Psalm 45
It’s Psalm 45, beginning at verse
one. It says, to the choir master,
according to the lilies, a masculine of the sons of Korah, a love
song. My heart overflows with a pleasing theme. I address my
verses to the king. My tongue is like the pen of
a ready scribe. You are the most handsome of
the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God
has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh,
almighty one. in your splendor and majesty.
In your majesty, ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness
and righteousness. Let your right hand teach you
awesome deeds. Your arrows are sharp in the
heart of the king’s enemies. The peoples fall under you. Your
throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom
is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness
and hated wickedness. Therefore, God your God has anointed
you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. Your
robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cashew. From ivory
palaces, stringed instruments make you glad. Daughters of kings
are among your ladies of honor. At your right hand stands the
queen in the gold of Ophir. Here, old daughter, and consider,
and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father’s
house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your
lord, bow to him. The people of Tyre will seek
your favor with gifts, the richest of all the people. How glorious
is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold.
In many colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin
companions following behind her. With joy and gladness they are
led along as they enter the palace of the king. And your place of
your fathers shall be your sons. You shall make them princes in
all the earth. I will cause your name to be
remembered in all the generations. Therefore, nations will praise
you forever and ever. Amen. This is God’s holy word.
But, you know, with pastors, a day off is sacred, or at least
it’s supposed to be. And day off, the pastor’s supposed
to sleep in. Well, one day off about six years
ago, it’s a Friday morning, I was awake probably about 5.30, and
the TV was on. And it was Kate and William were
getting married. And my wife, who’s never awake
at that early in the morning, somehow Awakened and turned the
TV on and I think one of our children they were littler at
the time seven years ago six years ago Whatever it was a couple
of them crawled in in the bed with us. And so we watched the
royal wedding Some of you probably were watching it back in was
it 1981? Lady Diana Prince Charles got
married. I remember my mom Watching that,
things were abuzz. I can remember being in college
when that tragic car accident took place. And it was in Paris
when Lady Diana and her then boyfriend were killed in that
awful wreck. But back to the day off when
I was awakened early, sleep was precious, job was stressful,
all that. We watched. We watched the royal
wedding. We watched all the pomp and all
the circumstance. We watched and listen to all
the sights and sounds of the royal wedding. You go to YouTube
now and sometimes I do that when I’m picking out the hymns for
Sunday because I can’t read music. So I go to YouTube and look for
a faithful rendering of whatever hymn we’re gonna sing. You can
find all kinds of wonderful things. And a lot of times the royal
music from the royal wedding pops up. Pretty amazing to be
in Westminster Abbey and hear and see all those wonderful things.
Well, Psalm 45 is a picture of a royal wedding. It’s a picture
of an ancient royal wedding. And so that’s the setting for
this psalm which speaks about the greatness of King Jesus. Now some will say this is only
a psalm about an earthly king, but if that were the case you
would not have verses six and seven where it is directly spoken
to the bride or the groom, you are a king, you are God, you
are eternal. That would not be said of a a
human king. Some think it speaks only of a messianic king, of
Jesus only, in the picture of the bride and the church. And
that may be the case. Somewhere in between where it’s
a land, it’s a picture of maybe Solomon in one of his many weddings.
You know, he had, what, 700 wives, 300 concubines. So probably there
was a wedding in there that this could be a picture of. Had a
few to choose from. But this is a picture of some
royal some royal wedding, but ultimately, it’s messianic. It’s
about Jesus. And this psalm has a couple bookends. Verse one is a bookend where
the writer of the psalm, the psalmist, one of the sons of
Korah, says, I’m going to write something down that’s pretty
amazing. And then at the other end of the psalm, we have the
other bookends, the last two verses, verses 16 and 17, where
he gives a benediction on the wedding. Now when I do a wedding
and give the benediction, I say, the Lord bless you and keep you
and give the little numbers benediction. But here it says, hope you have
a bunch of kids, which is a good benediction also. It’s a generational
benediction. So in between those bookends,
you have a handful of verses that speak of what we call the
ancient wedding processional. And so we have to understand
a little bit about how an ancient wedding took place in order to
understand the Psalms. Now, weddings today are just
an atrocity, I have to tell you. Even church weddings have gotten
a little out of hand. You’ve got destination weddings. You’ve got people trying out
living together before they get married. You’ve got, oh, the
worst of it is writing your own wedding vows, which could turn
into a country song if you’re not careful. Just stick with
the old ones. They work really well. They’re
biblical language and they get the job done. And then there’s
the singing of what’s that country song you hear at every wedding
you say it best when you say nothing at all So I hadn’t figured
out it sounds kind of offensive Anyway, but but wedding customs
today have just gotten off the beaten path and It’s a strange
day in the life of the church and weddings. But in biblical
times, a wedding was a big event. And we have some little pictures
of weddings in the Bible and what must have taken place. But
basically, you had an arranged marriage or a semi-arranged marriage,
where for a long time, a guy and a girl could be betrothed
to one another. That’s a little more significant
than being engaged. Now we see these little sales
commercials whatever else, and it’s all about picking the diamond.
And you drive by this place over on Church Street, you gotta get
a magnet and mail it to everybody to save the day. Y’all seen those?
It’s just a mess. But back in the day, it was arranged.
And when you were betrothed, it was like a contract. It was
something you could not get out of. And if you remember the story
of Mary and Joseph, you remember when Mary was found to be with
a child, Joseph was troubled, and what did he seek to do? he
sought to divorce her quietly because betrothal was a serious
commitment. It was not marriage, but it was
more than our modern day engagement. And so in order to break a betrothal
was to break really the marriage. And so Joseph sought to divorce
her quietly. But once there was a betrothal
and when the wedding time came, the wedding could last up to
several weeks. We hear stories of Jesus, where was his first
miracle is the wedding feast at Cana. What did they do at
weddings? And sometimes these feasts could last a couple of
weeks. And so the picture we have in this psalm is the groom
and some features about him going to get his bride. And as she’s
sitting in her chambers, curling her hair, putting on her lipstick
and whatever else, the psalmist then speaks to her in a couple
of verses. Talks about leaving your family and cleaving to your
husband. And then it speaks of the procession back to the groom’s
house. And that’s how weddings went
in those days. The bride would be getting ready, putting on
her pearls and what is it, something old, something borrowed, something
new, something like that. I’m sure they were doing all
that back then. They had David’s bridal in Jerusalem in Bethlehem. It was a chain back then probably.
But she was getting ready. She was getting ready for her
wedding. And the groom would leave his house and come get
her. And then he would take her back to his house. And that was
where the wedding took place. The feast, depending on how wealthy
they were, the events, and then ultimately the wedding. And so
it was a really big deal. Well, that’s the movement geographically
in this passage. And so first look at verses two
through nine. This speaks of the groom. It
says, “‘You are the most handsome of the sons of men. “‘Grace is
poured upon your lips. “‘Therefore God has blessed you
forever and ever.'” And as you move from verses two through
verse nine, you get a picture of all the virtuous, wonderful
things about this king. Now, this is not People Magazine.
This is our Bible. This is not Us Weekly or what
is it, TMZ, whatever else, all that. smut is, where they look
into people’s lives. Remember, when God looks for
a king, and when a Christian gal looks for a groom, what should
we look for? Should they be good looking?
I mean, that’s helpful, right? You don’t wanna be with somebody
ugly the rest of your life. That could be a little rough.
But the world says good looking. What else does the world say?
Smooth, smooth talk, smooth lips. What do we call it, slick? Or
what did we say about our last president? He was charismatic. That’s what the world wants.
Now remember when God was picking a king, went through all David’s
brothers, and they, nope, not him, nope, not him. And what
did they finally get to? Where’s the little runt of the
litter? And what does it say about David? He was ruddy. Yeah, that’s not a virtuous thing,
I don’t think, at least in modern world. But what does this passage
say about the king? It speaks of him as having character. It speaks of him of using his
words wisely. It speaks of him as being a good
looking fella. He’s the most handsome among
the sons of men. But he has graceful lips. God
has blessed him. He is valiant. He’s able to fight.
He’s majestic. He is strong in his right arm. He’s able to pursue enemies and
overcome them. and it speaks of his throne in
verse six, forever and ever, the scepter of your kingdom is
a scepter of uprightness. And so this is not a political
view of the king. This is not a person who can
persuade Congress to pass a new healthcare bill or to root out
ISIS or whatever. This is about a person who’s
a man after God’s own heart. This is about a person whose
character and his speech and his ability is from the root
of righteousness. In fact, this is a person who
is from heaven. There are a couple of hymns that
have been written. If you look at verse eight, it says, your
robes are all fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cashew from ivory
palaces with stringed instruments made you glad. There’s a couple
of hymns. And these really reach into the
whole idea of the humiliation of Jesus, which we’ve covered
in our studies from Philippians chapter two, where Jesus left
the riches of heaven and he came to earth to serve. And so there’s
an old hymn that plays off of that from Ivory Palace’s Jesus
Came. But this speaks of Jesus himself
as the great groom of the church. And he is the one who is from
heaven. He is able to fight all our battles, yes, physical, but
also spiritual, and able to bless us, his people, because of that. And so in verses two through
nine, we get a little glimpse of who is this king and what
is he able to do. We have a wonderful way that
the New Testament uses this passage. In Hebrews chapter 1, when the
writer of Hebrews, whoever he is, we never figured that out
and won’t until heaven maybe, but they use Psalm 45 to say
Jesus is an eternal king. And so verses 6 and 7, your throne,
O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is
a scepter of uprightness, you have loved righteousness and
hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with
the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” And so this is a
wonderful picture of Jesus, our righteous and gracious King. Now it moves to the bride as
you get to verse 10. It says, here, old daughter,
so this is the little speech to the bride as she’s sitting
in the chair, got the curlers in, You know, hearts fluttering. I don’t know if any of y’all
have second thoughts. I never did. Still don’t. But
you know, some people, they get nervous at their wedding. And
so maybe that’s what’s going on here. Here, old daughter,
and consider and incline your ear. Forget your people and your
father’s house. And most of you, after you were
married, you saw your parents again, right? You had to go home
for Thanksgiving and Christmas and they came to see you and
you feared when the number of suitcases they brought with them
came out of the car and the whole in-law situation popped up. But
this is a scenario where you may not ever see your family
again. Remember the story when Abraham
said to Eleazar, his great servant, he says to Eleazar, I’m getting
old and my son Isaac doesn’t have a wife. Remember that strange
ceremony, put your hand under my thigh? I never figured that
one out, but put your hand under my thigh and swear to me that
you’ll get a wife for my son, and make sure it’s the right
wife from the right people, not a godless wife. And so he goes,
and she’s watering the camels, and it all works out hunky-dory,
and they make. LEAs are a stay a little while.
And why is that? You’re taking our girl. You’re
taking her away. And so here’s the psalmist saying,
here, old daughter, and consider, maybe the tears are running her
makeup, incline your ear, forget your people and your father’s
house. What does the Bible tell us about marriage? We’re to leave
our father and our mother and we’re to hold fast or to cleave
to our husband. And he gives the benefit, verse
11, the king will desire your beauty since he is your Lord. Bow to him. It’s a sense of honor. It has a little, Hint there of,
maybe even a strong hint of Ephesians 5, wives submit to your husbands
as unto the Lord. There’s a submission flavor in
that passage. Since he is your Lord, bow to
him. The people of Tyre will seek favor with gifts and the
richest of people. Her wedding registry, her little
registry over at Kohl’s or Bed Bath & Beyond is gonna get filled
up, you know, when you got to target and you get the little
gun and you zap every barcode of things you want. People are
going to bring her gifts. There’s going to be blessing
in her marriage. And so you can imagine these few words of encouragement. Your marriage to this king is
going to be good. There’ll be gifts. There’ll be
blessings. Yes, there’s leaving. Yes, there’s
cleaving. Yes, there’s honoring and obeying, but you have a wonderful
future where this king will love you. The people will honor you.
You’ll be the first lady of whatever kingdom, and there will be joy
and gladness. And then it goes back to the
groom. It goes back to the procession. Verse 13, it says, all glorious
is the princess in her chamber with robes interwoven with gold,
many colored robes. to the king with her virgin companions
following behind. With joy and gladness, they’re
led along as they enter the palace of the king.” I remember as a
kid getting to go on a little trip to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.
And one of the nights we stayed in Jerusalem, there was a wedding
procession. And a lot of Toyota trucks and boys hanging out in
the back. I think there were some guns
shooting through the air, which in Jerusalem is not a pleasant
sound. even today, especially today,
but there was a wedding procession. And it was going through the
streets of Jerusalem. And it’s a good little picture there with
joy and with gladness. They are led along as they enter
the palace of the king. And so there’s this procession
to the bride’s house, this little glimpse into the bride’s chamber,
a little advice for the hard things she’s about to do. And
then the procession back. But then there’s this little
benediction here at the end, in place of your father shall
be your sons. And you get a little tear in
your eye when you read verse 10 about she’s gonna have to
leave her people and her father’s house. But there’s gonna come
a day when the father who walked you down the aisle will not be
here. But hopefully by then your sons will be full grown and the
generation will replace the next generation. And so there’s this
blessing. In place of your fathers shall
be your sons. And you’ll make them princes
in all the earth. I will cause your name to be
remembered in all generations, therefore, nations will praise
you and bless you forever. There’s a little parable that
Jesus tells, and it’s one of his kingdom parables. It’s one
of those parables where he says, the kingdom of heaven is like,
and do you remember, I don’t have all the details in my head,
it’s been a little while since I’ve read it, but do you remember
the issue is, do you have enough oil in your lamp? to be ready
when the bridegroom comes. And that’s one of the things
we really need to remember is, are we ready for the coming of
our bridegroom? And that’s Jesus. Because he
has promised to come. And he has promised to take us
back with him as a groom takes his bride back to his home. And
he’s promised to take us there where we will live with him forever
and ever. He has provided the way for us to secure that his
coming ensures our going. That is faith in Jesus Christ.
That is faith in the one who alone can wash us and sanctify
us and make us wedding ready. So one of the things we might
think about as we worship next door every week is that’s like
the bride’s chambers. We’re not in there having our
hair curled. I have seen somebody clip their nails in church before,
not here, but somewhere else. a little grooming. But that room
is where God is getting us ready. It’s where God is getting us
ready for the coming of Jesus, the Great Groom. And He’s washing
us with His Word. He’s getting all the things that are
unfit, fit so that we can be ready for the glorious presence
of Almighty God. He’s sanctifying us. But the
real thing we need to think about We all know the Lord Jesus. I
think we all have faith. If we don’t, we need to come
to faith in Jesus, that’s for sure. But we need to think about
the coming of Jesus. I don’t think we think about
it very much. We think about getting up and going to work.
We think about fixing our hair or going to the grocery store,
making sure something’s on our list. We need to look up to the
sky a little more because there’s gonna be a wonderful arrival
of Jesus. and he is gonna, with great and
loud shouts and a processional, take all his saints back to heaven.
And this psalm helps us think on that. Let’s pray together.
Our gracious God and Lord, we thank you for these words that
help remind us of the wonderful truth that Jesus is our king
and that we are his bride being made ready by the washing of
the word and the spirit to be prepared for his coming. And
Lord, we can’t wait till you come. of the apostles and the
saints before us, Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus. We’re ready,
we’re anxious. The weight of life in this world
weighs down upon us. The weight of the things we read
of in the news and the suffering of your saints has gone on long
enough, so we say, come, Lord Jesus. But until you, Terry,
make us more and more ready to meet Jesus, our great king and
our great husband. In his name we pray, amen.