[0:00] And may we magnify Jesus and see him for who he really is.
[0:23] We pray in his name. Amen. Well, for anyone who is a disciple of Jesus, Psalm 110 ought to be an important psalm to you.
[0:38] Anyone who calls himself a follower of Jesus ought to hold very highly Psalm 110. It's the most quoted piece, a psalm of anything in the Old Testament.
[0:53] It's the most quoted in the New. It's extremely significant. It's alluded to many, many times. Whenever you see in the New Testament about Jesus being at the right hand of God, it really has this psalm in mind.
[1:08] Jesus himself quotes it in each of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The book of Hebrews picks it up. The early church picks it up in the book of Acts. It is a great and important psalm.
[1:20] I mean, we believe that. We are people of the book. This is God's word to us. And we believe that the Old Testament prepares the way for the new and the new fulfills the old.
[1:32] And so it's really critical for us when we have a chapter like this, a psalm like this, that connects the old and the new. This is an important psalm. It's important also because it's going to give us a fuller picture of the majesty and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[1:52] And it's going to give us a picture of him that we might not have if we just read the New Testament or if we just read Gospels trying to see who Jesus is.
[2:03] We wouldn't have the fullest picture that we would get it without this psalm. In fact, I think this is why I'm really enjoying and really relishing this month in the morning of Messianic Psalms, psalms about the kingdom of God, because it really teaches us what it means to worship Jesus and the full picture of the Jesus we worship.
[2:28] In the Psalms, Jesus is powerful, reigning. He's militaristic. He's judging. He's majestic and glorious.
[2:42] Friends, you have too weak a view of Jesus right now. You have too weak a view. Your view of Jesus is limp and lifeless.
[2:56] Your view of Jesus, he's too weak. He's too watery. And that's why when it comes to weeks like this where there's much suffering in the world, your view of Jesus is not enough.
[3:11] He's too weak. He can't do anything. He's got nothing to do with it. It's just not enough. It's not the Jesus of the Bible. It's not the Jesus of Psalm 110.
[3:24] We need a big view of Jesus to actually deal with weeks like this week when there's massive earthquakes and massive loss of life. We need to actually see Jesus in full force.
[3:38] The weak Jesus will not help us. Only the fully-orbed, powerful Jesus of the Psalms can help us. Now, just as an aside, there's been a very predictable pattern in the media this week about a Christian response or a religious response to the suffering of Haiti.
[4:00] And the pattern is just, it's so ordinary. We see this every time there's a catastrophe. What happens is the media, they hunt around, they find a fundamentalist Christian who will say in front of a camera, that's God punishing them because their sins were worse and God is sort of telling them off.
[4:17] And then the media kind of, having baited some fundamentalists, then go to town and pretty much crucify him and lambast him for saying that. And then the more mainstream Christian leaders then kind of back up and say lots of soft things, oh, God would not do that, and, you know, God's really nice, don't listen to them.
[4:36] And this kind of pattern, we had it with the Victorian bushfires, we had it with the Pacific tsunami. It's kind of predictable, this game that the media play with Christians. Well, I want to say today the Psalm hopefully will give us an approach to issues of this week that's not just kind of judgmental fundamentalist, but it's not just this sort of soft, embarrassed Christian response either.
[5:02] Hopefully there's a third way. Now, it's important that we see that this Psalm is a Psalm of King David. So, where in the Bibles, on page 490, it says, Psalm 110 of David, a Psalm, that's actually canonical, that's part of the Hebrew text.
[5:23] That's God's word to us, telling us the truth about who wrote the Psalm. In other places in the Bible where you have kind of headings, they're not part of the original, they're just part of the translators and they're not God's word.
[5:37] But in the Psalms, where it says of David a Psalm, that's God's word. It's from King David. That's very important, as Naomi illustrated very well in the children's talk, because what David speaks of in this Psalm is of an insight he had into heaven.
[5:53] He had a heavenly vision and he saw God make an oath to another being or someone else that was an interesting and important exchange.
[6:07] This is what he says. He saw the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
[6:18] And what is this? Who are the characters at least? There's two lords.
[6:28] That's a puzzle. There's two lords here. There's Lord with capital letters, L-O-R-D, capitals. That refers to the name of Israel's God, Yahweh.
[6:39] Or we used to call it, translate it Jehovah. That's a bad translation. But where it's got capital letters, Lord, there in the original Hebrew, it's got Yahweh, God, Israel's God, the God who created the world, who rescued them out of Egypt.
[6:52] That's definitely God. But then the other word, Lord, is Adonai, which just could mean master or boss. It could mean God, but it doesn't necessarily mean God.
[7:03] Although, interestingly, the Old Covenant, it's monotheistic. There's only one God in the Bible, and yet here you've got a Lord speaking to a Lord. It's quite the puzzle.
[7:14] It's also a puzzle because, as Naomi said in the kids' talk, there's really not meant to be anyone closer to God than King David. King David's the man after God's own heart, who in his coronation we saw two weeks ago was declared to be like a son of God in this extravagant metaphor.
[7:31] David was called God's son, and yet so no one's closer to God than him, and yet David here has another Lord. He says, the Lord God, Yahweh, says to David's Lord.
[7:44] The Lord Yahweh says to my Lord. Well, who is David's Lord? Who could David's Lord be? Well, I think there's no point beating around the bush.
[7:56] It's pretty obvious that it's Jesus, isn't it? It's the son of God. There's really no one else who can fit between David and the father. Father, it's the son of God. And what really David is showing us is that he got an insight, because David is not just a king.
[8:14] David is a prophet. David, as a prophet, had an insight into the Trinity, into an exchange between God the Father and God the Son, that a promise was exchanged within the Godhead, within the one triune God.
[8:29] A promise was exchanged between father and son, and father promised son a world, a creation, where the son would sit at the father's right hand and rule and have a people and destroy all his enemies, and destroy all his enemies.
[8:49] There's really no one else in the Old Testament, or even the New, who could fit the role. It has to be about Jesus. It has no application to anyone in the Old Testament.
[9:02] It's different to Psalm 2 and some of the other Psalms, where there's the kings, and there's a pattern of kingship, and there's a clear application to David and to Solomon, and the pattern gets fulfilled in Jesus.
[9:16] It's not like that. There's no pattern here. There's no one who does this in the Bible except Jesus. It's a straight, direct prophecy oracle about the Son of God sitting at the Father's right hand, and the Father promises him a reign, a victory, and he promises him basically the universe, the whole world.
[9:37] Jesus himself, if you're not sure about this, seems to claim the psalm as his own. He uses it. It's riddling nature to confound his opponents.
[9:49] When Jesus, in both Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he says to the religious leaders of the day, he says, how can you say that the Messiah is a descendant of David when David called him Lord in Psalm 110?
[10:04] That was a real riddle. It's actually quite a hard riddle. It's quite enigmatic. The Messiah is meant to be a descendant of David, but here the Messiah is preexistent to David. Here the Messiah is David's Lord.
[10:16] And so it's quite the puzzle, and Jesus used this to confound the Jewish leaders that they didn't really know their Bibles that well, that somehow you had to have a Messiah who preceded David and was a descendant of David.
[10:29] Well, of course, that's Jesus. He's the eternal Son of God. He precedes David. David can see him as the eternal Son of God and call him Lord, and yet in his incarnation, he's born as a descendant of David.
[10:43] Do you see? So he precedes David and he's a descendant of David. He's the only one who can fulfill this psalm. And in fact, luckily, we might have figured this out, but luckily in the final chapter of the final book of the Bible, you just have this sort of, Jesus gives his throwaway line.
[11:00] He says in Revelation 22, 16, he says, I am the root and offspring of David, saying, I'm the root, I came before him, I'm the descendant offspring of David.
[11:11] I'm the one who's before him and after him. I'm the psalm, 110 figure, I am David's Lord. Everything in that psalm is about me, says Jesus. And so it's quite the privilege.
[11:23] And we are led into this insight into the Trinity, this insight into the Godhead that the Father has made a decree to his Son. And he said to his Son, you will rule.
[11:37] I will give you a universe. I will give you a creation to save and to rule. And you will have enemies in that creation that you will destroy to show your glory.
[11:48] And the psalm focuses more on the destruction of the enemies. But it's an amazing oath. I think it shows for us that, I mean, all through the Bible, God is making these covenants with his people, makes a covenant with Abraham, makes a covenant with Noah before that, makes a covenant with David.
[12:03] Here we've got the Father making a covenant to his own Son. So that way of relating in terms of promises and oaths and binding oaths, God does even within himself, from Father to Son, there's a covenant.
[12:19] Now what would, God has promised a rule to the Son, a government to the Son. What will his government be like? Well, here's the government of Jesus. In verses 2 and 3, the Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter.
[12:32] God says to Jesus, rule in the midst of your foes. Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day you lead your forces on the holy mountains. The Father will send the Son into battle in creation.
[12:47] And the Father's power will be with the Son, with his scepter, with his kingship. And the people of Jesus, the people of the Son, will offer themselves willingly.
[12:58] They will step into the fray. They will step into the battle for the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus as he leads them. And they will have youth on their side.
[13:10] Verse 3, from the womb of the morning, like Jew, your youth will come to you. The armies of Jesus will have strength. They'll be invigorated by the Spirit. They'll have power.
[13:22] That is the rule of Jesus. There's a picture of basically a holy war and Jesus goes out. Now we'll talk more in a minute about what that looks like in the world. But we need to get on to this other promise.
[13:34] There's actually two promises. There's another one in verse 4. Again, a covenantal promise from father to son. And here, the oath is even completely unconditional.
[13:47] The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, will never change his mind. The Lord says to Jesus, to the Son, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
[13:59] The Son will be not just a king, he will be a priest. Jesus is not just a king at God's right hand, he is a priest for us at God's right hand.
[14:12] Now this really trumps David and puts David in his place actually because David is a king, he's a prophet because this is his psalm, it's his prophecy from God.
[14:23] But David was never a priest. But Jesus trumps David. David, Jesus is a prophet, priest and king. And interestingly, in the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant, kings and priests never mix roles.
[14:40] You could never change career from king to priest or priest to king. They tried. Saul tried. Saul was about to go to battle, he was the first king.
[14:51] He's about to go to battle, normally before a battle, he would get the priest, which was Samuel, to pray and offer a sacrifice and he'd go into battle. One day he's in a hurry to get to battle, he sees that the time is right, his priest is late, what does Saul do?
[15:07] He says, I'll do it myself, I'll play the role of priest today. And he offers a sacrifice, then Samuel walks in just as he's doing it, he says, what are you doing? You're not a priest, you're a king, you're not a priest.
[15:20] God will take your kingship from you. And Saul's booted for crossing the line from king to priest. There's another guy, King Uzziah, he's one of the kind of great-grandsons of David.
[15:35] King Uzziah got proud, got arrogant as a young king and said, I don't really just want to be king, I want to be a priest. Rocks up to the temple of God, walks in there, starts to burn incense and wants to offer a sacrifice.
[15:52] And 2 Chronicles says, 80 priests came in and confronted him and said, you do not belong in here, you're a king, you're our king, but you're no priest.
[16:04] And God strikes him in leprosy and doesn't live much longer than that, he's a leper until he dies. You see, you do not cross priests and kingdom, God had separated them.
[16:16] But there is actually, there's one guy, one guy in the Old Testament who is a priest and a king. And he gets away with it because he's both, before there's a kingdom in Israel, before there's a priesthood in Israel, there's a guy that Abraham meets called Melchizedek.
[16:34] It's in Genesis chapter 14, maybe read it when you go home, Genesis 14. He's a strange figure, we don't know where he comes from or where he goes, he's kind of enigmatic, a bit like Psalm 110.
[16:44] And Abraham, interestingly, like the themes of Psalm 110, Abraham's been fighting kings of the land. Abraham wins and goes to King Melchizedek.
[16:55] His name means king of righteousness. Melchizedek is king, Zedek righteousness. And pays him a tithe. And he's called a priest of the most high.
[17:06] So they've got this guy called Melchizedek who's a priest and a king. And interestingly, Melchizedek, where is he a king of? He's a king of Salem, which is going to become Jerusalem.
[17:20] And so Melchizedek kind of foreshadows Jesus, foreshadows Psalm 110, a thousand years before in the time of Abraham. Then a thousand years later, you have this psalm that says, you will have another priest king in the order of Melchizedek.
[17:36] And then a thousand years later from there, Jesus comes and takes those roles. He becomes king. He becomes priest at God's right hand. It shows, I think, the wisdom of God, the planning of God, the power of the word of God that you've got this document.
[17:52] You're holding your hands, this document that spans thousands of years that fits together so well. And it does. So this is how you are to see Jesus.
[18:02] This is how you are to view Jesus. He's not just the sort of limp Jesus, but a powerful Jesus who reigns at the right hand of God. He's a savior king. And he's also a priest.
[18:13] He's atoned for our sins on the cross. He intercedes for us. He mediates God to us. And in that sense, in that priestly sense, no one, not least any Anglican minister, should call himself a priest in that sense because he's the only mediator to God.
[18:30] He's the only one who can bring you to God. He's the only one at the right hand of God in fulfillment of Psalm 110. Well, what kind of government, priestly government would Jesus have?
[18:44] Well, verses five to seven describe in violent terms the reign of Jesus. And it's quite shocking, but we need to take this on board if we are to truly worship Jesus.
[18:57] I mean, like Melchizedek, king of righteousness, that's his name. Jesus is a king of righteousness. Every good government has to punish evil. Every good government, if there's any government on earth that tolerates or promotes evil, it's an abomination to God.
[19:13] The point of government is to wield the sword for the sake of justice. And that's Jesus' reign. So verses five, six, seven, it's shocking, but it's true that this is the day to come.
[19:28] The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. So a day is coming when Jesus will shatter kings. It's called the day of his wrath.
[19:38] We might call it judgment day. On that day, he will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses, filling them with dead bodies.
[19:51] He will shatter heads over the wide earth. It's a picture of global judgment, global punishment on every nation.
[20:03] And when he would do it single-mindedly, I think that's the point of verse seven, it's single-minded. He will drink from the stream by the path. He won't stop and set up base.
[20:15] When Jesus comes to judgment day, he will not hesitate. He will just drink as he goes and he will lift up his head and execute judgment on the whole earth. And there'll be nations filled with corpses.
[20:26] There'll be heads smashed. This day hasn't arrived yet. Day hasn't arrived yet. I think you know enough from the gospel that Jesus said, you'll know when this day comes.
[20:40] From Psalm 110, we will know when this day comes. It has not come this week. It's coming. Those who reject the one at God's right hand have a lot to be afraid of.
[20:56] Now, you might say, you might be thinking, well, Wayne, the Jesus I know is not like that. The Jesus I know is really kind of sweet and he's tender.
[21:08] He's merciful. He's forgiving. He loves his enemies. That's the Jesus I know. And I want to say, yes, but you need a bigger picture of Jesus.
[21:21] Jesus is like that to his flock. He is a good shepherd. He loves his flock. He is tender with his flock. He cares for his people. But that's not everyone.
[21:33] For the wolves, for the attackers, for the accusers of his flock, for the devil and all who are outside of Jesus and rail against him, he's like this.
[21:45] He's like Psalm 110. And there's much to be afraid of. There's much to be fearful of, of the reign of Jesus, which I suspect lies behind the media's, I don't know, kind of wanting to suppress any sense of anyone talking about judgment ever because they know, they don't want to talk about that.
[22:04] They know something's up with that and people are afraid to talk about that and they want to suppress that truth. We are caught up in the battle of Jesus, the battle that Jesus is fighting.
[22:15] We do not fight it as the world fights battles. We fight it by, as Jesus fought it, by his own death and resurrection. We share the gospel. We suffer for the gospel.
[22:27] We even shed our blood for the gospel and it's the word of our testimony that wins the victory for Jesus. We do not bear arms for Jesus, but we wield the gospel and suffer for his name.
[22:39] The war goes on and the war will end on judgment day when this psalm is enacted and nations are filled with corpses. Well, I don't know how you feel about it, but God can't take back what he's promised.
[22:56] If the Father has made an oath to the Son and sworn to him, made a covenant within the Trinity and said, rule at my right hand and rule over the nations and destroy your enemies, the Father has promised that in this psalm, it's not going to be undone.
[23:13] The only salvation, the only hope is those who take refuge in the Son now, those who join his kingdom, those who become his subjects, who get their sins forgiven and follow him as Lord.
[23:23] But apart from that, there's no hope for the nations, apart from turning to King Jesus himself. That's the Father's will.
[23:34] You need to ask, will you align your life with the will of the Father? Will you serve and stand for Jesus in this world?
[23:44] The psalm says that the people of the Son, the people of Jesus, will willingly offer themselves for his kingdom. Are you willingly offering yourself to the kingdom of Jesus?
[24:00] Will you freely accept suffering in the name of Jesus? Will you freely accept insult for the name of Jesus as you take a stand for him in the world?
[24:13] If a day came, would you shed your blood for him to stand up for your Christian faith? Here's another angle to come at it from, from Psalm 110.
[24:26] Do you find that you lack energy in your spiritual life? Do you lack spiritual vigour? Do you lack passion for Jesus? Could it be that's because you have not stepped into the fray?
[24:43] You have not stuck your neck out for him? Because the psalm promises that those who follow him into battle will have their strength renewed like the youth, like the language is sort of like the womb of the morning, like Jew, your youth will come to you.
[24:59] The energy comes to those who stand up for Jesus. Don't wait for power to speak. Speak and then power will come. You see? Stand up for Jesus and his spirit will be right behind you.
[25:16] You see friends, we need to be really clear on who Jesus is. We need to have this view of Jesus from Psalm 110. He is our king, he's rescued us and he reigns and he is our high priest.
[25:28] He alone intercedes for us to God. There's no other king, there's no other intercessor, it is Jesus and he wants us to be sold out to him as king. We need to correct this kind of view that Jesus is some kind of therapist in the sky, he just wants to make us feel good about ourselves.
[25:47] That's not the Jesus of Psalm 110, that's not the Jesus of the Bible. He's not our therapist, he is our king. He's our king. He does not sit at God's right hand as kind of the sky fairy granting wishes.
[26:02] He sits there to reign so that people will bend the knee and seek his mercy and run from him otherwise. I think with regard to Haiti, I think it's wrong of Pat Robertson and other Christians to say that's God's punishment on a wicked people.
[26:22] I think that's a wrong thing to say but we've got to know why is it wrong? I think it's wrong because the way the Psalm describes the day of judgment, the day of punishment, it's a global thing.
[26:36] You will know when it happens. That day has not arrived. That day has not arrived. So it's wrong to say, to claim special knowledge from God and say the day has partially arrived.
[26:46] When it comes, it will come. Until that day, earthly sufferings are just warnings of the day to come.
[26:57] They're warnings of the day to come, Jesus said. He said, when you see the suffering, Luke 13, they were not worse sinners but unless you repent, you will perish. It's a warning of the judgment day.
[27:08] It's a warning of the Psalm 110 filling of the nations with corpses. What's happened this week is a warning of what's to come but we cannot call it a punishment on wicked people.
[27:19] The warnings fall in mysterious, enigmatic places. The warnings do not fall on worse people. The warnings just fall in God's wisdom where they fall.
[27:32] But they're not punishments, they're just warnings of punishment. So that's why I think Pat Robertson is wrong and it's cruel to say stuff like that to the media. And because that's just a warning, Christians ought to rush in there to Haiti and try and save lives and feed people and give generously and pray with tears and share the gospel.
[27:55] The warnings are coming, the more and more warnings come, we need to do those things. But you can't say that Pat Robertson's wrong because God would never, God would never hurt a fly, God would never hurt children, God would never inflict pain on anyone.
[28:14] That's clearly not the God of this psalm. The day is coming when all will face justice and those who aren't robed in the righteousness of Christ, those who aren't trusting in the blood of Christ, who are trying to stand on their own righteousness, will be judged and will be punished and it will be painful, it will be much more horrific even than the horrific events of this week.
[28:37] And I think God mercifully gives us the warnings like this because otherwise the world would not listen. The world would not listen to Psalm 110. But God wakes us up with these warnings.
[28:50] God wakes us up. As bad as this week was, the events of Psalm 110 will be much worse. That day will be much worse.
[29:01] It will be global and you will know it's Judgment Day arrived. You will see Jesus and you will know. You will see Him at the right hand of the Father. Well, let me close with these words of Jesus just to bring it back to the man where He Himself claimed this role as judge.
[29:20] He said in John's Gospel, Chapter 5, the Father has given the Son authority to execute judgment. Jesus said that. I've got authority from the Father to execute judgment.
[29:32] Of course, Jesus is alluding to Psalm 110, to the Father promising Him. Do not be astonished at this. Do not be surprised at this. We ought to know this as the people of God.
[29:43] The hour is coming, Jesus says, when all who are in their graves will hear His voice, that is, the Son of Man's voice, Jesus' voice, and they will come out of the graves, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.
[30:01] That's when people are smashed according to Psalm 110. It's not an easy thing, but Jesus has warned us of it and the Father has promised it to Him that He will reign in righteousness.
[30:15] What's left for us is to take refuge in the blood of Christ, is to tell the world that He is King, that right now He sits at God's right hand. He's seated. Judgment Day is imminent and right now you can trust in Jesus and have your sins forgiven and follow Him and that's not just following a set of rules.
[30:36] People love to reduce Christianity to a set of rules. I think they do that so that then they can find people who follow the rules but don't love Jesus as King. But you've got to love Jesus as King.
[30:48] You've got to love Him as your high priest and then you are forgiven. Then you are saved. You are part of His people. Then all His tender mercies flow to you. Even on Judgment Day you will be protected and shielded.
[31:02] Jesus, the only refuge from Jesus' smashing of nations is in His own smashing of Himself on the cross. It's the only refuge and that's what we need to share with the world.
[31:13] That's the battle. That's the fray we need to step into, isn't it? Jesus freely forgives and welcomes everyone who come to Him seeking His mercy. He's a merciful King so why don't we pray to Him now and address Him and acknowledge that in our lives.
[31:32] Dear Father, thank You for Your promise to Your Son that You have delivered in His resurrection and ascension to Your right hand. And Lord Jesus, we pray that we would live with You as our King and great High Priest every day.
[31:51] That we would love You and serve You and trust You. that we would obey You, that we would pray to You and depend on You and that we would fear You knowing the judgment day to come. And Lord Jesus, help us to tremble at the warnings and to be bold in sharing the hope and sharing Your mercy and grace with all who are here.
[32:10] Do this, Lord Jesus, to extend Your kingdom and reign. Amen. "' Love You'