I just have not been able to get away from this psalm, and I don't know when I'm going to end. I don't know, but it's such a wonderful, poetic demonstration of our love for Christ that I think that we need to take it into our corporate time of prayer. I don't know about you, but I do a good bit of reading, and sometimes I go through seasons where my reading is more just theological, it's more argumentation, it's more making a point, it's more establishing a doctrine, defending a doctrine. And sometimes I just kind of look around on my shelf for some poetry. I just need something for my soul. Not that doctrine's not for your soul, it is, but I think you know what I mean. Sometimes doctrine is more oriented toward the mind. But I need something for my soul, some type of poetry, and that is what we see here in Psalm 45. As we saw last week, Psalm 45 is a royal psalm. It is a psalm that no doubt was sung by the sons of Korah, because that's what it says in the superscription, at the wedding of some royal figure. That royal figure may have been Solomon. It may have been some other king of Israel or Judah. We really don't know, and it's really not important for that matter. But what we do know, and I said this last week, is that it highlights the glory of the bridegroom. It spends more time on the bridegroom than it does the bride. And so what I'd like to do tonight, under two simple points, is just unpack a little bit more verses three through five. And we're gonna start by reading the text, and then we'll unpack these two heads. So let's, I'm actually gonna read verses one through five, even though our time tonight will be focused on three through five. So listen carefully, this is, The Word of God. Psalm 45, verses 1-5. To the choir master, according to the lilies, a mascal of the sons of Korah, a love song. My heart overflows with a pleasing theme. I address my verses to the king. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. You are the most handsome of the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips, therefore God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty. In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. Let your right hand teach you awesome deeds. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you. I'd like you to consider first tonight the two horizons of the psalm. The two horizons of the psalm. On the one hand, every psalm in the Psalter is messianic. What do I mean by that? I mean by that that every psalm in the Psalter in some way, shape, or form speaks of Messiah, speaks of Jesus Christ. And we know this because when Jesus was walking on the road to Emmaus with the disciples, it says, beginning with Moses and going through the prophets and the psalms, he showed himself in all of the scriptures. Now we take that at face value. I think it's very easy to say that the face of our Savior appears on every page of scripture in some way, shape, or form. But at the same time, we do need to address the question of hermeneutics. If you don't know what hermeneutics means, it refers to the art and science of biblical interpretation. There is a correct way to interpret the Bible, and by the way, we don't find the correct way to read the Bible by going to hermeneutics books. You can find it there. We find the correct hermeneutic how to read the Bible from the New Testament. because the New Testament tells us how to interpret the Bible. But whenever we come to a psalm like this, you must understand that there are two horizons. And I've spoken of these two horizons in the pulpit before, so some of you are gonna remember. But when I speak of horizons, I mean sort of two different levels at which we come to the text. And the first horizon is the original setting and context. And as I've already said, the first setting or original context here is a wedding song. When the sons of Korah wrote it, they certainly were thinking about its application to the king and its bride. But as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1, 10 through 12, you don't need to turn there, the prophets, and I would submit to you really any author of the Old Testament, whether that was a prophet or psalmist or historical writer, often wrote about the coming of the Messiah without fully understanding all the implications of what they were saying. If you recall way back when, when we were in 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1 10-12 says this, concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look." Now what does this mean? Very simply what this means is they didn't always understand the things that they were saying. They didn't always understand the things that they were pinning on these manuscripts. But in the sovereignty of God, it was addressing both that original context and then later, and I'm going to get to a second horizon in a minute, despite the fact that they didn't understand everything that they were writing, there was baked into that writing something that later New Testament authors would uncover put on a boilerplate and show its application to Jesus Christ. And so, here on this first horizon, the sons of Korah, on the one hand, were fully aware that they were writing about the king and his bride on a royal wedding day. And yet, and here's where I want you to come back to Psalm 45, and I want you to follow along in the text for me in verses 6 and 7. And yet, there are details in the psalm that are hard to apply to a mere king. And by the way, if you're ever reading a psalm and you're wondering, is this psalm messianic? One of the litmus tests that you can apply to the text is, is there something of a blip in what the psalmist is saying that doesn't totally fit the subject of whom he is speaking. And if so, you just may have a messianic psalm on your hand. I would submit to you that in verses 6 and 7, that's exactly what happens. From verses 1 through 5, he's talking about the king, he's addressing his verses to the king. And then in verse 6, he says this. Your throne, what's he say? Oh God. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of rightness." Now in verse 6, all of a sudden, he's changing to addressing God, not the king, but God. And then verse 7, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, and here's where the kick comes, therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." Now think about that. The king whom he is addressing is both, verse 6, God, and yet his God, verse 7, is anointing him. Now, the Hebrews were very careful never, listen, to never equate their king, whether it was in the north and the south, with deity. In fact, this is what the nation states around them would do. The Caesars, well it wasn't the Caesars back then, but the king of Babylon, the king of Persia, all of them in some way, shape, or form entered into what is called deification of the king. where they saw themselves as God. By being king over a people, yea, verily, even a king who would go out to conquer and take over nation states, they saw themselves as God. But the Hebrew kings were never supposed to do that. Some of them did. But they were never supposed to do that, and the sons of Korah would never record in a psalm and commend it to us one who was pawning himself as God. And yet, he's speaking of the King, and on the one hand, he addresses the King as God, and on the other hand, he says, God, your God, will anoint you. Well, who is the only one in redemptive history who can fill this bill? It is the Son of God, Jesus Christ Himself. And this is why, in Hebrews 1, verses 8 and 9, right out of the gate, The author of Hebrews attributes this psalm to Jesus Christ. He says in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 8, but of the Son he says, and then he quotes Psalm 45, 6, and 7. So baked into this psalm, there is some ambiguity that is later interpreted by New Testament authors as a reference to Messiah God. So that's the first horizon, addressing his verses to the king on the royal wedding day. But then secondly, there's a second horizon. And on the second horizon, after the first coming of Jesus Christ, we can take this psalm and apply a secondary application to it. The first horizon gave us a type of the king and his bride, and in its historical setting. And so the first horizon speaks of a historical king and his historical bride, and now the New Testament authors come and they apply this eschatological lens to it, this new covenant lens to it, and now they see Christ in this psalm. Well, who is his bride? The church is his bride. And so now with new covenant lenses we can look upon this psalm as Christians and see Jesus. Now the only other caveat I want to make is The second horizon, listen, never swallows up and eclipses the first horizon. Let me say that again. The second horizon never swallows up and eclipses the first horizon. What do I mean by that? We always hold these in tension, okay? What I mean by that is that we never say, oh, the psalmist was always talking about Jesus and the church. No, he was talking about the king and his bride in the original setting. But as redemptive history moves forward, those details that were baked in about being God and having God anoint him now get applied to Jesus, and now this psalm is seen by the New Testament authors as referring to Jesus and His bride, the church. Now, if you wanna know what the technical term for this is, it's called sensius plenior, a fuller sense, and this is how Reformed divines have almost always understood reading the Psalms in redemptive history. So now, now that we see with new covenant lenses our Savior's pageantry put on display in this royal psalm, let us take this adoration of our royal Savior upon our lips, in our prayers, As the psalmist says in verse one, my heart overflows with a pleasing theme. I address my verses to the king. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. So now I want to preach this, and I want you to consider secondly, his unparalleled might and works. Consider his unparalleled might and works in verses three through five. I want you to notice in verse three, He says, "'Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty.'" Notice the exhortation that is given. Gird on your sword, on your thigh, oh mighty one. In the Hebrew, the word mighty one is gibbor. This word speaks of a military hero, a champion, a warrior. Here is one who is mighty. He is a mighty and powerful king and husband. He is your king and your husband. He is your champion. He is your perfect, real, live hero. We all have heroes, right? I know my sons right now are really into Spider-Man and Superman. They just watched a remake of Superman and they were just bedazzled by the fact that the only weakness that he had was what? Kryptonite. That's right. Good. All of our superheroes have weaknesses, right? All of our superheroes have an underbelly. All of our superheroes in some sense have an alter ego. All of our superheroes have in some sense some bad mixed in with their good. They have flaws, but there is no flaw in this mighty hero. In fact, here is the beauty of our mighty hero. The beauty of our mighty hero is that the closest approximation to kryptonite for Jesus Christ is the cross, and yet the cross was the very purpose for why he came to the earth. He came to the earth in meekness and in weakness to lay down His life, and when all the world thought that the kryptonite had taken Him, when all the demons were rejoicing and celebrating, thinking as if the sun had been eclipsed, yet three days later our mighty Hero, our G-bor, our Champion, our Husband, came forth mightily from the grave, riding as it were victorious, with his church with him and a promise of resurrection. This is a hero worthy of hero worship. In fact, he is the only hero worth worshiping. I want you to notice that this Lord Jesus Christ, what did he do? During His life and His incarnation, He entered into our sinful realm. He Himself, without sin, what did He do? He encountered every temptation that we encounter, and yet our precious Redeemer, Champion, Savior, Warrior, didn't yield for a moment. You say, how does that help me? Because that one who didn't yield is risen and raised to pour forth His Spirit of grace so that you, relying upon Him through His Spirit, may be able, listen, here's that sanctification, to conquer the same lusts that He overcame, to conquer the same sins that He overcame. Why? Because you are in union with this champion. He is your gibor, your husband, your champion, your hero. You are united to Him by faith. When you think of the vine and the branches, that beautiful parable that Jesus told, we are reminded that we are part of Him, not ontologically, meaning part of His being, but eschatologically, part of His promises. Everything that He has is ours. Everything that He has accomplished has been given to us through this faith union. And as a result, we have not only justification, but we have a sanctification such that we can look at that scene in the wilderness when He took the serpent head-on and overcame with not a blip, and we can hold that forth, hopefully for us, that when sin comes knocking on our door, yes, we are weak, yes, we are vile, yes, we are wretched, but yes, we also have the spirit of the mighty Gibor warrior. And therefore, we too can overcome. Do you see how beautiful this is? What symmetry there is in justification and sanctification. What symmetry and beauty and contours and shape there is in a Savior who is, as Sinclair Ferguson says, a whole Christ. He is not an antinomian Christ. He is not a legalist Christ. He is a whole Christ who gives to his people both justification and sanctification. He is that man who entered into the strong man's house. And what did he do? He bound him. He bound him up. He routed the house and he started casting out demons to show what? That the kingdom of God had landed and that it was moving forward through his presence. He healed the helpless. He raised the dead. This is the one who walked on the waves that threatened us and stopped the ones that would overwhelm us. This is your Ybor. I mean, you remember the amazement and fear as Jesus spoke. Remember that in the boat with the disciples? He spoke to those earless, eyeless elements, and they listened to Him, and they obeyed instantly, suddenly, and completely, and finally. And the disciples said, who in the world is in this boat with us? He speaks to the waves and they listen to Him. No eyes, no ears, and yet He created them. He knows them. He is their Creator. He is the warrior who stops even the mighty waves. The ruler over all troubles and all seas and all sin and death. The world and the devil over all of our enemies and over all those things in which we ourselves are weak. Jesus, our Mighty One, has overcome. He has disarmed, as Colossians says, the rulers and principalities. And how did He do that? Come to v. 4 in Psalm 45. I hope you haven't left the text. How did He overcome? Psalm 45 v. 4. And Your Majesty, ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness. He conquered through meekness. It is through meekness that He showed His power. Think about that next time you're criticized. Pastor Brendan and I were at a pastor's conference this week, and we heard from a preacher who's from Scotland. I mean, he could have read the instructions for how to bake cookies, and in that Scottish accent, it would have been awesome. But anyways, what he told us is he said, I'm not even gonna try the accent, he said, our queen is constantly attacked. Our queen is under a lot of criticism right now, but our queen has a policy. And the policy of our queen is this, never complain and never explain. And he was exhorting us as pastors, you have to be careful with the second one, but he was exhorting us as pastors to never complain and never explain. And one of the things that I'm learning, I've not perfected this, I've not arrived, and I thank you for the patience that you have with me as I'm trying to work this out. But one of the things that I'm trying to learn as I receive criticism is there's a time to just not answer, right? There's a time to just not explain. There's a time to let the Lord vindicate you and not yourself vindicate you. And I can't go through and cross all the T's and dot all the I's and tell you when it's right to speak and when it's not. But I can tell you this, sometimes silence is eloquent. And sometimes I recall as Jesus was standing before his accusers, as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. And I think sometimes in the face of criticism, what we need to do is just not open our mouth. Because sometimes the criticisms are foolish. They are, as my professor would say, poppycock. And what you need to do is just keep your mouth shut and let the Lord vindicate you. But He did not open His mouth, He was meek, and through meekness, as I said, He showed His power. And now, risen in glory, seated at the right hand, anointed, will He be weak on behalf of His own? Will He be insufficient, who indeed has done all the heavy lifting of our salvation, who on the cross has consummated indeed the victory over Satan, over death, over the world and over sin? Will He find Himself insufficient in any other way concerning His own who believe in Him? Beloved, He has girded on His sword, He has taken it all the way to the cross and laying aside at the cross, He blew out the backside of death, resurrected in glory and now seated at the right hand. He delivers His own from this present evil age. He delivers us from the curse of the law. He delivers us from the condemnation of God, and so He says to us, be of good cheer. I have what? I have overcome the world. Dear grace, this is our husband. This is our king. This is the one who rides out victoriously. He is dedicated in the present to the cause of truth, to the cause of meekness, and to the cause of righteousness. And if you are on the other side of meekness marked by pride, if you are on the other side of truth marked by falsehood and error, and if you are on the other side of righteousness marked by wickedness, then you are on the wrong side of this King. Because this King goes forth to accomplish and to bring about all righteousness and all the will of the Father, even as He was dedicated to doing it in His life, now He now does it in His risen state. Beloved, this gibor, this mighty warrior's right hand will sustain us. He will build His church. I don't care what the headlines say. He will build His church. He will plead for us. He will sustain us day after day. He will comfort us in the fires of life. When we ourselves stumble, this is beautiful, He will not allow us to utterly fall. He will hold us by His right hand. He will pray for us. He will intercede for us. This is our mighty Savior. The one who was pierced for us will not let us go. You know what he's gonna do? He's gonna raise us up with the same authority and power by which he himself rose from the grave. He will reunite us. He will bring us into the new heavens and the new earth. And listen to this. He will vindicate all wrongs. Do you long that? Do you long for that? I long for that. I long for all wrongs to be made right. I long for all wrongs to be vindicated. And that's what he will do. And none of it is going to be frustrated. So hide in this hero. Trust in this hero. He has borne all the firestorm of God's wrath on your behalf. He has stood in the deadly downdraft of God's justice. He has borne it for us. Shall we not have confidence? This is our glorious Redeemer. And now in verses 4 and 5, listen to what it says. Let your right hand teach you awesome deeds. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you. This is our mighty warrior, dear congregation, that goes out for our salvation. And living in Jesus, listen, we are safe. Living attached from Jesus, we are his enemies. And so what does Psalm 2 tell us to do? It tells us to kiss the son and do homage to the son, lest he become angry and you perish. So tonight, are you hiding in this husband warrior tonight? If you are troubled and heavy laden, I call on all of us to look to him. Take your troubles and sorrows to Him. See Him as He really is, the One who has strapped His sword to His side, and He rides out victoriously for you. It is because we have such a Hero that Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 2.14, that thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us, spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. As we go out to our respective work and obligations this week, let this fragrant aroma of your King, your warrior, your husband, take you into the workplace, and let it just spread, beloved. I mean, wouldn't it be wonderful if through us people could see Jesus? Wouldn't that be wonderful? I know that in many of your lives, that's exactly what happens Monday through Friday. The Lord or the Lord manifest his son through your actions, through your smiles, through your warmth, through your embrace and through your patience. May this be said of us as a congregation. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for this mighty gibor, this mighty warrior, this champion, this hero, this military might who is strapped on his sword and even now, even now Father, is unleashing his wrath upon evildoers and naysayers and the wicked. Father, we pray that Your Son would continue to do that until You send Him from heaven to take Your church home. Until then, Father, may Your Son guard us and keep us. May He cause His face to shine upon us and give us peace and grace and mercy. We ask all of these things in Christ's name. Amen.