Psalm 45

This Song is one of the truly greatest Messianic Psalms in all of God’s great hymnbook.  The opening verse says as much: “My heart is overflowing with a good theme.”  And it also says why: “I recite my composition concerning the King.”  There is no greater subject the Messiah, the exalted Son of God.  That was true for the “sons of Korah” to whom this is attributed; that IS true for believers today for whom Jesus is to be their great obsession (e.g. Heb. 12:1-2).

This Psalm actually contains words directed directly to the Church today, although the human author would not have understood.  In the heading this Psalm is called “a Song of Love.”  Indeed it is, a song about the King and His bride.  We know that bride to be the Church, the body of Christ (Eph. 5:22-33).  Note the simple outline:

·        V2-9: The Exaltation of Christ the King.

·        V10-17: The Exhortation to the King’s Bride.

A careful reading of v6-7 will reveal one of the strongest statements in the Old Testament of the Deity of the Messiah, a truth recognized by the writer of Hebrews (Heb. 1:8-9).  But that is not all.  Careful meditation of everything said about the King reveals the Son of God who will be established forever on the throne of Zion (Psalm 2:6-9).

§  V2: He is fairer than the sons of men.  But unlike King Saul who was physically exceptional, the Messiah excels by the grace that is poured on His lips.  His very words, as the Word of God, speak salvation.  Thus He is blessed FOREVER by God.

§  V3: He is noted for His “glory and majesty”.  We know of Christ in terms of His earthly life where there were only glimpses of His glory, but it was “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). 

§  V4: He will rule prosperously because of truth, humility and righteousness.  What divine qualities were more characteristic of our Lord Jesus Christ in the days of His earthly ministry?  

We must stop with this kind of comment.  As the human author said, “My HEART is overflowing with a good theme.”  Words are difficult to come by in thinking of this magnificent King!  I exhort you to make this Psalm the object of meditation today.  Think of this King/Groom as He goes to take His bride.  How fortunate she is, how blessed this queen adorned in gold.  And it is all because of the One to whom she is joined!

The advice to the bride makes perfect sense.  “Forget your own people also, and your father’s house” (v10).  “Because He is your Lord, worship Him” (v11).  

Let us make one additional thought.  There is a principle of interpretation given to us in Eph. 5.  What is said of Christ and His bride is to be true of the Christian husband and wife.  Consider this as part of the application of this Psalm.  “Let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Eph. 5:33).

May our hearts overflow today with the glories of our King, our Lord!

Jer. 34:21-22; 2 Tim. 2:11-13, Hindrances to Obed. (5)

        v The hindrance of MANIPULATIVE obedience, Jer. 34:22.

This hindrance might seem the same as the cheap obedience we considered yesterday.  But there is actually an additional feature that we must consider and that we believe was a real problem in Jeremiah’s days.  Sometimes we seek to manipulate God through our obedience, and that is a recipe for unfaithfulness.  When God does not meet our expectations we will become disappointed and will walk back our commitment.  Or even worse, when God does meet our expectations, the motivation for our obedience may be gone and we may begin to rationalize it away.

In Jeremiah’s days there were many false prophets.  The gist of their preaching was peace and safety.  It was much akin to the health and wealth preaching of our own day.  They assured the people that God was not going to allow the Holy City of Jerusalem and the magnificent temple of Solomon to be destroyed.  Yet this was the very thing Jeremiah was preaching.  

In 34:21-22 we see what happened in this case.  The Babylonian army had come to Jerusalem and created alarm in the hearts of the people.  King Zedekiah had made a covenant to deal properly with the slaves and the people had followed him (34:8-10).  But then the Babylonians had to leave Jerusalem to deal with the Egyptians.  The obedience of the people had worked, so to speak.  God had rewarded their obedience by making the enemy leave. 

Here is the problem.  God often does promise reward for obedience.  Many promises are conditional.  That is the basis for the Old Covenant: if you obey I will bless you; if you disobey I will curse you.  You will remember in our last post we quoted from Heb. 11:25-26 about Moses forsaking the riches of Egypt.  We purposely omitted the line at the end of v26 until now: for he looked to the reward.  Moses understood that the riches of Egypt were no match for the reward of obedience to God.  You may also remember in the story of Moses that it was forty years after he left Egypt before God began to use him to deliver Israel.

While we may know all this, the truth is that we may not truly reckon with the fact that the promised reward for obedience may not be immediate.  And further, it may be preceded by greater times of distress.  The rest and reward may await our arrival in the presence of our Lord when we die.  Thus our obedience must not be conditional.  Many promises of God are conditional.  Rest assured, He will always keep His word.  As Paul notes, even if we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.

Jer. 34:11,22; 2 Sam. 24:18-25, Hindrances to Obed. (4)

          v The hindrance of CHEAP obedience, Jer. 34:11.

Here is yet another way to see why the people of Judah and Jerusalem were not willing to persevere in their commitment to follow the law of the Lord.  They did not count the cost!  The release of the Hebrew slaves meant the loss of cheap labor.  They may have known it at the time, but they had not reckoned with it.  

There is, on the surface, at least, a cost to following the Lord.  Obedience means we have given up the path of disobedience.  The path of disobedience might be quite lucrative, for a while.  Remember that Moses, at age forty, chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt (Heb. 11:25-26).  

King David understood this when he made the deal to purchase the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.  David wanted the property in order to make sacrifice for his sins.  It was ultimately the site where his son Solomon would build the temple.  It was the Mountain of the Lord where Abraham had brought Isaac many years before, bringing him to offer in obedience to the Lord (Gen. 22).  And of course it was the same area where God Himself would offer up His one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, for our sins (Gen. 22:14: In the Mount of the LORD it shall be provided.)  

For Abraham, and for God, faithful obedience was going to cost him the life of his precious and promised son.  Perhaps (I don’t really think it was perhaps; I am sure David understood the significance of the property) David thought of this when he refused to take the property for free from Araunah.  No, but I will surely buy if from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.  David was the king; he could have whatever he wanted.  He had proven that fact in the matter of Bathsheba; and it had resulted in severe sin and terrible consequences.  He had proven it again when he overcame the resistance of Joab in the numbering of the people, his sin that precipitated the need for a place of sacrifice (2 Sam. 24:1-17).

In Luke 14:25-33 Jesus warned the multitudes that they must consider what it meant to follow Him.  The context of these words is found in v26 in words Jesus spoke that some do not understand.  If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.  Perhaps what we have considered today will help bring this into focus.  What Moses and Abraham and David did was to hate everything and everyone else, including themselves, in the way Jesus meant it.  And what the people in Jeremiah’s day would not do was to hate all else in being obedient to their God.

Obedience is never cheap.  Count the cost!