Okay, Psalm 45 this evening,
and I'm using for a title what is said there in verse 1 about
the king. About the king. My heart is indicting a bubbling
over a good matter with good things. I speak about the things
concerning the king. Notice it's the King, Christ
is the King. And my tongue is the pen as a
ready scribe, a ready scribe, writing about the person and
work of our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ our
King, that's the subject of this psalm. It's the subject of this
book of psalms, all 150 psalms tell us all about Christ, don't
they? It's really the message of the entire Bible. The entire
Bible is all about the Lord Jesus Christ. From the seed of a woman
to the glorified lamb we read about in the book of Revelation.
It's all about Christ our King, King of Kings, Lord of Lords.
Christ our Redeemer. You remember the study in the
book of Ruth? He's our kinsman Redeemer. Willing
and able, ready to redeem us. And I love what Paul writes about
in 1 Timothy and in the book of Titus. He calls the Lord Jesus
Christ, often God, our Savior. God, our Savior. Our Savior is
the almighty God, able to save to the uttermost all that come
to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for
us. He reigns in righteousness. Now, as I said before, verse
six and seven are quoted in Hebrews 1, verse eight and nine, and
applied to the Lord Jesus Christ by God the Holy Spirit, writing
that by whoever, some say Paul, some say others, doesn't matter,
all scripture's given of God, that he's not king, the Lord
Jesus Christ. God said, I've set my king upon
my holy hill Zion. Remember Psalm number two? And the Lord Jesus Christ is
not king by some democratic process. We don't vote him in or vote
him out. Now, nothing wrong with the democratic
process. If you're going to vote for a
judge or a governor or a senator or a president, we ought to all
participate in voting. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
not our king by any kind of democratic process, but rather the eternal. immutable decree of Almighty
God. You remember in Acts chapter
2, Peter preaching told those brethren in that day that God
had made that same Jesus whom you crucified, God had made Him
both Lord and Christ. He's Lord by God's decree. People
often say religious circles will make Jesus your Lord. My soul,
you can't do that. God beats you to it from all
eternity. God made him both Lord and the
Christ, the Christ of God. Now notice in the title of Psalm
45, it's called here, A Song of Loves. Not love, but loves. And I take that to mean his love
for us, and in turn, our love to him, our love to him. His
love for us, and our love for him. You remember he said, In
1 John 4, we love him, and we do, not like we want to, or like
we should, or like we will one day, but we do love him. Amen. Love not the Lord Jesus Christ,
let him be accursed of God. We only love him because he first
loved us. That's the only reason we love
him. The love of God has been shed abroad in our heart by the
Holy Spirit. There are many enemies of the
gospel that would accuse us of not preaching love. Well, we
do preach love. It's sovereign love. We sing
that song often that Daniel Parks likes to sing and Brother Jim
likes to sing. Hail sovereign love that first
began, a scheme to rescue fallen man. Help match this free eternal
grace that gave my soul a hiding place. But there are enemies
of the gospel that would accuse us of not preaching love. Someone
said to me many, many years ago, In criticizing this ministry
and my preaching, he said, there's no love in the doctrines of grace.
And I said, my soul, I said, you missed the message. The man
was dreadfully mistaken, wasn't he? You listen to these scriptures.
We were chosen in love. God has from beginning chosen
you, beloved of the Lord. He has chosen you in love. We're
chosen in love. We're redeemed in love. John
writes here in his love, not that we love God, but he loved
us. He sent his son to be the sacrifice for our sin. We're
affectionately called by his love. He said, I've loved thee
with an everlasting love. Therefore, with love and kindness,
I've drawn you to myself. So the doctrine of the gospel
is full of God's love for us. We're saved and regenerated by
love and in love. God, but God, for his great love
wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sin and quickened
us together with Christ Jesus. So to make that statement, there's
no love in the gospel of Christ, or there's no love in the doctrine
of the gospel of Christ. That's a dreadful mistake to
say that. Only in the true gospel is the
love of God made known. We're more than conquerors through
Him that loved us, right? What is that? Romans 8, isn't
it? We're more than conquerors through Him that loved us. And
then he writes, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which
is revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, we do preach the
true sovereign love of God. To say that God loves everybody,
and is trying to save everybody, and yet some perish in hell anyway,
That's not preaching love, is it? You mean God loves me and
Christ died for me and I might perish anyway? That's not love,
is it? That's not love at all. That
message is another gospel. If Paul said that we are an angel
preaching another gospel unto you, that which we have preached,
let him be what? A curse, a curse. Amen. Love not the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let him be anathema or anathema. Let him be accursed when the
Lord comes back. The truth of the gospel says all that are
elected in love, all that Christ died for out of love, and all
that are called in love shall be eternally saved and they can
never perish. The Lord Jesus Christ obtained
eternal redemption for us with his own blood. We read a moment
ago in Hebrews 1 when he by himself purged our sin. He sat down on
the right hand of the throne of God. He brought for us and
brought in everlasting salvation. He said, my sheep, they hear
my voice. I know them. They hear my voice. And I give them to them eternal life. And they'll never
perish. They'll never perish. Ran into one of my customers
years ago when I worked on the road. Every time I'd go in there,
he'd want to argue with me. Finally, one day, I just quit
arguing with him. But back when I was younger,
I'd argue with those who'd want to argue. And he always would
say, well, you can be saved one day and lost the next. I said,
what about that verse over in John 10 where it says, he gives
his sheep eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither can
any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them
is greater than all. No man can pluck them out of
my hand. And that ignorant man said to
me, well it doesn't say that man can't take himself out of
God's hand. What a silly argument. The man
has more power than Almighty God. He saves us with an everlasting
salvation. That's best just not to cast
your pearl before the swine. If they want to have a decent
conversation, that's one thing, but to argue such a ridiculous
matter as God saves his people one day and then they're lost
the next, that's not the God of Scripture, is it? That's not
the God of the Bible. Well, let's take a look at verse
1. My heart, David said. David, the sweet psalmist, you
remember he said, he's a man after my own heart, isn't he? David was a man after my own
heart. God gave David a new heart. It's
talking about the heart of a believer. The heart of a believer is gushing
forth with good news. Indicting means bubbling over,
bubbling up. with good news. And the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ is good news, is it not? The wages of
sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. What better news could any vile,
guilty sinner hear than the Lord Jesus Christ came to save sinners? I speak of things concerning
the King, my tongue At the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh
good things of him. My tongue is a pen, a penman,
ready to write, ready to write. I'm not a good letter writer.
Some people can write letters and just, you know, they just,
I struggle with writing. My writing letters, personal
letters to people are just, just really poor. But when he's talking
here about concerning the King, and my heart's been made new
by God the Holy Spirit, and he's given us a new revelation of
the beauty and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're ready to
tell people about him, aren't we? About who he is and what
he's accomplished for us. The believer's heart is boiling
over with good news, gushing out with good news about Christ
the King. The gospel is not what we must
do for Him. The good news of the gospel is
what He has done for us. This is a faithful saying, worthy
of all acceptation. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. Paul said, I'm the chief one.
He didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And
Luke 19 said that the Son of Man came to seek and to save
the lost. We have a Savior that cannot fail. Therefore, we are
determined to declare and preach Christ and him crucified as the
wisdom and power of God to accomplish the salvation of God's people.
Paul said, I'm determined and I'm ready, as much as in me is,
I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are at Rome, for I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God
and the salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew and
also to the Gentile. Determined to preach Christ.
We preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ the Lord, and ourselves
your servant for his sake. That's been on the front of our
bulletin for 30 years. 30 years. We preach not, we're not
preaching ourselves. We're preaching Christ. This
ministry is not about me. It's not about you. It's about
him. by Him looking, looking, looking,
looking unto Him. We are ready and willing, made
able ministers and witnesses of the gospel by His purpose,
His power, and His pleasure. And we're ready to declare the
gospel to all that will hear it, to all that will hear it. On the radio, every week, we
preach the gospel on the radio, two different stations, 8.30
in the morning, 10 o'clock in the morning, We have the TV ministry
where we rebroadcast Brother Henry's, Brother Mahan's messages. We have the internet ministry.
We're ready. We're ready to preach the gospel.
We have been on the internet for over almost 20 years. The
bulletin ministry, we produce a bulletin, write a bulletin
every week. It's a lot easier now than it used to be. with
the copy and paste feature. When I first came here 30 years
ago, I didn't know what a computer was. I didn't know how to put
a bulletin together. I used to spend one whole day
manually typing a bulletin. I took one year of typing, but
that was many years ago. And it took me a while to learn
what home row is. And I used to spend the whole
day doing a bulletin. But it was a worthwhile day. Now with the new computers they
have and with all the technology they have, it's so much easier. When a friend of mine came and
visited with me, and I used to have just a DOS computer. Everything
was manual. And when I got my first Windows
computer, and a friend of mine, a preacher friend of mine, came
and showed me how to copy and paste. I thought he was telling
a big one. I didn't think you could do such,
you can copy and paste. I thought he was pulling my leg.
He said, let me show you. So I appreciate the technologies
the Lord's given us, and I think the internet and the technology
we have, even though people misuse those things, God has given us
those things to preach the gospel. We send out our bulletin to hundreds
of people every week, and they send that bulletin out to other
hundreds of people. I post a bulletin on Sermon Audio
every week, And it's sometimes five, six hundred people look
at it all over the world. You just don't know. We're ready. The point I'm trying to make.
We're ready to go and preach the gospel. And God has given
us the means to do so. And I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful. Well, I've got to hurry on here.
Verse two. Thou art fairer than the children
of men. Now, the children of men Adam,
fallen Adam, and Adam all died, and Adam all sinned. We're all
sinners. All the children of men are born
in sin, shaped in iniquity. Is that right? That's right.
That's what the psalmist said, born in sin. I was born in sin,
shaped in iniquity. The Lord Jesus Christ was born
in the flesh, a real man, but he had no sin. That body that
was prepared by God was begotten of the Holy Spirit in the womb
of a virgin. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. So He is fervor. We looked all
through the book of Hebrews and the key word in the book of Hebrews
is what? Christ is better. Better. Better
than the law, better than the Old Testament priest. Christ
is better at the better sacrifice, the better righteousness. Christ
is every way excellent and superior to all things. Thou art fairer
than any son of Adam. Christ is better. He's the most
high God. And therefore, grace, grace is
poured into his lips. You remember John chapter one?
He was full of grace and truth. The law was given by Moses, but
the Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace and full of truth. And
of His fullness have we all received grace for grace. Grace is poured
into Him, and grace comes out of Him. He saves us by His grace. Sovereign grace is the only kind
of grace there is. Merited grace, merited mercy
is not mercy at all, not grace at all. Grace comes from the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ, we shall be saved by him. Grace is poured into
his lips, therefore God, God has blessed him forever and he's
blessed us in him. For how long? Forever. We're
blessed with all spiritual blessings and heavenlies in Christ according
as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.
Isn't that a great verse? Christ is better, better than
any. He's the most high God. He's
exalted. God has given him a name which
is above every name. At that name, every knee's gonna
bow, every tongue's gonna confess he's Lord to the glory of God
the Father. God has blessed him forever and ever. He's the most
high, most blessed God. And we're blessed in Him forever
and ever and ever. No end to eternal blessings we
have in Christ. Now, Christ is fairer, greater,
superior than any, none like Him. I am God, beside me there
is no other. Grace is treasured up in Him.
Apart from Christ, there is no grace to sinners. And He's blessed
forever. and we're blessed in Him. Now
look at verse 3, 4, and 5. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh,
O Most Mighty. The Lord Jesus Christ here is
a mighty warrior. He's never lost a battle. He's
fought all the battles for us, against Satan, against sin, against
the law, everything that was contrary to us and against us.
The Lord Jesus Christ has conquered all things for us. I'm he that
liveth in with dead, behold, I'm alive forevermore. He has
the power, power of all things, heaven, earth, and hell, has
the keys to everything. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh,
O most mighty, with glory and majesty. He rides with glory
and majesty, doesn't he? The sword, we know, is a symbol
of his power. the symbol of his power. Remember
Hebrews 4, the word is quick and powerful, sharper than any
two-edged sword, remember? And then in Revelation 19, out
of the mouth of the king of kings goeth a sharp sword that with
it he should smite the nations and rule them. He treads the
winepress of the wrath of Almighty God. He's a mighty warrior. His sword is mighty, none can
defeat him. His sword is glorious, glorious. The sword of his word, his sword
is full of majesty, splendor, and beauty. The sword of his
word is mighty and is powerful. Look at verse four, verse four.
And in thy majesty, in thy glory and majesty, in thy grace and
in thy truth, ride prosperously. Could he do anything else but
be prosperous? Can this one who is fairer than
all, that is the mighty king, that has all grace and all blessedness,
can he be anything but prosper? Prosper because of truth, because
of meekness, because of righteousness, and thy right hand shall teach
thee. We need to learn this lesson.
He's a mighty God. He's God our Savior. He's God
our Savior. Our Lord Jesus Christ is a glorious
God. Captain of our salvation, who
has won the complete victory for us. His victory is a prosperous
victory, for he's accomplished all his pleasure. He knows nothing
of defeat, nothing of failure. He is a mighty conquering king.
He shall not fail. You remember Revelation chapter
six, verse two, he goes forth riding, conquering, and to conquer
upon that majestic stallion. It's a picture of His power and
glory. I love this psalm. I just love
this psalm. When I was a young man, there
in the church in Ashton with Brother Mahan, he was going to
be out of town one time, preaching somewhere, and he asked me if
I would teach his Bible class for him. And he prepared a lesson
from Psalm 45, and he said, here's a lesson, go and teach it. And
I did. And I've never forgotten this
psalm. It's been a blessing to me ever since. I've preached
from it many times. Verse 5, Thine arrows are sharp. He has a mighty sword. Everything
he does, He rides prosperously because, let's go back to verse
four just a minute, because of truth, he said, you shall know
the truth and the truth will set you free. The Lord said,
I am the way, the truth and the life. And because of meekness,
of truth and meekness, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. Meekness is his mercy. Mercy
and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other, Psalm 85. And then righteousness. Righteousness,
truth, meekness, righteousness. Now, how important is righteousness?
Well, we know that the Lord Jesus Christ, he's the righteous holy
God, but he demands of us perfect righteousness and I cannot produce
that. But the Lord Jesus Christ produced
righteousness for us and freely imputes that unto us. By His
grace, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputed righteousness
without works. Thy right hand shall teach thee tremendous things."
And that's what He does. He teaches us about the tremendous
things that He's accomplished by His truth, by His mercy, and
by His righteousness for us. He's made unto us the Lord our
righteousness, right? He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. Now verse five, we have the power
of the sword, and then thine arrows, verse five, thine arrows
are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies, whereby the people
fall under thee. Now, what is, some of you are
deer hunters, What is the quality of an arrow that you shoot from
a bow? It doesn't have the blunt force
of a bullet, does it? But what does it do? It penetrates. It penetrates, doesn't it? Sometimes
you shoot an arrow, they tell me, I don't know this by experience,
but they tell me sometimes you shoot an arrow clear through
the deer. Is that right? It penetrates, doesn't it? The gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ is not only a powerful sword convicting us
and teaching us, but it's a penetrating arrow in our heart. If the Lord
ever sets your heart as a target for his arrow of grace, he lines
it right up. There it goes. He never misses
the target he's shooting for. He always hits the target, the
sinner's heart, with the Gospel. And notice what happens. When
we're shot in the heart with the Gospel, convicted of sin,
what happens? We don't stand up and fight. Someone shot you in the heart,
what would you do? You'd fall down, wouldn't you?
When the Lord shoots the Gospel arrow in the heart, who by nature
are His enemies, they submit. They bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. Whereby the people fall, they
fall down in submission. When God takes aim with His gospel
arrow, it always hits the intended target. The sinner will always
be conquered by Almighty Grace. None can stay His hand. You can't
stop that arrow. You can't stop that sword. It's
in His hand. No one can stay His hand or stop
His hand, remember? Verse 6, Thy throne, O God. Who
is the Lord Jesus Christ? He's our God. His throne is the
sovereign throne. When He by Himself purged our
sin, He sat down where? Where did He sit down? On the
throne. Where is He now? On the throne. By a throne of God, who is the
Lord Jesus Christ? He's God. He's God our Savior. And he reigns on the sovereign
throne of mercy and truth. And he reigns forever and ever.
The scepter of his kingdom, the rule, a scepter is his rule.
He rules in absolute sovereignty and he rules in absolute holiness
and righteousness. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? And whatever he does is right. Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. The scepter of thy kingdom is right. It's a righteous
rule, a righteous reign. Verse 7, Thou lovest righteousness. Could he do anything less? than
loving absolute righteousness. Thou lovest righteousness, and
he hates all wickedness. He hates all evil. Therefore,
God thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above
thy fellows. He loves righteousness, always
has, always will. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
great high priest of ours who is undefiled, separate from sinners. He lived in righteousness. He
had no sin, did no sin, knew no sin. He's the perfect God-man
mediator. Anything contrary to holiness,
he hates wickedness, always has, always will. He died to put away
the sin of God's people because he hates wickedness. The Lord
Jesus Christ is anointed Lord, anointed with the oil of gladness. He's happy being the anointed
and appointed a mediator. As such, he's anointed in all
of his office. Prophet to reveal, priest to
redeem, and a king to reign. He reigns over us, doesn't he?
Aren't these good verses? Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. The scepter of His kingdom, the
reign of His kingdom is right and righteous because He loves
righteousness. He loves righteousness. God saves
us in a way that His righteousness is honored. His justice is honored. His mercy is honored, too. He
hates wickedness. Anything contrary to the way
of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, he hates it. Self-righteousness,
he hates it. Therefore, God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness, the oil of gladness
above thy fellows. Verse 8, and I'll quit. All thy
garments, all which priestly garments, as he mediates and advocates
for us as an intercessor, all of his garments of his office,
they all are sweet smelling savor unto God. They smell of myrrh
and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby they have
made thee glad. We're glad in him. All of his
priestly garments, his priestly work smell of salvation and life
in Christ. His sacrifice, Paul says, is
a sweet-smelling savor unto God. All of our self-righteousness
produced nothing but a foul odor. His righteousness to God is a
sweet-smelling savor. This is my beloved Son in whom
I'm well pleased. I'm well pleased. We need His
righteousness. That's why Paul said, O that
I may win Christ and be found in Him. not having my own righteousness,
but that which is of Christ. We need his sacrifice. We're
redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, the just for the unjust
that he might bring us to God. Boiling it all down, we need
him, don't we? He has made us glad. If He's
your King, your God, and your Savior, your righteousness, and
all your salvation, He's made us glad. Rejoice in the Lord
always, and again I say, rejoice in Him. And we do, we do. As Paul said, I know whom I have
believed, and I'm persuaded He's able to keep that which I've
committed unto Him against that day. All His garment, All of
his office, all of his person, all of his work have a sweet
smelling savor unto God and unto his people, and his people as
well.