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The Beauty of Christ

Jim Butler · 2011-03-27 · Psalm 45 · 5,878 words · 39 min

Let me turn in your Bibles to 
Psalm 45. Psalm 45. I alluded to this psalm 
this morning and I figured it would be a good thing to look 
at this psalm in more detail tonight by way of some extended 
application of our message this morning. God the Father said 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is my beloved son in whom I am 
well pleased. To that end, God's people should 
be well pleased with the Lord Jesus. Those who have not come 
to Christ ought to be well pleased with the Lord Jesus and believe 
on him for the salvation of their souls. Well, Psalm 45 is a psalm 
written to celebrate the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll 
pick up reading in verse one to the chief musician set to 
the lilies, a contemplation of the sons of Korah. A song of 
love. My heart is overflowing with 
a good theme. I recite my composition concerning 
the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready 
writer. You are fairer than the sons 
of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. 
Therefore, God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword upon 
your thigh, O mighty one, with your glory and your majesty. 
And in your majesty, ride prosperously because of truth, humility and 
righteousness. And your right hand shall teach 
you awesome things. 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. A scepter of righteousness 
is the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate 
wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, has 
anointed you. with the oil of gladness more 
than your companions. All your garments are scented 
with myrrh and aloes and cashew out of the ivory palaces by which 
they have made you glad. King's daughters are among your 
honorable men. At your right hand stands the 
queen in gold from Ophir. Listen, O daughter, consider 
and incline your ear. Forget your own people also in 
your father's house. So the king will greatly desire 
your beauty. Because he is your Lord, worship 
him and the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift. The rich 
among the people will seek your favor. The royal daughter is 
all glorious within the palace. Her clothing is woven with gold. 
She shall be brought to the king in robes of many colors. The 
virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to you 
with gladness and rejoicing. They shall be brought. They shall 
enter the king's palace. Instead of your father shall 
be your sons, whom you shall make princes in all the earth. 
I will make your name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore, 
the people shall praise you forever and ever. Amen. Let us pray. Father, thank you for your word. 
Thank you for the testimony of the psalmist to our beloved Lord 
Jesus. We thank you that he is indeed 
fairer than the sons of men, that he is altogether lovely 
and chief among ten thousand. God help us to appreciate him 
even more as we look at this psalm tonight, and we ask in 
his most blessed name, Amen. Well, I will refer to C.H. Spurgeon 
throughout the message this evening. He has a wonderful three-volume, 
or at least it's published in three volumes, commentary on 
the psalms. It's called The Treasury of David. 
If you don't have that, it's a good one to get. I can also 
find it online. But as well, he speaks of the 
subject of the psalm. Who is the psalmist writing about? He writes, Some here see Solomon 
and Pharaoh's daughter only. They are short-sighted. Others 
see both Solomon and Christ. They are cross-eyed, well-focused, 
spiritualized, see here Jesus only. We have divine commentary, 
ultimately, and interpretation in Hebrews 1, verse 8, that this 
psalm is, in fact, about the Lord of glory, even Jesus Christ, 
our Savior. So let us look at four things, 
or four observations, with reference to this psalm. First, the beauty 
of the Savior stated, verses 1 and 2. Secondly, we'll notice 
the beauty of the Savior in his person. Thirdly, the beauty of 
the Savior in His attributes or perfections, and fourthly, 
the beauty of the Savior in His works. Very often when theologians 
discuss the Lord Jesus, they break down that discussion into 
His person, who He is as God-man, and into His works. what he accomplishes 
in terms of his redemptive activity. So, that's sort of the framework 
that we're approaching this. So, the beauty stated, the beauty 
of the Savior in his person, the beauty of the Savior in his 
attributes, and then, fourthly, the beauty of the Savior in his 
works. Notice, first, the intention 
of the poet. He says, my heart is overflowing 
with a good theme. Again, that's how we ought to 
study the Scripture. We ought to want to fuel our 
hearts in such a way that it overflows in praise and adoration 
to our great and living God. We ought to be so filled with 
the knowledge of Holy Scripture that we can't help but praise 
the Lord Jesus. That it would be overflowing, 
that it would be coming out, that it would be venting forth. 
He says, I recite my composition concerning the king. My tongue 
is the pen of a ready writer. Spurgeon says it is a sad thing 
when the heart is cold with good matter. It is a sad thing when 
the heart is cold with good matter. We have good matter. And, unfortunately, 
very often we have cold hearts. He says it is worse when it is 
warm with bad matter. In other words, heretics oftentimes 
evidence a great zeal. But he goes on to say it is incomparably 
well when a warm heart and good matter meet together. That ought 
to be our prayer with reference to the truth of Christianity. The overflowing heart here could 
also be translated boils or bubbles up. It denotes the language of 
the heart, full and ready for utterance. It's like that soup 
on the stove. If you leave it unattended, what 
happens? It bubbles up. It ultimately 
bubbles over. That's the picture of God. He is bubbling over with joy 
in terms of his meditation and his contemplation of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. His heart was so warm and so 
filled that he could not contain it. He takes a pen and he writes 
down these meditations concerning the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. His theme is indicated here in 
verse two. He says, You are fairer than 
the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you 
forever. The Hebrew word here is double. 
Literally, it would be you are fairer Or, you are beautiful, 
beautiful. One lexicon describes it as, 
you are the fairest, or thou art more beautiful than. He is speaking superlatively. 
He is speaking about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. His 
heart cannot contain itself. He takes his pen to paper and 
he writes about the fairest Lord Jesus Christ. Again, Spurgeon 
says Jesus is so emphatically lovely that words must be doubled, 
strained, yea, exhausted before he can be described. You'll see 
that with the Apostle Paul. Sometimes you study his particular 
epistles and you look at some of the better commentaries and 
they say this word was never used in a previous place. It's 
as if the apostle coined the word so that he could speak of 
the glory of Jesus Christ. Paul puts prepositions together 
in such a way that he can describe super abounding grace. I mean, 
it's pretty amazing when your God is so good that you have 
to start stringing together words in your language to begin to 
do justice to just how glorious he is. That's the thrust here. That's the flow here. That's 
the theme. You are fairer than the sons 
of men, just like that pronouncement from that voice out of heaven. 
This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Spurgeon goes 
on to say, among the children of men, many have through grace 
been lovely in character, yet they have each had a flaw. But 
in Jesus, we behold every feature of a perfect character in harmonious 
proportion. That's the theme of the psalmist. 
Now, let's notice, secondly, the beauty of the Savior in his 
person. Describes Jesus as both man and God. What we call the 
theanthropic nature of our Lord Jesus. He is God and man. Here first, the humanity is stressed. Notice in verse seven, you love 
righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has 
anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. As the man Christ Jesus, God, 
the Father, was his God. As we trace through the gospel 
accounts, we see evidence of his genuine humanity. We need 
one to identify with us completely, totally, and absolutely. And Christ does that. He is a 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He weeps at the gravesite 
of Lazarus. He eats. He's thirsty. He sleeps. Christ is man. Christ is blessed humanity. Christ is the very picture of 
what we ought to be. And, of course, we have fallen 
short. That's why God sent him into this world, to fulfill all 
righteousness. The blessed man, Christ Jesus. But it doesn't stop there. He 
is also God. He is God. Notice in verse 6, 
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The psalmist is writing 
here of one who is deity. It's an amazing feat that we 
have both God and man in one person. That's the beauty and 
the uniqueness of our Lord Jesus. He is one person in two natures, 
distinct and blessed. He is God, he is man, and the 
psalmist here applies this language to his Savior. We see this, as 
I've already mentioned, in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 8. It is applied 
to Christ with reference to his deity. Spurgeon again said the 
psalmist cannot restrain his adoration. You see, this ought 
to be the point. This is what I'm hoping that 
we will see. I know it's late, or not late 
in terms of, you know, it's midnight, but we're probably all tired. 
It's the second service of the day. We heard about Jesus this 
morning. We're going to hear about Jesus 
again tonight. The point is, we need to become 
more like the psalmists. Our hearts need to be filled 
with the fire of good doctrine, that good matter. And our hearts 
warmed with that good matter ought to vent it out in praise 
and worship. We ought to be faithful witnesses. 
That's what I think is going on later in the song. He is effectively 
witnessing. We see that in the Song of Solomon 
as well. When the bridegroom, or when 
the bride rather, describes the bridegroom after highlighting 
his beauty and his glory and his majesty. Do you know what 
the daughters of Jerusalem say? Where is your beloved that we 
might find him, too? What's the implication that as 
Christian witnesses in the manner in which we speak well of our 
Jesus, hopefully others will say, where is this Jesus that 
I may find him, too? We need to bear forth that hope. 
We need to bear forth that joy. Very often, as Christians, we 
look like the most miserable lot on the face of the earth. 
There are trials. There are tribulations. There 
are miseries. There are difficulties. But brethren, 
let us pray to God that we would have something of this heart 
overflowing with a good theme, that our tongue would be the 
pen of a ready writer, that we would be prepared to ascribe 
glory and honor to our blessed Redeemer. Spurgeon says that 
the psalmist cannot restrain his adoration. His enlightened 
eye sees in the royal husband of the church. God. God to be 
adored. God reigning. God reigning everlastingly. Blessed sight. Blind are the 
eyes that cannot see God in Christ Jesus. Athanasius used this verse 
as a description of the deity of Jesus Christ. Remember Athanasius? 
Back in the church history, two A's fought over the deity of 
Christ. One A was Arius, and the other 
was Athanasius. Arius has his subjects today. Arius has his followers today. 
Arius has his disciples. They happen to be on just about 
every corner in Chilliwack. They are Jehovah's Witnesses. 
Arius taught that Jesus was created. Arius thought that Jesus was 
a creature. Arius thought that Jesus, if 
anything, was a little G-God, but he wasn't Almighty God. You'll hear that from Arius' 
followers today. Athanasius went to Psalm 45. Athanasius went to Hebrews 1, 
verse 8, to show that, in fact, Jesus Christ was indeed Almighty 
God. I love what John Piper says concerning 
this. He says what was clear to Athanasius 
was that propositions about Christ carried convictions that could 
send you to heaven or to hell. Just try to fill in some of the 
white space in this following quote. Piper is reacting against 
what's called the emerging church of the emergent church. Those 
who would denounce propositional revelation for the experience. Brethren, we need propositional 
revelation to lay our hearts upon. It is through propositional 
revelation we learn of this God-man and salvation wrought by him. 
Without propositional revelation, we are dead in our trespasses 
and sins. The biblical pattern is, believe 
the propositional revelation, and then the experience follows. We don't sacrifice revelation 
in search of the mystical. We don't sacrifice the revelation 
in search of the experience, which, unfortunately, many today 
do. He goes on to say, there were 
propositions like, there was a time when the Son of God was 
not. This is an Arian proposition. And he was not before he was 
made. And the Son of God is created. Those were the things that Athanasius 
was fighting against. He goes on to say, Piper does, 
these propositions were strictly damnable. It's important that 
we get that you deny the truth of Psalm 45 verse six or Hebrews 
one verse eight. And it is damnable. You and I 
can be wrong and are wrong in a whole bunch of theological 
matters. Right. Oh, not me, brother, I like the 
1689 that we're all wrong. We're all somewhere, got something 
big time. Hopefully when it's pointed out 
to us, we're meant enough to repent and forsake it and take 
the right path. But you cannot be wrong on certain 
truths in the scripture. You cannot miss who Jesus is. 
You cannot miss who God is in terms of triune. You cannot miss 
salvation by grace through faith. You cannot miss certain truths 
or else you will be lost in your sin. So Piper said, these propositions 
were strictly damnable. If they were spread and believed, 
they would damn the souls which embraced them, and therefore 
Athanasius labored with all his might to formulate propositions 
that would conform to reality and lead the soul to faith and 
worship and heaven. You see, sometimes you read throughout 
the history of the church, or you take a document like our 
London Baptist Confession, modeled strictly or modeled very faithfully 
with the Westminster Confession, and there is precision there. 
There is economy, there is theological formulation that at times we 
go, what's the big deal? The big deal is, this is the 
truth of God. And if we are going to seek to 
summarize that truth, we must labor to summarize it faithfully. Because souls hang in the balance. Believing error, believing heresy, 
believing false doctrine, lands a soul in hell. And especially 
like a doctrine of the Trinity, for instance. Do a bit of research 
in that and just see how at times language and words and things 
are used and described and defined. Why? So that we can hedge in 
the truth of Holy Scripture. Piper goes on to say, I believe 
Athanasius would have abominated with Tyr's the contemporary call 
for depropositionalizing. And depropositionalizing simply 
means what I've already alluded to. We don't need the propositions 
of Revelation. Just give us Jesus. We don't 
need the propositions of Scripture. Just give us experience. Well, 
you see, without those propositions, we must ask the question, which 
Jesus are you experiencing? Which Jesus do you have? Not everybody who preaches Jesus 
is necessarily preaching the Jesus of redemptive salvation 
or redemptive history. He goes on to say. That you hear 
the so-called reformists and the emerging church, younger 
evangelicals, post fundamentalists, post foundationalists, post propositionalists 
and post evangelicals. That's a whole lot of big verbiage 
there, but the point is simply this. These are the things making 
their ways within evangelical and unfortunately reformed churches. There's a move away from propositional 
truth to the experience. He is saying that Athanasius 
would have abominated this with tears. He said, I think he would 
have said our young people in Alexandria die for the truth 
of propositions about Christ. What are your young people die 
for? And if the answer came back, we die for Christ, not propositions 
about Christ. I think he would have said, that's 
what Arius says. So which Christ will you die 
for? I appreciate that quote because 
it comes from Piper. It's a beautiful statement of 
the necessity for propositional revelation. Psalm 45, verse 6, 
is just one of those. Hebrews 1, 8 is just one of those. It is an application of the name 
Theos or God to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the God-man. That is the beauty of the Savior 
in His person. There is one mediator between 
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He satisfies the requirements 
for God. He appeals or He associates and 
identifies and represents His people. He is everything a sinner 
needs in terms of His person. Thirdly, look at the beauty of 
the Savior and His attributes. Or his perfections, we might 
say. These are things that we attribute to Christ. Things that 
make him glorious and beautiful. Notice that he is eloquent. He 
is eloquent. You are fairer than the sons 
of men. Verse two. Grace is poured upon your lips. He spoke like never a man spoke 
before. Remember at the very end of the 
Sermon on the Mount, what happened within the crowd? They were amazed. He taught not like others. He 
taught not like the rabbis and the scribes of his day, but rather 
he taught as one having authority. Do you realize when we hear the 
word of Christ, we hear the one who has absolute authority, is 
eloquent, revealed in the propositions, revealed in the invitations, 
revealed in the gospel, revealed in his blessed statements concerning 
life everlasting. Luke 4. I alluded to that this 
morning. Jesus is in a synagogue in Nazareth. He takes the scroll. He reads 
Isaiah 61. He hands the scroll back to the 
attendant. And he says, today, this scripture 
is fulfilled in your hearing. What happens? The people marvel 
at the words that drip from his mouth. And then he begins to 
speak about election. And then they want to throw him 
off a hill. Kind of an interesting juxtaposition there, right? They're 
like, wow, we love what he has to say. We love those blessed 
honey words that are dropping from his lips. And then he begins 
to speak of judgment upon Israel. He alludes to Elisha, the widow 
that he visited, and they understand what he is getting at. So they 
want to throw him off of a hill. kind of an interesting thing. 
Don't be surprised if in your gospel witness at times people 
are going, wow, that's pretty amazing, the way and the manner 
in which you're speaking that. That's beautiful what you say. 
And then you put a thumb on their particular sin and they get really 
upset. You see, they'll like it as long 
as you sound like a beautiful instrument that doesn't affect 
them personally. But as you begin to apply the 
implications of the gospel, that's what gets people upset. That 
Jesus is eloquent. Secondly, he is blessed of God. 
It says that in verse 2. Therefore, God has blessed you 
forever. That's a great statement, isn't 
it? Lord, bless me, bless my family, bless my friends, bless 
our local church. This is a standing blessing. 
God has blessed his son forever. This is my beloved son in whom 
I am well pleased. I have set my blessing on him 
forever. What does blessing mean? Blessing 
in one sense means happy. It's a happy Lord, a happy Savior, 
who for the joy that was set before him. Now, of course, he 
was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief on this side of glory. We get this idea that Jesus is 
up there in heaven, just sort of agonizing. He's a thrilled 
Savior. All the things described with 
reference to the fruits of the Spirit are true of all three 
persons of the triune God. He's joyful. In 1 Timothy, the 
Apostle Paul speaks of the blessed God, the happy God. We must not 
forget that. Thirdly, an attribute that we 
ought to appreciate is that he is mighty. Verse 3, gird your 
sword upon your thigh, O mighty one. Why is Jesus our king or 
why do we need a king? We need defense. We need protection. And this mighty one is able to 
deliver. I truly believe that this is 
the passage or at least some of the backdrop for what we find 
in Revelation 19. When we have that view of Christ 
there in verses 11 to 16, he's riding on this white horse. He rides prosperously because 
of truth, humility, and righteousness. He wages war on behalf of his 
people. He is our defender. He is our 
redeemer. He is our protector. He is our 
friend. The omnipotence of Christ, the 
almighty power of Christ, the fact that he is able to save 
to the uttermost all who draw near unto God through him. Fourthly, 
He is glorious. He is glorious. That's what we 
find there in verse 3. With your glory and your majesty. What is glory? You know, we talk 
a lot about that, don't we? To the praise and the glory of 
His grace. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things 
to whom be glory now and forever. Amen. Have you ever stopped and 
thought, why should I want this to be the case? this idea of 
glory. I think glory speaks of at least 
two things. Position. He's exalted to the 
right hand of God Most High. He's in the place of absolute 
sovereignty and royal authority. That is glorious. Position and 
prestige. He is altogether lovely and chief 
among 10,000. It's interesting in Isaiah, the 
Prophet, 42, 8 and 48, 11. God the Father says in my glory, 
I will not share with another. And yet the apostle Peter can 
speak of Jesus being glorified. The New Testament speaks of Jesus 
being glorified. How could that ever be the case? 
Unless there is unity of person. Unless there is identity. Unless, 
as Jesus said, I and my Father are one. Fifthly, Jesus is majestic. That's what he says in verse 
three. With your glory and your majesty. You want to get a view 
of the majesty of Christ? If not right now, sometime this 
week, turn to Isaiah, the prophet, chapter six. In the year the 
king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord exalted. I saw 
the train of his robe fill the temple. You know, that just speaks 
of majesty. You know, they talk about a bride 
on the day of her wedding. She's got the thunder. She's 
got the thunder. She is decked out. She looks 
beautiful. She has the majesty in that particular 
arena. And, well, it should be. She's 
got that train of her robe that oftentimes attendants need to 
pick up so that they don't knock things down, so that they don't 
trip and fall. That's what the prophet says. 
I saw the train of his robe filling the entirety of the temple. What's 
he trying to highlight for you? Is he trying to get you to say, 
wow, that's kind of a cool train of his robe? No, he wants you 
to go, he's majestic. He's awesome. He's glorious. He's beautiful. My heart is so 
full right now, I have to praise and worship. You read that in 
Isaiah 6 and you hear the antipodal praise of those angels crying, 
holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Join them. Pray that 
with them. Participate alongside of them. If angels who have to cover their 
faces say this in the presence of the glorified Jesus, certainly 
we, as redeemed sinners, should say the same thing. He is majestic. Sixthly, he is righteous. Verses four, six, and seven. He is righteous. That is blessed. Christ is our righteousness. He is holy, harmless, and undefiled. As we saw this morning, he fulfills 
all righteousness for the sake of his people. By one man's obedience, 
so the many are constituted as righteous. That's a better translation 
than what is said in the New King James. The many are made 
righteous. The many are made righteous has 
the idea of transformation of life, transformation of character, 
transformation of our way of living. That happens in sanctification, 
but Romans 5.19 is about justification. We are constituted righteous 
through that one man's act of obedience. The entirety of his 
life is characterized as righteousness. So, those are just six attributes 
or perfections of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then, fourthly and 
finally, the beauty of the Savior in his works. He wages war. Isn't that what the text said? 
And in your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility and 
righteousness. Isn't that what we see depicted 
there in Revelation 19? Who is Jesus at war with? Well, 
in Revelation 19, it's the beast and the false prophet, whom he 
destroys, by the way, just like that. You know, we get so into 
this beast and this false prophet. We spend countless hours and 
days and times and books and charts and conferences to try 
to figure out who this beast and false prophet are. Do you 
know that their disposal is recorded in about two verses? That's it. It's done. He kills them. He 
destroys them. He throws them into the lake of fire. The beast 
and the false prophet aren't the stars of the book of Revelation. Jesus is. The fact that he disposes 
of them so quickly just highlights this truth of what the Psalter 
is stating here. And in your majesty, ride prosperously 
because of truth, humility, and righteousness. Not only the beast 
and the false prophet, he's at war with our sin. He sends the 
spirit. He supplies what we need. He 
is in the business of transforming his people by the spirit, in 
the work of sanctification. Our Lord Jesus deals graciously 
and gloriously with us, and he is engaged in a war designed 
to advance his glorious kingdom. That is what we need to remember. 
I love what Dale Ralph Davis says concerning this king. He 
says the popular image of Jesus as that he is not only kind and 
tender, but also soft and prissy. We need this. You know, you've 
got this idea of Jesus, right? He's the soft, tender, prissy 
savior that sort of just dances around Palestine and just, you 
know, wants to bless people. He says, as though Jesus comes 
to us reeking of hand cream. He says such a Jesus can hardly 
steal the soul that is daily assaulted by the enemy. We need 
to learn the catechism of Psalm 24. Question, who is the king 
of glory? Answer, Yahweh, strong and mighty. Yahweh, mighty in battle. We 
must catch the vision of the faithful and true sitting on 
the white horse, the one who judges and makes war in righteousness. No mild God or soft Jesus can 
give his people hope. It is only as we know the warrior 
of Israel who fights for us, and sometimes without us, that 
we have hope of triumphing in the muck of life. Amen a hundredfold. Ride prosperously because of 
truth, humility, and righteousness. That is what our Lord Jesus does. And notice in the psalm, he not 
only wages war, but he is victorious in this war. I mean, would you 
want to follow a general that could wage war but lost? You 
wouldn't sign up for that. Think about Pharaoh's army. When 
those chariot wheels fell off and they were in the Red Sea 
and the walls of water, I bet they were scratching their heads 
at that moment saying, why did we follow this man? You ever 
think about that? I know I've said this before, 
kids, but those water, those walls of water were up in such 
a way they could probably see the fish in there. It was an 
amazing scene. God opens up the river. The people 
of God pass through. Their feet are dry as they pass 
through. Pharaoh gives chase, the army 
follows, they go in there, and the first thing that happens 
is their chariot wheels fall off. What a precarious position 
to be in. I imagine a few of them just 
started running. This doesn't look good. This 
can't be good. We just had our chariot in the 
shop. I watched them with the torque wrench. They put that 
wheel on very well. There's no reason that should 
have fallen off. Except the God of Israel. We 
just buried our firstborn, whom the Lord God of Israel killed. 
We just put them in the ground. We didn't listen. We rejected. We followed a madman. And then 
we've actually followed him into this position. And now our wheels 
have fallen off. God causes this water to collapse. The waging of war in and of itself 
is not a noble task. It is the waging of war in which 
the victor is Christ, that is the noble task. And this is highlighted 
here in several instances. He has dirt upon his sword, his 
guard, his sword upon his thigh. I take that as the word of God. 
When you compare that sword that proceeds out of the mouth of 
Christ in the book of Revelation, talking about the word It is 
by his word and by his spirit that he advances the kingdom. 
In verse four, in meekness and humility, which characterized 
his earthly ministry, culminating in his death. Who would have 
thought that lowly one riding into Jerusalem on the donkey, 
on the fall, on the colt? Who would have thought he was 
advancing the kingdom? You would have seen that spectacle 
that day and said, look at that strange fellow. He's coming into 
Jerusalem. And instead of being on a stallion, 
instead of guns blazing, instead of everything that man would 
consider victorious, he comes in this lowly fashion. It is 
in that meekness. It is in that humility. It is 
in that lowly condition that he secures for us our salvation. 
Verse four, and the righteousness necessary to fulfill God's law 
and serve as a perfect sacrifice. and verse five. Notice what it 
says. Your arrows are sharp in the 
heart of the king's enemies. The people's fall under you. 
Anybody acquainted with guns or arrows or any sort of martial 
combat will tell you center mass is where you aim. You know, we 
got to get the head shot. Now you go for center mass. You 
go for the vitals. When you go out shooting animals, 
you don't aim for the head or the hind quarters. You aim for 
center mass. That's what's in view here. Your 
arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples 
fall under you. There's two ideas there. He subdues 
us by his word. He takes that arrow of his word 
and he sends it into our heart. He brings conviction. He humbles 
us under his mighty hand. He causes us to see his glory. 
He causes us to believe that gospel and be saved. But conversely, 
there are peoples who will fall under him because they did not 
believe. They did not look to Him. They 
did not come to the Lord Jesus that they may be saved. This 
morning, I left you with the thought. Go home today and consider, 
do you love Jesus? Is He, in fact, the beloved one? 
Ask yourself, as a result of looking at Psalm 45, how do I 
fall under Christ? Is it in submission by His grace, 
through faith in Christ alone? Or is it ultimately going to 
be? He will lower that holy foot upon me. The scripture says that 
he must reign till all of his enemies are made his footstool. 
Are you going to be crushed in that manner? Or have you, by 
God's grace, been crushed now? Believe on him and then take 
this psalm. Get it in your heart and be like 
the psalmist. And for those of us who, by God's 
grace, have believed, let us strive to be more like this psalmist. 
to have more of a fondness, more of a love, more of an adoration, 
more of a worship toward our Lord Jesus. May it be the case 
for those of us who couldn't write poetry, if our lives depended 
on it, to say my heart is overflowing with a good theme. I recite my 
composition concerning the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready 
writer. Let us pour it out and pray a prayer. Let us pour it 
out in our worship. Let us pour it out in our witness. 
Let us seek by God's good grace to promote this blessed savior. Well, let us pray. Father, thank 
you for your word and thank you for the continual emphasis upon 
the glory of Jesus Christ in the scripture. We thank you for 
that statement from the voice of heaven in Matthew 317. We 
thank you for the psalmist and what he ascribes to our Lord 
in this passage. God, the rest of the Bible is 
so full of description and of attribution and of things concerning 
our Lord. I pray that all of us would take 
your word. We would seek to hide it in our 
hearts and that we would return praise and glory and honor unto 
you. We ask now, Father, that you would go with us in this 
coming week. We pray that you'd watch over your people. We pray, 
Father, that you would be with your saints in their trials and 
in their difficulties. We pray that we'd have a view 
of Jesus Christ advancing his kingdom, that this psalm would 
indeed flesh itself out in our lives with confidence and with 
zeal and with a boldness. And we just ask this now, and 
we pray that you would go with us. And we ask in Jesus' name, 
amen.