Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Psalm 110. The main subject of the sermon is the identity and work of our reigning Lord.
sermon transcript
Introduction
Please take your Bibles and open to Psalm 110. This supernatural book that you carry around with you, you don’t even realize all the things that are in here. I know I don’t, and as I continue to grow as a Christian, I’m astonished by all the light that flows from this book, and it testifies to Jesus Christ, the spirit of prophecy is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. As we look at Psalm 110, we continue our study of the messianic psalms of Psalms, which testify to Jesus Christ. So far we’ve looked in our study at Psalm 2, in which the Father says, “You are my son, today I’ve begotten you. Ask of me and I’ll give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.” He also said, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain, the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one and the one enthroned in heaven laughs.” So we see a decree in Psalm 2 that Jesus shall reign wherever the Son does His successive journeys run. That was the first one we looked at.
Then we looked at Psalm 69 which testify to the suffering life of Jesus Christ. How Jesus would be rejected by his people, he would suffer, he would be rejected by one of his closest disciples, he’d have to drink bitter gall. So this testified to his suffering earthly life. Then we spent a couple of weeks in Psalm 22, as you remember, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, the crucifixion so plainly depicted there, “you have pierced my hands and my feet.” But then the second half, so gloriously to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, that Jesus’ name would be exalted to the ends of the earth, and that there would be a banquet, and people from every tribe and language and people and nation would come and eat at that banquet, an incredible prophecy, Psalm 22. We could still be in it now with profit, there’s so much there. Then we went from that, the crucifixion, the death of Jesus, to Psalm 16 last week, the powerful resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, “You will not let your Holy One see decay.” In that one word, the testimony that that psalm did not refer to David, but to the Son of David, Jesus Christ, in that he would not see decay but would triumph over the grave, Psalm 16.
The Identity of the Messiah
Now we look at Psalm 110, which is the identity and the victory, and the priesthood of the Messiah, in which the Father invites the Son to sit at His right hand. Beginning at verse 1, it says, “The Lord said to my lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. You will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn, you will receive the dew of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand; He will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. He will drink from a brook beside the way, and therefore, He will lift His head.”
The story has often been told that the Jewish people of Jesus’ day were looking for a re-establishment of David’s throne. They had good reason to do it because God had prophesied that there would be one who would do this very thing. They were thinking about their present plight, they were hoping for the demise of the Roman Empire, little did they know that it would go on for another four centuries, that it was just coming into its power. When Jesus was born, the first emperor, the first mighty extender of Roman power, Caesar Augustus, was at his heyday, and so the Roman Empire had a long, long way to go, but they didn’t know it and they had hopes, and their hopes were based on some dusty old scrolls and some prophecies about a Messiah that would come. The focus was on the title, Son of David. They were looking for a Son of David to come and re-establish David’s throne.
They were a dominated people, and they were wary of Rome’s crushing ascendancy, of the tax collectors and the burden, and just seeing Roman troops walking through their streets who could exert their will at any time and take anything that they wanted. The Roman rule was strangling the life from Israel, and they cried out to God, “How long, O Lord, would it be till the Son of David came at last?” In thinking about the Son of David, they were thinking of an ancient kingdom, for David’s rule over Israel a thousand years before this time was really Israel’s golden era. There was more prosperity under Solomon, and then there were other godly kings that came, but there was no one like David, a man after God’s own heart, who loved God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength; except in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah. David walked in the ways of God and sought to obey his covenant. There’s was an ancient kingdom, and they were looking forward to the Son of David re-establishing those days, a glorious throne, a glorious time, a time of wealth and prosperity, in which God would miraculously bless his people and the Gentiles would be crushed and pushed off to the side.
They wanted another king like David to come. David was a godly man, and there came a time when David was sitting in his palace of cedar, smelling that sweet smell, the paneling, and he thought, “Here I am in a palace of cedar and God’s Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, is in a tent, an ancient tent. I think I’d like to build him a temple. I want to build a house for God.” God spoke to Nathan the prophet and said, “Tell David this, ‘You want to build a house for me, but I will build a house for you. I will establish your throne.’” 2 Samuel 7:16, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever.” What a promise, that David would never lack a man to sit on his throne, and that his throne and his kingdom will be established forever. Four hundred years later, Isaiah the prophet came along and prophesied and predicted that this would continue for he said, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Listen to verse 7, “Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne.” Did you hear that? He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Isaiah the prophet, seeing a time when David’s throne will be established forever. So they weren’t without reason to be waiting for the Son of David to come and establish his throne. Faithful Jews were waiting for the consolation of Israel, the Son of David, to raise up the shattered throne of King David, and sit on it once again. He would be powerful to defeat his enemies, and no one would be able to stand before him. And along came Jesus Christ, and as he ministered, and as he began to do miracles and do astonishing things and speak and teach in a way that no one had ever heard before, they began to wonder and speculation came around.
A couple of blind men sitting by the side of the road hear that Jesus is walking by, [Matthew 9:27], and they call out to him, “Have mercy on us, Son of David,” they said. Jesus is the Son of David, so they thought. Matthew 12:22 and 23, “They brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him so that he could both talk and see, and all the people were astonished and asked, Could this be the Son of David?” So they thought Jesus might be the Son of David. [Matthew 15], “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and a Canaanite woman, a non-Jew, a Gentile, calling out to him, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus heals and heals and heals one after the other, and they’re thinking, “I think this is the Son of David, it’s got to be. Where else does his power come from?” It came to an apex at the triumphal entry in Matthew 21:9, “The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David.”
Do you know what Hosanna means? “Do it now, save now Lord, now is the time, establish your throne Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. He’s got to be the Son of David.” Oh, was Jesus the Son of David? What’s the very first fact you learn about Jesus in the New Testament? [Matthew 1:1], a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. Right from the start, Matthew tells us, he is the Son of David. No question about that, and Matthew goes on to establish the fact by the genealogy. I’m sure all of you have read it devotionally time and time again, the genealogy is so rich with prophetic fulfillment. “You will never lack a man to sit on the throne.” Forty-two generations, he lists there in Matthew 1, he is the Son of David. But they missed something else, something in the message that Gabriel had given, in Luke chapter 1, the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.”
What does that mean, Son of God? But that’s not all Gabriel said, “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David.” The blending together of the physical descendants through David, that he is the Son of David, and also the fact that Jesus was the Son of the Most High, the incarnation established in Gabriel’s message. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end. Yes, he was the Son of David, but also the Son of God Most High. The people were waiting for a human king, another David to reign over the Romans. Their dreams seem ludicrous to the world-dominating Romans, some tiny Palestinian state’s going to rule the whole world. It never happened. What a dream. Were the Jews dreaming? Absolutely. But it turns out in the words of a Michael Card song, “their wildest dreams had simply not been wild enough.” There would come a king who would re-establish David’s throne but he would not just be the Son of David, he would be the Son of the Living God.
There came a time that Jesus wanted to puncture this misunderstanding. All of his enemies and adversaries had been gathering around him asking him tough questions. They stayed up all night thinking of these questions, questions on divorce and why, that one? To get him in trouble with Herod who had divorced his wife to marry his brother’s wife. They wanted to see the same thing happen to Jesus, that happened to John the Baptist. Jesus handled that scripturally. Then the Sadducees asked him a question about the resurrection, trying to trip him up in the Law of Moses. Jesus handled that one as well. They asked him a question about which is the greatest commandment? Jesus handled that one. They asked him a tough question about taxation. Who are they trying to get him in trouble with there? The Romans. Jesus said, “Show me a coin. Whose portrait is on it? Caesar’s. Well, give to Caesar what Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.” Astonishing! He handled every question. He said, “Now, I’ve got a question for you?” He didn’t say it, but in effect said. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 110, I’ve got a question for you. I’d like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to Matthew 22 and look at this account. Put your finger in Psalm 110 and look over at Matthew 22. In Matthew 22:41-46, Jesus poses a tough question. It says, “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’” Stock answer comes back, “Son of David,” they replied. “Well, how is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’ for he says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.’ If then David calls him ‘Lord’ how can he be his son?” Look at the aftermath. No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. Amazing! The infinite brilliance of Jesus Christ, but it all had been written in Scripture a thousand years before he’s even born.
Let’s try to understand the “Son of David”, and let’s do it scripturally. As you look at Jesus’ question, he makes three assumptions, and we can learn so much about the handling of Scripture by looking at how Jesus did it. Can I say in the midst of all kinds of controversies over Baptist faith and message in Scripture and all that, can we just simply come to the conviction that whatever Jesus’ attitude towards Scripture should be ours as well? We’ll just have Jesus’ attitude towards Scripture. Jesus made three assumptions here, didn’t he? Assumption number one, David wrote Psalm 110. David wrote it, and as a matter of fact, the whole argument falls to the ground if David didn’t write it. For any Israelite, any Jewish person could call the Messiah my Lord, but it’s a kind of a different thing when David calls his own descendant, “my Lord.” The whole thing falls apart if David didn’t write Psalm 110. Assumption number one. By the way, modern critical scholarship will say, “Ridiculous, we know better, we know David didn’t write Psalm 110. It came in during the post-exilic period”, and all that, oh, my goodness, the things you read. You know that African spiritual, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Were they there when the psalm was written? David wrote this psalm and you know how I know it? Jesus said so. In 1889, Bishop Gore, an Anglican bishop, comes up with a kenosis theory, an emptying theory about Jesus. He said Jesus was stripped of his divine capabilities when he took on a human body, and the reason we know that is he thought that Psalm 110 was written by David, saying that, “Jesus is limited in his knowledge, and that’s… We’ve got to account for his errors here. We know better, we German higher scholastics, and we have studied this matter, and we know that David could not have written the psalm.” But we’re believers in Jesus Christ, and Jesus said David wrote it, end of story. And it’s not just a side issue, I contend that his whole argument falls to the ground if David didn’t write it.
Assumption number two. David wrote this psalm under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Where do we get that? In verse 43, he said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’ ?” What does this mean? It means David didn’t make a mistake. He wasn’t wrong in calling him Lord. It wasn’t just a flight of fancy or some confusing moment for David. The Word had been handed him, Adonai had been handed David and he wrote it down. You must understand, it says in 2 Peter that prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. David spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Assumption number three, that in Psalm 110, David’s writing, he was speaking about the Christ. “What do you think about the Christ?” Jesus asks. “Whose son is he?’ Son of David. “Then how is it that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him, namely, ‘the Christ, Lord’?” These are Christ’s three assumptions about Psalm 110, they must be yours as well if you’re a believer in Christ. If we accept these then we start to get drawn into the stunning nature of Jesus’ argument here, because the Jews were making some assumptions as well. Assumption number one is that the Son of David was the fulfiller of the David covenant, the Davidic covenant. Therefore, the Son of David would pattern his reign after David’s earthly throne. But beyond that, there was an assumption of patriarchal rule. The Father is always greater than the Son. You can see that. They can’t understand this. Ordinarily, it will be true. Can you imagine David calling Solomon his son, “my Lord”? As a matter of fact, the Scripture indicates that Solomon was called David’s servant. If anything, Solomon would have called David “my lord.” No, he called him “my father David” in almost every case. The fact of the matter is, the Scripture in the Ten Commandments says, “Honor your father and mother.” It’s never backward, the parents are not to honor the children but the children, the parents. So there is an assumption here that the Father is greater than the Son. So it’s troubling that David would call his own son, his physical descendant, “lord.” That’s an odd thing. As a matter of fact, it’s a supernaturally odd thing, and that’s the context of Christ’s penetrating question. If then David calls him “Lord,” how can he be his son?
What is going on then with the Son of David if David’s calling him “lord?” Now it’s very interesting. Jesus never used the title Son of David in regards to himself. As a matter of fact, this is the only time he talks about the Son of David, and he does it in a penetrating way. What did Jesus usually call himself? The “son of man.” Now, God willing, our next sermon series will be in the book of Daniel. Wait till we get to Daniel 7. There is nowhere I believe in all of the Old Testament that the deity of the coming Messiah is as clearly revealed as in this Son of Man. Jesus was God in the flesh, and this is not just a piece of theological lumber or luggage that we carry around. This is the center and core of our faith. If He’s not God, we have no eternal life, we have no salvation. Jesus wants to penetrate to the very identity. He goes beyond that to the proclamation of the Lord. Verse 1, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.” Who is it that’s giving this invitation? God himself, the Eternal God of the universe, and he’s saying, “Messiah, come and sit at my right hand, from whence you will rule the universe.” A double testimony therefore to the deity of the Messiah.
The right hand is a position of ultimate power and authority, the right hand blessed the firstborn son, when Jacob went to bless Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, he crossed his hands and put his right hand on Ephraim’s head, the second-born, and Joseph was very distressed. “No, my father, this is the first-born,” he said, “I know, he’ll be blessed too,” but he put his right hand on the second-born because it’s a position of preeminence, the right hand. It symbolizes also God’s power over his enemies. After Pharaoh’s army had been destroyed in the Red Sea, Miriam and the others sang a song, [Exodus 15] “Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic and power. Your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy”, the right hand, a demonstration of God’s power over his enemies. The right hand also symbolizes close access to the throne, we speak in this way of someone’s right-hand man, somebody who’s real close to the power, the seat of power. Last Sunday evening when we were talking about somebody sitting at Jesus’ right hand and somebody’s sitting at his left in his kingdom, James and John, wanted access, one of those positions of power. They wanted to get close. In effect, the Father saying of the son, “No one is closer to me than this.” It says in Romans 8:34, “Jesus Christ, who died more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us.” He has that access to the Father. More than 20 times in the New Testament, it says that Jesus ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father, the right hand of God. And so Jesus sits on God’s right hand, and he’s at God’s right hand that his enemies may be destroyed, and this leads us to the irresistible advance of Christ’s kingdom. The identity is clear. Christ, the Messiah, is God, He’s the Son of God. He’s somebody worthy of David’s worship. David will worship His Son and honor Him and give Him praise. He is God in the flesh.
The Victory of the Messiah
But then we see the irresistible advance of the kingdom. In verse 1, he says, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” This is the Father’s zeal for his Son’s glory. The Father is aflame with zeal for the glory of the son, just as the son was aflame with zeal for the glory of the Father. Jesus lived and breathed, and even died for the glory of the Father. And now the Father lives for the glory of the son. “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” What is this footstool? What is this putting enemies under the feet? In the ancient Near East, when a king would conquer his enemies, the kings that were conquered would come and lay down on the ground, and the conquering general, the conquering king, would put his foot on the neck of his adversaries showing total domination over them. We see this in Joshua 10. Joshua says, “Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to me. So they brought the five kings out of the cave, the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon. And when they had brought these kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had come with him, Come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings. So they came forward and placed their feet on their necks, and Joshua said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous.’” This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight. So when in fact the father is saying, “they’re all, every last one of them, are going submit to you Christ, every last one of them are going to come and become a footstool for your feet.”
And by the way, this picture of total submission works for us as well. Who is our gravest enemy now? Is it not the devil? The roaring lion who seeks someone to devour. Romans 16:20 says, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Aren’t you looking forward to putting your foot on his neck? I’m looking forward to that moment. It’s going to be special. But he’s our enemy, and all of Christ’s enemies will receive this kind of treatment, this is the zeal of God to crush Christ’s enemies, and it’s burning with the brightest, brightest flame. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this, it says in Isaiah 9:7, “Because Jesus was willing to take on a human body and give himself even to death on a cross, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father,” and the Father’s zeal is going to advance the scepter.
In verse 2 he says, “The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, and you will rule in the midst of your enemies.” When I was on a mission trip in Kenya, I saw the President of Kenya. He drove by, I was in a small village called Moi’s Bridge. As the president was driving by, he waved to me… I think it was because I was the only non-Kenyan in the crowd. You can imagine why I would stand out. But he pointed at me, and he waved. I saw that he had a stick in his hand, and I asked the Kenyan pastor about it, and he said, “That’s Mzee’s stick. Mzee means ruler, an elder, a leader.” It was a symbol of his authority. Whoever was president would get to hold the stick, it’s a symbol of authority, and so it is with this. God is going to take your scepter and extend it to the ends of the earth. You will rule in the midst of your enemies, and it’s in the midst of enemies. Christ’s kingdom is presently surrounded by enemies, godless governments, including our own, unbelieving people, false religious systems, materialistic forces, worldly philosophies, and behind all of it the devil himself. The father is going to extend Christ’s reign despite all of this adversarial opposition. In verse 3 we come in, your troops, it says in the NIV, “Your troops will be willing on your day of battle.” Literally, it says, “Your people will be willing in the day of your power.” The context here is definitely of the advance of a kingdom, and we who have believed in Jesus Christ, we are His people, and we will be, it says, willing, when he needs us, willing on the day of battle to say, “Yes sir, whatever you command, I will do. I want to advance your kingdom, I’m available for you.”
No one who is enlisted in the army does anything except to please his commanding officer. Anything the commanding officer asks, he will do, and it says of them, “They are arrayed in holy Majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of youth.” You can picture a mighty strong energetic army ready to go, willing on the day of Christ’s battle. Stop and ask yourself, “Am I willing on the day of His battle? Am I available as a warrior for Christ?” We’ll talk about that more in a minute. Our king is a mighty warrior. Verse five through seven talk about his final victory, the victory is predicted and described, saying, “The Lord is at your right hand, He will crush kings on the day of his wrath, He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth, He will drink from the brook beside the way, therefore He will lift up his head.”
The Father’s power now is available to the Son, the Father is now at the Son’s right hand, ready to conquer His enemies. Victory is secure and the kings are assembled, and they will one after the other, submit to the reign of the Son. Now we’re seeing that over 2000 years of history, all those that have opposed Christ, they’re vanquished one after the other, but there will come a day in the future when all the remaining kings will be assembled at a place called Armageddon. It says in Revelation 16:16, “Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” All the nations who opposed Christ and raged against him, assembled for destruction and that destruction is described, [Revelation 19], “When the Son Jesus Christ returns on a white charger for glory and for victory, and they will crown him at that point with the crown of all the nations. His kingdom will endure forever.”
That’s what happens to his adversaries. The final image in Psalm 110 is that He will drink from a brook beside the way, and therefore He will lift up his head. Victory is complete, Christ reigns and He’s satisfied. He enjoys that drink. The battle’s over. We’ve established the identity of the king, the coming Messiah, He is God in the flesh, we have talked about the extension of his reign, his scepter going out from Zion, that’s Jerusalem, to the ends of the earth, and then the final victory over his enemies. The Kings arranged and then crushed, conquered in heaps, and then he drinks a deep satisfying drink, the victory is his.
The Priesthood of the Messiah
We skipped one verse. Did you notice? Verse 4. Right in the middle of this comes a strange prediction. “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” What in the world is this? I grew up in the Catholic church, and every week I heard about the gifts offered by your servant Abel, and the bread and wine offered by Melchizedek. Who is Melchizedek you may be asking, who is Melchizedek? Right in the middle of Psalm 110, this is an immensely important verse. Why do I say that? Because an entire chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews 7 is dedicated to this one verse, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” Now, up to this point, we’ve been thinking about Jesus as a king, but now he comes in as a priest, He’s not just a king, but a priest and his priesthood is established by the will of the Father. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. Established by an oath, it is unchangeable, and it is eternal. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. The writer to Hebrews points out that the Levitical priesthood was not an eternal priesthood, each priest reigned until he died. But if we could have a priest who could conquer death, now he could be an eternal priest, and so Jesus through His resurrection has gained for himself an eternal priesthood in the order of Melchizedek. Now, who is Melchizedek? Genesis 14 says, “Then Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought out bread and wine, he was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram. Saying, Blessed be Abram by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand, then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.” There it is, we have now heard everything the Old Testament says about Melchizedek: Genesis 14, a couple of verses, and Psalm 110:4, that’s it. Yet he is the focal point of the argument of the writer to Hebrews, that Jesus is for us, a priest-king, joined together forever. Hebrews 7 says, “This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High.” He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means “king of righteousness”, then also King of Salem means King of Peace. Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, he remains like the Son of God, a priest forever. All it means is that Melchizedek just pops up in the Genesis account, does his thing, and then just disappears. It’s like, he has no beginning and no end. And so the writer to Hebrews says that Jesus’ priesthood is just like that, it’s eternal. It had no beginning, it will have no end. He’s a priest forever.
Now, this idea of a priest-king was excluded by the Old Covenant. You couldn’t have it. Remember there are three offices in the old Covenant, you’ve got prophet, you’ve got priest, you’ve got king. You could have a king who was a prophet, David was one, you could have a priest who was a prophet, Jeremiah was one, but you could not have a king who was a priest. Do you remember what happened with Solomon when he tried to offer sacrifices? That day Samuel tore the kingdom away from him because of his arrogance. Do you remember the day that godly Uzziah came in to burn incense at the altar and some courageous priest confronted him and said, “It is not right for you to be here, Uzziah. This has been given to the priest and not to the king.” And Uzziah went to strike or to shout, and God struck him with leprosy at the moment, and he had leprosy till the day he died, and they hustled him out of the temple and said indeed he was happy to go because God’s hand was against him. You cannot have a king who is a priest in the Old Covenant, and therefore we must have a new covenant, and so we do, we have a whole new covenant, and Jesus is a priest in the new covenant, an eternal priest who brings for us a sacrifice that will never end. Jesus Christ offers for us his own blood as a sacrifice, and he offers it forever. Psalm 110 depicts Jesus Christ, the triumphant messiah, coming to do a kingly work to triumph and to reign. The Jews were waiting for that. But they missed Verse 4, he had a priestly work to do first, he had to offer himself as a sacrifice, a dead sacrifice with his blood poured out, that we might have eternal life
Application
What is the application of the Psalm for us today? First of all, understand these words were written a thousand years before Jesus was born. The supernaturally accurate predictive prophecy of scripture is its greatest testimony to its divine origin. Every day you hold in your hands a supernatural book because its words come from God. David was speaking by the spirit when he wrote these things, and the Spirit has something to say to you today through them. The first application, is just the beauty and the perfection of scripture. The second is how Jesus handles scripture. His entire argument turns on one word in Hebrew, “My Lord.” Are we too careful, too meticulous with scripture? Looking at it too much. Thinking about it too much. I know the other way, we don’t deal with it carefully enough, we don’t study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen who do not need to be ashamed, but who correctly handle and rightly divide the Word of God. Jesus was accurate in his handling of scripture and careful. Thirdly, the certainty of Christ’s final triumph. Some day, Jesus will reign. And how is that applicable to us today? What would you say is the number one news story these days? Is there a second news story? I’m not sure that there is. Do you realize that someday Jesus is going to reign and that’s not uncertain at all? There’s not going to be any recount, there’ll be no dangling chad. Do you understand that there is no chad involved in the establishment of Christ’s kingdom? It’s a done deal, the Father’s decreed, and the zeal of the Lord Almighty is going to accomplish it. It’s a certain thing. Therefore, if you are a Christian, you’ve signed on the winning side, you’re guaranteed of having your man rule and he will rule forever and ever. Rejoice in that because it’s a righteous rule. It’s a righteous scepter.
Fourthly, the battle is not done yet. Does he reign on earth as he does in Heaven? No, so, therefore, we got to go to verse 3. His troops are supposed to be willing on the day of battle. Are you willing? Are you willing to have a wartime mentality? Are you willing to think of yourself as a warrior? Are you willing to deny yourself certain pleasures and comforts and privileges that Jesus may be established as king over the earth? The kingdom does not extend except through the suffering of those who extend it. I’ve noticed that. If you’re willing to sign on and to enlist in his army, you’re willing to deny yourself and take up the cross and follow, then you will be useful, you will be one of the troops, willing on the day of battle. But if you live for comfort and pleasure and ease, you will not assist in the advance of the kingdom, you must deny yourself to help advance. Are you a warrior in your prayers? Praying for the extent and the establishment of Christ’s kingdom. Are you a warrior in your giving? Denying yourself earthly comforts that you may give more to the advance and the extension of Christ’s kingdom. Are you a warrior in your witnessing in your evangelism, willing to put aside your earthly reputation that someone else might be saved? Do you carry a wartime mentality with you day after day? This verse calls for his troops to be willing in the day of His power when He needs us. “He who does not gather with me scatters,” said Jesus. Are we gathering with him? Are we energetically involved?
Finally, just the most heart-felt, soberest warning to those of you who are not in Christ, do you see what these verses say about Christ’s enemies? They will be crushed. You may say, “Well, that’s not the loving Jesus that I know.” Well, may I say to you that the Scripture testifies to who Jesus is. We can’t put Jesus together in our imaginations. He will crush his enemies. Don’t be his enemy. That’s the warning here. Don’t be his enemy. Don’t vote against him in the coming of His kingdom. You may say that you don’t feel like his enemy. It doesn’t matter, Satan deceives us. The fact of the matter is, are you relying on Christ’s righteousness alone for your salvation? Have you turned to Christ and put your trust in Him? And is he your king? Does he rule over you? And those times when he doesn’t rule over you by his command, do you grieve over them and wish it were different? Are you his child? You could say, “Well, I had too much sin. He’ll never accept me.” He is a priest in the order of Melchizedek, and his blood is sufficient for all of your sin. Sufficient to cleanse you top to bottom. Come to Christ today.
Closing Prayer
Close with me in prayer, please. Heavenly Father, as we have considered Psalm 110, we are staggered by its truth, the seven short verses and they testify so miraculously to Christ. This greater son of David, who David is on his face worshipping now and gladly. Oh God, I pray that we, your troops, would be ready for you in the day of your battle, and I pray that any who are here who do not know you as Lord and Savior, that they would repent, throw down weapons of rebellion or indifference, and come to faith in Christ. We believe, O high priest, great high priest, that your blood is sufficient to cleanse all of our sins. Pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
sermon transcript
Introduction
Please take your Bibles and open to Psalm 110. This supernatural book that you carry around with you, you don’t even realize all the things that are in here. I know I don’t, and as I continue to grow as a Christian, I’m astonished by all the light that flows from this book, and it testifies to Jesus Christ, the spirit of prophecy is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. As we look at Psalm 110, we continue our study of the messianic psalms of Psalms, which testify to Jesus Christ. So far we’ve looked in our study at Psalm 2, in which the Father says, “You are my son, today I’ve begotten you. Ask of me and I’ll give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.” He also said, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain, the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His anointed one and the one enthroned in heaven laughs.” So we see a decree in Psalm 2 that Jesus shall reign wherever the Son does His successive journeys run. That was the first one we looked at.
Then we looked at Psalm 69 which testify to the suffering life of Jesus Christ. How Jesus would be rejected by his people, he would suffer, he would be rejected by one of his closest disciples, he’d have to drink bitter gall. So this testified to his suffering earthly life. Then we spent a couple of weeks in Psalm 22, as you remember, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow, the crucifixion so plainly depicted there, “you have pierced my hands and my feet.” But then the second half, so gloriously to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, that Jesus’ name would be exalted to the ends of the earth, and that there would be a banquet, and people from every tribe and language and people and nation would come and eat at that banquet, an incredible prophecy, Psalm 22. We could still be in it now with profit, there’s so much there. Then we went from that, the crucifixion, the death of Jesus, to Psalm 16 last week, the powerful resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, “You will not let your Holy One see decay.” In that one word, the testimony that that psalm did not refer to David, but to the Son of David, Jesus Christ, in that he would not see decay but would triumph over the grave, Psalm 16.
The Identity of the Messiah
Now we look at Psalm 110, which is the identity and the victory, and the priesthood of the Messiah, in which the Father invites the Son to sit at His right hand. Beginning at verse 1, it says, “The Lord said to my lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. You will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn, you will receive the dew of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand; He will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. He will drink from a brook beside the way, and therefore, He will lift His head.”
The story has often been told that the Jewish people of Jesus’ day were looking for a re-establishment of David’s throne. They had good reason to do it because God had prophesied that there would be one who would do this very thing. They were thinking about their present plight, they were hoping for the demise of the Roman Empire, little did they know that it would go on for another four centuries, that it was just coming into its power. When Jesus was born, the first emperor, the first mighty extender of Roman power, Caesar Augustus, was at his heyday, and so the Roman Empire had a long, long way to go, but they didn’t know it and they had hopes, and their hopes were based on some dusty old scrolls and some prophecies about a Messiah that would come. The focus was on the title, Son of David. They were looking for a Son of David to come and re-establish David’s throne.
They were a dominated people, and they were wary of Rome’s crushing ascendancy, of the tax collectors and the burden, and just seeing Roman troops walking through their streets who could exert their will at any time and take anything that they wanted. The Roman rule was strangling the life from Israel, and they cried out to God, “How long, O Lord, would it be till the Son of David came at last?” In thinking about the Son of David, they were thinking of an ancient kingdom, for David’s rule over Israel a thousand years before this time was really Israel’s golden era. There was more prosperity under Solomon, and then there were other godly kings that came, but there was no one like David, a man after God’s own heart, who loved God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength; except in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah. David walked in the ways of God and sought to obey his covenant. There’s was an ancient kingdom, and they were looking forward to the Son of David re-establishing those days, a glorious throne, a glorious time, a time of wealth and prosperity, in which God would miraculously bless his people and the Gentiles would be crushed and pushed off to the side.
They wanted another king like David to come. David was a godly man, and there came a time when David was sitting in his palace of cedar, smelling that sweet smell, the paneling, and he thought, “Here I am in a palace of cedar and God’s Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, is in a tent, an ancient tent. I think I’d like to build him a temple. I want to build a house for God.” God spoke to Nathan the prophet and said, “Tell David this, ‘You want to build a house for me, but I will build a house for you. I will establish your throne.’” 2 Samuel 7:16, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever.” What a promise, that David would never lack a man to sit on his throne, and that his throne and his kingdom will be established forever. Four hundred years later, Isaiah the prophet came along and prophesied and predicted that this would continue for he said, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Listen to verse 7, “Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne.” Did you hear that? He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Isaiah the prophet, seeing a time when David’s throne will be established forever. So they weren’t without reason to be waiting for the Son of David to come and establish his throne. Faithful Jews were waiting for the consolation of Israel, the Son of David, to raise up the shattered throne of King David, and sit on it once again. He would be powerful to defeat his enemies, and no one would be able to stand before him. And along came Jesus Christ, and as he ministered, and as he began to do miracles and do astonishing things and speak and teach in a way that no one had ever heard before, they began to wonder and speculation came around.
A couple of blind men sitting by the side of the road hear that Jesus is walking by, [Matthew 9:27], and they call out to him, “Have mercy on us, Son of David,” they said. Jesus is the Son of David, so they thought. Matthew 12:22 and 23, “They brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him so that he could both talk and see, and all the people were astonished and asked, Could this be the Son of David?” So they thought Jesus might be the Son of David. [Matthew 15], “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and a Canaanite woman, a non-Jew, a Gentile, calling out to him, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Jesus heals and heals and heals one after the other, and they’re thinking, “I think this is the Son of David, it’s got to be. Where else does his power come from?” It came to an apex at the triumphal entry in Matthew 21:9, “The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David.”
Do you know what Hosanna means? “Do it now, save now Lord, now is the time, establish your throne Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. He’s got to be the Son of David.” Oh, was Jesus the Son of David? What’s the very first fact you learn about Jesus in the New Testament? [Matthew 1:1], a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. Right from the start, Matthew tells us, he is the Son of David. No question about that, and Matthew goes on to establish the fact by the genealogy. I’m sure all of you have read it devotionally time and time again, the genealogy is so rich with prophetic fulfillment. “You will never lack a man to sit on the throne.” Forty-two generations, he lists there in Matthew 1, he is the Son of David. But they missed something else, something in the message that Gabriel had given, in Luke chapter 1, the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.”
What does that mean, Son of God? But that’s not all Gabriel said, “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David.” The blending together of the physical descendants through David, that he is the Son of David, and also the fact that Jesus was the Son of the Most High, the incarnation established in Gabriel’s message. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end. Yes, he was the Son of David, but also the Son of God Most High. The people were waiting for a human king, another David to reign over the Romans. Their dreams seem ludicrous to the world-dominating Romans, some tiny Palestinian state’s going to rule the whole world. It never happened. What a dream. Were the Jews dreaming? Absolutely. But it turns out in the words of a Michael Card song, “their wildest dreams had simply not been wild enough.” There would come a king who would re-establish David’s throne but he would not just be the Son of David, he would be the Son of the Living God.
There came a time that Jesus wanted to puncture this misunderstanding. All of his enemies and adversaries had been gathering around him asking him tough questions. They stayed up all night thinking of these questions, questions on divorce and why, that one? To get him in trouble with Herod who had divorced his wife to marry his brother’s wife. They wanted to see the same thing happen to Jesus, that happened to John the Baptist. Jesus handled that scripturally. Then the Sadducees asked him a question about the resurrection, trying to trip him up in the Law of Moses. Jesus handled that one as well. They asked him a question about which is the greatest commandment? Jesus handled that one. They asked him a tough question about taxation. Who are they trying to get him in trouble with there? The Romans. Jesus said, “Show me a coin. Whose portrait is on it? Caesar’s. Well, give to Caesar what Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.” Astonishing! He handled every question. He said, “Now, I’ve got a question for you?” He didn’t say it, but in effect said. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 110, I’ve got a question for you. I’d like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to Matthew 22 and look at this account. Put your finger in Psalm 110 and look over at Matthew 22. In Matthew 22:41-46, Jesus poses a tough question. It says, “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?’” Stock answer comes back, “Son of David,” they replied. “Well, how is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’ for he says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.’ If then David calls him ‘Lord’ how can he be his son?” Look at the aftermath. No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. Amazing! The infinite brilliance of Jesus Christ, but it all had been written in Scripture a thousand years before he’s even born.
Let’s try to understand the “Son of David”, and let’s do it scripturally. As you look at Jesus’ question, he makes three assumptions, and we can learn so much about the handling of Scripture by looking at how Jesus did it. Can I say in the midst of all kinds of controversies over Baptist faith and message in Scripture and all that, can we just simply come to the conviction that whatever Jesus’ attitude towards Scripture should be ours as well? We’ll just have Jesus’ attitude towards Scripture. Jesus made three assumptions here, didn’t he? Assumption number one, David wrote Psalm 110. David wrote it, and as a matter of fact, the whole argument falls to the ground if David didn’t write it. For any Israelite, any Jewish person could call the Messiah my Lord, but it’s a kind of a different thing when David calls his own descendant, “my Lord.” The whole thing falls apart if David didn’t write Psalm 110. Assumption number one. By the way, modern critical scholarship will say, “Ridiculous, we know better, we know David didn’t write Psalm 110. It came in during the post-exilic period”, and all that, oh, my goodness, the things you read. You know that African spiritual, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Were they there when the psalm was written? David wrote this psalm and you know how I know it? Jesus said so. In 1889, Bishop Gore, an Anglican bishop, comes up with a kenosis theory, an emptying theory about Jesus. He said Jesus was stripped of his divine capabilities when he took on a human body, and the reason we know that is he thought that Psalm 110 was written by David, saying that, “Jesus is limited in his knowledge, and that’s… We’ve got to account for his errors here. We know better, we German higher scholastics, and we have studied this matter, and we know that David could not have written the psalm.” But we’re believers in Jesus Christ, and Jesus said David wrote it, end of story. And it’s not just a side issue, I contend that his whole argument falls to the ground if David didn’t write it.
Assumption number two. David wrote this psalm under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Where do we get that? In verse 43, he said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’ ?” What does this mean? It means David didn’t make a mistake. He wasn’t wrong in calling him Lord. It wasn’t just a flight of fancy or some confusing moment for David. The Word had been handed him, Adonai had been handed David and he wrote it down. You must understand, it says in 2 Peter that prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. David spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Assumption number three, that in Psalm 110, David’s writing, he was speaking about the Christ. “What do you think about the Christ?” Jesus asks. “Whose son is he?’ Son of David. “Then how is it that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him, namely, ‘the Christ, Lord’?” These are Christ’s three assumptions about Psalm 110, they must be yours as well if you’re a believer in Christ. If we accept these then we start to get drawn into the stunning nature of Jesus’ argument here, because the Jews were making some assumptions as well. Assumption number one is that the Son of David was the fulfiller of the David covenant, the Davidic covenant. Therefore, the Son of David would pattern his reign after David’s earthly throne. But beyond that, there was an assumption of patriarchal rule. The Father is always greater than the Son. You can see that. They can’t understand this. Ordinarily, it will be true. Can you imagine David calling Solomon his son, “my Lord”? As a matter of fact, the Scripture indicates that Solomon was called David’s servant. If anything, Solomon would have called David “my lord.” No, he called him “my father David” in almost every case. The fact of the matter is, the Scripture in the Ten Commandments says, “Honor your father and mother.” It’s never backward, the parents are not to honor the children but the children, the parents. So there is an assumption here that the Father is greater than the Son. So it’s troubling that David would call his own son, his physical descendant, “lord.” That’s an odd thing. As a matter of fact, it’s a supernaturally odd thing, and that’s the context of Christ’s penetrating question. If then David calls him “Lord,” how can he be his son?
What is going on then with the Son of David if David’s calling him “lord?” Now it’s very interesting. Jesus never used the title Son of David in regards to himself. As a matter of fact, this is the only time he talks about the Son of David, and he does it in a penetrating way. What did Jesus usually call himself? The “son of man.” Now, God willing, our next sermon series will be in the book of Daniel. Wait till we get to Daniel 7. There is nowhere I believe in all of the Old Testament that the deity of the coming Messiah is as clearly revealed as in this Son of Man. Jesus was God in the flesh, and this is not just a piece of theological lumber or luggage that we carry around. This is the center and core of our faith. If He’s not God, we have no eternal life, we have no salvation. Jesus wants to penetrate to the very identity. He goes beyond that to the proclamation of the Lord. Verse 1, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.” Who is it that’s giving this invitation? God himself, the Eternal God of the universe, and he’s saying, “Messiah, come and sit at my right hand, from whence you will rule the universe.” A double testimony therefore to the deity of the Messiah.
The right hand is a position of ultimate power and authority, the right hand blessed the firstborn son, when Jacob went to bless Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, he crossed his hands and put his right hand on Ephraim’s head, the second-born, and Joseph was very distressed. “No, my father, this is the first-born,” he said, “I know, he’ll be blessed too,” but he put his right hand on the second-born because it’s a position of preeminence, the right hand. It symbolizes also God’s power over his enemies. After Pharaoh’s army had been destroyed in the Red Sea, Miriam and the others sang a song, [Exodus 15] “Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic and power. Your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy”, the right hand, a demonstration of God’s power over his enemies. The right hand also symbolizes close access to the throne, we speak in this way of someone’s right-hand man, somebody who’s real close to the power, the seat of power. Last Sunday evening when we were talking about somebody sitting at Jesus’ right hand and somebody’s sitting at his left in his kingdom, James and John, wanted access, one of those positions of power. They wanted to get close. In effect, the Father saying of the son, “No one is closer to me than this.” It says in Romans 8:34, “Jesus Christ, who died more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us.” He has that access to the Father. More than 20 times in the New Testament, it says that Jesus ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father, the right hand of God. And so Jesus sits on God’s right hand, and he’s at God’s right hand that his enemies may be destroyed, and this leads us to the irresistible advance of Christ’s kingdom. The identity is clear. Christ, the Messiah, is God, He’s the Son of God. He’s somebody worthy of David’s worship. David will worship His Son and honor Him and give Him praise. He is God in the flesh.
The Victory of the Messiah
But then we see the irresistible advance of the kingdom. In verse 1, he says, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” This is the Father’s zeal for his Son’s glory. The Father is aflame with zeal for the glory of the son, just as the son was aflame with zeal for the glory of the Father. Jesus lived and breathed, and even died for the glory of the Father. And now the Father lives for the glory of the son. “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” What is this footstool? What is this putting enemies under the feet? In the ancient Near East, when a king would conquer his enemies, the kings that were conquered would come and lay down on the ground, and the conquering general, the conquering king, would put his foot on the neck of his adversaries showing total domination over them. We see this in Joshua 10. Joshua says, “Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to me. So they brought the five kings out of the cave, the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon. And when they had brought these kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had come with him, Come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings. So they came forward and placed their feet on their necks, and Joshua said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous.’” This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight. So when in fact the father is saying, “they’re all, every last one of them, are going submit to you Christ, every last one of them are going to come and become a footstool for your feet.”
And by the way, this picture of total submission works for us as well. Who is our gravest enemy now? Is it not the devil? The roaring lion who seeks someone to devour. Romans 16:20 says, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Aren’t you looking forward to putting your foot on his neck? I’m looking forward to that moment. It’s going to be special. But he’s our enemy, and all of Christ’s enemies will receive this kind of treatment, this is the zeal of God to crush Christ’s enemies, and it’s burning with the brightest, brightest flame. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this, it says in Isaiah 9:7, “Because Jesus was willing to take on a human body and give himself even to death on a cross, therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father,” and the Father’s zeal is going to advance the scepter.
In verse 2 he says, “The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, and you will rule in the midst of your enemies.” When I was on a mission trip in Kenya, I saw the President of Kenya. He drove by, I was in a small village called Moi’s Bridge. As the president was driving by, he waved to me… I think it was because I was the only non-Kenyan in the crowd. You can imagine why I would stand out. But he pointed at me, and he waved. I saw that he had a stick in his hand, and I asked the Kenyan pastor about it, and he said, “That’s Mzee’s stick. Mzee means ruler, an elder, a leader.” It was a symbol of his authority. Whoever was president would get to hold the stick, it’s a symbol of authority, and so it is with this. God is going to take your scepter and extend it to the ends of the earth. You will rule in the midst of your enemies, and it’s in the midst of enemies. Christ’s kingdom is presently surrounded by enemies, godless governments, including our own, unbelieving people, false religious systems, materialistic forces, worldly philosophies, and behind all of it the devil himself. The father is going to extend Christ’s reign despite all of this adversarial opposition. In verse 3 we come in, your troops, it says in the NIV, “Your troops will be willing on your day of battle.” Literally, it says, “Your people will be willing in the day of your power.” The context here is definitely of the advance of a kingdom, and we who have believed in Jesus Christ, we are His people, and we will be, it says, willing, when he needs us, willing on the day of battle to say, “Yes sir, whatever you command, I will do. I want to advance your kingdom, I’m available for you.”
No one who is enlisted in the army does anything except to please his commanding officer. Anything the commanding officer asks, he will do, and it says of them, “They are arrayed in holy Majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of youth.” You can picture a mighty strong energetic army ready to go, willing on the day of Christ’s battle. Stop and ask yourself, “Am I willing on the day of His battle? Am I available as a warrior for Christ?” We’ll talk about that more in a minute. Our king is a mighty warrior. Verse five through seven talk about his final victory, the victory is predicted and described, saying, “The Lord is at your right hand, He will crush kings on the day of his wrath, He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth, He will drink from the brook beside the way, therefore He will lift up his head.”
The Father’s power now is available to the Son, the Father is now at the Son’s right hand, ready to conquer His enemies. Victory is secure and the kings are assembled, and they will one after the other, submit to the reign of the Son. Now we’re seeing that over 2000 years of history, all those that have opposed Christ, they’re vanquished one after the other, but there will come a day in the future when all the remaining kings will be assembled at a place called Armageddon. It says in Revelation 16:16, “Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” All the nations who opposed Christ and raged against him, assembled for destruction and that destruction is described, [Revelation 19], “When the Son Jesus Christ returns on a white charger for glory and for victory, and they will crown him at that point with the crown of all the nations. His kingdom will endure forever.”
That’s what happens to his adversaries. The final image in Psalm 110 is that He will drink from a brook beside the way, and therefore He will lift up his head. Victory is complete, Christ reigns and He’s satisfied. He enjoys that drink. The battle’s over. We’ve established the identity of the king, the coming Messiah, He is God in the flesh, we have talked about the extension of his reign, his scepter going out from Zion, that’s Jerusalem, to the ends of the earth, and then the final victory over his enemies. The Kings arranged and then crushed, conquered in heaps, and then he drinks a deep satisfying drink, the victory is his.
The Priesthood of the Messiah
We skipped one verse. Did you notice? Verse 4. Right in the middle of this comes a strange prediction. “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” What in the world is this? I grew up in the Catholic church, and every week I heard about the gifts offered by your servant Abel, and the bread and wine offered by Melchizedek. Who is Melchizedek you may be asking, who is Melchizedek? Right in the middle of Psalm 110, this is an immensely important verse. Why do I say that? Because an entire chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews 7 is dedicated to this one verse, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” Now, up to this point, we’ve been thinking about Jesus as a king, but now he comes in as a priest, He’s not just a king, but a priest and his priesthood is established by the will of the Father. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. Established by an oath, it is unchangeable, and it is eternal. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. The writer to Hebrews points out that the Levitical priesthood was not an eternal priesthood, each priest reigned until he died. But if we could have a priest who could conquer death, now he could be an eternal priest, and so Jesus through His resurrection has gained for himself an eternal priesthood in the order of Melchizedek. Now, who is Melchizedek? Genesis 14 says, “Then Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought out bread and wine, he was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram. Saying, Blessed be Abram by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand, then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.” There it is, we have now heard everything the Old Testament says about Melchizedek: Genesis 14, a couple of verses, and Psalm 110:4, that’s it. Yet he is the focal point of the argument of the writer to Hebrews, that Jesus is for us, a priest-king, joined together forever. Hebrews 7 says, “This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High.” He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means “king of righteousness”, then also King of Salem means King of Peace. Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, he remains like the Son of God, a priest forever. All it means is that Melchizedek just pops up in the Genesis account, does his thing, and then just disappears. It’s like, he has no beginning and no end. And so the writer to Hebrews says that Jesus’ priesthood is just like that, it’s eternal. It had no beginning, it will have no end. He’s a priest forever.
Now, this idea of a priest-king was excluded by the Old Covenant. You couldn’t have it. Remember there are three offices in the old Covenant, you’ve got prophet, you’ve got priest, you’ve got king. You could have a king who was a prophet, David was one, you could have a priest who was a prophet, Jeremiah was one, but you could not have a king who was a priest. Do you remember what happened with Solomon when he tried to offer sacrifices? That day Samuel tore the kingdom away from him because of his arrogance. Do you remember the day that godly Uzziah came in to burn incense at the altar and some courageous priest confronted him and said, “It is not right for you to be here, Uzziah. This has been given to the priest and not to the king.” And Uzziah went to strike or to shout, and God struck him with leprosy at the moment, and he had leprosy till the day he died, and they hustled him out of the temple and said indeed he was happy to go because God’s hand was against him. You cannot have a king who is a priest in the Old Covenant, and therefore we must have a new covenant, and so we do, we have a whole new covenant, and Jesus is a priest in the new covenant, an eternal priest who brings for us a sacrifice that will never end. Jesus Christ offers for us his own blood as a sacrifice, and he offers it forever. Psalm 110 depicts Jesus Christ, the triumphant messiah, coming to do a kingly work to triumph and to reign. The Jews were waiting for that. But they missed Verse 4, he had a priestly work to do first, he had to offer himself as a sacrifice, a dead sacrifice with his blood poured out, that we might have eternal life
Application
What is the application of the Psalm for us today? First of all, understand these words were written a thousand years before Jesus was born. The supernaturally accurate predictive prophecy of scripture is its greatest testimony to its divine origin. Every day you hold in your hands a supernatural book because its words come from God. David was speaking by the spirit when he wrote these things, and the Spirit has something to say to you today through them. The first application, is just the beauty and the perfection of scripture. The second is how Jesus handles scripture. His entire argument turns on one word in Hebrew, “My Lord.” Are we too careful, too meticulous with scripture? Looking at it too much. Thinking about it too much. I know the other way, we don’t deal with it carefully enough, we don’t study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen who do not need to be ashamed, but who correctly handle and rightly divide the Word of God. Jesus was accurate in his handling of scripture and careful. Thirdly, the certainty of Christ’s final triumph. Some day, Jesus will reign. And how is that applicable to us today? What would you say is the number one news story these days? Is there a second news story? I’m not sure that there is. Do you realize that someday Jesus is going to reign and that’s not uncertain at all? There’s not going to be any recount, there’ll be no dangling chad. Do you understand that there is no chad involved in the establishment of Christ’s kingdom? It’s a done deal, the Father’s decreed, and the zeal of the Lord Almighty is going to accomplish it. It’s a certain thing. Therefore, if you are a Christian, you’ve signed on the winning side, you’re guaranteed of having your man rule and he will rule forever and ever. Rejoice in that because it’s a righteous rule. It’s a righteous scepter.
Fourthly, the battle is not done yet. Does he reign on earth as he does in Heaven? No, so, therefore, we got to go to verse 3. His troops are supposed to be willing on the day of battle. Are you willing? Are you willing to have a wartime mentality? Are you willing to think of yourself as a warrior? Are you willing to deny yourself certain pleasures and comforts and privileges that Jesus may be established as king over the earth? The kingdom does not extend except through the suffering of those who extend it. I’ve noticed that. If you’re willing to sign on and to enlist in his army, you’re willing to deny yourself and take up the cross and follow, then you will be useful, you will be one of the troops, willing on the day of battle. But if you live for comfort and pleasure and ease, you will not assist in the advance of the kingdom, you must deny yourself to help advance. Are you a warrior in your prayers? Praying for the extent and the establishment of Christ’s kingdom. Are you a warrior in your giving? Denying yourself earthly comforts that you may give more to the advance and the extension of Christ’s kingdom. Are you a warrior in your witnessing in your evangelism, willing to put aside your earthly reputation that someone else might be saved? Do you carry a wartime mentality with you day after day? This verse calls for his troops to be willing in the day of His power when He needs us. “He who does not gather with me scatters,” said Jesus. Are we gathering with him? Are we energetically involved?
Finally, just the most heart-felt, soberest warning to those of you who are not in Christ, do you see what these verses say about Christ’s enemies? They will be crushed. You may say, “Well, that’s not the loving Jesus that I know.” Well, may I say to you that the Scripture testifies to who Jesus is. We can’t put Jesus together in our imaginations. He will crush his enemies. Don’t be his enemy. That’s the warning here. Don’t be his enemy. Don’t vote against him in the coming of His kingdom. You may say that you don’t feel like his enemy. It doesn’t matter, Satan deceives us. The fact of the matter is, are you relying on Christ’s righteousness alone for your salvation? Have you turned to Christ and put your trust in Him? And is he your king? Does he rule over you? And those times when he doesn’t rule over you by his command, do you grieve over them and wish it were different? Are you his child? You could say, “Well, I had too much sin. He’ll never accept me.” He is a priest in the order of Melchizedek, and his blood is sufficient for all of your sin. Sufficient to cleanse you top to bottom. Come to Christ today.
Closing Prayer
Close with me in prayer, please. Heavenly Father, as we have considered Psalm 110, we are staggered by its truth, the seven short verses and they testify so miraculously to Christ. This greater son of David, who David is on his face worshipping now and gladly. Oh God, I pray that we, your troops, would be ready for you in the day of your battle, and I pray that any who are here who do not know you as Lord and Savior, that they would repent, throw down weapons of rebellion or indifference, and come to faith in Christ. We believe, O high priest, great high priest, that your blood is sufficient to cleanse all of our sins. Pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
