Psalm 21. I titled the lesson or the message,
The King Triumphant. I wish I had the ability to preach
Christ, the King of glory, as He ought to be preached. I wish
I could set Him forth in all His glory before you, that you
and I would be able to truly worship the King of glory. When I read in the Scriptures
of the King, and in this chapter, that's who it's about. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
King Jesus is who this is about in this chapter. But when I read
about Him, our King, it just comforts me. And it's
like it brings things back into focus for me. I quit looking
at the world again. I quit looking at things that
are going on again. And it just kind of takes me
away from those things. And it makes me think upon my
King. This is my King. You know, from time to time,
Vicki and I watch some of these programs and it'll show the,
you know, over in England where they have the king and the queen
and right now just the queen, but what pomp and display when
they are coming down the street and the people are all lined
up and all those horses. Just think what it'd be like
and what it will be like when the King of Glory, when all this
is over, And we stand in glory, and the King of glory, it says,
open the gates there in the Psalms and let the King of glory come
in. He shall come in. And what, my, we've not even
began to even scratch the surface of what real glory and honor
is. Until that day when we see Him. Now this Psalm is all about Zion's
King. the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's
about His success, which was prayed for in chapter 20. If
you remember last week, we looked at chapter 20, it's the church
praying for the success of the King Messiah. And here we have
His success. And what we have in this chapter,
we have the Spirit of Christ speaking in David of that salvation that He accomplished by the help
of Jehovah. You remember our Lord said this,
My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. He did not have my help and your
help, but He had the Father's help. He had His help. Now it says in verse 1, The King shall joy in thy strength." The
Lord Jesus Christ as a man. Now, this is Christ speaking
as a man in this psalm. And as a man, he joyed in the
strength that Jehovah We have Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the
Son, and Jehovah the Holy Spirit. And here, this is the Son speaking
of His Father. And He's saying here, the King
shall joy in thy strength. He drew strength from His Father.
Listen, He needed strength like you and I need strength. Now
you and I are sinners, we need a lot more of it, but He needed
to be strengthened. Remember in the garden that the
angels came and what did they do? They ministered unto Him.
They strengthened him because he's a man. He's a real man.
He felt real pain. He felt real sorrow. He wept. He wept. And when he was in the
garden, he sweat great drops of blood. When he was in the
wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, he says afterwards he
was hungry. Hungry. And after Satan came
and tempted him, tried him, it says the angels came and ministered
unto him, strengthened him. The king shall joy in thy strength,
O Lord, O Jehovah, and in thy salvation how greatly shall he
rejoice." He ascribes salvation here to his father, that his
father helped him through this, enabled him to do this. But I
thought this before coming down here and scribbled this out.
How blessed to have a king who rejoices in God. How blessed we are to have a
king that rejoices and finds his joy
in God Almighty. You say, but he's God. That's
right, but he's also a man. And as a man, he rejoiced in
God. He rejoiced in Him. The king rejoices in the salvation
that he will accomplish through the help of Jehovah. I know that our Lord is God manifest
in the flesh, yet He's also the only Mediator between God and
men. He's the man Christ Jesus, our
Mediator. And He speaks on our behalf.
He represents us, our King. If you'll notice here how the
Lord Jesus Christ gives the glory of salvation to Jehovah, to His
Father. Not Himself. He gives the glory
to the Father, and the Father gives the glory to the Son. The
Scripture says the Father honoreth the Son, and the Son, what? Honoreth
the Father. Our habit is to honor ourselves.
That's our natural habit, isn't it? It's let me, what's that
country song? Let me talk about me, let's talk
about me. I can't remember who sings it,
but I've heard that, and I heard it in the shop I was working
in. He's, let's talk about me. That's us. That's us. But the Lord Jesus Christ, He
spent His whole life on this earth honoring the Father, and
the Father spends His time honoring the Son. We need to catch that, don't
we? We need to catch that spirit. We need to honor one another
and not honor ourselves first. But our Lord gives the glory
of salvation to His Father. It's the Father who planned it.
Isn't it? He planned. He purposed it. And
He called His Son into a council. He called His Son into a covenant
and made all this covenant blessings to His Son and to us in His Son. It's the Father who planned it.
It's the Father who purposed it. It's the Father who chose
the recipients of it. Get a hold of that. Let me say
this, Selah. Think about that. God chose you. You know how many people in this
world have no interest in God and will die and perish, and
the Lord will leave them alone? And yet He didn't leave you alone.
He did not leave you alone. He did not leave me alone. He
chose me to be a recipient of all the blessings that are in
Christ. All those heavenly blessings
which cannot be reckoned up in order. He chose the recipients
of it as well as the one who would accomplish our salvation.
Here's something else I thought of today. When a king goes to
battle, what does he go with? He goes with a great army. Our
king did it himself. It says, the battle's not yours,
it's the Lord's. Our king fought this battle himself.
He put us on the sideline, so to speak. He set us aside. It's like, get out of the way.
I'm gonna move you out of the way. I'm gonna move you out of harm's
way. And I'm gonna take care of the
weightier matters. Your sin, the curse of the law
that's against you, Satan, who's far stronger than any of us.
And he put us out of the way and he did battle with them.
And he defeated them. Our king did, our king. and he
did it through the strength that Jehovah gave him. Now what we
have here in verse 2, listen to this, the king's petitions
are all granted. Everything our king asked for,
he got. Everything. It says in verse
2 here, Thou hast given him his heart's desire and hast not withhold
the request of his lips. The king has been given his heart's
desire. His prayers have all been answered. He's the great intercessor. It
is written in Psalm 2.8, Ask of me and I shall give thee the
heathen for thine inheritance. Well, here we are. That's what
I thought of today when I read that. I thought, you heathen,
here you are. That's us. He's speaking about
us, us Gentiles. We were called heathens. And by nature we are. Ask of me and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance. Ask me for Peggy. Ask me for Ray. Ask me for Duggar. Ask me. And he asked for you. Think about that. He asked for
you and God gave him to you. Gave you to him. and I'll give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for thy possession." You know, all kings on this earth have
been kings of what? A little territory. That may
look big to us, but there are kings, they got boundaries. This
king has no boundaries. He knows no boundaries. If he's
got some subject over in China, guess who's going to China? He
is. and nobody's going to stop him. He owns it all. He owns every bit. Our king owns...
Listen, the scripture says he owns the cattle on a thousand
hills. It does not say he owns a thousand cattle on a hill.
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, innumerable. He owns them
all. They're all his. Every ounce of this earth belongs
to Jesus Christ. Now I know we draw our boundaries
and our lines and we have our... He doesn't. It's all His. The
universe is His. It's all His. He says, you've given Him His
heart's desire. Listen, the heart's desire of
Christ was first of all to do His Father's will. He said, I delight to do thy
will, O God. You and I have to be brought
into submission to it, don't we? How often are we disappointed
and we're like, why'd that happen? You're so disappointed. He was
never disappointed. He was thrilled. It was his father's
will. What happened was his father's will and it thrilled him to death, so to speak. He delighted to do the Father's
will. Look over in John chapter six. John chapter six and verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will know why
is cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own
will," I didn't come here to do my own will, not that his
will is any different, but he's letting us know he didn't come
to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him. And this
is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again
at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent me,
that every one which seeth the Son and believes on Him may have
everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
In verse 41, and the Jews murmured at that. They murmured at that. You're not murmuring, are you?
You and I are happy. This thrills our soul. It's the
Father's will. It's the Father's will that He
should save me. Now how do I know? How do I know
that it's the Father's will that He should save me? Me personally? I'll tell you how I know. And
this is the one verse that kept me going for a long time. All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh
to me I will no wise cast out. I come to Him. Lord, I come. I come to you for mercy. I come
to you for forgiveness. I come to you for pardon. I come
to you for cleansing. I come to you for justification.
Lord, I come to you. That's how I know because I would
not come if it wasn't for the Father's will. If it wasn't for
His will and the Holy Spirit bringing me, I wouldn't come
because Christ said, you will not, you will not come to me
that you might have life. Now, if you have a will to come,
God gave it to you. Because it says in Psalm 110,
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. That's
how I know. That's how I know that the Lord
is my Savior. He died for me. It was also His
desire to save His people from their
sins, because it says here in Psalm 710, I am my Beloved's
and His desire is toward me. His desire is toward me. I like
to think of it this way, it gives me comfort. His desire is toward
me as though nothing else existed. Nothing. Then he says in verse 3, The Father went before Him in
love. The Father went before Him in purpose. And listen, the
Father went before Him in all the blessings of the covenant
and then gave them to Him and then us in Him. He has been given all covenant
blessings and we have been given all covenant blessings in our
King, in our King. We need to live and I need to
live in the reality of this, day by day. If there's anything
I want to stress to myself and everyone else that I preach to,
is when we go out of here, go with the word of God. Go with
what you've heard and chew on it. Chew on it, like the old
cow does with the, what do they call it? The cud. Cud. Brings
it back up. They used to, we had to live
on a farm and you'd keep bringing it back up. I'm like, ooh. But
that cow just kept bringing it up and chewing it again, swallow
it down, bring it back up and chew it again. That's what you
need to do when you hear a message or when you read the Word of
God. Keep chewing on it. Get spiritual nourishment out
of it. The Father was first in the blessing
of salvation. that was to be accomplished by
His Son. He's the first. You and I were blessed in Christ
with all heavenly blessings before the world began. Before the world
began. It wasn't when I accepted Jesus
as my personal Savior. It's before the world began,
way back in whatever eternity, because there's no past with
God, there's no present with God, but we have to speak in
our language. It's way back there before creation. All these blessings were given
to us in Jesus Christ, our King. All spiritual blessings were
given and sealed in Him. In Christ we have been blessed
with all the blessings that can be given. You know, we can't
be given any more. We have all that God is and all
that God has in Christ. And thou saidest a crown of pure
gold on his head." What did we say on his head? Crown of thorns. That's what we thought of him.
That's what we put on his head. But now, before he even came
into this world, he was crowned as king. He was crowned as king. Scripture says he was born king. They said, where is he that's
born king of the Jews? He didn't have to wait until
somebody died so he can become a king. He was born king. And
God set a crown of pure gold on his head. Now this crown represents
royalty. It represents power. It represents
authority. It represents sovereignty. Our
king is the sovereign of heaven and earth. And our king is king by the authority
of heaven, for he says here, Thou saidest, God did this. God
the Father set the crown on his head. That's why we sing the song we
just sang, crown him with many crowns, many crowns. And the reason we sing it is
because he deserves them. God said in Psalm 2, 6, I have
set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. And here he says, I
have set a crown of gold on his head. For a while he wore
a crown of thorns, but right now he wears a crown of gold.
He's crowned with power and glory and honor and royalty. And God
said it there, God the father. And he asked life of thee, and
thou gavest it him, even length of days, for ever and ever. He
looked to his father to be raised again from the dead. Thou wilt
not leave my soul in hell, in the grave. Thou wilt not suffer
thy holy one to see corruption. He looked to his father and asked
his father to raise him out of that grave. And he did. He did. Jesus Christ being the
Son of God in the flesh, He's equal with the Father, yet when
we see Him asking blessings from Jehovah, from His Father, He's
asking as our Mediator. He's asking as our High Priest.
He's asking as the Great Intercessor. The Father says, love with the
Son and give us all things into His hand. And this long life is eternal
life. It's quality. It's quality. It's
not everybody's going to live forever. Even the wicked are
going to live forever. Once a person is born into this
world, that person will exist forever and ever and ever. He's
talking here about quality. Quality of life. It's the life
of God. And our Lord, He asked for it,
not only for Himself to be raised, but to us also in Him. This concerns His resurrection
and our resurrection in Him. And He says, His glory is great,
in verse 5, His glory is great in thy salvation. Is not Jesus
Christ, is not His glory great in the salvation that God wrought
in Him? It's called in Hebrews, so great
a salvation. So great is salvation. We've
been saved from the wrath of God. We've been saved from God
Himself. We've been saved from God. We've
been saved from Satan. We've been saved from darkness.
We've been saved from ignorance. We've been saved from our sins.
What a great salvation. His glory is great in thy salvation
because He deserves all the glory. All glory belongs to Jesus Christ. I wish I could give it to Him
tonight like it ought to be given. All the glory and creation belongs
to Him. He said in Colossians, He said
all things were created by Him and for Him. All the glory and
providence, everything that's going on right now is orchestrated
by Jesus Christ, our King. in all the glory and salvation.
Not one person will raise their hand in the glory and say, let
me tell you what I did. Not one. All glory, honor, and
power belongs to Him. We will sing, worthy is the Lamb
that was slain to receive all glory, power, and honor. That's
what we'll sing. Scripture says this in Philippians
2, 9 and 11, "...wherefore God also," and this is because he
humbled himself and became a man, became a servant. He made himself
with no reputation. He humbled himself even to the
death of the cross. It says, "...wherefore God also
hath highly exalted him, and giving Him a name which is above
every name, there is no name equal to the name of Jesus Christ. There is no name like that name.
There is no name that moves heaven like the name of Jesus Christ.
Whatsoever He said, you ask in My name. that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, things in earth,
and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." That's our King. That's our King. And the Father has blessed His
Son, and He has blessed us in His Son. Verse 6, For thou hast
made Him most blessed for ever. And what it's saying here is
that Jesus Christ is the blessing of His people, and that all the
blessings that they shall ever have, they have in Him. That's
what it's saying. It's saying that God has made
Him the blessing of His people. Remember what God said to Abraham,
He said, In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed,
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. All nations, all languages, all
tongues, all people shall be blessed. Thou hast made Him the blessing. He's the blessing and He's the
blessor. Thou hast made Him exceeding glad with Thy countenance. In verse 7 it says, For the king
trusteth in the Lord, This is the King Jesus trusting in His
Father. Trusting His Father. That's what
He's doing. This is the man. The man Christ
Jesus trusted God perfectly. He looked to Him and trusted
Him perfectly. Day by day. He had no place to
lay His head. He didn't have a house to go
to and a pantry full of food. He had none of that, none of
that. He trusted his father to take care of him day by day. And we should too. With the same
faith, we should too. But He did it perfectly. Everything
He did, He did perfectly, and that is our righteousness. His
perfect faith, His perfect conduct, and His death is our righteousness. Verse 7 there, "...gives us the
faith of Christ. He believed Jehovah perfectly,
for the King trusteth in the Lord." He went about His Father's business
with unwavering faith. unwavering faith, knowing that through the mercy
of the Most High, He would not be moved, He would not fail. He knew that. He knew He would
not fail. And then verse 8 through 12,
it just turns on the wicked and those who have hated Him. They've hated Him. You know,
it looked like for a while they were They were triumphant, didn't
they? He trusted in God. Let's see
if He'll have Him. If He's God's Son, let Him come down off that
cross. But it says that God's hand,
He says, "...thy hand shall find out all thy enemies." God will
search every enemy of Christ out. That's everyone who believes
not. Everyone who believes not. God's
going to find out all the enemies in His right hand, shall find
out those that hate Him, and those that make them, and He
says here that thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time
of thine anger. Torment. I'm telling you this,
torment's real. We don't like to talk about it.
Hell is a terrible subject to have to talk about. But it's
in the Scriptures. It's in the Scriptures. And we
warn men. Paul said this, knowing the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men. Because it's very real. The greatest evidence of God's
wrath against sin is Calvary. He spared not his own son. When
sin was laid on Him, God did not spare Him. In fact, over
in Psalm 22, we look at Lord willing next week, My God, My
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? When sin was laid on Him, when
He was made to be sin for us, the Father forsook Him and took
out all of His wrath on His Son that should have been taken out
on me and you who believe. But He had mercy. He had mercy. He delights to show mercy. Thou shalt make them a fiery
oven, and the Lord will swallow them up in His wrath. Their fruit,
He said, in fact, their fruit, He'll destroy their fruit. He'll
even destroy their seed, the wicked, the unbelieving. because they intended evil, their
motive was evil. Let me tell you something, motive
is far more important than action. God looks at the heart. God looks
at why we do what we do, more than what we do. God looks at the heart. Because
I tell you what, a person could give and you think, wow, that's
generous. But in his heart, he'd be like,
Man, I could have used it for something else. And God sees
that. That's what God sees. Who was
it in the Acts? It was Ananias and Sapphira.
They lied. They sold a piece of land. Then
they said they got this much out of it and they was giving
it, but they got more out of it and they hid it. You know, if they had
just told the truth, if they had said, we're going to give
this much and we're going to keep this much, nothing would have
happened. But they lied. They made themselves look so
pious. And God saw the heart. God saw that wicked heart. And
God killed them. God killed them right there.
They intended evil against thee. They imagined a mischievous device
which they were not able to perform. God puts this world in check. Scripture says, no weapon that
is formed against you shall prosper. A man may pick a sword up, but
now he can only use it as God lets him use it. Just like Satan,
he could only touch Job as God let him touch Job, and that's
all he could do. He said, they imagined a mischievous
device which they were not able to perform. God stopped them. I just happen to think of this,
I remember when he was on the cross, and there was an earthquake,
so they went over there and broke the legs of the two thieves,
and when they came to him, he was going to break his leg, and
they saw he was already dead, and they just put a spear in
his side. Fulfilled the scripture, but the Lord stopped them from
breaking his legs because he said, not a bone of his shall
be broken. Our God, I don't want to use the word manipulate,
but our God performs everything that goes on. He rules and He
overrules. Put it that way. He rules and
He overrules absolutely everything that moves. Everything that has
a being, God rules and overrules it constantly. Constantly. for
the glory of His Son, and the good of His people." It's constant. "...Therefore shalt thou make
them turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows
upon the strings against them." They're just... Our King has already won the
battle. The Lord uses this world to conform
you to the image of Christ. He may let somebody be a real
aggravation to you, cause you a problem, or whatever it is.
It's conforming you to the image of Christ, but they have already
been defeated. He's already won the battle.
And then we end with the doxology here. This is what they call
the doxology of this psalm. Be thou exalted, lift it up. praised Lord Jehovah in thine
own strength, not in ours. God is never praised in the energy
of this flesh. If He's praised here tonight,
if He is worshipped here tonight, He is worshipped in spirit and
in truth, and that's of Him. So will we sing and praise thy
power. Oh, this is a prayer for the
King. Oh, be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength. So will
we sing and praise thy power. That's a good one to end with,
to sing and praise the power of our Lord that we just read
about, our Savior. All right.