All right, Psalm 72. So we're
gonna go through this. I'm not going to try to finish
the handout tonight. I would like to, but it's probably
gonna be more than we actually get to, and I don't wanna rush
it, so we're just gonna go through this. The first verse of Psalm
72 says, give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness
unto the king's son. Now, I want to point out immediately,
as we talked about this last time, that the king spoken of
here and the king's son is the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Christ
is a title that God has given to him. He is the anointed of
God, and that's what Christ means, the anointed of God. He was anointed
by the Holy Spirit. He was appointed to that office
by God the Father, and he was given the Holy Spirit without
measure, and he was anointed to this office to be the prophet
and the priest and the king to his people, as it's commonly
summarized. But not only prophet, priest,
and king, but the surety, the redeemer, and so many other titles
are appropriate for the Lord Jesus Christ. He's everything
to his people. He's called the captain of their
eternal salvation. and many other titles. So it's
important that we understand this psalm to be the express
will of God concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, his only begotten
son, and this is expressed by the Spirit of God. All of God's
word was breathed out by the Spirit of God, and it was penned,
it was written by men God had chosen to write out scripture
by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. And so this psalm also
is that. It's inspired by God, and because
it is God's will, we know that this psalm is, as a prayer, will
be fulfilled. Now that's great comfort, because
it will be fulfilled. What we find in these words,
we are going to cling to them, we're going to hold to them,
we're going to ask the Lord, not only as it's prayed for here
in this psalm, but for us personally. that these things would be true
for our salvation. So that when we see the words,
give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness
to the king's son, we want to immediately find ourselves at
the throne of God coming to him in the name of the king, the
Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has appointed as the savior of his
people, and to do so with the same mind, the same attitude,
the understanding that this psalm is conveying here, that it's
God's intention to give his son as Christ his judgments and his
righteousness. And it says in the next verse,
he shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with
judgment. Now, the first thing I want to
point out here is the significance of Christ being the Son as the
Son of God and the Son as the Son of Man. If Jesus is not the
Son of God, then he's not able to save because only God can
save. Now you can see this throughout
scripture, but I want to point one scripture out to you in Psalm
89. We haven't studied that psalm
yet, but in Psalm 89 and verse 17, he says, Then thou speakest
in vision, and the words are, to thy holy one, and says, I
have laid help on one that is mighty. Now, the one who is holy
and is mighty is Christ, of course, but specifically as the son of
God in his divine nature, he's almighty and he's God's holy
one. He said, I have exalted one chosen
out of the people. So here, in this single verse
in Psalm 89, 17, we see that the Lord Jesus Christ is both
God and man by this reference here. He's the mighty God, as
it says in Isaiah chapter nine, his name shall be called Wonderful,
Counselor, the Mighty God. And so it says here appropriately,
God the Father has laid help on one that is mighty, on the
Lord Jesus Christ. and he has exalted one chosen
out of the people, and that also would be him, his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and chosen him in his human nature as man to
be the head of his people." Now that's a concept that I didn't
hear when I was growing up. in the church. I never heard
that concept, I didn't understand it, and I still find it necessary,
I feel compelled at least, to repeat that in order that we
would grasp hold of the importance of it. That Jesus Christ is the
man God has chosen as head of his people, just like God had
created Adam as head of the whole human race. So the Lord Jesus
Christ is the head of all those who were born of the Spirit of
God. And that's what he's saying in that verse in Psalm 89, 17.
God laid... 89, 19? I'm sorry, I must have
written the reference down wrong. But in any case, he's saying
there that God has laid help on the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes,
it is verse 19. On the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is both God and man. And that is for our greatest
comfort. In Matthew chapter 19, you remember Jesus was talking
to his disciples about a rich young ruler who came to him and
asked him, good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life? And Jesus gave him some things
to do and he went away at the end because he couldn't do them.
And the disciples were amazed that Jesus said that it's easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for
a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And the disciples
were amazed at that. They said, who then can be saved?
And that's a good question. Who then can be saved if it's
that difficult? Because if it's that difficult
to get into heaven, I can't be saved. And who else could? And
so the disciples asked that question, who then can be saved? And Jesus
said very important words in verse 26 of Matthew 19. He said,
with men, this is impossible. And that statement is such a
powerful statement. With men, this is impossible.
He goes on to say, but with God, all things are possible. not
only possible, but actually done. God does save those who, like
the rich young ruler, couldn't save themselves. He couldn't
perform what Christ gave him to do, but that was the point
of Jesus' giving him those things to do. He first asked him if
he had kept the law. that table of the law that had
to do with his relationship to men, and then he asked him, he
told him to come sell all he had, give it to the poor, and
come follow him. He couldn't do any of those things, but he
didn't know it. And so the Lord drove him to despair by showing
him his sinfulness in his presumption, his pride, that thought he could
do what was necessary in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. We also need to be humbled in
the same way. But I say all that because salvation for men is
utterly impossible. And how many religions of the
world make it possible for men? See, that's the big difference
between true religion, the true gospel, and all other false gospels. Because the true gospel says
it's impossible. It's impossible for men. but
it is not impossible for God. In fact, it is very possible
for God. He has not only made it possible,
but He has accomplished it. That's what I see in that verse
in Psalm 89, verse 19, where it says, Then thou spakest in vision to
thy holy one and said, I have laid help on one that is mighty.
I have exalted one chosen out of the people. And of course,
if you read the entire psalm, he's talking about Jesus Christ
as Christ. Now, the other thing I want to
point out here is this is not new in Scripture to call Jesus
both the Son of God and the Son of Man. Jesus himself did that. He told Nicodemus that the Son
of Man is the one who is in heaven, the one who is, let me read it
to you directly, as it says in John chapter 3 and verse 13,
he says, no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came
down from heaven even the son of man which is in heaven. And
so in that one verse, and then he goes on and tells him that
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and the same way,
the son of man must be lifted up that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish but have eternal life. So just as the
children of Israel who were bitten by the serpent in the wilderness
were told to look to the serpent lifted up on the pole by Moses,
so Christ is telling us here in John 3 verse 14 that God,
His own law says Christ must be lifted up, and that His lifting
up on the cross would be for the salvation of all who look
to him as those who were bitten in the wilderness died from the
bite of the serpents. But before he said that, he said
the Son of Man is the only one who has ascended up to heaven,
and because he first descended from heaven, and he is now in
heaven. And so he takes a whole panoramic,
in that one verse of John 3.13, he takes a whole panoramic view
of Christ as the Son of Man. He first was in heaven, he descended,
this is Ephesians chapter 4, he descended first, and then
he ascended because he accomplished the work God gave him to do,
which was to save his people from their sins, and then he
was exalted to heaven. And he says all of that in that
one verse there, even though in the verse it seems like that
there's a confusion of the times and the sequences, and that's
because that's That's the way God talks about things. He talks
about them often either in sequence of time or in the facts of eternity. He prefers sometimes to refer
to Christ in his exalted condition, and then after he's already said
that, he refers to how he became exalted, which was first to descend
in humiliation accomplish our salvation and then ascend in
glory, and God then sent Him at His own right hand. And so
we're to look to Him, we're to trust Him, to believe on Him,
and that's what I was trying to point out here. This is not
uncommon for God to refer to His Son as the Son of God and
the Son of Man. And also, since we're in 1 Corinthians
15 on Sundays, I want to bring this verse in. In 1 Corinthians
15, verse 21, it says this, Since by man came death, by man also
came the resurrection of the dead. That's 1 Corinthians 15,
verse 21. So in this verse of Psalm 72, where it says, give
the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness to the
king's son, talking about Christ as the king, as son of God, and
king as the son of man, king in both, he's Lord of lords and
king of kings, as son of God and son of man. And that's astounding. It's absolutely, it's what 1
Timothy 3.16 calls the mystery of godliness, that God was manifest
in the flesh. But in 1 Corinthians 15, 21,
he says that since by man, meaning Adam, came death, therefore it
was by God's design that by man came also the resurrection of
the dead, and that second man was, of course, Jesus Christ.
He says also in 1 Corinthians 15, in verse 47, that the first
man was of the earth, earthy, but the second man, meaning Christ,
is the Lord from heaven. So there again we have those
two things, those two natures of Christ, and the reason for
his second nature, the Son of Man, is because it was necessary,
it was necessary, God found it necessary in his own will that
Christ, in order to be the captain of our salvation, should be made
lower than the angels in order to taste death for every son. That's from Hebrews chapter 2.
And I want to turn to that section of scripture. In Hebrews chapter
2, I was trying to quote from verse 10 of Hebrews 2, but let
me read it to you, because this shows the imperative. What made
it necessary? What makes anything necessary?
Think about that. What makes anything necessary?
There's only one thing that makes it necessary. God. God makes
it necessary. It seems good to him. It seems
good to him in his character, in his will, by his word, his
promises, for his name's sake, for his glory. It seems necessary
to God, therefore it must happen. It cannot but happen. He says
in Hebrews 2, verse 10, it became him. That means that God the
Father found it in himself, according
to his own wisdom and character and will, and for his glory,
his name, that what follows. It became necessary for that
reason. It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are
all things, and bringing many sons to glory to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Then you can read
on about this, but you can see from that verse, why was it necessary
for the Son of God to be also the Son of Man? Because God found
it necessary. There are so many things that
I don't understand in the world. I don't understand the physics
of creation. How could I begin to understand
the nature and the character of God that found it necessary?
But I can take it as instruction from God our Father that it was
necessary because it seemed good to Him. He found it necessary
and therefore it was necessary. Now, back to Psalm 72. So we see here that it was necessary
that, according to God's will, that because man, by sinning,
brought death into the world, so God would overcome sin. by another man, and that second
man would be none other than God the Son. The Son of Man is
the Son of God. And so he's called here in verse
1, give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness
to the king's son. I want to say a few more things
about this, about the necessity of this, because the significance
of Christ being both God and man is something, a lot of times
it's like words that we use, but we haven't referred to the
definition of that word for a long time, and so we've really lost
the keen sense of the understanding of whatever we're talking about.
You ever find that to be true? I do all the time. I'm glad I
can look on my phone nowadays and just look up the definition
of a word because I think, now what does that word really mean?
I'm using it, but do I really know what I'm talking about?
No, I don't. I have to go back and look at the definition. So
this is one of those things. Why is it so significant that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Son of Man? Well, many reasons. Number one, as I said, because
only God can save sinners. Only He can engage with God. Only God Himself can appear in
the court of heaven and engage with God with the understanding
of whatever God requires and meet the fulfillment, the requirements
of whatever God requires in order to bring his people to him, those
who were sinners. And do it in such a way that
is consistent with his holiness and righteousness. Only God can
do that. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is the wisdom of God. He's the word of God, and he
is the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1.24 says, Christ,
the wisdom of God and the power of God. So I love to think about
that. In 1 Corinthians 1.30, he says,
of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom. righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. So, in the Lord Jesus Christ,
God has put everything, because only God could save us, and then
secondly, because God is going to get all the glory. And yet,
it pleased God, in His purpose, to put all things in subjection
under man. Now, when you say man, he doesn't
mean every man born to Adam. But Hebrews 2 explains it, that
he means man, meaning Christ, the second Adam. And so, in order
for him to take the throne as the God-man and mediator, to
be able to go to God as our high priest, and also to understand
and have compassion on us as a man, and as a man, fulfill
God's law to do it all, and also as a man, in love, to lay down
his life for his friends and to bring them to God. So on the
one hand, he goes to God as God, and on the other hand, he goes
from God to men as a man, so he's the perfect mediator. So
that's necessary for him to be both God and man. to be the one
mediator. As a man, he had to offer himself
in sacrifice, in offering to God the perfect man in the prime
of his life, in the peak of his strength, and in the fulfillment
of his days, the perfect sacrifice, like the lamb was taken in the
first year of his life, not when it was an old, worn-out lamb,
but when it was first strong and in perfect condition. That's
when the lamb was offered. And so, Christ was thus offered,
having fulfilled in his life perfection to God's law, he then
fulfilled in his death perfection of obedience and humility and
submission to God, entrusting himself with his people into
the hands of his Father. This is phenomenal. This is phenomenal.
And because He is both God and man, He cannot fail. He cannot
fail. God gave to Him as man His Spirit
without measure, and He therefore spoke only His Father's words,
and He did only His Father's will, and He saved His people
from all their sins as it was given Him to do, because He is
both God and man. And because he is both God and
man, his sacrifice of himself has infinite value, and he has
obtained for them not just a short term, but an everlasting righteousness. And all these things are true,
because he's both God and man. And we could go on and on, couldn't
we? So, we know also that the fullness of the Godhead dwells
in Christ, and therefore we're assured that he is both God and
man. That's from Colossians 2, verse
9. The fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And because of that, the Apostle
Paul tells us we're complete in Him. There's nothing that
can be added to that fullness of the Godhead, because Christ
is absolutely everything God is. And so, if we're in Christ
and we're joined to Him as God has made it by His own will and
work, then we have all things with Christ. Okay, so those are
some of the reasons that the Lord Jesus Christ is both God
and man, and reasons why it gives us great comfort. Let's see. Now, let's talk a little bit
about this matter of the Lord Jesus Christ being the king.
This is something that this psalm is about, and lots of psalms
like Psalm 2 and Psalm 89, they're about Christ as king, and they're
celebrating the fact that Jesus is the king. David, who wrote
the psalms, was made king over his people. But you can see this
in one of the most familiar Psalms that speak of Christ as King.
and I call it the most familiar because I think the most quoted
in the New Testament is Psalm 110. And in Psalm 110 it says,
the Lord, Jehovah, said unto my Lord, Adonai, the Lord Jesus
Christ, sit thou in my right hand until I make thine enemies
thy footstool. And you're probably familiar
with this that in Matthew, I believe it's Matthew 20 or 22, I think
it's 22, Jesus asked the Sadducees Who is Christ? Whose son is he? And they said he's David's son. And they said, well, if he's
David's son, then why does David in spirit call him Lord? And
he quotes this verse from Psalm 110. And so this verse is showing
that God's purpose, the purpose of God the Father has always
been to exalt his son and to subject under him all the enemies
of his people, who are the enemies of God. If a person or a devil or anyone
is an enemy of God's people, that makes them an enemy of God.
And if anyone is an enemy of God, then he's an enemy of God's
people. So they have the same enemies. And that's the wonderful
thing about the gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ stooped
to take our place against our enemies. Remember King, I mean,
Goliath? He was selected from the Philistines
to stand as a champion for them. David was selected to stand as
a champion for all of Israel. And Goliath himself said, whoever
wins this battle, all the other armies are going to be subjected
to them. And that's what happened. Christ won the battle of his
battle against our sin against Satan against everything death
and the grave Christ destroyed he utterly destroyed our enemies
and So he's exalted. That's why God has exalted him
and so that that's another part of this kingship of the Lord
Jesus Christ Now, I would note this also, that if you remember
in the book of Samuel, that there was, if the sequence of books
in the Bible lead up to 1 Samuel, and the book before that, if
not the first, I don't know if they're, I'd have to go look,
but anyway, just before Samuel is the Judges, right? I think
Ruth is between them, but yeah, Judges, then Ruth, and then Samuel.
and then Samuel, 1 Samuel. But if you remember in the book
of 1 Samuel there was this transition where the nation of Israel had
been under judges and God said that they had no king because
God himself was their king up to that point. But then in the
book of Samuel they began to see that their enemies had kings
and since the Israelites idolatrously began to think that that their
enemies were stronger because they had a king, they asked Samuel
to give them a king. And this was a huge problem,
a big sin in that period of Israel's history where they asked for
a king. And you can read this in 1 Samuel
11-12. But in chapter 12, Samuel warns
them. He says, what you're doing is
very wrong. Even though you're asking for a king, it's wrong.
And God's going to give you a king. And he did. He gave him King
Saul. Remember that? And so this sin that they committed
against God is talked about by Samuel. And it's also talked
about in the book of Hosea. And I want to read that section
of scripture to you in the book of Hosea in chapter 13. Now,
in Hosea chapter 13, it's the Lord speaking through the prophet
Hosea, and he says in verse 9 of Hosea 13, he says, O Israel,
thou hast destroyed thyself. Now, that's true of all of us.
By our sin, we have ruined ourselves. It's our fault, and we have no
one else to blame but ourselves. He goes on, but in me is thine
help. And that's the gospel, isn't
it? You've ruined yourself, but in Christ is your help. And then
in verse 10 of Hosea 13, he says, I will be thy king. Where is
any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges,
of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes. I gave thee
a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." Now, historically,
that was referring to King Saul, wasn't it? And God is saying,
there is no other king who can save you. Okay, now this is the
Lord's prophet. He's telling us something very
important here that we need to be aware of when we look at Psalm
72. And it's this, the king saves. Okay? The King saves. That may seem like a simple thing
to say, but it's a very powerful thing that's revealed to us from
Scripture. It's the King who saves. We know
the priest also makes propitiation and atonement to God for our
sins, but it's the King who saves. And that's what he's saying here.
Who else could save you? Who else? Where was any other?
that may save thee in all thy cities. He's talking to the nation
of Israel, and he's not talking to that physical nation only.
He's talking more significantly or more directly to the spiritual
nation of Israel, which is all those who are born spiritually
to God through the Spirit of God. All right. So the spiritual Israel is here
in view, and he's saying to them, what other king do you have that
can save you? Clearly, King Saul couldn't save national Israel,
nor could Adam save his race, his people, as a king, he couldn't
do it. So God sent another man, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and that one did save. And this is what the
New Testament's all about, isn't it? Matthew 121, his name shall
be called Jesus, which means savior. for he shall save his
people from their sins. He's the king. He's the savior. He's the son of David. And that's
what was so significant. Remember what the children and
the people cried when Jesus was coming into Jerusalem and he
rode into Jerusalem on the mule and they threw the palm branches
in the way? What was it that they cried? Oh, save us. That's what hosanna means. Oh,
save us. And that's from Psalm, I think,
118. Oh, save. Son of David, oh, save. You see,
the king saves. And that's why when we read in
this first two verses in Psalm 72, give the king thy judgments,
O God, and thy righteousness to the king's son. He shall judge
thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment. All
the poor hear that. Those who are poor in spirit,
those who have nothing spiritually before God, they have nothing.
They can't buy anything because they don't have anything to buy
with. They have no money. And then they hear in the gospel,
come buy wine and milk without money and without price. You
couldn't afford it, it's without price, and it doesn't require
anything from you because someone else paid, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the poor rise up and they
say, oh, save us, save Hosanna to the King. the Son of David. And so that's the excitement,
that's the praise that comes from God's
people here who need to be saved as Jesus is going to the cross
in history. He's going to the cross. They
say, oh, save us. and how much we need to have
that gift of grace given to us in our hearts, that we would
look to Christ daily and say, oh Lord, save me, save me. That's what we need, isn't it?
That's what I need, that's what I need. And that's why it's so
delightful to see this, that the King saves, Christ is the
King. In Acts chapter four, verse 12,
Peter told them, he said, neither is there salvation. in any other,
neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
That's what we need, don't we? To be saved. Saved from our sins,
saved from death, which our sins bring from God's hand, the wages
of sin, and saved from the grave. lifted up, raised up again, our
bodies. Everything has got to be saved
that was infected by sin and ruined by sin. And so the King
saves us and it's Christ who is the King. Jesus himself told people he
was the King, that he was the Son of God, and that he was the
Son of Man. It wasn't like he didn't claim
this scripture to be true about himself. He identified himself. John the Baptist did first. He
says, Behold the Lamb of God. which takes away the sin of the
world. That's what the Savior does. And Jesus himself, when
he was cornered up, as it were, by the high priest in Mark chapter
14, the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus,
saying, Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness
against thee? Jesus held his peace and answered,
Nothing. Again, the high priest asked him and said, Art thou
the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, the Son of God? And Jesus said,
I am. And you shall see the son of
man sitting on the right hand of power coming in the clouds
of heaven. So they didn't understand it,
but they called him, are you the Christ? Are you the son of
David, the anointed of God? Yes, I am. Are you the son of
the blessed? Yes, I am. And I'm going to add
to that, the one you want to kill and you shall kill, the
son of man, you're going to see him sitting on the right hand
of power and coming again in the clouds of heaven. And so
they knew that this meant there's certain judgment. By him, they
were crucifying. And so the high priest tore his
clothes and said, what need we have further of any more witnesses? We heard his blasphemy, and they
all condemned him to be guilty of death. And that's in Mark
chapter 14, verses 60 through 64. So the Lord Jesus Christ said
that of himself. And then when Jesus stood before
Pilate also, it says in John chapter 18, around verse 33,
Pilate entered into the judgment hall and called Jesus and said
to him, notice the question that Pilate asked Jesus, art thou
a king then? Are you the king of the Jews?
And Jesus answered and said, sayest thou this of thyself,
do you say this thing of yourself, or did others Tell it thee of
me. Someone else tell you this or
did you figure this out yourself? Pilate said, am I a Jew? Thine
own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee to me. What
hast thou done? Jesus answered, notice his words,
my kingdom is not of this world. So aha, so you are a king, but
not a king like you think. My kingdom is not of this world.
And I can imagine that Pilate at that point had a tinge of
fear when he heard him say those words. King of heaven, the Lord
of heaven. He said, if my kingdom were of
this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered
to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. And Pilate therefore
said to him, art thou a king then? Jesus answered, thou sayest
that I am a king. In other words, yeah, according
to what you say. And notice how he says this,
to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world
that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone that is of
the truth hears my voice. That's John 18, verse 33 through
verse 37. So the Lord Jesus Christ, clearly identified himself as
a king before Pilate, clearly identified himself as the Christ
and as the son of God and as a son of man who would come again
on the clouds of heaven because he would successfully raise again
from the dead and accomplish victory over death and the sins
of his people. And so now he tells Pilate that
the reason that he stands before him and doesn't defend himself
or have others defend him is because his kingdom is not of
this world. He's the king of glory. the Prince of Life, and
so he affirmed what Pilate asked him with a yes. And so Pilate,
in his ignorance, he said, I'm sure he was thinking he would
insult the Jews by this, so he wrote this and stuck it on the
cross, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Remember, that
was in John 19, verse 19. Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
the Jews. Now, I'm sure he was trying to
slight the Jews by saying that, and they brought Jesus to him
without any good cause, and they were going to politically compel
him to crucify Christ, to issue that command to crucify him. Pilate didn't want to do it.
But he complied with them in compromise. That's what politicians
do, they compromise. Men do too. Politicians are just
more evidently compromising because they're in the public view. But
here Pilate puts this title on the cross, Jesus of Nazareth,
King of the Jews. And everyone who passed by, they
saw it in three different languages. It was written in, I think, Hebrew
and Greek and maybe Latin, if my memory serves me correctly.
But what's important there is the significance of that writing.
Because as the Jews saw it, what was their reaction? They hated
it that Pilate would say Jesus was king of the Jews. That made
them look like their king, they were crucifying their king, and
their king was subject to them and was dying. That their king
was a miserable failure. But it was true, they were crucifying
their king, but he wasn't a failure because he was doing what he
came to do. He came into the world, as he
told Pilate, I came to this world to be a king, to bear witness
to the truth. And that's the truth he was going
to bear witness to, is the truth of God that required him to go
to the cross and lay his life down for the sake of his people. And so, if we understand it spiritually,
though, the Jews Jesus was king over are the spiritual nation
of Israel, which are the Israel of God. And we know that Abraham
and all those who believe Christ are in that nation, and they
only are in that nation, because there is no true Jew that is
not born of the Spirit of God. Okay, so I bring all these things
to light to you so that you can see the magnificence of this
psalm in that it is a prayer for God to do what was His will
and has been revealed to us in scripture that He would exalt
His Son in our salvation as the son of man to the throne of glory. And because he's a son of God,
he was able to vanquish all of our enemies in that accomplishment,
in that battle, that warfare that he accomplished on the cross.
All right. Now, I want to go on, and I'm
going to jump ahead a ways now. You can look at the notes if
you want to. But I want to go to this next phrase, give the
king thy judgments. I don't think I did it. I don't
know. Maybe I did OK last week, but
I'm going to do it again this week. Give the king thy judgments. So in order to understand this,
I want to ask a question. And the question is, let's say
that a man was given this appointment by God to be a king. I mean,
they're like David or Solomon. As the psalm here, Psalm 72 is
alluding to them in a physical sense. It says in the title of
the psalm, the psalm is a psalm for Solomon. And of course, King
David at the last verse says that the words of David are ended,
the prayers of David are ended. So we know that it has something
to do with David and Solomon. They were both kings and they
were both appointed by God to be king, weren't they? Both of
them were anointed by God to be king and for good purpose.
And so the question that I have for us then is, what would you
do? What would a man do? Because
we can't feel any kind of... We can't feel that, can we? We've
never been appointed king. We're never going to be appointed
king. We're nobodies. Nobody cares about us. Nobody
that I know, at least, nobody cares about, really. We're the
lowest of the people in the view of this world, even on a human
level. We have no significance. And
it's good that we take our place, our God-given place, which is
nobody's. There's an old saying I heard
Gene Harman say, and I love it so much that I'm going to say
it here, even though it doesn't quite fit. He says, Preachers are nobodies
telling everybody about somebody who can save anybody. And I really
like that phrase. But here's the question. What
must a man do to fulfill a God-given requirement, a mandate by God,
a stewardship by God to rule over his people as God towards
them? What would you need for that?
What would you do? What would you need to fulfill
such an auspicious appointment and a stewardship that God would
put you over his people like he did David or Solomon? What
must somebody who is appointed to such a position as king over
God's people, what would he seek? Well, he would seek from God,
wouldn't he? He would seek from the one who
appointed him. He would ask God in prayer, he
would seek from God the ability to do what God had appointed
him to do, because it's far beyond any man's ability to rule over
God's people with the same mindset as God himself, isn't it? Now,
I think that that question to me helps me understand what these
words mean. Give the king thy judgments,
O God, and thy righteousness to the king's son. What are these
judgments then? We know that Solomon and David,
both of them, asked God to give them this kind of wisdom. Solomon
in 1 Kings 3 and David in 2 Samuel 7 and other places, David was
constantly beseeching the Lord for understanding and wisdom
throughout the Psalms. Someone so appointed must come
to God this way, and they must ask what's being said here. Give the king thy judgments,
O God, and thy righteousness to the king's son. So you can
see here that this psalm now is taking on as a chorus. as a song of prayer to God on
the behalf of His will for Christ to save His people. So that tells
us, that helps us understand what the judgments and the righteousness
are going to refer to. It's the prayer inspired by the
Spirit of God given to the church to pray to God in supplication
that he would fulfill his will concerning Christ and that Christ
would be given all that God needs to give to him in wisdom and
righteousness and everything in order to save his people,
to do that will that God has in his heart from all eternity.
for which he sent him into the world, as Jesus said, for this
end was I born, and this cause came I into the world, to bear
witness to the truth. And that truth, of course, is
the truth of our salvation. So to have God's judgment, then,
means to have God's mind, God's truth, God's wisdom, in every
matter that affects God's people, in order to rule as a king, in
the place of God over them because God himself isn't going to directly
rule over his people. He's always going to have someone
who is acting as an appointed king or a mediator to rule over
them because no man has seen God at any time. God has never
been seen by any man, but we see God in Christ. We see the
Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 1 opens that way. We've
seen Him. We've handled Him. This is the
Word of Life. This is eternal life. This is
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so God here is showing that
whatever is needed to fulfill that office of king, to save
his people, remember that's what the king does, the king saves,
then he's asking for judgments and righteousness to be given
to him, God's own judgments and God's own righteousness in every
matter, for the people. That's what he says in verse
two, to judge thy people with righteousness and the poor with
judgment. Okay. Now, you know that in government,
or at least our government, the decision of the court is the
final judgment in any matter. When it gets to the Supreme Court,
even though Congress and the executive branch may complain
about it and appeal, when it gets to the highest court, they
say, no, this is the way it is. The Constitution says this, you've
got to abide by it. Okay. Well, we might not like
it, we might not agree with it, but that's the final word on
it. That's called the decision of the court. And there's no
higher appeal to that. Well, that's true in our government. And so in this prayer, the prayer
is God would give the king his decisions, his judgment, his
mind in every matter. And so he would know the truth
of God. And he would be given not only
to know what to do, but the strength to do it and hold to that, and
to hold the people to that. Okay? Judgments in scripture
don't always mean condemnation. I tend to think of it that way.
Maybe you do too. Well, we're going to judge you,
and we know what's going to happen if we judge you. You're going
to be condemned. That's usually the outcome of
a judgment. At least that's the way I think.
But that's not the way it's presented here to us in verse 2. Judge
thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment. The
people who are the Lord's people and the poor delight in these
judgments. And if they were condemning them,
they certainly wouldn't be praying for that, would they? And so
this prayer here is for the king to save, right? And so the judgments
and the righteousness have to be given to Christ in order to
accomplish that. And so in John 3, 34, it says
that the Lord Jesus Christ had the Spirit of God without measure. In order to do what? To do the
king's judgments, to do his righteousness. He's the word of God. He's the
wisdom of God. He's uncreated. He's the upholder
of all things. And Jesus says that the father
has committed all judgment to his son in John 5, as we looked
at that last week. So the Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who can do this. In John 5, just to draw your
attention to that briefly again, he says, I can of mine own self
do nothing. As I hear, I judge. My judgment
is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of the
Father which has sent me." You see, as the king here, Christ
is speaking, I'm not going to do anything but what God would
do. In fact, I'm going to do exactly
what He would do. I'm going to give you only His
words. I'm going to do only His works. I'm going to seek only
His glory, and I'm going to save only His people, and I'm going
to save them. to the uttermost, because that's
what he sent me to do. I'm going to raise them up at
the last day. I'm not going to fail. God has given me his spirit
without measure. He understood the will of God
from all of scripture. And he says in Hebrews chapter
10, I come to do thy will, O God. Thy law is within my heart. And
so you see that in these words here of the Lord Jesus. All right. I want to point out something
here that I find delightful, and I'll close with this. One of the things you see in
this psalm here is that, let me go to verse 4, for example. Psalm 72 verse 4, he shall judge
the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy,
and shall break in pieces the oppressor. You see this salvation
here? He's going to save the poor, the children of the poor,
he's going to save them from the oppressor by breaking in
pieces the oppressor. How did the Lord Jesus Christ
do this? When Goliath met David at the
battle there, Goliath brought the hugest weapons that were
imaginable at the time. The length of his spear, the
weight of his spear, his sword, his shield, he even had an armor
bearer, his helmet, his armor, everything was monstrous in his
description. David didn't have anything. What
did David come to Goliath with? He said, I come to thee in the
name of the Lord God of Israel, whom thou hast defied. Remember? How did the Lord Jesus
Christ save his people from their sins? Did he bring a really big
spear? An atomic bomb? Did he use his
almighty power in some way to just break out a hammer and squash
the devil? Did he use his power to judge
to condemn all of the Jews and the Pharisees who were putting
him to death? No, he didn't do any of those things, did he?
How did he do it then? And this was the mystery. This
was the amazing thing of how he did this. And I want to draw
this in contrast to you so you can see the differences here. The contrast is between the way
the devil is and the way Christ is, and there is no greater contrast
than can be given. The devil lies, doesn't he? He's the father of lies. What
was the Lord Jesus Christ? He said, I am the truth, the
truth. The devil is the murderer from
the beginning, remember? But the Lord Jesus Christ is
the savior. of sinners who saves them from
death from the beginning. The devil, in the wickedness
of his pride, sought to put himself in the place of God, seeking
his own honor. But the Lord Jesus Christ, who
was equal with God, made himself of no reputation in his humility. And he sought the glory of his
Father in perfect submission of that humility. And Satan strived
in order to acquire what didn't belong to him, but the Lord Jesus
Christ restored what he didn't take away. And you can see that
by this contrast, this huge contrast between the devil and the Lord
Jesus Christ, in the devil we see things we're familiar with,
pride, hatred, murderous intent, this grabbing for honor, this
grabbing for possessions that don't belong to us, this covetousness,
all these things that are true of the devil, we find some affinity
in ourselves. But the things in Christ, we
find foreign to us by nature, don't we? This humility, this
submission, this seeking God's honor instead of our own, stepping
down. The Lord Jesus Christ said this
at one point, he says, whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
And no one humbled himself like Christ did, ever. Except those
God humbled, and even they weren't humbled like the Lord Jesus was.
But you can see in this how God, in his wisdom, saved his people
from the evil and murderous intent of the devil. The devil thought
Like Balaam, I know how I'll kill them. I'll get them to sin
and then God will kill them. Remember, that's what Balaam
did. I'll get them to marry these wives who serve these idols and
their children will grow up and they'll be idol worshipers and
God will destroy them. That'll be easy. Well, that's
exactly what, he got that from the devil. I'll get them to sin
against God and then God will destroy them. But that's not
the way it turned out, was it? Because it was always God's plan
to save His people from their sins by the Lord Jesus Christ.
So that Christ Himself came in His humility, stepped down from
His place as the Son of God, equal with God, and took upon
Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,
and as a man became obedient in submission of that humility
unto death, even the death of the cross. So he gave himself
to do the will of God and he trusted himself, come what may,
whatever his father designed for him to do, in that obedience,
even though it meant his suffering and his death for his people,
in their place, bearing their sins and their guilt and that
shame before God and men. And then overcoming all that,
out of his love for his people, he offered himself in sacrifice
to God for them. And this is phenomenal, that
he would win the battle, the greatest battle that ever could
have been won by submitting himself to God, in obedience and in submission,
in all of his will. And don't you know that this
is the same attitude that the Lord tells us to have? Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And so when
we see in this psalm, this prayer to God, that he would exalt the
Lord Jesus Christ, We join it, don't we? Exalt him because he
made himself so low. Thou hast in love to my soul
delivered it from the pit of corruption and from my sins and
everything, as Hezekiah prayed. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your mercy and grace for the Lord Jesus Christ who, though
he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor that we through
his poverty might be made rich. What grace is this? And what
a stoop of humility and love and self-sacrifice. And now we
see that you've highly exalted him. And therefore we know he
did what you gave him to do and he accomplished all of it and
obtained our eternal redemption and made himself all of this
for your glory. And how much we as the poor and
the needy ones, as I've spoken of in this psalm, how much we
admire and adore him for being so great and so mighty to save. You have truly laid help on one
who is mighty. So mighty, in fact, that he could
lay aside his own reputation and stoop to the place of the
lowest servant to save us from our sins. What a mighty Savior. In his name we pray, amen.