Okay, Psalm 110, we'll be looking
at the first three verses of this blessed psalm this evening.
Psalm 110, verse 1 through 3. And the title of the message
is, Salvation is the work of God. Salvation is the work of
God. The scripture says the Lord said
unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine
enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. The first thing that I want us
to notice about this psalm is that distinct persons of the
Godhead as they are mentioned in this psalm. The distinction of the Father
and the Son in the first verse. The Lord, the Father, said unto
my Lord, which is Christ, which is the Son of God. And then in
the next verse, He says the rod of thy strength." The rod of
thy strength, we'll see, is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
of God. And these three, we know, are
one God. Not three gods. One God in three
distinct persons. The triune God. In 1 John 5 verse
7, it makes it very plain to us, not in understanding, but
it makes it plain to us in revelation, there are three that bear record
in heaven. The Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost, and these three are one. One thing about the Godhead
is that we understand every word in that verse of Scripture. It's
very simple. Anybody that can count to 1,
2, 3 can understand what that says. But we, as finite creatures,
we cannot fully comprehend the person of God. I believe in the Trinity of God
persons. I believe in the triune God,
because the Word of God declares it, not because I have fully
understood it. But yet here we have, in this
text of Scripture, the Godhead, the Great Three in One, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, and how all three have their work in
this thing we call salvation. In this thing, God declares the
salvation of sinners is completely the work of the triune God. Behold the glory of His being. And we are to give glory and
praise to the Great Three-in-One for our salvation. We should
give glory to the Father. We should give glory to the Son.
And we should give glory to the Holy Spirit. Glory, glory to
the Father. Glory, glory to the Son. Glory,
glory to the Spirit. The great three in one. And first thing I want us to
see is the work of the Father. The Lord said, the Father, the
work of the Father in salvation. The Father, His work in salvation
is that He Himself has elected a people that He would save. He has ordained the salvation
of spiritual Israel from before the foundation of the world. This is the work of the Father.
And we know this. We know that God has elected
a people because the Lord said. Had the Lord not spoken, had
the Lord not revealed this to us, none of us would have known
of the election of God. We had not known of the election
of God unless He had said. Ephesians chapter 1, blessed
passage of Scripture. Ephesians chapter 1 and verse
3. Blessed be the God and Father. of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ, according as He, the Father, hath chosen us in Him,
the Son, before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. None of us could
have dreamed with all the carnal wisdom of such a great plan as
this, as the plan of election. None of us could have ever thought
of this. Man by nature, the scripture
is clear, is at enmity against God. For he is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be, because he is spiritually
judged. He is spiritually discerned.
He is depraved. Man by nature cannot understand
the things of God. We are carnal by nature. We can only understand carnal
wisdom. We could not understand such
spiritual things as election. When Adam our father sinned,
we all died in him. Thus we are all born dead in
sins. This is a truth by the experience
of man. You can't deny this. No man can
deny this by just simply looking at children. These little people. If you just
watch them enough, you'll know and you'll start to see your
and my depravity in them. Nobody taught them. to lie? They knew how to do that from
the womb. They came forth from the womb speaking lies. And so did I. And so did you. Because we were born dead in
sins. And none of us could have ever
dreamed of such a thing. But here's the hope. Here's the
hope for such dead and depraved sinners. Here's the hope for
such ones that are at enmity and hatred against God. God,
before there was any sin, God, before there was ever a fall,
God, before any one of us was ever born, made a choice among
us. Made choice among us that He
would save sinners. That He would choose for Himself
a race, a people that He would save. Is this completely opposite of
what we would have done? Would we have not chosen the
best among us? If we had made choice, would
we have not chosen the greatest and the brightest? What we do
all the time. We choose according to our earthly
senses. Our earthly reasoning. But God
the Father, He purposed to save a chosen race to make a royal
priesthood of peculiar people, not of righteous men, not of
good men, but of sinners who would have thought. Who would have thought such a
thing? None of us would have thought anything like that. This
is the will of the Father. This is the purpose, this is
the plan of the Father. to save not the best, but the
vilest of sinners. The vilest of sinners. Matter of fact, all the chosen
people of God are sinners. Every elect person is a sinner. God has chosen the poor in spirit. What is it to be poor? It is
to be bankrupt. To be bankrupt of any righteousness. To be bankrupt of any goodness.
God chose the captive sinner who had no hope of escape. God
chose the blind sinner who could not give himself sight. God chose
the dead sinner that could not give himself life. In Ezekiel chapter 37 we read
of the prophecy that God told His prophet Ezekiel. He said,
I want you to go out into the wilderness and I want you to
preach to dry bones. I want you to preach to these
bones that are laying scattered in this valley. And the prophet,
when he looked at the bones, he said they were not only dry,
they were very dry. There was not an ounce of moisture
in these bones at all. And God said, I want you to preach
to these bones. Friends, there is not a drop
of goodness in us. Behold, when I see my nature,
I see this, it is very dry. When you would pray, do you not
see that in your nature? Do you not see that in yourself
when you would read or when you would study how the things of
this world come in and hinder us so easily? How easily we are
moved from the things of God? Can you not see that our nature
is still as dry as it was before? This old man hasn't changed one
bit. He's still a rotting corpse dragging
us down every single day. There's not one drop of hope
or self-righteousness, no self-salvation in us, not by any works that
we could do. Our souls are dead to the things
of God. And we could not make ourselves
acceptable to God by any works or obedience. Remember that woman
that had the, I believe it was an issue of blood, and she went
to the doctors. And the scripture says, she spent
all that she had and grew none better but worse. If you are a believer in Christ,
you can identify with that. We spent all we had in this world
on our flesh and it grew none better but grew worse. We went
to every doctor we could think of. The doctor of free will. The doctor of works religion. The doctor of self-improvement. The doctor of turning over a
new leaf. We went to all these doctors,
and every time, we grew none better. We grew worse. We grew
worse. And the burden grew worse. Friends, these are the ones that
God chose. These are the ones that the Father
chose to save. And these are the ones we preach
the gospel to. Sinners. If you're not a sinner, and I'm
not just saying that word flippantly as though men would think it,
if you are not the vilest of men, if you by nature are not
the most needy of men, the most needy of righteousness, the most
needy of God's mercy, then God has not chosen you. I need God's
mercy. Sinners need mercy. Sinners need
righteousness. Sinners need hope and salvation
that they cannot provide for themselves. But these are the
ones God chose. The world says it's foolishness
to try to preach that old worn-out message again and again. They
say, what you need is entertainment. You need to entertain these bones
together. You need to get some duct tape of entertainment. And
just start taping these bones together. But you need the glue
of the law, so you keep these people in line. They won't come
to hear this message all the time. No. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. We preach to dead sinners. We preach to dry bones, for these
are the ones that God has chosen to give life to. The dead sinners. How do we know this? The Lord
has said. The Lord said. The Father has
spoken. Now, people can hate election
all they want to, but it is true that God has chosen a people. What will they do about it? Nothing. There's nothing they can do.
The Father said. The Lord said. This is the work
of the Father in salvation. Well, how is it that the Father
can do this? Is there unrighteousness with
God? That's the question, isn't it? If God chose a people and
He chose them not based on any good in them, how is it that
God can choose one and leave behind another? Is there unfairness
with God? Is there unrighteousness? God
forbid there's such a thing. Don't even let those words come
out of your mouth. We all deserve hell. Praise God He chose some. Had
He not chose some, none would be saved. But He did. How can He do this? How can God
be just to choose to save sinners? Well, this is how. The Lord said
unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine
enemies thy footstool." This is the work of the Son in salvation. The work of the Son in salvation. How can God save sinners? The
ancient answer is still the best. He saves sinners through His
Son. The Lord that chose said unto
my Lord, His Son. The Father, having loved His
people with an everlasting love, gave them to the Son to be a
surety for them. The Son of God was chosen for
this particular purpose of being the King and Redeemer of His
elect. The work of the Son. The Father
said to the Son, Sit thou at My right hand. Until I make thine
enemies thy foes. When did God say that? When hath
God said this to the Son? He said this from eternity. When
He chose us. If we can use the word when.
Eternity past. When God chose His people. He
said unto my Lord, unto His Son. You are the King. You are the
King. Look at this in Psalm 2. Psalm
2 and verse 6. God says, Yet I have set my king
upon mine holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree. The
Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son. This day have I begotten
thee. When is this day? It was an eternal
day. He was always the son of God.
And yet he was always chosen to be God's king. He said, Sit thou at my right
hand. This was not said of David, but of Christ. We know this from
Matthew chapter 22. When the Lord desired to shut
up the Pharisees, He said, All right, tell me whose son Christ
is. And they quickly answered, We
know that, David. We know he's going to be David's
son. And so the Lord turned to this particular passage of Scripture
and He says, How then, if he is David's son, Does David by
the Spirit call Him Lord? And they couldn't answer that
question at all. Because they would not see the
deity of Christ. They would not believe that He
is God manifest in the flesh. Jesus said this, you shall die
on your sins because you believe not that I am. John chapter 8 and verse 24.
They did not believe He was God. They could not see or know that
this Son, my Lord, would be both God and man. Jesus is both Lord and Christ. He is both David's Lord and David's
Son. Because He is God the Son that
always sat at the right hand of the Father. Jesus was the
Son of David by the flesh, but he was always the Son of God
before he became the Son of Man. And therefore the Father chose
to save His people and He gave them to the Son so that He would
be a representative. David called Him, My Lord. David owned the Son to be His
surety, His Only Savior, the Lord said unto my Lord, my God
said unto my God. Believer, Jesus was always appointed
to be the King of His covenant people. I wrote these Scriptures down,
but no less than ten times in the Old Testament Scriptures,
the Lord said, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No less than ten times God says
that. Jesus was always appointed of
the Father to be the mediator. In our text here, you can see
that He said, The Lord has sworn and will not repent, thou art
a priest, How long? Forever. After the order of Melchizedek,
who had no beginning and no end. Jesus Christ had no beginning
and He has no end. He has always been appointed
by God to be the King of His people, to be the Savior. He did this for the salvation
of His people. This plan of salvation was purposed
before there was sin. And so when sin did come, and
man did fall, what was the first thing that God did? He declared
the glory of His Son. He began to declare the gospel
of His Son that He had already purposed in eternity. The seed
of the woman, the seed of Isaac, the Passover lamb, all of those
Old Testament prophecies and pictures that pictured the Lord
Jesus Christ, who was seated at the right hand of God, ready
at the appointed time to come into the world, so that He might
be our Redeemer, our Savior. And Jesus was not only set up
to be King from eternity, He also came and accomplished the
work that He was given to do. As King, He was given a work. And His work was to save God's
elect people. The Son of God, the King of Glory,
was born from a virgin's womb. The wise man from the east came
and said, Where is he that was born king? Jesus was king of glory, but
for the sake of the elect, he became the servant of God. The servant. He said, I came not to do mine
own will, but the will of him that sent me. We by nature were covered in
such filth of sins, drinking iniquity like water. We by nature were depraved in
our hearts and wanting nothing to do with the things of God. We esteem the things of God foolishness
and we ate up the sin of the church just like every other
sinner. I found this interesting in Hebrews,
in Hosea 4, 8, it says, they eat up the sin of my people. Is it not natural for the world to look
for the church to fall? Do they not glory when the church
is in sin? They eat it up. They eat it up. They said they, in a stronger
version of that, in an older translation, it says they eat
up the excrement of my people. Friends, that's what we did. That's who we are by nature. This is the state of our nature,
and yet the Son of God in mercy came to be bone of our bone,
flesh of our flesh, to dwell among us. The King and Creator
of all heaven and earth came and united Himself to a human
body, veiled His glory, and became a servant so that He might save
God's elect people. The sinless Son of God must do
this because we could not do this. The Son of God must come
and save us because we could not save ourselves. In order
for the elect to be saved, my Lord, my Lord must establish
a righteousness that I could never establish. The Son of God who knew no sin
came to be made flesh so that He might establish a perfect,
acceptable righteousness. Paul calls it even the righteousness
of God, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. And so perfect
was His obedience that God said to everyone, God says, Behold,
God says to every person in this world. He says, stop and behold
my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. God delighted in the work of
His Son. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit
thou at my right hand, because you alone are righteous. You alone are righteous. Behold my elect, Jesus established
the law and made it honorable by his eternal righteousness. I love the scripture that says
that Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. The end of the law for righteousness.
Why? He has well pleased the Father. This is the work of the Son.
The work of the Father was to choose and elect people. The
work of the Son was to provide for them an eternal righteousness
whereby they may be acceptable before God the Father. And Jesus
did this as a man. He established this righteousness.
And also, my Lord came into this world so that he who knew no
sin might be made sin for us. This is the work of the Son,
that He bear the sin of His people. All the sins of God's elect people
must be punished. The sins of God's elect people
must be punished. God could not save us if our
sins were not punished. God who chose us is just, and
He must save us justly. He cannot save us unjustly. Therefore, the Lord God and Father
Jesus Christ, justly, righteously, imputed the sins of all His elect
to His Son. My Lord committed no sin. My Lord was righteous and knew
no sin. Yet, to save us The Father took our guilt, our
iniquity, our transgression, and justly, righteously imputed
it unto His Son, so that He who knew no sin was made sin for
us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus was made to wholly bear
all of our sins. And God imputed our sins to Him
so much that He Himself bore our guilt. Do you understand that? What a mystery. That's all I
can say. It's a mystery. Because we don't
have any example for that. I don't have any example for
that. If I use an example, say a murderer, he commits murder
and he's guilty. And then he comes in and somebody
says, well, I want to take the death penalty for him. I want
to I want to substitute myself in his stead and I want to die
for him. And say the law would allow it. One thing is true, that murderer,
his guilt could not be taken from him. Even though that person
would die for him, he would still be guilty of murder. But yet
in this mysterious, glorious transaction between the Father
and the Son, the Father took our guilt and the Son bore our
guilt before the holy justice of God. And God said, Awake,
O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow. and smite the shepherd. And God,
in all His vengeance, was poured out on the Lord Jesus Christ
for our sins. He said Himself in prophecy,
in Psalm 69, verse 5, the Lord confesses our sins to be His
own. He says in Psalm 22, He says,
I am a worm and no man. And yet He said, My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me? He committed no sin, and yet
He bore the guilt of our sins. Why? The Lord said unto My Lord,
because the Lord hath decreed it. The Father imputed to all of
our sins, and just as sword pierced Him, because He bore our guilt. And for the salvation of His
elect, my Lord must have been risen from the dead. Jesus, who sat from eternity
at the right hand of the Father, was stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
crushed for our sins, established our righteousness, and was victorious
in His death. All that He purposed to do in
dying for His people, He did. What was His purpose? What was
His reason for dying on the cross? Why would He die? Why would such
a righteous man die? Because He would save His people
from their sins. He would bear their guilt. And by God pouring out His vengeance,
when it was done, Jesus said, it is finished. Justice was satisfied. Sin of
all the elect people were gone forever. Forever. He who died for our sins rose
again for our justification. And what happened when God raised
Him from the dead? What did He say to His beloved
Son of my Lord? What did He say? Sit thou at
my right hand until I make thine enemy sinless. Where is He now? Where is this crucified Christ? Where is this One who died for
the sins of His people? Where is He? He is victoriously
sitting on the throne of God as a man in heaven right now
doing all things after the counsel of His own will. He is seated now at the right
hand of God doing all things. And who can stay His hand or
say unto Him, What doest Thou? The Lord said to him, sit thou
at my right hand. What then is the will of the
Messiah who is now King? The will is this. Look at verse 2. The Lord shall
send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Notice where the rod of the strength
of Jesus Christ comes from. It comes out of Zion. Zion is a picture of the church. In Scripture, Zion is a picture
of the church. Now, to this world, there's nothing
weaker than the true church of Jesus Christ. To this world,
there's nothing more foolish. We who are the church of Jesus
Christ, we seek no aid from the government. We seek nothing that
would compromise the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is
completely of the Lord. We don't need other men. We know that salvation is by
grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, by the preaching
of the gospel, the scriptures alone. We know this. And we won't
compromise this. We are not moved by the wisdom
of the world, nor do we seek preeminence among ourselves.
We're not like the world, and the world considers this foolishness,
it considers this weak. We are not under any law, but
the law of faith and the law of love. But God has chosen What
the world deems to be foolish to confound the wisdom of this
world. You. His Church. Believers, we are the body of
Christ. We are His Church. And it is
only, listen to me, only, only out of Zion that the Spirit of
God comes. The Spirit of God, the rod of
His strength, comes out of Zion, His church. The rod of His strength is the
Holy Spirit. Paul says this, In 1 Corinthians
2, He said, I didn't come in the wisdom of men. I didn't come
speaking pleasant words to you. What I did come in is the power
of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit.
That your face should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in
the power of God. The Holy Spirit is what comes
out of this. This is the means by which God
has chosen to save His elect people, is through the preaching
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and is by the Holy Spirit's work.
He takes the message of the Gospel and He applies it to the hearts
of His people, and the hearts of His people are moved to believe,
moved to love, moved to serve. How? Through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. moves to save
God's people, God's elect, all those that Christ died for, the
Holy Spirit will save. This is no question. We do not
question this. This is a fact. This is so. And He will save them by the
same means He has saved every other believer in Christ through
the foolishness of preaching. I think about that Ethiopian
eunuch a lot. He just came from Jerusalem.
Now, who would have ever thought that the man of God and that
Ethiopian eunuch would have met together in the middle of the
desert? Yet it was appointed that Philip meet that man at
that particular time to preach the gospel to him. And what happened? The rod of his strength came
out of Zion. Verse 3, the high people shall
be willing in the day of thy power. You who believe on Christ,
are you willing? That's a silly question to us
who believe. Are we willing? You bet! You bet we're willing. Why is
it that you are willing and they are not willing? In the day of
His power, I was made willing when He created in me a new heart,
a new nature. And He revealed to me such glories
as the election of the Father, as the redemption of the Son,
as the forgiveness of sins, mercy and pardon through faith in His
Son. And I was made willing in the
day of His power. How is that possible? The rod
of His strength came out of Zion, His church, and crushed this
old man to pieces and gave me a new heart. I was very willing. I'm still willing. Not because
I willed it, but because God decreed it. I give no glory to my willingness.
All the glory belongs to God. Salvation is of the Lord. The Father chose me. The Son
redeemed me. And I know this because the Spirit
has called me. And I am willing to believe. Would to God that everyone under
the sound of my voice would believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you, thou, shalt be saved. No man is willing to come to
Christ except the mighty God conquer his soul and give him
faith to believe. I pray that God would bless this
to your heart. Know this, if you believe, you're
accepted. You were accepted from eternity.
You were redeemed in time. You were called in time and now
the righteousness of God is imputed to you. It's given to you. And out of this place goes the
Spirit of God. What do you mean, out of this
place? Yes, out of this place. Out of His church. His people
will be saved. May God use us. I pray that He will. I know that
He will. Salvation is of the Lord. Give
Him praise and glory. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.