Alright, Psalm 45. Now this psalm,
if you look at the beginning of the psalm, before the first
verse, it says that it is a song of loves. A song of loves. Now we've already had two parts,
gone through the majority of this psalm. And I want to go
down to verse 8 with you and begin from there without going
back over the same material that we've gone over so far. If you're
interested in catching up on those, I will upload the Bible
studies. I don't think I've done that
yet, but I will get to that. within the next couple of days,
hopefully. So, anyway, if you want to listen to them, you can
go online on Sermon Audio and listen to the first two parts.
But we're going to pick up in Psalm 45, verse 8, through the
end of the psalm, and I'm going to read that with you. Beginning
at verse 8, it says, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, now
that's who this psalm is about. We know that. We're absolutely
positive of that. Because in verse 6, the words
of verse 6 are quoted in the New Testament as referring to
the words of God the Father to his Son, where in Hebrews 1,
verse 8 it says, unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God. is forever and ever. And it's
important to understand that that quotation in the book of
Hebrews, in chapter one of Hebrews, talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ, not only identifies Him as the one Psalm 45 is talking
about, But it shows us in Hebrews 1 that He is the Son of God,
and as the Son of God, He's everything that that part of Hebrews is
revealing. He is God Himself. The glory
of God is seen in Him. He's everything that God is.
He's called the express image of His person. And so everything
that is said in Hebrews 1 about Him, is reflecting what's said
here in Psalm 45 because of that quotation. This is the way the
Bible quotes the Old Testament. In the New Testament, when the
Old Testament is quoted, it's not just taking a verse at random,
it's taking that verse in the context so that in Hebrews 1,
where God is saying everything that God has said in the past,
was actually about His Son, but in these last days, which began
at the cross and goes to the end of time, God has spoken to
us in His Son. The one God has spoken to us
by and in is the Lord Jesus, and He is the Son of God. God
has commanded the angels to worship Him. God has commanded His people
to worship Him, as we'll find out in this psalm. And he is
the one who is everything that God is. And that shows us that
in the verse three of Hebrews chapter one, he says, when he
had by himself purged our sins, so all by himself, he washed
us from our sins. And he did that by sacrificing
himself. Then he sat down on the right
hand of the majesty on high. Now that verse, Since this psalm
is quoted in that verse, it pulls the whole psalm into the context
of Hebrews chapter 1. And that's the point I'm trying
to make. The context of Hebrews 1 is Psalm
45. And Psalm 45 is extolling the
Lord Jesus Christ as the King. And he was the king before he
arose from the dead, after he accomplished our salvation, and
God gave him all the glory he had with God before he came into
the world. But while he was in the world,
that glory was hidden. and it was hidden in him as a
man. You couldn't see that he was
God by looking at him, but you could understand that he was
God by the words that he spoke and the miracles that he did,
and especially in the work of our salvation. Okay, now I say
all that as background because when we read this here in Psalm
45, we're reading about God commending Jesus Christ to his people as
their king. not just as their king, but as
their king who was victorious in their salvation. And because
he accomplished the will of God, the will of his Father, the Son
of God in our nature, accomplishing all the work of his Father that
God had given him to do from eternity, that he did in time
and accomplished and finished in time. And then God gave him
all the glory that he had with him, openly making known that
he was the son of God when he raised him from the dead and
exalted him to his own right hand. That's what's being spoken
about here in Psalm 45. It's meant to be God's highest
commendation that could be given to anyone at any time in all
of eternity. This is what Psalm 45 is about.
God's commendation of his son as the king to his people. And if you were, you know, I
think about a comparison here. If you were, The father, let's
say, and you had a daughter, and you wanted to direct your
daughter to the man that you had the highest opinion of, and
you started speaking about this man, and all that he is, and
his character, and all of his work, and just the integrity
of the man, or whatever it was. That's what God the Father is
doing here to his people. He's directing his people as
a bride to her husband. Okay? So now when we read this,
hopefully that will give you a greater appreciation for the
way that it is spoken. In verse seven it says, God the
Father speaking to his son, he says, thou lovest righteousness
and hatest wickedness, therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Now as the
son of God, God is his father. And as man, he is his father
and his God. Don't get too tangled up about
that. The Lord Jesus Christ is both
son of God and son of man in one person. Those two natures,
his divine nature and his human nature, are joined in one person. as human nature doesn't detract
from his divine nature and his divine nature is not minimized
by his human nature. And so when we read this, this
is still talking about Christ as the king who loved righteousness
and hated iniquity and God therefore has anointed him with the oil
of gladness above his fellows. above all by comparison. Now
that's another thing I wanted to point out here. It says this
in verse two, thou art fairer than the children of men. Do
you see that in verse two? Thou art fairer than the children
of men, more beautiful, more comely, more lovely than the
children of men above all others. And I want you to think about
that for just a minute. Because in the Song of Solomon,
it says this about the Lord Jesus. Thou art altogether lovely. Now that's a phrase from the
Song of Solomon. And it's the words of God the
Holy Spirit speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ from the perspective
of his people. They say, you, Lord Jesus, are
altogether lovely. Now what that means is that the
Lord Jesus Christ in his person as we know him, and we know him
only as man, we can't know God except for his revelation of
himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in his human
nature through his word, right? We can't know him apart from
his word. But now I want you to think about this. The Lord
Jesus Christ as a man is incomparable. He is incomparable to all others. So that even the best of men
in the world that we know, or women, you can say any person
in the world that we know of, the very best qualities of the
very best person that we could find in the world, are absolutely
nothing compared to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what
this is saying here. Thou art fairer than the children
of men. And as I mentioned in Song of
Solomon, thou art altogether lovely. He's so much better in comparison
to all the children of men that it's as if there are no comparisons,
because there aren't. But he is altogether, he in himself
is uniquely and solitary in his loveliness. There's no taint
in him. There's no shadow of imperfection
in him. He's beautiful in every way beyond
our ability to describe. In fact, if you read the Song
of Solomon, and I encourage you to do that, Notice how it seems
as if every verse and every chapter and every page in that song about
the Lord Jesus Christ, there's all these comparisons that are
pulled in. His legs are like the ivory pillars,
for example. His lips are like, they drop
like the lilies with the fragrance and with the beauty of his words. And so everything is used to
describe his loveliness and his qualities. that are so far beyond words
that these comparisons are brought in and they all seem as if you
just can't find enough good things to say. And this is all spoken
from the perspective of his people, that he saved by his own sacrifice
of himself for them. So that's why I mentioned these
two verses here in Psalm 45. Thou art fairer than the children
of men, in verse two. And he says here in verse seven,
God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. There's no comparison to him.
It's as if there's none other. And it is true. There are no
other lovely people in the world compared to Christ. Now, that's
done, as I said earlier, to commend, to commend, to recommend, to
show to the people of God whether they know him at this time or
not. but is declared by God the loveliness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we see this loveliness, don't we? How do we see it? Well, it's there. He's perfect
in his character. He's holy. His mind and his words
and his actions are truth. There's nothing sinful in him. He loves righteousness, as it
says here. He hates iniquity. Everything he does is done in
truth. But we see this how? Well, notice
from 1 John 4, chapter 4, verse 19, it says, we love him because
he first loved us. It's like, again, the same comparison.
A bride loves her husband because the husband has attracted her
attention to him because of his greatness and because of his
love for her. And it's by no accident that
God uses the comparison of a man and a woman and their love, the
love of a man for a woman, to describe the Lord Jesus Christ
to his people. I think about the stoop, first
of all, the condescension that this was, that God would come
to his people in the person, in the nature of a man. That's a great stoop, isn't it?
But then, when we were not beautiful, in fact, when we were sinful,
and everything about us was foul and filthy, God loved his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not for qualities found in us,
but for the love he had in himself. And we can't understand that
because we don't know anything about love. that only finds its
source in ourselves. We always find some attraction
in the object of our love, but not with God. God's love is different than
ours, and the love of Christ for his people found nothing
in them except the qualities that he had in himself and gave
to them. Okay, that's very important.
And we're gonna see that here. Notice in verse eight, he says,
speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, all thy garments smell
of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby
they have made thee glad. Here's the fact. Everything about
Christ smells good to God. Now, God is not a man. He doesn't
have a nose like we do. So don't think of it in physical
terms, but think of it as God stooping to our understanding
to describe his estimation of Christ's goodness and how he
pleases him by taking something that we're familiar with, with
the fragrance of something that smells very good to us, and just
makes your whole body relax and go, oh, that is so sweet. I love that. That's the way Christ
is to God. But he uses this comparison of
fragrance and the smell here to enable us as people to get
some appreciation for God's high estimation, his high regard for
his son. He says, all thy garments smell
of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby
they have made thee glad. God thinks highly of his son,
and that's with his fragrance. It's not like he has to force
himself. Christ to God, God finds him altogether lovely, and he
recommends him to his people by telling them how fragrant
he is to himself. And God has made us know him
and love him as the sweet fragrance of God, and not just the outside
of us fragrance, but the fragrance that he is to us because he has
saved us from our sins by the sacrifice of himself, okay? And I want you to realize that
it says, let's see, where is it here? In Ephesians, I read
this last time, in Ephesians it says that He says this, forgive
one another, in Ephesians chapter four, verse 32, be kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even, listen now,
he's not just telling us, you just do this. Notice what God
has done. You do this, forgive one another,
be kind one to another, tenderhearted, because as God, for Christ's
sake, has forgiven you. God has forgiven us our sins,
not for something we did, but for what Christ did. Do you get
that? This is so important. Not for
what I did, but for what Christ did. Not because of what God
thinks of me and my character or my potential or anything about
me, but for what he thinks of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did
it for his sake. It's a blessing he gives to his
son that he forgives his people of their sins. It's a consequence
of Christ giving himself for them. Notice, I'm going to go
on in Ephesians 4. He says, you be tenderhearted,
you be kind, forgiving one another as God, for Christ's sake, has
forgiven you. In other words, don't do it because you find
value in the person. Do it for Christ's sake, as God
has forgiven you for Christ's sake. Is there any reason why
you wouldn't then? No, because God has forgiven
us and because Christ is worthy of that. Then in verse two of
Ephesians chapter five, he says, walk in love. Again, he pulls
in the comparison as Christ also has loved us and has given himself
for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, notice these words, for
a sweet smelling savor. Now, take that here in Psalm
45, he says, all thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and
cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad.
So that the garments here that he's speaking of on the Lord
Jesus Christ, are, according to Isaiah 61, verse 10, the garments
of salvation. He's robed in the robe of his
own righteousness. What he did to save his people
from their sins was the work God gave him to do. And God says
that work is upon him like a robe, and it's a robe of righteousness,
it's garments of salvation, and to God, it is a sweet-smelling
savor. And so in verse eight, he talks
about that. He recommends him, he gives commendation
to Christ in the audience for the benefit of the church. He
says, all thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia.
Notice, out of the ivory palaces whereby they have made thee glad.
Now, the ivory palaces, here in this verse, let me get to
my notes here so I don't get off track. The ivory palaces
are the palaces, the palace here is the palace of the king. because
his psalm is about the king. But the palace where the king
is, is his throne, the place of his throne, which is in heaven,
where he sits on his father's throne at the right hand of his
father. One throne, one sovereign rule
over all, it's God the father with his son in our nature, having
accomplished our salvation, having all authority and all power,
over all things in heaven and earth for the salvation of his
people. That's who's sitting on the throne.
God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says out of the ivory
palaces, that's where Christ is, his dwelling place, his place
of victory, his place of sovereign rule, his place of sovereign
grace in saving sinners, his people given to him by God. to
bring to Himself. So the ivory palace is heaven,
and from this place God's purpose was established from eternity
that He would save His people from their sins. Remember those
verses we've quoted so often in 2 Timothy 1-9, God has saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works. but according to his own purpose and grace which were
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." That's the
ivory palace. God's sovereign rule where in
his own purpose, his eternal purpose of grace and love for
Christ and his people as one, he joined them to Christ in one,
a relationship that can only be described in human terms by
the union between a husband and his wife. A holy union God has
made on earth in order to teach us about the spiritual union
between the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in our nature
with his people. They're joined to him. Everything
he does, he does as one with them. They did it in him. Whatever
he did, God sees it as them doing it in him. OK, this is very important. That's the ivory palace, the
palace of the great king, where Christ reigns in heaven at the
right hand of God, according to this eternal purpose, according
to an everlasting covenant of marriage between the Lord Jesus
Christ and his people, where he took them to himself and obligated
himself to give himself for them to save them from their sins
and to pay every debt. and to clothe them in his own
beautiful robes of salvation and righteousness, okay? So the
throne of God is the out of, in this phrase, the out of the
ivory palaces. And out of that throne, His eternal
purpose and His will sent Christ to redeem His people, to accomplish
their salvation by bearing their sins and bearing the wrath of
God as a curse upon Himself in order to satisfy God's justice
and take away their sins from them. What amazing grace. In
the book of Revelation and other places in scripture, the throne,
the throne of God is the center of everything. Read Revelation
chapter four. What you'll see in Revelation
four is the throne and then everything else is around the throne. And that the reason that paints
that picture in the book of Revelation is because everything in heaven
and earth is centered around the purpose of God, and the will
of God, and the work of God, according to the word of God.
And what is on the throne is God the Father, and notice the
Lamb, the Lamb of God. And who is the Lamb? But the
Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, right? That's what a Lamb is
for, the substitute who bears the sins of his people. And so
you can see in that picture, God is giving us in heaven, that
all of God's purposes, like the pole of a tent. All of God's
purposes are draped on the Lord Jesus Christ who bore the sins
of his people according to the will and the love and grace of
God in satisfaction of God's justice, in exhibition, in setting
forth the holy character and the wisdom and the faithfulness
and the power of God in saving his people. Who would do that
but one who was altogether lovely? Okay, now let's go on. In verse
nine, in Psalm 45, it says, King's daughters were among thy honorable
women. Now, in this verse, in this chapter,
again, God the Father is commending Christ as the king, the victorious
king, in the majesty of his person, seen in his saving work, and
the glory that he has because of his victory and triumph in
that work, he's commending him to her, Christ to the church. And so he says, The Lord Jesus
Christ, first of all, He talks about Him as loving righteousness,
hating iniquity. His throne is forever and ever
as God on His throne, and His garments smell of myrrh and aloes
and cassia. He's exalted above all His fellows. God has made him, I mean, he
is fairer than the children of men. All these commendations
are given in the audience of the church. And here he describes
the people of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's so honorable in
himself, but he's not only honorable in himself, his own people are
honorable. The one who has all of the majesty
and glory of heaven is surrounded by and has a people who are in
themselves, in the esteem of God, they are honorable. And so he says, king's daughters.
King's daughters, that would be those who are related to the
king. And who are they? But the people
of God. We're made the children of God.
We're the brethren of Christ. And all of this is by the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has chose us. He adopted
us as his children. He made us his children through
the redeeming work of Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ has
given us his own spirit. He himself dwells in us so that
we're joined to him in spirit. All of these things are because
we're married to him and we are his brethren. In the book of
Song of Solomon, he calls his wife his sister. says, Thou art
all fair, my sister, my spouse. He calls her sister and spouse
because she has the relation as he has to God, an offspring,
the children of God. She is the sister of Christ.
That means she is a daughter of God, the father. And she is
the bride of Christ. He is she is his spouse. He is her husband. So that's
a very, very near relationship. There's no nearer relationship
than to have God as our father, Christ as our husband, and Christ
as our brother. What nearer relations are there
on earth than those? And then to us, he speaks of
us as his daughters here. The king's daughters were among
thy honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand
the queen in gold of Ophir. Now, what we're seeing here is
a queen and king's daughters. But don't be confused by the
fact that these two different people need to correspond to
two different entities. Who are these? Who is the queen?
Well, the queen is the one who is the wife of the king, right?
The wife of the king is the queen. And who is that in Scripture?
It's the church. Jesus Christ loved the church
as a husband loves his wife. He loved the church and gave
himself for it, the church. And then also the king's daughters
are daughters, as I said before, because God has adopted them
and they were birthed to God through the Spirit of God because
of Christ's saving work of them at the cross. So we see here
that in the description of the honorable women, the king's daughters,
who are honorable women, and the queen, God is not only commending
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to us, his majesty and
his glory, because grace has been poured into his lips and
he has worked out our salvation. We see his character in this,
his love, his mercy, his grace, his righteousness, and all these
things. But we also see that he is surrounded by honorable
and beautiful, and women who have been dressed in the very
finest possible clothes called the gold of Ophir. Now, this
gold of Ophir was renowned because it was a place where the finest
gold could be found. And Solomon, who had all this
wealth, sent ships by a man named Hiram to go to this place and
bring back the gold of Ophir. And here the queen is dressed
in the gold of Ophir, but not just the raw gold, but gold that
has been worked out with his fine needlework. And so what
is this but the garments of the queen? This is the dress. This
is how the king has adorned his beautiful bride. And that was
the tradition in biblical times is that the husband would provide
for the bride's dress, especially the king. You can read that in
the book of Esther, for example. The queen was dressed in what
the king provided. She didn't have clothes of her
own. No, he had special attendants and servants who would prepare
the queen for his view of her. He would come in and see her
in all of this glorious dress that he himself had provided.
And therefore she was adorned in the very finest that the king
could provide. The queen's wife, the king's
wife. And not only the queen, but the king's daughters are
dressed like this. And so you can see here that
God is describing the beauty of those who belong to the Lord
Jesus Christ here. So that the Holy Spirit is describing
the people of God. They have royal blood. They're dressed in the king's
garments. And where did this come from?
Well, Of course, it came from the Lord Jesus himself. I mentioned
this in Isaiah 61. I'm gonna read it to you now.
Look at, or listen to this in Isaiah 61 10. He says. I will greatly rejoice in the
Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed
me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe
of righteousness. Notice, as a bridegroom, decketh
himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with
jewels. There you have it. What is this
jewelry? What is this dress? What is this
beauty that's put on the queen? the garments of salvation, the
robe of Christ's righteousness. In other words, the people of
God are clothed in Christ's own beauty, a beauty that he worked
out in our nature, so that when it says in the Song of Solomon,
he's altogether lovely, He's not only describing Christ in
his own person and work to his people, but he's describing how
his loveliness is put on us, what he did, what God finds fragrant
and beautiful to look upon, the Lord Jesus Christ, his love of
righteousness, his hatred of iniquity, and all these things,
the grace that was poured into his lips, all that to God is
lovely, and that is given to his people. All right. Look at
verse 10. He says, Harken, O daughter,
and consider and incline thine ear, forget also thine own people
and thy father's house. Now, Abraham, if you remember
back in Genesis chapters 11 and 12, Abraham dwelt with his father
in the land of the Ur of the Chaldees. And when he was there,
according to Acts chapter 7, he was, his family were idolaters. But God appeared to Abraham while
he was there in Mesopotamia, and he told him, you come out
from your father's house, you leave your father's house, and
bring Sarah, your wife, out too, and come to a land that I will
show you. And so Abraham eventually came
out from his father's house. Here in this verse, he says,
hearken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear. To hearken
means to listen. To consider means to take in
what you hear and think about it. And to incline your ear means
to give all attention to this. He says, forget your own people
and your father's house. Now, what does that mean? Well,
the daughter he's speaking about here are not only his own daughters,
but the queen. He goes on in verse 11 here,
he says, so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. For he is
thy Lord, and worship thou him." All right, the King is the Lord
of the wife. The King is Christ, he's the
Lord. He's the Lord of her. We know that's true. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the Lord of all. He's not only our Savior, but
he's our Lord. And he tells us to worship him. That's consistent because he's
God. But also remember when Thomas saw Jesus after his resurrection,
he said, my Lord, my God. Remember, he worshiped his his
master. But notice he says, I want you
to listen to this. Listen to this. Incline your
ear. First, forget your own people
and your father's house. So shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty. What is this saying? It's saying
that since the beauty that we have is given to us by the Lord
Jesus Christ, what we are to forsake is all confidence and
trust in our own beauty, and to come to Him to be dressed
in His own beauty, which is His righteousness, His blood and
righteousness. Let me read to you, I've referenced
it several times, but let me read to you from Ephesians chapter
5. where he says this about the Lord Jesus and what he did for
his people. He says in verse 25, you're gonna
know this verse before we're done. He says, husbands, love
your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself
for it. In order that he might, I put
the words in order, but that he might sanctify make it holy,
and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he
might present it to himself a glorious church." Notice, how did the
wife become ready for the view and the admiration of the husband
here? He sanctified her, He washed
her with the washing of water by the Word. In other words,
He sent the Gospel to her that told of His cleansing blood and
His own righteousness, and she trusted in Him to wash her from
her sins in His own blood and to clothe her in His righteousness.
That was the Word, that's the message of the Gospel. And verse
27, He says that He, Christ, might present her the church,
to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves
himself. See, the union between the Lord
Jesus and his people is so close that they're one. And when Christ
loves them, he's loving himself. Just like if a husband were to
not love his wife, he would be hating himself. That's how close
they are in union. And so for a husband to love
his wife as Christ did, he's going to give himself for her
and give himself to her because that's what the Lord Jesus Christ
did. He's the example. He's the fulfillment of that
picture God has given in the marriage between a man and his
wife. But he says back in Psalm 45, 10 and 11, you forget your
own people and your father's house, so shall the king greatly
desire thy beauty. In other words, trust in Christ
alone. And guess what? The beauty you
have will be the beauty you trust. The one you believe is the one
who is imputed to you for righteousness. And God sees him. The Lord Jesus
Christ says, she's all glorious, all glorious. She's dressed in
my own righteousness. He has put it on her. He gave
her the faith. He gave her the view of himself
in his saving work so that she could trust him. And she finds
him all glorious. And so she abandons all confidence
in anything she would have before called her own, something she
received from her own father. meaning her father after the
flesh. But now she is received from
the Lord Jesus Christ, her husband, her heavenly husband. OK, does
that make sense? We abandon, we forsake all confidence
in anything but the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says the king
will greatly desire our beauty. It's his. But our faith looks
to him for it. And then in verse 12, he says, And the daughter of Tyre shall
be there with a gift, even the rich among the people shall entreat
thy favor." He's talking again about the Lord Jesus Christ with
His people. The daughter of Tyre is a way
of referring to the Gentiles. And there's two groups of people
in Scripture. There's the Jews and the Gentiles.
Historically, Adam and Eve are the parents of the entire human
race, but in the course of the descending from one from another,
God called one of the men, his name was Eber, he became the
father of all the Hebrews, and God called Abraham, and from
Abraham descended this nation of people called the Jews, and
everybody else who was not descended from Abraham was called Gentiles.
Now that just so happens to describe just about everybody on earth.
There's a very few people who actually descended from Abraham.
There's a lot of people who didn't, and they are called the Gentiles.
And here he says, now this is grace, listen to this, the daughter
of Tyre shall be there with a gift. In other words, the Gentiles,
because Tyre was a notorious city, it was on the coast, it
was called Tyre and Sidon, and there were people in that place
that were the elect of God, that God chose before time began to
save and gave them to the Lord Jesus Christ. They're called
the Daughter of Tyre here, T-Y-R-E, and also they're Gentiles. And
throughout scripture it says, whenever it refers to them, it
calls the Gentiles synonymous with the islands of the nations.
in contrast to the Jews, those people that are far off from
the nation of Israel. You would never consider them
to be the people of God because they're so far out there in terms
of their wickedness. And in terms of God's choice,
it doesn't seem like they have anything to do with God. And
the Lord says it's not true. Among the very people that you
would say they are not loved, they are not named with God's
name, they have nothing to do with God, their destiny is only
to be cast off. No, God says that's not the case.
Actually, God has chosen a people out from the Gentile nations. And that's who's spoken of here,
just like the queen and the king's daughters are all glorious and
told to forsake their own people. And the king would greatly desire
her beauty. So the daughter of Tyre shall
be there with a gift. Even the rich among the people
shall entreat thy favor. Everyone wants the favor of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody who is hungry or thirsty
or poor or imprisoned or in debt or diseased or troubled in any
way because of sin, they're seeking the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's describing
here, the daughter of Tyre. Even the rich among... Remember
Nicodemus? Remember Joseph of Arimathea?
These men were rich. Remember Abraham? He was rich.
He was also included among God's people. The king's daughter,
verse 11, is all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought gold.
I've talked about her clothing already. But she's glorious within
because she looks to her Savior. And that beauty that's inside
of her, that's within her, is the beauty of God's Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ himself dwells in
his people. I can't feel him. I can't describe
his shape, none of that makes any sense. But the fact is, by
his spirit, he is in his people and his life is our life. So we're all glorious because
Christ dwells in us. It says, she shall be brought
to the king in raiment of needlework. The virgins or companions that
follow her shall be brought to thee. With gladness and rejoicing
shall they be brought. They shall enter into the king's
palace, the place of intimacy, the place of communicating the
mind and thoughts of the king and seeing all of his majesty
and glory. And instead of thy father shall
be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
The Jews were the nation to which the Lord Jesus was born, but
that was after the flesh. He was, even though he came to
them, they rejected him, just like the whole Gentile world
did for that matter. But he says here, instead of
thy father shall be thy children. He's talking about the fact that
even though to all outward appearances while on earth, he was rejected
of men, Yet the king is all glorious in his saving work, so that God
is commending him to the church and extolling him. He says, Thy
throne, O God, is forever and ever. And he has all these things.
The queen is beautiful, the king's daughters in his presence are
honorable women, even the daughter of Tyre, the rich shall be there
to entreat the king's favor. And here he says, instead of
his fathers, now all these children. He's prosperous. He's blessed
of God. There's no lack. There's no Poverty
in his kingdom and there's no It's not like he doesn't have
a few friends He has these people who love him and that's what
it's describing here all of his children his Queen his daughters
and all these attendants He says in verse 17. This is why all
this will seem good. I will make thy name to be remembered
and In all generations, therefore shall the people praise Thee
forever and ever." God Himself is going to make His Son to be
remembered. And how does He do that? Remember
when we take the Lord's Supper? The Lord Jesus says, do this
in remembrance of Me. How do we remember Christ? By
His saving work of us. And in seeing what he's done
to save us from our sins, he appears to us in all of his glory
and all of his majesty. And we love him because he first
loved us. God is extolling him and recommending
him, drawing the attention of sinners to his son. And he's
giving them at the same time his words of grace and his spirit. His words become life to them
and spirit so that when they hear them, they are hearkening,
inclining their ear, they're forsaking everything else, and
they're clinging to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus
says to them, I greatly desire your beauty. Let's pray. Lord,
we pray, according to this verse, that we would entreat the Lord's,
the King's favor, and we would worship Him. We would forsake
all in order to be found in Him only. We know, Lord, that He
must make us acceptable in his sight, approved, clothed us with
his own obedience, washes from our sins in his own blood. And
he does all this because of his majesty and his glory as the
son of God and the son of man, the mediator God has set forth
to our eyes and to our ears that we might behold him and wonder
at his goodness and greatness, incomparable to all others. so
that he's altogether lovely. Nothing that we look upon or
could, the fragrance of his beauty and his greatness to us is perfect
in every way. Lord, make this so in our hearts.
We pray this because everything we have must come from you and
you must give it to us by your grace alone as found in your
son. In his name we pray, amen.