All right, Psalm 45. We have here the royal wedding. And this truly is the royal wedding. Now, this is the wedding between
King Jesus and his queen, his bride, the church. I want us
to begin here in verse 6. We saw last time that God the
Father is speaking to His Son, the Lord Jesus. We know that
from Hebrews. And He says here, verse 6, Thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever. He's speaking to Jesus,
that man, Jesus. And He says, Thy throne. That
means he's a king. And he says, Thy throne, O God. That means he's God. And he says,
Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. That means from everlasting
to everlasting. That means he's always been God,
he's always been the king, and he will always be God, and he
will always be the king. He says, the scepter of thy kingdom
is a right or a righteous scepter. That means he rules in perfect
righteousness. Thou lovest righteousness and
hatest wickedness. Not any of us could say that
about ourselves. That can't be said of any of
us, that we love righteousness and hate wickedness. We have
a new man that we do love righteousness and hate wickedness, but sin
is so ever-present with us in our flesh that we don't love
righteousness like we should and we don't hate wickedness
like we should. But he does. Therefore, God thy God hath anointed
thee, and that word is also used sometimes to express exalted
to a high place, with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Christ has always been God. He's always been the king. He
said there, the reference is Psalm What does it say? Psalm 93, 2. And he says over
there, basically he says, you made the world, and he says,
and you've been the king from everlasting. He's been, always
been king. He's always been the king. Remember
when he came into this world, they said, we came to see him
that is born king of the Jews. He's always been the king. He
was the king when he walked this earth, and became a servant to
God the Father and he obeyed God in place of his people. He was the king. He lived and
died the king and redeemed his people. And then he arose king
and he's seated now on his throne in heaven as the glorified God-man
and he's ruling in perfect righteousness. His scepter is a right scepter. The Hebrew writer put it this
way, he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than the
angels, and we know from other places, more excellent name than
any name. He obtained that from God the
Father. John saw a lamb as it had been
slain sitting on the throne. Christ's scepter is a right scepter.
God the Father would not commit the rule over his church to a
king except that king be righteous and rule with righteousness.
Proverbs 16.12 says the throne is established by righteousness. And Christ established His throne
by His personal righteousness and by Him establishing His people
in righteousness by His obedience unto the death of the cross.
And it says, therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with
the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Right here it's speaking
not only of gifts being imparted to him by the Holy Spirit, but
it's speaking of this right here from Philippians 2.9. He humbled
himself and highly exalted the Father by his obedience unto
death, and Philippians 2.9 says, wherefore God also. has highly
exalted him and given him a name above every name, that at the
name of Jesus, every knee shall bow of things in heaven, things
in earth, things under the earth. That means everybody's gonna
bow to him. And every tongue shall confess
that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now he's always
been this Lord. Man, somebody said something
about me from that message I preached on Sunday out of Romans 11. And
they, you know, accuse you of preaching replacement theology. And what they mean by that is
you're saying that Israel's replaced by the church. Let me tell you
something. Christ the King and his kingdom
is the pattern that existed before this world was made from whom
David and his throne and his kingdom Israel was patterned. You get what I'm saying? Christ
the king, David was patterned after him to be a type of Christ. And Israel was patterned after
Christ's kingdom to be a picture of Christ's kingdom. And when
David, was buried with his fathers, Christ still was on the throne. And when Israel is gone, Christ's
kingdom will still be forever. When you read in the scriptures
and you hear God speak to David and he speaks about his throne
being forever and ever, He's talking about Christ on the throne. And he's talking about the kingdom
that Christ established to Israel of God. Go back over to 2 Samuel
chapter 7. Let me show you this. 2 Samuel
7 and look at verse 12. God said to David, when thy days
be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set
up thy seed or thy son after thee, which shall proceed out
of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a
house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom
forever, forever. Look down at verse 16. Thine
house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee. Thy throne shall be established
forever. Go over with me now to Acts chapter
2. Who's that speaking of? The Spirit
of God spoke through Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost
and he tells us plainly that Christ is that king. Look here,
Isaiah 2 and verse 30. He says, I'm sorry, verse 29.
Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch
David, that he's both dead and buried, and his sepulcher's with
us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet and
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit
of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ
to sit on his throne. He seeing this before spake of
the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell,
neither his flesh to see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up,
whereof we're all witnesses. Therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, That's where his throne is, it's in the heavens.
Remember, he told them, my kingdom's not of this earth. If it was,
my disciples would fight that I shouldn't be delivered to the
Jews, but my kingdom's not of this earth. His kingdom is a
heavenly kingdom. He's at the right hand of God
exalted. And having received of the Father the promise of
the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which you now see
and hear. For David's not ascended into
the heavens, but he saith himself, the Lord said unto my Lord, David
said, God said to my God, thee Lord said to my Lord, sit there
on my right hand till I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore
let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus whom you've crucified both Lord and Christ. And who's his kingdom made up
of? Revelation 5, 9 says they're God's elect who are redeemed
by Christ's blood out of every kindred and tongue and people
and nation under heaven. You and I who believe by his
grace are citizens of Christ's kingdom. Colossians 1, Paul said,
we give thanks to the Father because He's made us meet. He's
made us right now fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. He's delivered us from the power
of darkness and He hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son. We're citizens of Christ's kingdom,
citizens of heavenly Jerusalem over which Christ is the king
right now. He said at the end of Ephesians
2, after he showed how Christ came and he took away the middle
wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, that which separated
us was God's law. He fulfilled it and he made us
one by his blood. And then he sent the gospel and
preached the gospel to us and made us one in heart, in spirit.
And he says now, to Jew and Gentile, both of us, And especially to
the Gentile, he says, you're no more strangers and foreigners,
but you're fellow citizens with the saints. Fellow citizens of
what? Paul said in Philippians 3.20,
our conversation, our citizenship is in the heavens from whence
we look for our Lord Jesus Christ to come. And when Christ has
called all His redeemed, all these that He's already redeemed
out of every nation, kindred, tongue, and tribe under heaven,
when He's called us all to faith in Him, there's going to come
what's called the marriage supper of the Lamb. He said, you can
look at Revelation 19 in verse 6. He said, I heard, as it were,
the voice of a great multitude, and this voice came from the
throne. And then he said, I heard a voice of a great multitude,
the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thundering,
saying, hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let
us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him. This is his marriage
ceremony. And he says, for the marriage
of the lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
How did she do that? To her was granted, to her was
given, that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,
for the fine linen's the righteousness of saints. It's the righteousness
of Christ given to us through faith. And he saith unto me,
Write, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage
supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are
true sayings of God. So now in our text, in Psalm
45, when he says, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter. He's talking about Christ Jesus,
the God-man. who is, he's God and he's king,
and he has been forever, and he will be forever. So this is
the royal wedding we're looking at between Christ and his queen,
Christ and his bride. You and I have been given faith,
we can see in this text, and we see Jesus, who was made a
little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned
with glory and honor. He was made lower than the angels
for the suffering of death, and he has, by the grace of God,
tasted death for every one of his elect, and now he's crowned
with glory and honor. And so this royal wedding we're
about to look at is the marriage supper, it's the marriage ceremony
between Christ the king and his queen, the bride. Now, in the
past few years, we've seen some beautiful weddings. We've seen
the groom all decked out handsomely, and we've seen the bride adorned
for her husband, and we've seen the maids and the matrons of
honor all beautifully arrayed. and we've seen some pretty weddings,
but nothing compares to this wedding. And what we're looking
at by faith right now, one of these days we're gonna see this
face to face. This is not a story, this is
not a fable, this is what we're gonna see. Now let's look at
this. First, God our Father describes
our king in all his royal apparel. in his ivory palace. He says
in verse 8, all thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and
cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad.
Now scripture speaks of the savor of Christ. His smell. And here God the Father declares
Christ to be a sweet savor unto God. Now when He speaks of sinners,
when He speaks of you and me fallen as we were fallen in Adam
and all sinners fallen, He speaks of us as an abomination. Now
that's a big word. Here's what it means. We stink
to God. That's what it means. We stink
to God. But he says of Christ, he smells
with a sweet smell, a smell that is pleasing to God. This is his
person, his righteousness, his holiness. And that's what makes
his work be such a sweet-smelling savor to God. It's because of
who he is, righteous and holy before God. When he talks here
of these ivory palaces, wherever Christ dwells, because he's righteous
and holy, wherever he dwells, it's an ivory palace. wherever
he, it's a sinless, holy palace, wherever he dwells. That's what
an ivory palace represents. When Christ tabernacled among
us in his earthly body, his human nature and his divine nature
in one body, our Lord Jesus was an ivory palace. He was holy,
he was sinless, he was perfect before God. And so his sacrifice
and his offering was sweet to God. The scripture says Christ
hath loved us and hath given himself for us, an offering and
a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. And Christ dwells in his
preachers who he sends forth to preach the gospel. And so
he takes these earthen clay pots that are nothing in themselves,
and by his presence in them, by his gospel going forth from
them, he makes them his ivory palace. Scripture says this,
Paul said, now thanks be unto God, speaking of himself and
other preachers, he said, thanks be unto God which always causeth
us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge
by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savor
of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. In them,
in the one, were the savor of death unto death, and in the
other, a savor of life unto life. And he said, who's sufficient
for these things? That's by Christ. That's by him
dwelling in his preacher, making him an ivory palace. And when
he enters into his people and regenerates us, He creates a
new man in us in the righteousness and holiness of Christ and in
that new man, he makes by his presence that new man to be an
ivory palace. And all the smell whereby we're
accepted is the smell of Christ in his garments. That's what
is pleasing to God. And one day he's gonna come back
and he's gonna take us to heaven and we're gonna enter into that
ivory palace of his presence where he dwells. He dwells there,
and it's an ivory palace because Christ our King, holy and righteous,
dwells there. And He's going to bring us there.
And we're going to be brought there, conformed to Christ, adorned
in His garments, and we're going to smell exactly like Christ
smelled to God. Now here's the point of all that. It's the savor of Christ's garments
whereby He's made glad toward us. It's the savor of Christ's
garments whereby God, God the Father and God the Son are made
glad toward us. Read it again. All thy garments
smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces,
that is, wherever Christ dwells, whereby they, thy garments, have
made thee glad. It's Christ's smell that he puts
in his people and upon his people whereby it makes him glad, makes
him accept us. If you're going to go over to,
I'm going to show you Ezekiel 20. Go there with me real quick.
I was talking to one of the men the other day, and I can't remember
now which one. We were talking about when you're preparing a
message and you go and you read, I think I was talking to Eric
about this, Brother Eric Lutter, and we're talking about how when
you are preparing this passage and you go and you find, you
read something that one of the old writers wrote and it's just
exactly what you're seeing, how it gives you some assurance that
the Lord's given you a message, you know, because he gave it
to the saints of old. Well, today I turned to this
and I was reading this verse, Ezekiel 20 verse 41. Here's what
he's telling us in our text. I will accept you with your sweet
savor, with Christ as our sweet savor, when I bring you out from
the people and gather you out of the countries wherein you've
been scattered, and I will be sanctified in you before the
heathen. And so I looked up John Gill. I want to see what he wrote
on that. Listen to this. This is what he said. Their sins
being expiated by the sacrifice of Christ, which is unto God
for a sweet-smelling savor, their persons being clothed with the
robe of his righteousness and the garments of his salvation,
all whose garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia. I had no
idea that he was going to quote my text. in his comments on that
verse. And he said, and the gospel being
the savor of life unto life unto them, and the savor of the knowledge
of Christ being communicated to them by it, and also the savor
of his good ointments, the graces of the Spirit being imparted
to them. Everything I've been saying John Gill said it in a
paragraph, and I thought, well that gives me some assurance
and comfort that I'm on the right track. But that's what he's talking
about. Christ, wherever he dwells, it's
him that makes us smell good to God. Now look at this. Then God our Father, now he's
going to describe the bride. Now that's the king, that's the
husband, that's the groom. Sweet-smelling in his ivory palace,
we're gonna be brought into his presence. Now listen to how he
describes the bride. Verse nine, king's daughters
were among thy honorable women, the matrons of honor. Upon thy
right hand did stand the queen, the bride, in gold of offer.
Now, this is the wedding party. The king's daughters are the
matrons of honor, and the queen is the bride. Now, the queen
pictures the church as a whole. The whole church is the queen,
the bride of Christ. And then these honorable women,
they picture each believer in particular that he's called,
which makes up the whole church, makes up the whole queen. You
with me? You follow that? Brethren, you
and I who've been given life and faith in Christ, we're described
here as the king's daughters. each of us individually. I had
to look this up. I almost said we're maids of
honor, but that's not right. I didn't know this. Y'all probably
already knew this, but I didn't know this, that an unmarried
woman is a maid of honor. A married woman is a matron of
honor. I didn't know that. But we're married to Christ.
We're a spouse to Christ, so we're not maids of honor. We're
matrons of honor in that sense. But notice here, we're not the
queen's matron of honor. You know, when a woman gets married,
the ladies that stand with her, that's her maids and matrons
of honor. No, it says here, we're the king's
daughters were among thy honorable women. He's talking to Christ.
And he says, these are your honorable women. These are your matrons
of honor. Each believer is Christ's matron of honor, and then together
we make up his bride, his queen, his queen. And look now that
our position here is a position of the highest honor, the highest
honor. He says, upon thy right hand.
That's where the queen is. All of his elect, all of his
redeemed, all that have been called to faith in Christ, all
these matrons of honor, espoused to Christ, each individual believer,
together we're the queen. We're the bride of Christ. And
we're at his right hand. Now Christ is seated at God's
right hand. And scripture tell us we're in
him. That's where we are. But Christ here, we've told,
is also God. He's also God and we're there
at His right hand. But at any rate, it's amazing
grace when you think about this. Christ found us, cast out in
our sins, separated from God with no way of being brought
back into God's presence. Not only has He brought us into
God's presence, He's given us the highest place of honor at
His right hand. That's where we are in Christ. It's because we're adorned in
the very most valuable garment. It says here, in the gold of
Ophir. Ophir was a place that was really
well known for gold. It's somewhere in this world
today. and I don't know where it's at, but wherever it is,
there's probably still gold there. It was a well-known place for
gold, and it was even more valuable when the gold came from there
because it was Ophir, and that city was known and kind of like
People want wines from a certain place or, you know, opals come
from Australia, you know, you get an opal from a black opal,
that's the jewel of Australia. You know, wherever it comes from
gives it more value to it. Well, gold of Ophir was the most
valuable and scripture uses it to describe things that are just
invaluable. Job spoke of wisdom being as
the gold of Ophir. Well, that's what he's talking
about here. Before God and His holy law, we're clothed in the
very most valuable garment that has ever been made on this earth.
This is the most valuable garment that has ever been made on this
earth. It's the righteousness of Christ,
the robe of his righteousness. That's what we're robed in, the
gold of Ophir, Christ's righteousness. But look at this now, not only
has he made us righteous outwardly before the law by satisfying
justice so that the law can lay no charge to us ever again, but
also by creating us anew inwardly And by Christ himself, he's righteous
and holy. Wherever he dwells is the ivory
palace. And by him dwelling in his people,
verse 13 says, the king's daughter is all glorious within. By the
righteousness and holiness Christ himself is within us, we're all
glorious within too. And then look, he says, her clothing
outwardly is wrought gold. That's gold that's been worked
and polished and made beautiful by Christ. So what you have here
is inwardly we're all glorious by Christ's holiness and righteousness
and outwardly we're all glorious by Christ's holiness and righteousness.
One day when we're perfectly conformed to his image in body,
when this corrupt body drops and he creates a new image incorruptible
body, and we're raised with a glorified body, the Spirit's not going
to change. Scripture doesn't say the Spirit
changes at all. It'll still be holy and righteous like it is
now, but then our body will too. We'll be perfectly decked in
the gold of Ophir, within and without, with no sin. See, if
we're going to be accepted of God, we have to be so that the
law There can be no charge laid against us before the law, and
we have to have no guile within. We have to be holy and spotless
within. We have to be without blame completely. And that's
what Christ has done in his people. It's begun in the sense that
we still have a body we need to drop in death, and a new body
needs to be given to us, and then it'll be finished. But right
now, in our spirit, we're meet, we're fit to be partaken, we're
fit to enter into God's presence right now because He's made us
holy and righteous. And it's all of Christ. None
of this is of us. We didn't do anything. Christ
did it all. And then look at this. Christ
shall not lose one for whom he died and rose again. Look at
verse 12. And the daughter of Tyre shall
be there with a gift. You've got this wedding party
here and we've talked about the matrons of honor, we've talked
about the queen. Well, he says the daughter of
Tyre shall be there with a gift. Tyre was a seacoast. And so it
was, it's called in scripture a mart of nations, like a quick
mart, you know, it's a mart. It's a place where all these
different Gentile nations came to and they sold and traded and
all, and so it was a place full of Gentiles, and that's who it
represents. God said all his elect Gentiles
are gonna be there, and they're gonna be there with a gift. the
righteousness that Christ is the only thing we have to give
to God. We're coming with Him only. That's the gift we're bringing.
And it says, even the rich, made rich by Christ among the people
shall entreat thy face. That word favor means face. Look
down at verse 14. She, the queen, the church as
a whole, shall be brought unto the king. Now this was the custom In those days, they brought the
bride to the king. That's a pretty picture. I wish
I had known about some of these customs when I got married. Like,
for instance, it wasn't the bride that picked out the dress and
it wasn't the mother and father that bought the dress for the
bride. The groom decked the bride. because that's what Christ did
for us. And then they brought the bride to the groom. That's
what we're being brought to Christ right now. And he's going to
bring each of us to him. And it says, enraiment of needlework. You ladies that sew, you know
needlework is intricate, detailed work. That's like really detailed
work. We're going to be brought in
needlework made by the finger of God, by Christ's own hand,
his raiment that he's worked out for us. It says, the virgins,
her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee, that's
the matrons of honor. We've been made a chaste virgin
unto God, unto Christ, and it says of all of us, with gladness
and rejoicing shall they be brought. Now you remember, we saw a while
ago, what is it that makes God glad? It's Christ's garments
on us that makes us smell a sweet savor to Him so that it says,
thy garments, they have made thee glad. Speaking to Christ,
His garments made Him glad toward us. Well, what makes us glad
and rejoice? The same thing. his garments. We're going to be brought to
him with rejoicing and gladness because we're robed in his garments. And they shall enter into the
king's palace, into that ivory palace, into his holy presence. Do you ever think about these
things? We're going to stand one of these days and see God
in the face of Christ Jesus. And we're going to know Him to
be God, our Savior. We're going to see Him face to
face. And we're going to know Him perfectly, because we're
going to be without sin. We will be as He is when we see
Him. But we're going to be with Him
in His presence, in His holy palace, ivory palace, wherever
it is. And we've got all these different
descriptions in Scripture to show it to us and it's spoken
in these glowing terms and I guarantee you these glowing terms have
not come close to what it's going to be like. But this is going
to happen for us, brethren. I don't want to come there trusting
in anything but Christ, do you? You hear God talk about how he
loves the smell of these garments of his son. Would you want to
be there with some other garment on? Remember that parable our
Lord gave and that man who came and he didn't have on the wedding
garment? Stuck out like a sore thumb.
He didn't have the wedding garment on. You don't want to meet God
without Christ's righteousness. He's the only one God's pleased
with. We're all going to stand before
him one day. Every knee is going to bow and
every tongue is going to confess that it has been just as it was
told to me. He is Lord of Lords and King
of Kings. He is righteous and holy. His
scepter is a right scepter. But I don't want to stand there
that day trusting in something I've done. I can't even think
of an analogy to give you to tell you how far short we will
come of having the righteousness that God requires if we try to
come in anything we've done. We've got to come in Christ only. Believe in Christ only. Now last
time we saw how these last verses applied to Christ. Let's see
how they apply to us. Look at verse 16. God promised
Christ instead of thy fathers They'll be thy children. That
means we're Christ's children. It says, whom thou mayest make
princes. That means Christ has made us
kings and priests under God. We're princes under God. I will
make thy name to be remembered in all generations, God said.
That means God will never let us forget Christ's name. Because
he said, he promised Christ, I'm gonna make men remember you
from every generation. He's not gonna let us forget
him. And he says, therefore shall the people praise thee forever.
That means God will never let us cease praising Christ's name
forever. Paul in Ephesians 5 put all this
together and he said, Christ loved the church and gave himself
for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of water by the word, that he might present it to himself,
a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blemish, all glorious
within and without. he nourisheth and cherisheth
his body, the church, that raiment of needlework, that meticulous,
careful, caring for, he nourishes and cherishes us, for we're members
of his body, of his flesh, and of his bone. Now one last thing,
I'll let you go. Is there somebody sitting here
that would be so foolish as to hear all of this and say, I don't
want to be there. Do you want to be there? Don't
you want to be in this wedding? Don't you want to be the bride
robed in Christ and smelling good to God? Don't you want to
be there? Well, listen to what God says to us, verse 10. Harken,
O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear. Now, when
he speaks that effectually, Christ is the Savior of the body. He's
the head of the church, the Savior of the body. The church is saved
by submitting to Christ our husband. When he speaks that word, we
are willing to submit to Christ. And that's how we're saved, through
faith in him. And he says this, forget also thine own people
in thy father's house. You know, a bride, when she marries
her husband, she has to leave her mother and her father and
cleave to her husband. And why is that? Because it's
picturing Christ, and he says, he that loves father and mother
more than me is not worthy of me. He that loves son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me. What's he saying? Whosoever
he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he can't be
my disciple. In other words, there can be
no competition between your heart and Christ. Nothing. He means leave everything, your
works, any other confidence, don't love anybody over him,
him alone, one husband, one husband. And he says here, so shall the
king greatly desire thy beauty, for he's the Lord, thy Lord,
worship thou him. I pray, I've come to this pulpit
and I pray this during the day as I'm studying every day, and
I pray, Lord, please speak in power to somebody to whom I'm
preaching and cause them to believe you. That's what I want because
when you, when he speaks that, you will hearken, you'll consider,
you'll bow, you'll submit, you'll forget, you'll forsake all. Like
Levi, he left all and rose up and followed Christ. And he says,
and so the Lord will greatly desire your beauty because it's
through faith that he imputes his righteousness to you and
you're decked in all these garments and he's formed within you and
he says, and he'll greatly desire your beauty. That's what I want
for you. I'm not just preaching to preach. I want you to be saved. I want
you to know the Lord. I want you to, I want you to,
I want God to smell Christ when he smells you and receive you
and rejoice in you and you rejoice in him. I pray God bless that.