All right, Psalm 72. Let's read
through this psalm together. This will be the first part.
I expect we're going to have one more part for this psalm.
It says in verse 1, give the king thy judgments. Oh, and actually,
before we read verse 1, just before that, it says, a psalm
for Solomon. All right, then the first one
begins, give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness
unto the king's son. He shall judge thy people with
righteousness and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall
bring peace to the people and the little hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the
people. He shall save the children of the needy and shall break
in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long
as the sun and the moon endure throughout all generations. He
shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that
water the earth. In his days shall the righteous
flourish, an abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river
unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness
shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust.
The kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring their presents. The kings of Sheba and Seba shall
offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down
before him, all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver
the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that has no
helper. He shall spare the poor and needy,
and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their
soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood
be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him
shall be given the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for
him continually, and daily shall he be praised. There shall be a handful of corn
in the earth upon the top of the mountains. The fruit thereof
shall shake like Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish
like grass of the earth. His name shall endure forever. His name shall be continued as
long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in him. All nations
shall call him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the
God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed
be his glorious name forever, and let the whole earth be filled
with his glory. Amen and amen. The prayers of
David, the son of Jesse, are ended. All right. So when we read this psalm, it
begins with this as a subtitle. a psalm for Solomon, okay? And then in verse one, give the
king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's
son. Now, because of that, because
it says there a psalm for Solomon, and it speaks, and this is clearly
a song of David, because at the end he says the prayers of David,
the son of Jesse, are ended. So it's a psalm of David, and
it looks as if, when we first read it, at least at first glance,
that it is a psalm for Solomon. And so many have interpreted
this psalm as being a psalm of David concerning his son Solomon,
as when David was turning over the kingdom to his son Solomon.
But we're going to see in a minute that that's not the case. I often read different commentaries
as part of my studies. One of the commentators that
I do read frequently, but not all the time, is John Calvin.
One of the frustrating things I've found reading John Calvin
is, and I've told Denise this several times, that it seems
like he'll take the long way around to avoid applying Psalms
to the Lord Jesus Christ. One example of that is Psalm
40, for example, where clearly it's quoted in Hebrews chapter
10, It seems like, from my memory at least, that John Calvin avoided
applying it to Christ. And I don't know why he seemed
to do that so much, but because of that, a lot of times I don't
read his commentary on the psalm. But in this particular case I
did. And I was actually pleased to find out that John Calvin
understood the psalm to be speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
it turns out that so does John Gill and so does Robert Hawker,
and so I'm not surprised because when we read this psalm, if we
have any understanding of the way God wrote the Old Testament,
and we listened to what the Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples
in Luke chapter 24, when he was walking on the road to Emmaus
with those two. He told them that from Moses,
from the law, from the prophets, and from the Psalms, that he
unfolded those scriptures to them, and he opened their eyes
that they might understand the scriptures. And he said that
twice in Luke 24, that the Psalms, the prophets, and the law were
written of him. And that's not surprising when
we read so many places in scripture as we've done before in this
Bible study. For example, from Hebrews chapter
10, where the Lord, quoting from Psalm 40, says in the volume
of the book, it is written of me, I come to do thy will, O
God. So throughout scripture we know that the subject matter
is God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Word of God. Remember John chapter 1. He's
the Word of God. We're not surprised then that
the Word of God speaks of Him. But it was also satisfying to
me, I guess, to find that these three commentators all understood
this psalm to be speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact,
It's wrong, I think, to apply this psalm to anyone but the
Lord Jesus Christ. So, for example, I do not think
it would be right to apply this psalm to Solomon. One of the
reasons that we couldn't apply it to Solomon is because of what's
said in the psalm itself. It talks about the people that
are bowing in submission to the king in this psalm, and those
people are from all over the earth, from the ends of the earth.
It says in verse 8, he shall have dominion also from sea to
sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. And then it
says in verse 9, they that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before
him, and his enemies shall lick the dust. And in verse 10, the
kings of Tarshish and of the isles, the islands, shall bring
their presence, the kings of Sheba and Seba. All kings, verse
11, all kings shall fall down before him, all nations shall
serve him. And so, just from the extent
of the dominion that this king has, we can know for certain
it's not talking about Solomon. And it can't be talking about
any of Solomon's sons either. Remember, all the kings that
followed Solomon had a much less extent in their dominion than
Solomon had. Rehoboam, the first one, had
only the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and then all the
other sons through Solomon had a much more limited dominion. And not only that, none of those
kings lived more than a few years. Whereas in this psalm, it says
that they shall fear thee, in verse 5, as long as the sun and
moon endure throughout all generations. And it doesn't mean that the
sun and the moon are eternal. It just means that he's referring
to these things that we never see a change. They're always
the same, and that's in creation. And so, in another place in this
psalm, he says that his dominion shall be forever. He shall reign
forever. And I'm just looking for that.
Well, I don't see it. We'll get to it eventually. So,
in this psalm, my point here at the outset is that it's not
talking about Solomon, nor is it talking about David. But it
is talking about the king's son. It says in verse 1, Give the
king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's
son. So who is the king and who is
the king's son? Well, if David is the king, spoken
of here, then his son would be the son of David. And certainly
Jesus is the son of David. The New Testament, when calling
Jesus the son of David, is referring to him as the one of whom God
spoke when he promised to David that he would raise up his son
to sit on the throne forever. In 2 Samuel chapter 7, we're
not going to go there, but you can look at it later in your
own time. In 2 Samuel chapter 7, Nathan the prophet was sent
to David to tell him that God promised him he would establish
the throne of his son forever. Forever, not just a few years
or a lot of years, but forever and ever. And in Psalm 132, I
will read that one to you. In Psalm 132, in verse 11, he
says this, He says, the Lord has sworn in
truth to David, he will not turn from it, of the fruit of thy
body will I set upon thy throne. Now clearly this is talking about
the son of David, the fruit of his body. In verse 12 of Psalm
132 it says, if thy children will keep my covenant and my
testimony that I shall teach them, their children also shall
sit upon thy throne forever. For the Lord hath chosen Zion,
he has desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever. Here
will I dwell, for I have desired it." Now, this is actually referred
to in the book of Acts as proof that God would raise Christ up
from the dead and seat him on the throne of glory forever and
ever. And in Luke chapter 1 it says
when the angel announced the birth of Christ that his throne
and his dominion would be forever and ever. So we can see from
the New Testament especially that those promises in the Old
Testament that the son of David would sit on David's throne and
rule forever refer to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what
Peter preached in Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, the proof
of the scriptures referring to Christ and Him being raised from
the dead is given by Peter from the Old Testament. And in verse
30 he says, that David being a prophet and knowing that God
had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins
according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his
throne, he, David, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection
of Christ that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh
did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up,
whereof we all are witnesses, therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which you now see
and hear. For David is not ascended to
the heavens, but he saith himself the Lord said to my Lord sit
on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool therefore
let all the house of Jacob know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ
so that was the sermon that convicted so many of those Jews who put
Christ to death and they cried out what shall we do and then
that's when Peter said To them, repent and be baptized, every
one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,
and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. To repent
and be baptized means to believe on Christ. To be baptized, of
course, means to be baptized believing on Christ and showing
forth by your baptism that your salvation is in the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ and being identified with him by
God in union with him in his death and in his burial and in
his resurrection. So this psalm then, therefore,
is not talking about Solomon. And it's not talking about David,
it's talking about Jesus Christ. So in verse 1 where he says,
He's talking about the king and the King's Son, meaning God
the Father, who is King over all, and Christ, who is King
of kings, and Lord of lords, and the Son of God. The Son of
God is the King's Son, and He is also the King. Now, as I was
thinking about this and the contents of this psalm, one of the things
that struck me is how majestic Christ is in this psalm to the
one who composed this music here. The lyrics of this song were
given out by someone who had the highest admiration for the
Lord Jesus Christ. And because he deserved it, obviously. He's speaking of his dominion,
that it extends across the whole earth, even further than that.
He spoke about the duration of his rule, that it is too everlasting,
it's forever. And he also spoke about the graciousness
of his rule, that those that were precious in his sight were
the poor and the needy, and that he would save them. So we see
those things, that his dominion was universal across the whole
earth, that it would be forever, it would never end. and that
the subjects of his kingdom would be the poor and the needy and
also that the subjects of his kingdom would be throughout every
nation. So all of these things, of course,
apply to the Lord Jesus Christ. But it shows the majesty of the
Lord Jesus Christ that the ones he chose for his people and he
would save were those who were poor. They didn't have anything
and they were needy. They needed everything. They
couldn't enhance the king. They couldn't enrich the king
because they were utterly dependent on the king for their riches,
for everything they had. And this perfectly describes
the people of God. Sorry, I got something in my
eye. They're all poor and needy. They have nothing to bring. They
have no potential in themselves. The only thing they have is what
the Lord has given them. They need to be saved. They need
everything. They are entirely in need of
everything. I love the reaction or the result
that this has in us. Number one, it's because the
Lord Jesus Christ has a people who are poor and needy, that
He saves them, that they know Him. We know Him because He set
His love and grace and mercy on the poor and the needy. That's
the only reason we know Him. And secondly, we know our poor
and needy condition because He had mercy upon us. So we wouldn't
even know our condition. But the thing, the result that
this has, the response that this produces in our heart is that
it removes the barrier, doesn't it? Because we don't have to
come up with something. In fact, all we have and are
is objects of God's salvation. We need to be saved by the Lord. condition that describes His
people is so easily identified with us who are sinners. By God's
grace, we know now that this is our Savior. We've waited for
Him and we are glad that it is He who has saved us. And what
this does is it elevates Him in our eyes so much higher than
the law by itself could ever have done. We never would have
thought good thoughts of God apart from the grace of God in
the gospel. If we only had the law of God,
we would never have been able to think endearingly of our Savior. We would never have worshipped
Him. It's only when we as the leper came to Jesus and said,
Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. He came to the Lord
as the sovereign, the king. If you will, you have all power,
you can do it. Whereas the woman in Matthew
15, whose daughter was grievously vexed with the devil, said, you
know, help, help me, have mercy on me. And all that she did,
pleading there with Christ, in apparent opposition to her receiving
help from Him, and then finally saying, Lord, even dogs, are
able to eat the crumbs from their master's table, implying that
she was happy to be a dog because she knew that since he's the
master, she could receive a crumb from him and that would be enough.
One crumb of his mercy would be sufficient to remove the devil
from her daughter and to save her. So, this elevates Christ
in his majesty and his glory in the esteem of his people.
Now, I say all that to try to begin to excite our thoughts
of the graciousness and the greatness, therefore, of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And because He is so great, not only in His grace
to us, but also because He's the sovereign over all, that
the one who is king of all has stooped to save and been pleased
to save the most helpless of all, those who can't provide
anything for themselves that would benefit God in any way.
They're like the infant who is in complete need. They're worse
than that. They're the leper, totally unclean
and plagued because of their sin. Their sin against God and
yet the Lord has chosen to save them. But the greatness of the
Lord Jesus Christ that appears in this psalm and in the hearts
of His people shows us the greatness of God the Father. And I say
that because if you think about it, if someone who is in charge
of things finds and appoints a very capable person to do their
bidding, and that person is very honorable and honest and merciful
and gracious and able to do whatever they're asked to do beyond what
you would ever expect, just amazing, amazing abilities, then what
you think is how great that person they report to must be. So the
greatness of the servant is just a testimony of the much greater
greatness of the Master. And the Lord Jesus Christ always
spoke of His Father. He said, I don't do anything
or say anything except what my Father has given me to do and
to say. He sent me, you know, so He made it clear He was the
sent one of God. He was sent with God's Word to
do God's will and to save God's people and to magnify the glory
of His Father. And so, in the scope of what
the Lord Jesus Christ was given to do, that it extends over all
of the earth, not only the earth, but all of heaven. He says in
Matthew 28, all power in heaven and in earth is given to me.
Therefore, go and teach all nations." So that power is all-encompassing. It leaves nothing out. And all
of it is for the salvation of His people. That's impressive,
isn't it? That Christ would have such sovereign
power that He would absolutely control everything. by the will
of God for the salvation of His people. Now, that power, that
ability of Christ and His willingness to do this in service to His
Father, it speaks volumes about the greatness of God the Father,
doesn't it? If we could even begin to comprehend
the greatness of Christ in His humility, or in His power to
save, or in His wisdom, or His righteousness, or any of the
qualities of the Lord Jesus Christ that we so love, then we would
have to say we could never even begin to imagine how much greater
God the Father is than we see in the Lord Jesus Christ. Of
course, seeing Christ, we see the Father, so it's not like
that the Father is greater than Christ in that sense, but it
just means that what we see and know of God in our ability now
is far less than we can ever comprehend in these frail bodies
that we now live in. And yet we have it by faith,
we have it from God's Word. But just the thoughts of these
things excite our interest in the greatness and the majesty
of Christ, and in the greatness and the majesty that we have
not been yet given that ability to see in God himself, in God
the Father. I'm not saying that we are asking
like Thomas and Philip did, Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth
us. What I'm saying is that the greatness
of God is seen in what we're allowed to see by faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, only we must know that the one who sent is
greater than the one he sends. And of course Christ is God,
but as man he was limited in his comparison to God. He is
God in his divine nature, but in his human nature he wasn't
God. I hope you're not confused by
those things. In the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ is both a divine nature and a human nature. His human
nature is now glorious and there's no limitations in his human nature.
He is both God and man in one person. But in what we can understand
and see of God, we can only see and know in the Lord Jesus Christ,
our mediator. But when we are in our glorified
spiritual bodies, then we'll be able to know even as we're
known. And yet, at this time, we see Christ in the Word, by
faith from the revelation given to us and we must stand back
and say that God is so much greater than we ever began to realize
because we're overwhelmed with the greatness of Christ in the
extent that we're allowed to see him in. Okay? All right,
now let me get into some of the details here in verse 1. He says in verse 1, give the
king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's
son. Let me get to that particular
section in my notes. Let's see. Sorry, I have a lot of pages
here. I'm trying to find where I am
in this. I've touched on a couple of points
here already covered, but I want to touch on this phrase here,
give the king thy judgments, and then I want to look at, and
thy righteousness unto the king's son. So the first question is
here, what are these judgments that are given or that are prayed
for? First, recognize that this psalm
is a prayer. And this helps me. This psalm
is a prayer. Who's praying here? Well, obviously,
King David, the psalmist, was writing, so we could say that
David was praying this prayer. But really, we know that Scripture
is inspired by the Holy Spirit. So David spoke as he was carried
along. He was moved by the Holy Spirit. So whatever he wrote was really
given by the Spirit of God. So the Spirit of God, therefore,
is giving these words. But to whom is he giving these
words? Well, he's giving them to the Church. He's giving them
to the Bride of Christ. So that the words of this psalm
are a prayer of every believer. In our hearts, we're given the
blessing of faith, that blessing of God's grace, which is faith
in Christ. And with that blessing of faith,
we have this desire expressed in the words of this psalm by
the Spirit of God. In other words, and I say this,
I'm always amazed at this when I consider it, that God has given
us his words for our prayer And it reflects the desire that He's
put in our heart as well. Isn't that amazing? That He has
caused us as sinners to have such a fond adoration and admiration
for the Lord Jesus Christ. We need Him. We need Him to save
us, don't we? We have nothing to bring and
nothing to plead. We're utterly hanging on His
will and His power and His grace depending on Him to give us His
life because of His righteousness. Everything is found in Him, and
we're asking to be found in Him and to be given from God what
He gives to His Son. That's our attitude, and we're
utterly dependent, poor and needy and helpless, without life unless
He gives and upholds our life. But in this attitude He's given
to us, we have this admiration for the Lord Jesus Christ because
of that, because we see Him as the sovereign Savior. And so,
that's the first thing to see here. This psalm is a prayer.
expressing the desire of the heart of the believer, and it's
inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to us to pray and ask God
for these blessings. to be given to Christ so that
we might be blessed in Him. I hope that sinks in a little
bit. So this prayer, this psalm, a
prayer given by the Spirit of God to His people to express
the desires He's put in their hearts to pray to God that He
would give them the blessings that He's given to the Lord Jesus
Christ for His obedience to Him in all things here. Alright,
that's the first thing. And then But this phrase here,
give the king thy judgments, that's the one thing I wanted
to look at. Because when we think of judgments, a lot of times
we think of things like, well, is that like holding people accountable
for their sin? Is that what he's talking about
when he says, give the king thy judgments? Well, it turns out
that it's much, much broader than that. And I think there's
a text of scripture in the New Testament that makes this clear.
And I want to take you to that. But look at this verse with me
in John chapter 5. Because to me, this verse sheds
incredible light on this phrase, give the king thy judgments.
First of all, realize, I think it also helps us to realize that
when we read the account, of David becoming king and all that
he did as a king, how he, before he was actually put into that
position of being the king, an anointed king, he was just an
ordinary shepherd. a young shepherd boy, and then
he had to go through all the persecution of King Saul and
all the struggles, and finally he was put into the place of
king. And what did he do through all that time, the struggles?
He was constantly seeking wisdom from God, how to deal with those
things. Another example is Solomon. Remember when Solomon was made
king? What was one of the first things
you read about in 1 Kings chapter 3? The Lord appeared to him in
1 Kings chapter 3 and asked him, let me read that to you in 1
Kings chapter 3 because I think this helps us to understand the
judgments here too. He says in 1 Kings chapter 3
and verse Let's see, in verse five, he
says, In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night,
and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. So God is asking Solomon,
ask, what do you want? And Solomon said, thou hast shown
unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he
walked before thee in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness
of heart with thee, and thou hast kept for him this great
kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne
as it is this day. And now, this is Solomon praying
to the Lord, now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king
instead of David my father, and I am but a little child. I know
not how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst
of thy people, which thou hast chosen, a great people that cannot
be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give therefore, considering the
fact that if they're the Lord's people, then it's essential that
he is enabled by God, to reign as king over them according to
God's mind, right? So he says, give therefore thy
servant an understanding heart to judge thy people that I may
discern between good and bad for who is able to judge this
thy so great a people. and the speech, please the Lord,
that Solomon asked this thing. And God said to him, because
thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long
life, neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the
life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thyself understanding
to discern judgment, behold, I have done according to thy
words, lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart,
so that there was none like thee before, was none like thee before
thee, neither after thee shall any arise like thee." Okay, so
I read that in order for us to see the shadow of what is being
spoken of here in Psalm 72. just a scant reflection of the
depth of the meaning here. Because Solomon said, look, I
don't know anything. You're going to have to give
me, I'm asking you to give me an understanding heart so that
I can judge your people, because they're a great people, because
they're yours, they're the people of God. And so he said, how can
I do this? And so the Lord was pleased and
gave him wisdom. He said, I'm going to make you
wiser than anyone before you or anyone after you. Now in Matthew
chapter 12, in verse 42, the Lord Jesus himself said, a greater
than Solomon is here. Now he was speaking of himself,
of course. here what we're seeing then is when the prayer is given
here by the Spirit of God inspiring it as a prophecy and inspired
as the prayer of God's people throughout time to pray to God
that he would give Christ the judgment, his judgments, God's
judgments, and his righteousness to the king's son. He's really
asking God to give him all that was necessary to be the sovereign
ruler according to God's own righteousness over all of his
people. And so in John chapter 5, where
I wanted to go to, if you're there, let me get there now,
John chapter 5, Jesus says in verse 17, he says, Jesus answered
those Pharisees, my father worketh hitherto and I work. So clearly
he identifies himself as the son of God and as God the father,
his father. And he also says, as his father
works, so also he works. They were complaining because
he did this miracle of raising up a man on the Sabbath day.
Verse 18, John 5 verse 18, therefore the Jews sought the more to kill
him because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that
God was his father, making himself equal with God. That was correct.
He was equal with God. All right. Now, so we see here
the first thing is that Jesus claimed to be equal with his
Father in this very context, right? And then, let's see what
happened here. The page is blank on the back.
Oh well. So the next verse in John chapter
5, verse 19, he says, Yeah, verse 19. Then answered
Jesus and said to them, when they said, we're going to stone
you because you're claiming to be God. He then said, verily,
verily, I say to you, the son can do nothing of himself, but
what he seeth the father do. So now in that statement, Jesus
is saying, I see what the father does. That's not something any
man can do. I see what the father does. Everything
he does, I see it. He says, for what things soever
he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. Not only does he
see, but he does the same things. And who could claim that but
God? And then, verse 20, for the father loveth the son, and
showeth him all things that himself doeth, and he will show him greater
works than these that you may marvel. Greater than raising
up this man from the dead, he's going to spiritually raise up
and physically raise up all of his people. Verse 21, for as
the father, notice, raises the dead and quickens them, he gives
life to the dead, Even so, the Son quickens whom He will." So
now Jesus is saying, I'm equal with the Father, I see His works,
I do His works. He loves me, He shows me all
that He does, and I do all the works of my Father. In so much
that, as the Father raises the dead and gives life to whom He
will, I also give life to whom I will. So He's making His sovereignty
and His life-giving power equal with the Father. And then he
says in verse 22, and here's the verses that explain the first
verse of Psalm 72. He says, For the Father judges
no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all
men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He
that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which has sent
him. Okay, so in Psalm 72, he says, Give the king thy judgment,
O God, and thy righteousness to the king's son. And as Solomon
prayed, Lord, give me understanding, so the Lord Jesus Christ, in
order to do his father's will, as a man, depended upon him to
give him all that his will was to do in a perfect understanding,
with all the grace attending his needs as a man to perform
those works in his human nature. so that it would be perfectly
done according to the will of God, that there would be no deviation
from that perfect will, and in everything, he would be able
to make a perfect judgment with the wisdom of God himself, and
to bring the judgment of God himself in every situation. And
this wasn't just so that he could condemn the wicked, but most
importantly, all of this was bestowed upon Christ in order
that he might save his people. So that in their salvation, he
gives them life, and not just any life, but eternal life. And
that eternal life is given to them because of his righteousness. I'm hoping that we can begin
to see now the significance of what's being said in this psalm.
If we were to take this from 1 Corinthians 15, which we've
been looking at on Sundays, we would see that this whole panoramic
will of God given to Christ throughout the entirety of time, which was
given before time and will be consummated at the end of time,
and then will be the subject of the praise and honor and glory
of Christ from his people for all eternity to the glory of
God the Father, that this panoramic will of God that was given Christ
to do is the work that Christ does by that same will and power
of God given to him, and this is the one that's being prayed
for here in this psalm. Give the king thy judgments.
Jesus said it this way in the prayer. He taught his disciples
to pray. He said, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name. And he said this, Thy kingdom
come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's the
same thing. The same prayer here. Give the
king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness to the king's
son." So that he can perform, perfectly perform all that was
in the will and the mind of his father to his father's glory,
and the father is glorified in the son. So there's this perfection
of the honor given to the Father through the Son. In the eyes
of His people, we see only the Son, and we say, what magnificence
we see in the Son, and we therefore join with the Spirit of God given
to us. We join with our desire and our
prayer and in our praise that God would magnify His Son and
give Him dominion, as He says here, the all-extensive dominion,
the full or eternal duration of that dominion in all of His
grace to save the poor and the needy. All right, let's pray.
Father, thank You for Your grace given to us in the Lord Jesus
Christ. We pray, Lord, that as this psalm
expresses it from the mind of the Spirit of God Himself, in
the hearts of your people, given to them by grace, that we would
desire and ask you to exalt your son in our salvation because
of his work, and that he would receive all the glory and the
honor due to him. We would not be glorified or
honored for anything in ourselves, but we would receive only what
you've given to him. Therefore, we pray, Lord, find
us in him, put us in him, and cause us to see and know him
and rejoice in his salvation. And so to glorify and honor and
worship God our Father by Him, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.