We're looking at Psalm 45. We
began looking at this a couple of weeks ago. And this is a glorious psalm. Of
course, as all the psalms do, ultimately give praise to the
Lord, Jesus Christ, and He is that one who is Spoken of here
as we read in verse 6, I'll begin there, although we've gone over
some of these verses, I'm going to begin there reading in verse
6 of Psalm 45. It says, Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness and
hatest wickedness. Therefore God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All
thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory
palaces whereby they have made thee glad. King's daughters were
among the honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand
the queen in gold of Ophir. Hearken, O daughter, and consider
and incline thine ear, forget also thine own people and thy
father's house. So shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him. And the
daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift, even the rich among
the people shall entreat thy favor. The king's daughter is
all glorious within, her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall
be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework. The virgins, her
companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee. With gladness
and rejoicing shall they be brought. They shall enter into the king's
palace. Instead of thy fathers shall
be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. I will make thy name to be remembered
in all generations. Therefore shall the people praise
thee forever. Now, you know, as we look at
this passage of Scripture and are reminded of that work, as
we have been this morning, as Brother Al brought out in the
study that he brought, how the Lord did indeed come into the
world for a purpose. Now, I don't know when Abraham
was there about to offer Isaac, I don't know how long the ram
had been caught in the thicket. I suspect the ram was there before
Abraham ever made it up there. You know, it's not likely that
the ram just came running up there and all of a sudden got
caught in the thicket, but the ram was there because the Lord
had prepared the ram for the sacrifice before the time for
the sacrifice to be offered. And that's what we see here in
this psalm, as the Lord was prepared. He came into the world for a
purpose, which was to redeem His people. And He was caught in that thicket,
which some would say, well, you know, as He was in the garden,
And he prayed, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me. And usually that's presented
forth as a testimony to the Lord's state of weakness as a man. And
in some measure, that is true. But the Lord was not asking the
father in that time to remove from him that which he had been
appointed to do. But he was in agony in his soul
over this matter of becoming sin for his people when in his
very person and being he hated sin with all that was within
him. And so he was, you know, you've
heard that old saying, caught between the rock and the hard
place. I mean, never has a man been caught between the rock
and the hard place any more greatly than the Lord Jesus Christ was.
Because in order to perform what it was that the Lord had sent
him, his Father had sent him to do, He had to become displeasing
in His Father's sight. And the one thing that He wanted
to do more than anything else as a perfect man walking in the
earth was to do that which was pleasing in His Father's sight.
But He had to become that which was displeasing. And it says
here, Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness. I mean,
that's where He was at. He loved righteousness, but He
hated wickedness. He was there, he was caught in
that thicket. But, as we mentioned there a
moment ago, he was caught in that thicket by, the ram was
caught in the thicket by his horns. And in the scripture,
when you see the horns mentioned, it's speaking about the power,
the king, the horn of the kingdom is the power of the kingdom.
And the Lord Jesus Christ, in that typical Being typical in that ram, he
was caught in that thicket by his horns, but he was caught
there by his own power. Now we know the ram, he was powerless.
He was hung in the thicket because he couldn't get loose. But the
Lord Jesus Christ was caught in the thicket by His own power
because He would be the Redeemer of His people. And so He came
there and He performed that. It says, Thou lovest righteousness,
Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of
gladness above thy fellows. For the joy that was set before
him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, is now sat down at
the right hand of the Father in the heavens. Thy throne, O
God, is forever and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter. Now there are those that look
for a kingdom, of flesh and blood that's going to take place on
this earth at some future time. And I'll be the first to tell
you that I am not, and don't claim to be, and never met anybody
that actually was, but I've met a lot of people that thought
they were, experts on Bible prophecy and how all the things that are
prophesied in the scripture unfold. I know this, that Jesus Christ
is the spirit of prophecy. I mean he is that one of whom
all the prophets point and all prophecy has its fulfillment
in Christ. Now I'm personally of the belief
and the opinion and that The things that most people look
at as a future unfolding are actually a present unfolding.
That is that the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is a present
kingdom. It's not a kingdom that we're
going to wait, oh well the Lord's going to have a kingdom out here.
You know, He's going to reign for a thousand years. A thousand
years is with the Lord as a day, and a day is as a thousand years.
Time is of no importance there. And all that the Lord Jesus Christ
taught in the Scriptures points to the fact that the Kingdom
which He came to rule over is a present Kingdom. This is His
Kingdom. It's of the Father's good pleasure
to give you the Kingdom. This is the Kingdom of God wherein
He has come into the world to establish righteousness, to manifest
it. Now not all men in the world
fall into that Kingdom. Now He is the King and Ruler
over all creation because He is the Creator of it. But the
Kingdom of God is that which is given to a people that are
His people from the beginning. He said He would give them the
kingdom. My little children, these things are given unto you.
He said fear not to His disciples, because this kingdom is ours.
And so this kingdom is that one which the Lord Jesus Christ rules
over in the present time. And He does rule in righteousness
over those whom He calls in righteousness. He is that ruling King. Thy throne, O God. is forever
and ever, not just at some time in the future or for some period
of time, but it is an eternal kingdom. The scepter of thy kingdom
is a right scepter. It belongs to him. That is, he's
the one that says, come, and a man comes. He says to another,
go, and he goes. He is the king. And so he rules
over that with a right scepter, a righteous scepter. And he loved
righteousness, hated wickedness, and he's been anointed with the
oil of gladness. All of thy garments smell of
myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby
they have made thee glad. The Lord is pleased with his
creation. There's not a thing in the creation
of the world that he regrets. You know, men often look at the
Lord created the world. I've heard this so much it makes
me so mad when I hear people talk about this, how the Lord
made, you know, Adam, and then Adam messed it all up and all
of that stuff. Well, look, the Lord made the
world just like He wanted the world to be. And all the things
that transpired in the world up to the present time have transpired
according to the good pleasure of Almighty God. in order that
he might demonstrate the glory of his grace and the redemption
of that people which he loved from before the foundation of
the world. Now I know that doesn't sit well with modern theologians
and those that want to build great congregations of men because
you can't build great congregations of men preaching such a doctrine
as that because even the Lord Jesus Christ did not build a
great congregation in the earth because of what he preached.
And the Pharisees understood it. And the people began to get
it. And there came a time when they didn't want to walk with
him anymore. They said, you know, this is hard doctrine here. I
mean, you need to soften up. You need to round off the edges
a little. Just think how many people you could get to listen
to you if you just, you know, Just make it a little smoother
here, a little smoother. You don't have to change everything,
but just, you know, make it more user-friendly. But the Lord Jesus
Christ would declare the truth as it is. And dear brethren,
we must declare that as it is, whether it's a popular thing
or it's a thing that even we like from time to time. But listen,
Every man who has ever been taught of a sovereign and absolute God
has a rebellious heart. still beating within his breast.
And we rebel against the concept of an absolute God who does according
to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and there's none that can stay his hand. Now we do,
by the grace of God, fall down and are thankful that he is,
but rather than we would be fooling ourself if we said we like that
every day, because we'd like to change a few things, wouldn't
we? I mean, when I was up on that roof last night about ten
o'clock, I was wishing I was somewhere else. But that's exactly
where the Lord would have me to be. And so, you know, only as God
gives a man grace can he give God praise for being an Almighty
God. But He is an Almighty God, whether
we like it or even whether we believe it. I've had people tell
me, well, I don't believe in a God like that. Well, maybe
you don't. Maybe you don't. It doesn't change
anything. It doesn't change God. I mean,
what we believe doesn't change a thing in the world. You know? You can believe anything you
want to. By the grace of God, though, He causes His people
to fall down and worship Him and to believe Him. He's glad with that thing that
he came to do. King's daughters were among thy
honorable women. Upon thy right hand did stand
the queen in gold of Ophir. Now, I believe in these next
few verses, we have to kind of understand the thinking of the
Jewish people and those to whom David wrote this psalm. Now, this was many years before
Paul came and he said this was a mystery which was hidden from
the foundation of the world. And what is that mystery? That
Jew and Gentile alike are part of the kingdom of God. You see,
it was not given unto men. In those days, and David didn't
have any understanding of the kingdom of God in the fact that
he is a Jew which is one inwardly, whose circumcision is not in
the flesh but of the heart. He didn't have any understanding
of that. And he couldn't have had any understanding of it.
Why? Because it was a mystery. And it was hidden from the foundation
of the world. But as we look at this, and I
believe we see in the picture, though, of how the Lord hid these
things, and you have to read between the lines to understand
these things, and as the Lord may give us understanding, king's
daughters were among the honorable women. upon thy right hand did
stand the queen in gold of Ophir. Now the queen I believe is representative
of the church of God in its in its totality, the queen standing
in the gold of Ophir. I mean, she is that one which
is adorned unto her husband for the glory, and he's pleased with
her. But it says here, King's daughters
were among thy honorable women that did stand with the queen.
Now, as the writer of the psalm would consider the queen of Ophir
as being the Jewish nation, But the king's daughters, who are
the king's daughters? Well, the king's daughters are
actually the queen as well, but there's not that understanding
there, so that's why I believe that there is mention of the
king's daughters and the queen. Okay, and so it says, Harken,
O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear, forget thou
also thine own people in thy father's house. Now, he's speaking
to the daughters, speaking to the Gentiles, And he's saying,
look, forget your father's house. It doesn't make any difference
where you were born. For in Christ there's neither
Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, but Christ is all
and in all. Forget also thine own people
and thy father's house. Don't think about that. Don't
worry about your lineage. Don't worry about your religious
upbringing or what you are. I have people, and this is a
common thing, and people, it's just the way it is. Somebody's
raised, you know, in a Presbyterian church, you know, or a Baptist
church, or this, that, or the other, and so they grow up and
they say, well, I'm a Baptist, or I'm a Presbyterian, or I'm
this, or I'm that. And that's all right, you know. But why is that? because they
take consideration to their fathers. But you see, that which Christ
is calling his people unto has nothing to do with any of that.
It has nothing to do with what heritage you came from. It doesn't
make any difference. I don't care if everybody in
your family has always been a Baptist. That doesn't have any bearing
on you. It's of no consequence. Now, if you become that as a
conviction or that which you believe is the correct way, well,
so be it. But it has nothing to do with
anything. Harken, O daughter, and considering,
climb thine ear, forget thine own people, and thy father's
house. So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. Now the Lord
desires, and we say this not as though He desires it and cannot
get it, but He desires it and He does get it. See, He desires
thy beauty. Now how does the king, does the
king say, go dress up in your best clothes and come to me?
No. See, he's the one that supplies
the garments, is he not? And he delights in it. This is
those same garments with which he's clothed, which he described
up there. Thy garments smell of myrrh and
aloes and cassia out of the fivery palaces, where they have made
thee glad. Why is he glad for these garments?
Because his bride is clothed in those garments. That's why
the garments doesn't mean anything to him. I mean, he's perfect. He doesn't need anything. See,
a lot of people, they like to have a God that needs something. You know, He needs your money,
or He needs your time, or He needs this, or He needs that.
But the God of the Scripture doesn't need anything you have.
Now, He may, in His mercy, enable you to give of some of the things
that He's given to you. under his glory. As we read there
about those folks when they were building the tabernacle, they
brought that stuff and they were just glad that finally Moses
had to say, wait, stop, don't bring any more. Now have you
ever seen a preacher in the modern day that would ever say that?
Huh? No, don't bring any more money.
We've got enough money. No. That's not the message, is
it? Just keep banging it, buddy.
We got to do some stuff here. I mean, that's the way that it
is. But the king, he greatly desires
thy beauty, for he is thy Lord and worship thou him. He clothes
his bride with the garments that he has provided, which is his
own righteousness. And he's pleased with her. because he's pleased with himself.
Now, you know, when you and I, we get pleased with ourself,
that's a sinful state, isn't it? But you see, God's pleased
with himself, and he's right and good. He said, I'm a jealous
God. In fact, he said, my name is jealous. Yeah, he said, my
name's jealous. What did he say to Moses? He
says, I am that I am. He didn't make any apologies
for that. We don't have to make an apology for God. He is God. He is absolute. And so He says
here that He will greatly desire thy beauty for He is our Lord.
Worship thou Him. He says that because this is
my righteousness with which I am well pleased. And the daughter of Tyre. Now
the daughter of Tyre is the Gentiles. Tyre was a Gentile kingdom. Tyre
and Sidon. I mean, those were Gentile kingdoms. And he says here, this is a prophecy,
the donor of Tyre shall be there with a gift. Even the rich people,
the rich among the people shall entreat thy favor. See, a man's possessions, it
doesn't make any difference whether a man has a lot or a man has
a little. Now, the Scripture speaks about
the people of God as being poor. It says, blessed are the poor,
and we want to be among the poor. But that doesn't mean that because
a man's poor as what men would think of being poor, that is,
he doesn't have much money, that doesn't make him a godly man,
any more than if a man has billions of dollars in the bank, that
it makes him not. a child of God. But even the
rich among the people shall entreat thy favor. The Lord shall bring
men unto himself, just like the rich young ruler. Now we don't
know what happened to the rich young ruler, but it is my thinking,
at least, is that the rich young ruler, when he went away sorrowing,
it doesn't mean he never came back. I don't know if he came
back, but it would seem to me that with the Lord's interaction
with him and the result that happened as a result of the Lord's
interaction with him, that he did come back. Because he went
away sorrowful. Yeah, because he had many possessions.
And all of a sudden, what he thought was a good thing, he
said, you know, this ain't so good. I've been thinking here
all this time that I've been serving God and here, look, I
finally found out what it is to keep the law of God and I
haven't been doing it. And his heart was broken. The
script says the Lord loved him. It doesn't say that about everybody. I know, again, it's a popular
thing to tell folks God loves everybody. Show it to him in
the scripture. I've never seen it. It's not
in there. He does love his people with an everlasting love. He
sure does. Unshakable. And that's a multitude
of people. I don't know how many it is.
It may be most of the people in the earth. I don't know. I
don't have any idea who it is. I don't know. But I know this,
that whoever they are, they are the objects of his love. He doesn't
just throw out a blanket and say, I'm just going to love everybody. Now you do the best with it as
you can." But he looked on this young man and he loved him and
he said, if you keep the commandments, then go and sell all that you
have. And he went away sorrowing. The rich among the people shall
entreat thy favor. Cornelius was a rich man. The name of the, well, maybe
that was Cornelius I was thinking about. I was thinking about the
centurion who came and asked the Lord to heal his daughter. He came and he said, Lord. He
says, you don't even need to come to my house. He says, all
you gotta do is just say the word and she'll be healed. And the Lord said, great is our
faith. I hadn't found this faith in Israel. Here was a Roman centurion
coming to him. The rich shall entreat thy favor.
The king's daughter is all glorious within, her clothing is of wrought
gold. Now doesn't it, isn't that amazing? Speaks about her clothing is
of wrought gold, but her clothing is what's on the outside, is
it not? It's of wrought gold, but he
said the king's daughter is glorious within. Because you see, the
Lord is pleased to work in His people as well as for his people. He works in us both to will and
to do of his good pleasure. It's according to his way. And
so when men say, well, you know, I'm a Christian, but you know,
I don't need to be around God's people. I don't need anything.
I can just go fish every day and I can worship God just as
good as anybody can. And maybe they can, I don't know.
I know that's not what the Lord taught His people to do. And
the Lord does indeed constrain His people to love the brethren.
I don't know how you love the brethren and you don't ever get
around them. I don't know that. I mean, the
people that I love, I want to be around them. And so it is
that the Lord is pleased to do so. And so he works in his people
as well as for his people. Her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the
king in arraignment of needlework. Now at one time, nowadays needlework's
not that big of a deal because they got machines. I was looking at some socks that
I've got. And I mean a sock is a pretty
mundane piece of equipment that people wear, but it's amazing
if you look at socks, if they're like multicolored socks and whatnot,
how intricate that is, the designs and whatnot that goes into the
makeup of that. Now that sock probably took I
don't know, 10-15 seconds to make. I don't know how long they
took, but I know it wasn't a long time, because they just fed these
threads into this machine and, you know, it just spit the sock
out on the other end. But what this is speaking about
here, her clothing is of needlework. She shall be brought unto the
king and raiment of needlework. That used to be something that
took many hours of tedious sewing. to do that's what it's talking
about. I remember my Aunt Callie and of course a lot of older
women used to do this I guess as a pastime. whatever, Idle
Hands the Devil's Workshop, they believed that, so they were trying
to keep themselves busy. And we've kind of forgot about
all that, you know, nowadays, but I remember Aunt Kelly, the
same lady I was fixing to talk about, she used to like to shell
peas, and she would just, she'd ask you when the peas came in,
if you got any peas I can shell. I mean, she just liked to sit
around and shell peas. Now, you'd be hard-pressed to
find anybody Nowadays, that would, would, would shell peas, let
alone want to shell peas. But anyway, I kind of got off
the track there. But with the needlework, she
used to do, she used to crochet. And I mean, you could go to her
house any time, just about any time I ever went there, if she
wasn't already doing, if she wasn't cooking. You know, we're
doing something. She was sitting in the chair,
and there she was, just going away with that, and she'd make
these intricate things, and I mean, it blows my mind to even think
about it. It'd drive me crazy to do that. But anyway, that
shows the effort that was put into this. And they did it. Now, if I did something like
that, I'd keep it for myself. I mean, if I put all that work
in, but she did it, and she wanted to give it to other people. All
that work, and that's a picture of what it is the Lord has done
for His children. He has comprised a garment of
needlework that is beyond the compare of anything men have
ever seen, and He has freely bestowed it on His people. Why? Because He loved them, and He's
covered them. in not just some old plain garment,
but in a garment of great skill and care and the loveliness that
He desires her to stand in. The virgins her companions that
follow her shall be brought unto thee. I believe this is having
reference to that consideration of the Jew and the Gentile being
brought, her companions, the virgins, her companions that
follow her shall be brought unto thee. The scripture says there
in Psalm 2, the Lord says, the Father says to the Son, he says,
ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.
And the Lord has brought his people unto himself out of every
nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue in the earth. He brings them
according to the good pleasure of his will. She shall be brought
unto the king. The virgins, her companions that
follow her shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing
shall they be brought. They shall enter into the king's
palace. All of them. All of God's people
are gonna come to the king's palace. All of them. instead
of thy father shall be thy children whom thou mayest make princes
in all the earth." Now I think that my own thinking on this
is that that has reference to the fact that really by going
back to that prophecy that you talked about about the fathers
that these prophets of old they testified that they didn't prophesy
these things for themselves but for those who were to come. And
this is a picture of that, "...instead of thy father shall be thy children."
In other words, it's not the ongoing of the Jewish way, but
thy children, those that are grown out of that. You see, the
law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But when we've
come to Christ, we don't need to go any further. We don't need
that which was our schoolmaster that brought us there, but we've
been brought to a better place than ever the law could bring
us. I mean, the law never made anything perfect. That's what
the scripture says. The law never made anything perfect,
but the bringing in of a better hope did. Christ is that better
hope. So instead of thy father shall
be thy children whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. We are indeed the princes of
God. We're heirs and joint heirs.
We're royalty. Now we don't have anything to
boast of because we didn't get to see the problem with the,
like if you look at any of these pictures, I got interested in
that, there was a program on PBS for a while, a while back,
it's called Downton Abbey. And I don't know if any of you
ever watched that or not, but it kind of showed the contrast
between, in this English estate, of these people that were, of
course, the lords and ladies and all of that, and these servants,
okay, and it was just kind of like two different lifestyles
there. But they, you know, the problem with that system is the
sinfulness of men. They thought that this was owed
to them. They didn't realize that they
were lords and ladies simply by the grace of God. But I believe
that's given to point the picture, you know, that men think they
are something. And sometimes men think that
they're something when they're nothing. What do we have, Paul
said? He said, why are you wrangling
with one another over who baptized you or who taught you this? What do we have that we've not
received? What do we have to boast in? If we received it, we can't boast. And that's exactly the place
that those who are made princes and all that. See, we can declare
to being princes we're royalty. but at the same time we have
nothing to boast in except the one who made us that, who caused
us to be that. I will make thy name to be remembered
in all generations. Therefore shall the people praise
thee forever and ever. Now is that not the desire of
God's people? I mean is that not where we would
desire that the name of Jesus Christ be magnified in the earth.
I mean, is there any other name that we won't exalt? Do we want
to exalt Donald Trump? Or God forbid, some of the alternatives. I mean, do we have any place
of glory in any of that? No. Nebuchadnezzar understood it
when the Lord opened his eyes. He said, thou, he said, you set
over the kingdoms of men the basest of men, the most wicked
men. I remember Brother John Crowley,
he told me he talked to an old fellow
one time about asking him who he was going to vote for, and
he said, well, he wasn't sure yet, but he was going to pick
out the sorriest one. Well, as he said, if he's not
sorry when he goes in there, he will be when he comes out.
So why ruin a good man? Isn't that the way it is? Well, praise the Lord. He has
made us glad, has he not? He's given us something to be
glad about. He's caused us to reign in the earth. Kings, princes,
those who have power. Now, we look at ourselves, we
don't really have any power that I know of. I mean, I don't have
any power, but I know who does. I know who does. And you see,
that's the power of the sons of God, is that they know who
has the power. What a glorious thing. May the
Lord help us.