Psalm 110. This is a psalm of David. And one which is very appropriate
for the day that we have before us to remember the Lord's death
until He comes again. Remember that in that death He
did triumph gloriously over all of His enemies. The Lord said
unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine
enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
thy strength out of Zion, rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the
beauties of holiness from the womb of the mornings thou hast
to do of thy youth. The Lord is sworn and will not
repent. Thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall
strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge
among the heathen. He shall fill the places with
the dead bodies. He shall wound the heads over
many countries. He shall drink of the brook in
the way. Therefore shall he lift up. In this psalm, of course, we
see directly that it is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. As
the Lord pointed this out to the Pharisees over in the book
of Matthew, He posed a question to them that they could not answer.
He said, how is it that David, if this psalm is speaking of
David, that he said, the Lord said unto my Lord, how did David
call him Lord. Or how was he called Lord? That one whom David spoke of.
And so it is that this is a glorious thing, and we see here two usages
of the word Lord. And they're not the same word.
It says the Lord said unto my Lord. It is Jehovah, that is
the first word that's used for Lord, said unto my Adon, which
is Adonai, or that one can be, is considered as a lesser of
consideration of the Lord. When the Lord speaks formally
of himself as Jehovah, Then he speaks of the Lord as being the
King. The Lord God said unto the Lord
the King. Now we don't any wise think by
that that we are somehow putting Christ in a lesser position than
the Father. Now this is, I'm not going to
get into all this, but there is of course the thought process
that many have when they consider the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost that there's like a hierarchy in the Godhead. There is no hierarchy in the
Godhead. The Lord Jesus plainly told Philip,
how that was when he said, Philip, if you've seen me, you have seen
the Father. Now, that kind of puts away any
notion of there being a three-tiered system in the Godhead. Now, the
Lord is seen fit to reveal Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And that's a mystery beyond which
we cannot enter. But suffice it to say, when the
Scripture speaks about the Lord God, Jehovah, is speaking about
the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking about the Holy Spirit. There
is no separation between them, for we have one God. The Lord
our God is one God. Now, I know that a lot of times
men say that, but in the minds of people, when they get to hearing
all these explanations about how that is, they get to thinking
about three different personalities. And I don't see, I don't believe
that Scripture teaches such a thing. But we have one God and He has
seen fit to reveal Himself in Jesus Christ. For no man has
seen God at any time. That is, God cannot be seen except
as He has seen fit to reveal Himself in Jesus Christ. And
so that no man has ever seen God except that God has seen
fit to reveal Himself unto men in Jesus Christ. And so that
is, you know, that shows us the holiness of God, the separation
of God. That is that which makes God
separate from men, separate from all of His creation, separate
even from the angels who cannot look upon Him for the glory that
surrounds Him. And so it is. What a wonder,
you know, when we understand that, what a glorious thing it
is to consider that He has seen fit to come and dwell among men.
I mean, that's a wondrous revelation, and one which we should not easily
get over. That is, it shouldn't ever become
a commonplace thing to us. But be as ever, as David said,
what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that
thou dost visit him? It says, sit thou at my right
hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. And we know that
the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world
was to manifest the triumph of God over all of the enemies of
the people of God. And that's the manner in which
He chose to do that, was to come and be born in the flesh and
to walk among men. until I make thine enemies thy
footstool. Now we know that All of creation is the footstool
of God. I mean, he said that the earth
is his footstool. So in that measure, in the natural
sense of things, God rules over all things and earth is his footstool. But the Lord created the earth
for the purpose of manifesting his glory in the redemption of
his people. And in the redemption of his
people, he would manifest his triumph over their enemies. Now,
you know, men, they think of things in a chronological fashion,
as well we should because we're creatures of time and we can't
really comprehend of anything that isn't moving in a time frame,
can we? I mean, we have a beginning and
we have an end. We know that. We can see ourselves
growing up and getting old. And we know that ultimately this
life will come to an end. And so there is a progression.
There is that movement of time. But in the consideration of God,
as He would be that one who has created time itself, of course
God is not bound by time in any way because there is no time
except as it exists in the creation that He made. Now, these things
are beyond the comprehension of men. You can't comprehend
eternity and neither can I. Because that's the habitation
of God. He inhabiteth eternity. Now,
just that very fact, if you just stop and think about that, that
He inhabiteth eternity, well, you don't inhabit eternity. You've
never been in eternity. You can't be in eternity because
you're not eternal. You know, what you are is finite.
And we have been given in Christ everlasting life. But our life
is hidden in Christ. The Lord has given to him, the
scripture says, to have eternal life. But our life is in Christ. See, we have life in Christ,
not of ourselves. Now there are. some religions,
who teach that men are going to be made gods in the ages to
come. And that they will then have
life of their own. We'll never have any life of
our own. Our life will always be that
of Christ. But to have the life of Christ
is to have everlasting life. We live in Him. And in Him we
live and move and have our being. So the footstool, the Lord would
make his enemies his footstool, and he manifested that in what
we have before us today as we remember his death, here he comes.
Now what an unconventional manner for someone to triumph over their
enemies to die. That's not usually how you would
think of having triumph, is it? That's why it seemed such a blow
to the disciples when the Lord was crucified and all their hopes,
as they thought of them, were dashed because they figured,
well, you know, this ain't gonna come to pass. We were expecting
Him to deliver us. Little did they know. that it
was through the means of death that the Lord ordained that he
would have his greatest victory. And that victory would be that
which is visited upon the sons of God. The Lord shall send the
rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. And surely the rod of the strength,
the Lord is that rod of strength. You remember when Moses came
before Pharaoh, and Aaron had that rod in his hand. That rod
was the symbol of God's strength and power. When some of the Israelites
challenged Moses, And they said, you know, well, we've got as
much power as you do. And so the Lord told Moses to
have everybody bring their rod. That is, the leaders of those
different tribes brought their rod, which was the symbol of
their power as a nation. as an individual tribe. And he
said, lay your rods down before Moses' rod. And when Moses put
his rod down, beside all the others, the others were just
dead pieces of wood. And it says that the rod of Moses,
or Aaron's rod, budded and had almonds come out of it. because
it was a rod of life. And so this one who is the rod
of thy strength out of Zion is the one who rules, who has life
in order to rule. Now, you remember that the scripture
says about the Aaronic priesthood could not
continue by reason of death. But the Lord Jesus Christ has
a living priesthood. He's not bounded by death, even
though he died, as much so as any man has ever died, yet it
was not a death that could hold him. because he triumphed over
it. And so it is that the rod of
thy strength has come out of Zion, the kingdom of God. Rule
thou in the midst of thine enemies. And as we see that Christ has
indeed done that. And then he says something here
that really should cause men to pause and think about the
strength that they suppose they have in free will. The scripture
says here, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Now I'm sure of this, that everything
that men do, all the things that men do, they do because they
want to do them. They do because they will to
do them. Now they might not want to do them in the sense that
they delight in it, but you see every man does the things that
he does because he wills to do them. And it is true that the
people of God serve the Lord willingly. But the reason that
they serve the Lord willingly is because they have been willing,
been made willing in the day of His power. That is, the Lord
is the one who causes men to be willing. Now, a lot of people
don't like to think on it like that because they think, well,
wait a minute, then that means that I might not be made willing. And if that means I might not
be made willing, it means I might not be able to choose God on
my own terms. And that's absolutely true. Because
no man will come to the Lord. The Lord said as much. He said,
you will not come to me that you might have life. And that
is true of every man. There's not a man on earth who
will come to the Lord unless the Lord makes him willing. Because
it's in his nature to go contrary to the way of God. And so when
men are left to themselves, if the Lord would just leave everybody
alone and say, all right, I'm going to leave you alone, now
I want you to make up your mind or you're going to follow me.
How many people would? Nobody would. I mean, apart from
the grace of God, no man will seek the Lord. It is by the grace
of God that men are made to do so. Thy people shall be willing
in the day of thy power. In the beauties of holiness from
the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. Now, the beauties of holiness
is not speaking, I don't think, of a morality, but it has rather
to do with the fact of the separation of the Lord that he has and that
he calls his people unto. Thy people shall be made willing
in the day of thy power in the beauty of holiness. That is,
to a separation unto God. He said, come unto me and be
ye a separate people. In the beauties of holiness from
the womb of the mornings, thou hast the due of thy youth. That is, the Lord renews the
strength of His people. He covers them with righteousness
and causes them to be as the youth. The youth are those in
the scripture who are spoken of as being strong. And the Lord
makes His people strong. Thou hast the due of thy youth. The Lord is sworn and will not
repent. Thank the Lord for that. Has
sworn and will not repent. Now this is speaking of none
other than Christ as we find in the book of Hebrews where
Paul reiterates this very passage of scripture. Now Melchizedek
is a kind of a mysterious figure that just pops up out of nowhere
in the book of Genesis and meets Abraham as he came back from
the slaughter of the kings and he met him and the scripture
says that Abraham paid tithes to him. And he was a priest of
the Most High God, the Scripture says. Now I believe that the
reality is that Melchizedek is what's called a theophany or
a pre-incarnate appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ unto Abraham. And as we look at this, now,
of course, you know, these are things, again, I say they're
mysterious. We can't understand them. But nonetheless, it would
appear to me that that would be the case because the Lord,
the order of the priesthood of which He came is His own. He
didn't come from somebody else's priesthood. In other words, the
Lord didn't raise up Melchizedek and then make Christ to be from
that order, but rather the order of Melchizedek is a priest who
has neither beginning of days nor ending of life, because that's
what it says about Melchizedek. Who else could that be? I mean,
how else could it be that this Melchizedek could have just had
no beginning and no ending, except he'd be the Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, that one who has been from the beginning. And so Melchizedek, the Lord,
is not after the Order of Aaron because the Aaronic priesthood
under the law ceased to be. Didn't have any power. I mean,
when Aaron died, his priesthood ended. Some of his other sons
came up and they were priests, but guess what? They all died.
And so it would be foolish for men to put their hopes upon the
priesthood of dying men. But our hope is built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, who is our great high priest
after the order of Melchizedek, without ending of days or beginning. The Lord at thy right hand shall
strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge
among the heathen. He shall fill the places with
dead bodies. He shall wound the heads over
many countries. He shall drink of the brook in
the way. Therefore shall he lift up the
head. Now when I read that, I'm always
reminded of in the book of Isaiah in chapter 63, which is one of
my favorite passages of scripture. It says, who is this that cometh
from Edom, with dyed garments from Basra? This that is glorious
in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength. Now who could that be? Now who
is it that Isaiah says, who is this that cometh from Edom? I that speak in righteousness.
mighty to save. And then he asked, then Isaiah
asked the question, wherefore art thou red in thine apparel,
and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine fat or the
wine press? And then the Lord answers, I
have trodden the wine press alone, and of the people there was none
with me. For I will tread them in mine
anger, and I will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall
be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in
mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." This is a
glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as that one who
triumphs over his enemies, as it says right here. But in the
psalm we're reading, the Lord at thy right hand shall strike
through kings in the day of his wrath. The Lord has demonstrated
his power over death, but he has also demonstrated his power
over the Lord's enemies. their blood shall be sprinkled
upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the
day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is
come. And I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered
that there was none to uphold. Therefore mine own arm brought
salvation unto me, and in my fury it upheld me. and I will
tread down the people in mine anger and make them drunk in
my fury. I will bring down their strength
to the earth. I will mention the loving kindnesses
of the Lord and the praises of the Lord according to all that
the Lord hath bestowed on us and the great goodness toward
the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according
to his mercies and according to the multitude of his loving
kindness. For he said, surely they are
my people, children that will not lie, so He was their Savior. In all their affliction, He was
afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them. In His love
and in His pity, He redeemed them, and He bared them and carried
them all the days of old. What a glorious picture of the
redeeming work of Jesus Christ, triumphing gloriously over all
of His enemies. And none can stay His hand. None can question Him. But His
power and His glory is that which rules over all the earth and
is manifested. And nowhere is the power and
glory of the Lord to rule over His enemies manifested any more
clearly than in this supper that He gave us to remember His death
till He comes. What a glorious thing it is. And it, you know, it's troubling
to me to consider that any might take of this in a lighthearted
fashion or in any wise to consider it as some religious ritual or
something that's just done out of habit because we're told to
do it. But we do it because we desire.
that the Lord would have glory. We do it because we desire to
remember His death, just like He told us to do.