his face, maybe a bit paranoid.
But it says, because he had this fear of God, because he loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God had anointed him with the oil of gladness, more than his fellows. So, he was more glad than other people. To fear God will bring joy, not oppressiveness.
And so, here we find Jesus said to be anointed with gladness, the oil of gladness.
So, it's nice to know that Jesus is happy, even though in his earthly life he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Now, he's exalted to the right hand of God and he's happy.
He's not happy about everything, of course. He's not happy about the sin in the world and he's doing something about it. He's waging war.
But he's happy because he's taking a bride and that's always a happy occasion when a man is getting married.
In verse 8, it says, All your garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad. Just describing Jesus in terms of having a sweet aroma about him, as though his garments had been anointed with spices.
The ivory palaces, King Ahaz, we're told in the scriptures, had a palace that was decked with ivory and that's probably, some people have thought that this had to do with Ahaz's marriage because of this statement. But ivory was a common thing to deck houses with, as the book of Amos points out in a few places, that ivory was sometimes used as decorative panels for houses. And so, it's just thinking about how he's in the palace and his clothing just smells good.
It smells good. He's got a spicy smell about him. Now, it says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 that we have an aroma of Christ upon us, which is maybe worth taking a look at.
Although, we honestly don't have the time to, but we will, just for a moment, because I feel it's an important point. 2 Corinthians, it's actually chapter 2, I'm sorry, it was chapter 1. It says in verse 15, 2 Corinthians 2 verse 15, For we are unto God a sweet savor, or more properly, a sweet aroma of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. It goes on to talk about that, but we won't take the time to look at it.
But the aroma of Christ is upon us. And we are spreading that aroma when we preach his name and preach his gospel to others. And it's a sweet smell to those who are not perishing, that is, to those who will be saved.
Then it talks about king's daughters being among the honorable women, meaning, of course, that even royalty will respond to him. And the queen is at his right hand. That is a place of co-regency.
The church is destined to rule with Christ and sit at his right hand. And so there's the queen, the bride of the king. And the church is there.
Now, these words that are spoken to the queen resemble, or to the bride, resemble very much the words that Jesus talked to when he called people to follow him. He said, If any man come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me. And he said, If he that follows after me and does not forsake his everything, all that he has, and says he hateth not his father and mother and wife and children, he cannot be my disciple.
In other words, Jesus indicated that you have to leave behind your old relationships and your old loyalties in order to have a new loyalty to him. When a bride is taking on a new commitment as a marriage partner, well, she leaves the authority of her parents. Until she's married, she's under her parents' authority.
But then when she gets married, she transfers that to the authority of her husband. And she no longer has to obey her parents, because she has to obey her new lord, her husband, as it says. And so it says to the woman, hearken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear.
Forget also thine own people and thy father's house. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy lord, and worship thou him.
Then it talks about how there will be people bringing gifts.
It talks about, in verse 13, the king's daughter is all glorious within. We might be inclined to see that as meaning inside her, that is, in her man. But really, probably, that's not what it's meant.
The word within there is the Hebrew word that usually means inside a building. And it probably means the bride is inside her bridal chamber from which she will begin her procession down the aisle.
And she's in her chamber, and she's ready to come down.
She's all glorious. She's all decked out in her most beautiful clothing. And her clothing is all of wrought gold.
She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework. In other words, she'll be wearing the right kinds of garments when she is brought to her king.
Now, the garments that we're supposed to be wearing are the righteous deeds of the saints, according to Revelation 19.
I don't know the exact verse. I guess I can find it quickly enough. But, in Revelation chapter 19, and verse 8, it says that unto the bride was given fine linen, pure and white.
And that linen was the righteous deeds, or the righteousness of the saints.
And so, when the bride is brought to Christ, she must be adorned in good works. We must have a holy life.
We must have a righteous life, which is our clothing that we wear when we are brought to Christ. And so, she's wearing her most glorious clothing when she comes.
And it says, the virgins, her companions, which really is the bridesmaids that follow her, shall be brought unto thee.
With gladness and with rejoicing shall they be brought, and they shall enter into the king's palace. So, it's a great festive occasion. Then it turns to the king himself, the bridegroom, the messiah, really.
In verse 16, it says, Instead of your father shall be your children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
Now, basically, this is saying to the young king, when he's getting married, you have previously been identified as a son. Now, you're going to be identified as a father.
Your relationships will not be so much to do with your ancestors as with those who come from you. When we think of Jesus, his ancestors, according to the flesh, were the Jews. But, his children in the church, for the most part, are largely of the Gentiles.
And that his identity will not any longer be associated with his fathers, but with his children. So, it's basically saying that Israel was, at first, the fathers, the ones who brought forth Christ into the world. Of course, we know they rejected him, for the most part.
And he now has a new people, his children, those who make up the church.
And he says that he can make them princes in all the earth. That means he has the authority to set his people over realms of authority in any part of the earth he wants to.
That shows that he has universal authority throughout the whole earth. And he can set up his princes, his sons, to rule in any place he wants to.
So, it's nice to know, because the Bible says that he is going to let us reign with him.
He's going to set us up. And, in a sense, he is setting his people up into positions of authority in the earth. He says, I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations.
Therefore, shall the people praise thee forever and ever.
Now, it's necessary for us to quickly turn over to Psalm 72, which is another of these royal kingdom psalms. In the title, it says it's a psalm for Solomon.
But, in the Hebrew, it actually says it's a psalm of Solomon, which means almost certainly that Solomon wrote it. And it's longer than the psalms we've just read. And it's got a lot more symbolism, even, if you could believe that, than those ones do.
And it describes the king of righteousness and the king of peace, which we'll talk about also when we get to Psalm 110. But, let's read this psalm. It says, Give the king thy judgment, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son.
He shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment, or justice.
The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people.
He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and the moon endure throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass as showers that water the earth.
In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endures. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust.
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall bring presents. The kings of Sheba and of Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him.
All nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy.
He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for him continually, and daily shall he be praised.
There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains. The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like the grass of the earth. His name shall endure for ever.
His name shall be continued as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in him. All nations shall call him blessed.
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.
And blessed be his glorious name for ever. And let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen.
The prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended.
Now, of course, that last two verses are the doxology that ends one of the books of the Psalms that we've talked about. They each end with something like that.
But this final Psalm in this collection is a Psalm about the Messianic Kingdom. It may be that we read it and think, well, how do we know that's really about the Messiah? I mean, it just says the king and the king's son. Maybe if Solomon wrote this, maybe he was writing this about himself, the king, and his own son, Rehoboam.
And that would be possible, except for some of the things that are said that do not apply to Solomon, nor to his son. For instance, that his dominion was from the river even to the ends of the earth in verse 8. It's a universal dominion from sea to sea. It's a worldwide dominion.
Solomon and his son never had such a dominion, but only Christ has.
And also, it's interesting that the Targums, which are some old Jewish writings that predate the Christian period, actually, in their translation of this, they call it, give the king, the Messiah, thy judgment. That is, the Jews, even before the time of Christ, believed this was about the Messiah.
And they inserted the word the Messiah after the word the king in verse 1.
And so, there is strong Jewish belief that this was about the Messiah. Much in it indicates that it could apply to no one else. And so, we see this also as a picture of Jesus.
Now, it says in verses 2 through 4, it says that he will judge the poor with righteousness, that is, with justice and fairness.
Generally speaking, the poor didn't have much of a hearing before the king. And a lot of times, if a king was corrupt, he would even allow the rich to oppress the poor, since the rich could bribe him and pay him off and such.
So, a good judge or a good king would see to it that the poor people get their, what they have due, and make sure that they get what's righteous for them to get.
Verse 5 and following talks about how his kingdom will be around basically forever, is what's implied there, as long as the sun and the moon endure throughout all generations. We know that when the sun and the moon disappear will be when this earth disappears, and then there's going to be the new heaven and the new earth.
And so, after that, we don't know exactly what the situation will be with Jesus reigning, but at least until then, and probably forever is what's more implied symbolically here, he will reign. The fact that his reign is universal over the whole earth is mentioned in verse 8 and following. Verse 9 also implies that, which says that those who dwell in the wilderness.
And verse 10 says, the kings of Tarshish.
I don't know quite where Tarshish was, but in the Bible it always refers to some distant place from where Israel is. It's probably an ancient name for some modern place, and that's where Jonah tried to sail off to when he wanted to get away from God.
He caught a ship to Tarshish. At any rate, some people believe it was a city in Spain, which is pretty far from Israel, across the Mediterranean.
It mentions the kings of Sheba and Seba and other Gentiles that will come down and do homage to him.
This I don't take to be a literal statement, but more reference to the fact that kings and people of all classes from all nations are coming to Christ and making him their king. They're submitting to him, becoming part of his kingdom.
Then in verses 12 and following, it talks further about how he will be sensitive and compassionate to those who are hurting, which he is.
We saw that Jesus in his first coming always had time to help those who were in need. There were times when he was exhausted from helping the poor and from helping the sick and healing them and feeding them and so forth, that he just wanted to get away to get some rest. And he crossed the Sea of Galilee, and when he got to the other side, they had run around and beat him there.
And it says he looked at them and he had compassion on them and he healed their sick and he taught them all day long. So, even though he was exhausted, he couldn't turn his ears away from the needy. He shall spare the poor and the needy and shall save the souls of the needy.
He shall redeem their souls from the deceit and violence, that is, the deceit that the Pharisees had people under. He spared the needy from that by exposing the deceit of the enemies.
And then the verses go on to talk about the prosperity of his kingdom, about the corn and the crops and so forth, the fruit of his kingdom and so forth.
The terms that are used here, true enough, they appear to be talking about natural things, natural kingdoms.
But we'll find that in the prophets and the poets, such illustrations were often used to illustrate spiritual things, especially we'll see this in Isaiah. Because there are many places in Isaiah where the Messiah's kingdom is described in passages that sound like it's talking about a physical, geographical kingdom.
But where the New Testament writers quote those Isaiah passages, has been fulfilled spiritually in the church. So, whether we can feel like that's a justifiable thing in our own selves or not, we have to admit that the apostles saw it that way and therefore I would say that justifies us taking them that way too. This I could actually see as a picture of Christ reigning today.
He reigns, he has compassion on the needy, he rules justly among his people. And of course his people make up the church and in the church he has made certain laws which if they're kept will event justice and judgment among the people.
And of course those who follow him are his kingdom.
Those who do his law, who keep his words are his kingdom. And of course if you are doing his law then you are operating in justice and he is ruling you in justice and peace and righteousness and so forth.
Now, though that's the longest psalm we're studying today, that doesn't have the most comments that I want to make.
I'd like for us with the remaining time we have to turn to Psalm 110, which is short in terms of number of verses but long on meaning.
In fact, Psalm 110 is the one chapter more than any other in the Old Testament from which quotes are taken in the New Testament. That is, the New Testament writers quoted from Psalm 110 more than they quoted from any other chapter in the Old Testament, which shows us how much they considered this chapter to be about Christianity, about the church, about Jesus.
Jesus himself quoted it. When he talked to the Pharisees about who the Messiah would be, whose son would he be, they said he'd be David's son. And Jesus said, well then why did David call him Lord? Saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou here at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Now, Jesus then said that this was a psalm of David. That's what the title says also. Though some modern critics have suggested that David didn't write it, but that someone else wrote it about David.
Yet, Jesus himself made a strong point of the fact that David did write it and that the words in verse 1 were uttered by David himself.
That if the Messiah was David's son, why would David speak of the Messiah as his Lord? Men don't speak that way about their own descendants and their own sons, usually. And of course, what Jesus was implying is that the Messiah, as David knew him, was to be not just a man, but the Son of God.
Let me read this psalm and then we'll make comments on a number of the verses. Now, clearly some of those verses are very familiar to you if you've read the text. And some of them seem very obscure and a bit hard to understand, but I believe that we can sort through the flow of thought here if we take it within the light the New Testament gives us on it.
As I said, this is quoted very frequently in the New Testament. And all the expressions in the New Testament about Jesus being seated at the right hand of God are taken from this statement where God said, The expression of Jesus seated presently at the right hand of God became like a proverb almost. It was used so frequently in the New Testament and it's based entirely on this psalm statement.
Now, the first instance, the word LORD is in all capital letters, which means Jehovah God, the triune God. The second instance of the verse, LORD is not all capitals. It's got a capital L but the small o-r-d.
And that tells us that it's not the word Jehovah, but in fact it's another Hebrew word which is Adonai. Whenever you see in your Bible the word LORD with a capital L and small o-r-d, it's the word Adonai. Now, Adonai simply means Master or Lord.
Whereas Jehovah, which is the capital, all capitals, always refers to God. Now, Adonai, the second instance where LORD appears, sometimes is used of God. He's sometimes called Adonai, the Master.
And sometimes it's used of men.
For instance, a slave would call his human master Adonai. That was a common term for a master of a slave.
So, David speaks of the Messiah as his Adonai, as his Master, so to speak. And he says, Jehovah said unto my Master, meaning to the Messiah, you are, he says, sit here at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Now, Jesus is presently seated at the right hand of God.
Where is that? That's on a throne.
He's already sat, he's sitting on a throne. And he's doing it until all of his enemies have been brought under his feet, that is, under his control.
I'd like to turn your attention to 1 Corinthians 15, very quickly, to show how Paul applies this verse in this place. He applies it various ways in different places. But, 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 25, says, For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet.
And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, for he has put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under it, it is manifest that he is accepted, which did put all things under him. That is to say, that God is not under Jesus' feet, of course, but all other things are under his feet.
But notice verse 25, it says, For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. What's that saying? It's saying he's presently reigning. He's now on the throne.
He's presently reigning and he will reign until all the enemies are put under his feet.
How does Paul know that? Because the scripture says so in Psalm 110. God said to Jesus, Sit at my right hand, which is the position of co-regency on the throne, until I make your enemies your footstool.
That is, until I bring your enemies under subjection to you. That's what God is in the process of doing now. He's in the process of taking those of us who were his enemies and making us come under his feet, under his authority, in other words, says King.
You and I were enemies of God at one time. Today we're not. Today we are under his feet.
And he is in the process of making his enemies his footstool. And this will be done one of two ways, as we mentioned earlier. Either by their voluntary submission to the gospel, by becoming Christians and coming into the kingdom that way.
Or else by their being destroyed under his feet at the second coming, when he comes and judges them. One way or another, all his enemies will be brought under full control. Either they will voluntarily become his people, or else they will never do so and they will be destroyed at his coming.
And all his enemies will then be put under his feet. Then it says, The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Now, I've already said that I believe Zion, when it refers to the kingdom of God, is a reference to the church.
And we showed a New Testament passage in Hebrews 12, 22, that suggests that that's the right conclusion. So anyway, Jehovah shall send the rod of the Messiah's strength out of the church, is how I read that. The church is the agency through which Jesus' strength is exercised.
His authority and his kingly dominion is expressed through the church in the world today. Now, that doesn't mean that we're sitting on earthly thrones ruling the world. But it means that we are moving in his authority.
That we have his name. That we can, as Paul said, in Christ's stead, we are ambassadors of God. And we can beseech you in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God, as he said in the closing verses of 2 Corinthians 5. So, we stand in Christ's stead as his ambassadors and his agents, and of course as his soldiers, as we'll see.
But the commission is given to Jesus at the end of verse 2, rule in the midst of your enemies. Again, it makes it clear that he's ruling now. Because when he comes back, he's not going to have any more enemies.
It says in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, in verse 8, 2 Thessalonians 1, 8. It says, when Jesus comes back, he'll come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on all his enemies. He'll destroy all his enemies when he comes back. He won't have any more then.
So, if he's ruling in the midst of his enemies, they have not yet been destroyed. That means the second coming hasn't occurred. He's ruling now in the kingdom.
His kingdom is his people.
And he is ruling, and his kingdom is intermingled with the kingdoms of his enemies. Permeating them.
When the Pharisees demanded of Jesus in Luke chapter 17, when the kingdom should arrive,
he said, the kingdom of God does not come with observation. Neither shall men say, lo, here it is, or lo, there it is. But he said, the kingdom of God is already in your midst.
That is, there were subjects of God's kingdom, disciples of Jesus Christ, who were already infiltrating the society of the Jews. They were intermingled. He was ruling in the midst of his enemies.
His enemies were there asking the question, Jesus said, you don't know it, but my kingdom already is infiltrated your ranks. There are already some of the members of my kingdom in your midst. So, rule in the midst of your enemies.
That's what the commission was given to Jesus here.
Then it is said to Jesus, in verse 3, your people shall be willing in the day of thy power. In the beauty of this holiness, from the womb of the morning, thou hast to do as I use.
Now, there could hardly be imagined a more beautiful verse than this. Though the meaning is extremely obscure. I mean, as far as the wording, it's just got a really beautiful poetic flow to it.
And all the words are gorgeous, but what does it mean? And you might say, well, maybe I'll look at another translation and see. Well, I would suggest that if you look at 10 different translations, modern translations, you'll get 10 different interpretations. And the reason for that is that the Hebrew words are very difficult to interpret.
Some of the sentences are not complete in the Hebrew. It's not easy to tell how the words are related to each other in the Hebrew. And therefore, the Hebrew version is almost as confusing as this.
However, some of the better authorities that I've been able to consult on this verse to try to get some understanding of it, have agreed to something like this. It says, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. It means that there will be a willing army of volunteers that join into his kingdom.
The word power actually means military power in the Hebrew. It means military power. So, in the day when Jesus goes to battle, which is now, he will have a willing army of volunteers that come to serve with him.
Then it says, in the beauties of holiness, which refers actually to the army. The literal in the Hebrew is in the splendors of holiness. And the same language in the Hebrew sometimes talks about a glorious array or glorious armor.
But figuratively speaking, his armies will be armored or arrayed in holiness, in holy character. And then it says, from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. Now that's very hard to interpret, but most of the newer translations give it a meaning something like this.
Like the dew, your youth will come unto you. Now the youth there is collective, that is youth, young people. It's not talking about his youth as an individual.
My youth, I speak of when I was younger, that's my youth. No, he's talking about his youth. His youth, the youth, the young people who come to him.
Now he's saying that they will come to him like the dew from the womb of the morning. Speaking of dew coming from the womb of the morning in a figurative sense, he says that's how your people, your young people will come and rally as your army. Now if we put all those images together, basically, if we're not incorrect about this, what it is saying is that Jesus is going to rule or is ruling in the midst of his enemies.
It was yet future when Psalm 110 was written because David didn't live to see it. It's not yet future now, it's happening now. We are living in this time.
But David predicted concerning Jesus that when Jesus came to his military position to make war against the devil, that he would have an army of volunteers who were arrayed with holiness, holy character, who would amass together as silently and as spontaneously as the dew on the grass. That is the way it could be understood. I want to say silently and spontaneously.
We mean that there's sort of an instantaneous response. And those who are God's elect, who hear the word of God, they hear the gospel, they respond. And they come and it's like all of a sudden the devil turns around and there's this huge army there.
And it came almost as suddenly and silently and surprisingly as the dew comes on the grass during the night. So this is basically what some of the newer translations have tried to bring out of this verse. And whether they're totally correct or not is not certain, but I'm certainly willing to believe it is.
Because right after that, at least in verse 5 and 6 and 7, it talks about battle. So it does seem like it's talking about the rallying of an army. That Jesus is on the right hand of God ruling.
And he's gathering an army that will be doing his battles for him, through whom he will be ruling and gaining the victory amid his enemies. Now, verse 4 is a very significant verse. It is quoted frequently in Hebrews.
In Hebrews chapters 5 through chapter 7, we have probably no less than three or four or five times that this verse is quoted. In verse 4, the Lord has sworn, that is Jehovah has sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
This is the only place in the Psalms that refers to the Messiah being a priest. Remember the anointed one could be a priest or a king or a prophet. Jesus is all three and here we're told he's a priest.
And he's been sworn in, like every priest has to be sworn in with an oath. Jehovah God swore an oath in. Sworn in as a priest forever.
And he says he will not repent. When it says he will not repent, it means God won't change his mind. It calls to mind the fact that Eli, in 1st Samuel chapter 2, was told that even though his family had been given a promise that they would be priests forever.
He says, but now far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, those who despise me I will lightly esteem. In other words, God said at one time he had promised with an oath that Eli's family would be priests forever. But because they rejected him and turned from him and disobeyed him and rebelled against him, he cancelled the promise.
But he's saying here, I've sworn with an oath that Jesus will be a priest forever and I won't repent of that. I won't change my mind about that. Because, of course, he'll never incline me to.
He'll never rebel against me. I'll never need to repent of it. Now he says, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
This statement, if you've read the New Testament or if you've studied the book of Hebrews, doesn't sound extremely strange to our ears. Because we're so familiar with what the writer of Hebrews says about it. But to David's ears, who wrote it, it must seem very strange.
The reason is that Melchizedek had only been mentioned one other place in the Bible. Only twice in the whole Old Testament do we have a reference to Melchizedek. Once is here.
And the other time is in Genesis chapter 14, which gives only a couple or three verses about him. And he's a man who met Abraham. After Abraham went out to battle and delivered his nephew, Lot, from the power of Chedolamor and four other kings, Abraham met a man named Melchizedek.
And according to Genesis, Melchizedek was the king of Salem and a priest of the Most High God. And certain things transpired between them, which we'll study in more detail when we study the book of Hebrews in this term. And we won't go into it now.
But the interesting thing is that Melchizedek was said to be a priest of the Most High God. Now the thing that's so striking about that is that there was no religion of the Most High God. And it's kind of hard to have a priest when you don't have a religion.
A priest is someone who offers sacrifices and belongs to a particular religious group. But in those days, Abraham didn't have any children. Therefore, there were no Jews.
Therefore, there was no Jewish religion. Therefore, there was no true religion organized of the true God. And yet this man, Melchizedek, who met Abraham, was said to be a priest of the Most High God.
And he was said to be the king of Salem. Now, in Hebrews chapter 7 it's brought up that Melchizedek, the name Melchizedek, actually literally means king of righteousness. In the Hebrew, Melchizedek means king of righteousness.
And we're told he was the king of Salem. Salem is another form of the word shalom or peace. So the writer of Hebrews tells us he's also the king of peace.
And so Melchizedek was the king of peace and the king of righteousness. Also a priest of the Most High God. And now, that's basically all we know about Melchizedek from Genesis.
And now, 1500 years later, David writes concerning the Messiah, he's going to be a priest also after the order of Melchizedek. This would have been a really crazy thing in the ears of most of the Jews because they knew of no priesthood except the priesthood of Levi. That is, of Aaron.
Moses' brother Aaron and the Levites were the only priesthood that the Jews ever knew. The order of Aaron, the order of Levites. And yet the Messiah would be a priest but not of that order.
In Israel, you couldn't have a priest who was not a Levite. Jesus was not a Levite. He was of the tribe of Judah, not of the tribe of Levi.
Therefore, he would have never qualified as a priest in Israel. He was not born to the right family. But David says the Messiah would be a priest after a different order, not related to Levi at all, but the order of Melchizedek.
And the meaning of that is very deep. And that's why Hebrews takes so much time to describe what it means. But basically, he points out that Melchizedek seems to have been an appearance of Christ before his incarnation.
What we call a theophany. Melchizedek seems to be a theophany of Christ who met Abraham. And he was described as a priest because he did priestly service for Abraham on that occasion.
Abraham paid tithes to him. He blessed Abraham and so forth. He did the kinds of things a priest does.
Jesus came in human form, I believe, at that moment and acted sort of in the role of a priest of God for Abraham. For Abraham to give his tithes and to be blessed by. Well, it's said of the Messiah, he'll be that same kind of priest.
That is, he'll be just like Melchizedek. He'll be God come in the flesh, I believe. Now, that was a great mystery, I'm sure.
The Jews, as they read this scripture, would have not known what it was talking about. A priest after the order of Melchizedek. But in Hebrews it points out that it means that he's the son of God.
Really. And he's operating in a priesthood that's superior to the priesthood of Levi and of Aaron. Now, the last verses in here are talking about the battle.
Again, we've read about battle in every one of the psalms we've studied tonight. Every one of them that talk about the king, we talk about him subduing his enemies. Usually bloody battle is described.
The arrow of the king being sharp in the heart of his enemies in chapter 45. Here there's reference in verse 6 to him filling the places with dead bodies. And he'll wound the heads of many countries.
All these things could have a dual fulfillment. They could either refer to the spiritual warfare that's going on right now. Or they could refer to the judgment that comes when Jesus returns, the final judgment.
My feeling is that it has to do with the present spiritual warfare. And I base it largely on verse 7. Where it says, he shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore he shall lift up the head. Therefore he shall lift up the head means he shall lift up his head in victory.
Now, why will he lift up his head in victory? Because verse 7 says he shall drink of the brook in the way. Now, is there some kind of deep spiritual significance to that? Is the brook some kind of a spiritual thing? I don't think so. I think it's just saying that just like a warrior when he's in pursuit of his enemy does not take time to sit down and refresh himself when he gets hungry.
If he hasn't been near a brook, he stops only briefly or grabs water in his hands and laps it from his hands. Like Gideon's army did. Because in pursuit of the enemy, you don't want to take time to stop and refresh yourself.
But if you're dying of thirst, you only stop long enough to scoop up water in your hands and to lap it while you're running. And I believe that it's saying here that in his pursuit of his enemies, which is described in verses 5 and 6, it will be a relentless pursuit. He will continue until he is won.
And because of this continuing relentless battle that he will conduct, not taking time out for anything really, he will get the victory. And so it seems to talk about a prolonged battle to me. At least the wording sounds like to me it's talking about a prolonged thing, not an instantaneous judgment at his second coming.
But it's talking again about the warfare in which this army of willing ones are a part of. Remember that your people should be willing in the day of your power. This army of willing warriors, the church, that have freely chosen to follow him and to serve him, will get the victory and his victory will be final and complete.
And he shall destroy the heads over many nations. Which would be, of course, I believe the spiritual demonic heads over the nations he'll destroy. Well, these psalms, of course, speak of a kingly splendor of the Messiah.
Many of the psalms we're going to study in the future classes will talk about him suffering and being humiliated and being poor and so forth. But there are different aspects of the Messiah that the psalms talk about. And I wanted tonight to take all at one time, though in a rather hurried fashion, unfortunately, these four that talked about his kingly rule.

Series by Steve Gregg

Original Sin & Depravity
Original Sin & Depravity
In this two-part series by Steve Gregg, he explores the theological concepts of Original Sin and Human Depravity, delving into different perspectives
2 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
A thought-provoking biblical analysis by Steve Gregg on 2 Thessalonians, exploring topics such as the concept of rapture, martyrdom in church history,
Numbers
Numbers
Steve Gregg's series on the book of Numbers delves into its themes of leadership, rituals, faith, and guidance, aiming to uncover timeless lessons and
Malachi
Malachi
Steve Gregg's in-depth exploration of the book of Malachi provides insight into why the Israelites were not prospering, discusses God's election, and
Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual Warfare
In "Spiritual Warfare," Steve Gregg explores the tactics of the devil, the methods to resist Satan's devices, the concept of demonic possession, and t
Torah Observance
Torah Observance
In this 4-part series titled "Torah Observance," Steve Gregg explores the significance and spiritual dimensions of adhering to Torah teachings within
Cultivating Christian Character
Cultivating Christian Character
Steve Gregg's lecture series focuses on cultivating holiness and Christian character, emphasizing the need to have God's character and to walk in the
Gospel of Mark
Gospel of Mark
Steve Gregg teaches verse by verse through the Gospel of Mark. The Narrow Path is the radio and internet ministry of Steve Gregg, a servant Bible tea
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes
Steve Gregg teaches verse by verse through the book of Ecclesiastes, exploring its themes of mortality, the emptiness of worldly pursuits, and the imp
The Tabernacle
The Tabernacle
"The Tabernacle" is a comprehensive ten-part series that explores the symbolism and significance of the garments worn by priests, the construction and
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