One of the reasons I love the Reformed Presbyterian Church is because the church takes the sacraments seriously. We believe that the sacraments are, in fact, a means of grace. We believe that they are a way that we remain connected to God through all the ups and downs of life. Those of you who weren't born and raised on The stories of the Covenanters may not know that the Lord's Table would turn out massive numbers of people on the moors of Scotland during the killing times from 1660 to 1690. There are records of more than 10,000 Covenanters gathering together for the purpose of coming to the Lord's Table. In fact, it was during that time that there was a system developed where you had to go through an interview by elders of the church. They needed to hear of your profession of faith in Christ. They needed to hear how Christ had changed your heart. They needed to hear how you were, in fact, a member of a local church somewhere known. Those interviewing you would probably know your pastor or your elders. And then after they were approved to come to the Lord's table, they were given a little token. And these tokens are still floating around in RP collections around our denomination. But you were given a token certifying you that you were authorized by the visible church to come to the Lord's table. I realize that is a very odd way of thinking today, and in some cases I've learned even offensive. But I think it's important for us to remember, friends, that we are joining with those who have gone before us. to come to a place where real grace is available. This is not a supper for those who are outside of Christ or for those who are outside of the church. With this background, don't do it now, but I would encourage you to note our insert today. We're trying to walk a fine line, and I wanted to begin today by reminding us and setting Psalm 45, which we're going to read in just a moment, in the context of the Lord's Supper. Jesus is married to his people. We're going to read about that marriage today. symbolically in a poem that has been sung literally for 3,000 years by followers of the Lord in the Old Covenant, and then by followers of Jesus in the New Covenant, about whom this psalm speaks. But as we come to the table today, I'm burdened that we would understand the weight of this covenant. This is a sign of the new covenant. A covenant involves loyalty. It involves faithfulness. It involves fidelity. It involves being dedicated to one person for the rest of your life. Friends, it's this covenant that is reflected and manifested then in the beauty, beautiful covenant of Christian marriage. And if you don't understand this covenant, then the derivative covenant makes no sense and that's where we are today. And so, for those of you who may feel a little left out, because we haven't had an opportunity to know of your faith in Christ and of your membership in another church, because we want to be really careful. On one hand, we're fencing this table. It is for believers. and that is believers who have professed their faith in the context of the visible church. We elders in this visible church need to know that before we admit people to the table. On the other hand, understand that because this is a means of grace, this is for everyone who is trusting in Christ and walking with Him. And so we're not keeping anyone away from grace, but rather it's that this particular sacrament has a danger involved with it. If you eat and drink without understanding the body and blood of Christ, you eat and drink judgment upon yourself. And that's why we do fence the table in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. All right, with that background, let's then turn in our Bibles to Psalm 45. Psalm 45. This is an amazing psalm. Again, this is in the second book of the Psalter. And this psalm is a psalm that is all about a marriage. You don't know that at the beginning. It really is over in verse 10 that we learn something about who is the psalmist in this particular psalm as he turns to then address his daughter. And I want you to note that the first part of the psalm is really, the psalmist is a patriot. The psalmist is praising the messianic king who has been given to him as his king by God. And then the second half of the psalm, which we'll sing later, is then the address of the king. And the reason that I've selected this psalm today is because we need to remember that this psalm, sorry, that this table is referring in a complexity that is mind-boggling. At the same time, the bread and the cup are pointing us back to the Passover. They're pointing us back to when the angel of the Lord, who is Jesus, came through Egypt and killed all the firstborn of Egypt, but those who were covered by the blood, God passed over, thus the name Passover. He passed over those houses. That's the Lord's Supper. And that's the Passover, all the way through the Old Covenant. Then Jesus comes along and he brings bread and the cup to his disciples. And he says this cup is the new covenant in my blood. And then a number of years later, the Apostle John comes along and he describes to us at the second coming of Christ this great event called the marriage supper of the lamb. And this refers to all three at the same time. And so if you haven't studied those and meditated on those, come talk to me. I'd love to help you to get Take some study materials together for that. But as we come today, we need to remember that this is a sign of covenant with Christ. And so as we read here, I'm going to be stressing today the person of Christ in Psalm 45. So let us hear now the word of the Lord. Psalm 45, we'll read the entire chapter. Hear the word. of the Lord. To the choir master, according to 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. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, Your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces, stringed instruments make you glad. Daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor. At your right hand stands the queen in gold of ophir. Then he turns. Hear, O daughter, and consider. Incline your ear. Forget your people and your father's house. And the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people." All-glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. In many colored robes, she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the King. In place of your fathers shall be your sons. You will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore, nations will praise you forever and ever." This is the Word of God. Did you catch that phrase there? In verse 15, with joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. This palace is described in luxurious terms in Psalm 45. I'm persuaded that ultimately the palace being described here is not in Jerusalem, that this is in fact heaven. This is in fact the great hope of the believer, that we will go and be with God, with the Lord, Yahweh, where He is. and that we will dwell with him in the new heavens and the new earth. But that's an application. Let's do some work here today. The Lord's Supper is a symbol of the joy and gladness that loyal citizens exhibit as they enter the palace of the king. This glorious psalm explores the bearing of the king. Did you hear about his weapons? Did you hear about how his clothes smelled? Men, some of you have seen the Old Spice commercials recently. Old Spice is trying really hard to branch out and include women as well, but it's still for men. With cassia, aloes, and myrrh, his clothing smells glorious. I want you to see how this king stands. At one point it describes him preparing to shoot his arrow into the heart of his enemy. Wow. And then on the other hand, okay daughter, there's a lot going on here. You need to forget me now. You need to forget mom. Because God has a huge calling for you. From now on, you can still call me dad, but you call him Lord. And you bow before him. Because he's now the head of your home. And it's through the royal king. that your family will grow and prosper and multiply from generation to generation to generation forever. Can you see this song? It's called a love song. This is not some shallow country song called a love song. This is a covenant love song. that revolves around nothing less than the creator-creature distinction and the promise of a Messiah who will come from heaven into his creation and be the only ultimate hope of salvation. Once again, I want us to use our interpretive tool today, structure, setting, collection, book. If you weren't here last week, that's okay, but we're going to take these four steps very briefly today in the context of this psalm. I want to practically apply this psalm from Book Two, and the key word for Book Two of the Psalter is communication. Draw near to Christ in sincere and loyal love. There's a sense in which what I'm calling you to do today is to examine your heart. Do you have this loyal love for Jesus Christ? If you don't, then you're not really married. You might be shacking up. You might even have a kid together. But your relationships are not reflecting the heart of God, which is loyalty, steadfast love, faithfulness. Our God, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God. We belong to Him. Let's look at this together today. First of all, and as a matter of growing conviction, you'll notice that I read the inscription. You should know that in the Hebrew Bible, the verses are off by one. Because in the Hebrew Bible, whenever there is an inscription, that is verse one. It is my growing conviction that the inscriptions are to be regarded as the word of God. Although written later by editors, we don't know all the details there. They are nonetheless to be part of the, they are part of the psalm, and the psalms are to be understood in light of those inscriptions. So we have a psalm to the choir master. That is that this song is designed to be sung within the context of temple worship. According to the Lilies, I'll tell you, I have no idea what this means. And if someone tells you they know for sure, don't believe them. But what we know is that this word lilies is probably related to the fact that this is a song. It could be the title of a tune that's well known. It could be, you know, there's several different options there. The word masculine then, this is just a transliteration. Again, scholars scratch their heads here, but this is probably either describing how this is to be sung, that is a musical term, or possibly the manner in which it's to be sung, that is as part of some kind of liturgical tradition. The most important thing here is I want you to see that this is a masculine of the sons of Korah. And there are numerous places in scripture where this name appears, but probably this is a reference to a descendant of Korah, that is Heman the Singer, who is a son of Korah, according to 1 Chronicles 6, verses 31 and 32. It's a very interesting thing to see here that This is grounding this psalm in the temple, in the authorship of a son of Korah, and then it's described as a love song. So let's look at this in three parts today. The first is the bearing of the king. And so again, imagine this man as he stands. Again, I'm putting this in in our contemporary terms, but as he stands at the back of the church, preparing to walk down the aisle with his daughter, and to give her away, the ceremonial raising of the veil, embrace, and then him taking her hand and putting it in the hand of her new bridegroom. Friends, the significance of this cannot be overstated. But before the wedding happens, the writer of the psalm is standing at the back and he's looking at the king in the front. He says, my heart overflows with a pleasing theme. When I look at my future son-in-law, my heart grows strong. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. I actually have a pen drawn here in my Bible. When I look at this psalm, I'm reminded that the tongue of the believer should be a ready scribe to speak about the King. Let me tell you about my King. He is handsome. Grace, notice not law, but grace pours upon His lips. God has blessed him. I've seen evidence that he is blessed by God. And if you have your own Bible, circle the word forever. Because whenever this word comes up, this is a direct reference to the promise of the Davidic covenant. The David's sons, as long as they walked with God, they would reign forever. And God has blessed this king with a forever promise. Oh, future son-in-law, the sword on your thigh is sharp. You are mighty in strength. There is splendor and majesty about you. And at this point, I wanna say, especially to the dads who are looking at this young man who's asked to marry your daughter, and are we talking about, are we still talking about Your son-in-law? Your son-in-law, when he gets married to your daughters, usually, like, he's growing, but would you say all these things about him? Part of the thing that I think we need to see here is this guy is a real patriot. This guy is pro-Israel, not in the modern sense, but in the historic sense. He sees the king and he is thrilled that his daughter would marry the king. He kind of piles on. But again, notice that it's so much more than just an earthly person. And your majesty ride out victoriously for truth and meekness and righteousness. Let your hand teach you awesome deeds. Your arrows are sharp. in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you. Now all that's like the ski jump, and now we take off, and now we discover that in fact the psalmist has something bigger in mind. You're thrown, oh God, and now you're tempted to think, oh now he's turning from the king, he's turning to talk to God, but he's not. Watch. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. He's already talked about that. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness all the time, everywhere. Can you say that about your son-in-law? Therefore, God Your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. Notice that in verse 6, the God who's referred to is the Messianic King. And we know that because down later it says, therefore God Your God has anointed you. So here is one who is called Elohim and is also anointed by the God in heaven. And friends, now we're beginning to see why this king is described in such wondrous terms. This is a messianic psalm. This psalm is cited, and these two verses, verses 6 and 7, are applied to Jesus in Hebrews 1, verses 8 and 9. That is, that the Messianic kings were just human beings, but they were Old Testament symbols and pictures of the one who we're singing about as God here. He is the anointed one. He is the king. He has all these qualities. By the way, notice that this can't be God because now we're talking about what His clothing smells like. In verse 8, your robes, and now we're right back to the wedding. Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. You have a house, apparently a wondrous house, an ivory palace. where there's people playing stringed instruments. When I read this, I'm reminded when Sue and I walked down the aisle, we had a stringed instrument playing, and it was absolutely beautiful. Daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor. At your right hand stands the queen. And now here, this is the transition. Again, up until this point, this has been pretty standard. This is a really amazing guy. He's the king of Israel. In fact, he's even called Elohim. This sounds like a pro-Israel patriot. And then, suddenly, there is an abrupt shift. And you would not have caught this up to this point in the psalm. But now I imagine him standing there and holding out his arm and whispering in his daughter's ear as they are coming near to prepare to go and meet the king. This is the second point this morning. So the bearing of the king, that's the first point. The bearing of the king, what is this king like? But now we turn to the beauty of the bride, the beauty of the bride number two. Here, oh daughter, and consider. Think this through. Incline your ear. And then, what on one hand breaks a dad's heart, but on the other hand, the message that must be communicated. It's time for you to step into your new role. You have to leave us behind. You have to transfer your trust to your King. He's been your King, but now He's your King in a whole new way. Forget your people and your Father's house. And the King will desire your beauty, since He is your Lord. Bow to him. Daughter, understand that you are beautiful. He's been drawn by your beauty and you will grow over the course of your life in a kind of beauty that will never fade away. Again, we're not just talking about her being beautiful physically. We're talking about her being the woman that God has made her to be. And this is a huge step, a transition that, when I think about this, it brings tears to my eyes. But friends, this transition from being the daughter of a father to being the wife of a husband, this huge transition that I can only imagine, involving nothing less than usually, often, the changing of your name, is a picture of salvation. Leave behind the things that have been, and I want you to step forward into God's plan for you, daughter. There's going to be lots of gifts, Your friends are all around you bearing gifts. They're gonna help you set up your house. There's gonna be people. Now you're gonna be a part of the house of the king. And again, do you see how we're working clearly in this psalm on two levels? Clearly this palace is not totally made out of ivory. Clearly the king has other things besides just hanging around with his young bride. There's a reality to this, but there's also an idealism here that we need to hear and we need to treasure. That this is the ideal marriage. This is the ideal wedding. This is the ideal king. He's the one who captures the hearts not only of a woman and not only of women in general, but of all of His people. Friends, this Queen, this daughter is us. And we are being beckoned to look at our Lord and to understand His love for us. Look then at verse 13. Notice that up until this point, the father-in-law or the father has been speaking to his daughter. And now it shifts into the third person. Now she's gone from him. Now she's gone into the wedding. And now all glorious is the princess in her chamber with robes interwoven with gold. In many colored robes, she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness, they are led along as they enter the palace of the king. Now the father-in-law, or sorry, now the father is in the background. Right? Dad's one of the main jobs you have. What are those last words you'll ever say? Who giveth this woman? Her mother and I. And then you can go sit down and die. Because your job, with regard to your daughter, not really, but is over. Right? You have done the work of a father. Now you're a father-in-law. Now there's many other blessings that come. I don't want to overstate this. But I want us to see that this revolves around the loyal love of a king and the beauty of a bride. And now we're coming to the point of the Lord's table today. The bearing of the king, the beauty of the bride, and now the blessing of the family. With joy and gladness, they're led as they enter the palace of the king. And now, notice there's a break. There's a new scene. And here's the blessing of the family. My question as I read this is, who is being spoken to here? Look at these two verses. I think there's three different arguments that can be made. in place of your fathers shall be your sons. You will make them princes in all the earth. I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore, nations will praise you forever and ever." Interpretive option number one. Maybe this is being said to the bride. The words just above are describing the bride. Maybe it's in place of your father who's been speaking will be your son's daughter that you bear. But how will she make them princes? And how will her name be remembered in all generations? How will the nations praise her? I don't think that works. The second option is the you here is God. In place of your fathers, well, God doesn't have a father, will be your sons, many sons he'll bring to glory. God will make them princes. God will cause whose name? God's name to be remembered in all generations. The nations will praise God forever and ever. I don't think that works. God doesn't have a father. But then we come to what I believe is the best and I think the central point of this psalm. Already in verses 6 and 7, this messianic king has been called God. He's been called Messiah. He's been anointed with the oil of gladness. Now, fit in here, not the Bride and not God, but the Anointed One, the Messianic King. In place of your fathers shall be your sons. You've gotten married today. You, the Messianic King, will install them as your assistants, as princes. in all the land, in all the earth. And God is the one speaking here now. And he says, I will cause your name, King, to be remembered in all generations. Therefore, nations will praise you, King. And then these wondrous words again, forever and ever. Friends, this is a song. about Jesus. This is a song about the Messianic King, who always loved righteousness and hated wickedness, who was anointed both by God in heaven and by His saints upon the earth. This is the one whose name is remembered from generation to generation throughout the last two millennia. This is the one whom the nations will come and worship forever and ever. Do you see how this works? Do you see Jesus and the Gospel in this glorious psalm? It's because of the Davidic covenant. And I don't have time to go into all of the details here, but there's three words that I would ask that you look up and check out. The first is the word forever. It's used there at the very end of the psalm, the last big idea of the psalm, forever and ever. It's also used back at the end of verse two. Therefore God has blessed you forever. This ties us right back into the Davidic Covenant. And if you're not familiar with the Davidic Covenant, write these two chapters down, 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17. These are two different accounts of God making this covenant with David, and it is a forever covenant. So the word forever. Second of all, notice that this one who is being spoken of is the anointed back in verse 7. Therefore God your God has anointed you. This is the word Mashiach in Hebrew. The messianic king, we call him the messianic king because he's anointed. He's anointed not by his dad, He's anointed by the prophet on behalf of God. It's always the prophet who anoints the king. It's fascinating to see these things. And then the third word that I would point out here is the word princes in verse 16. You will make them princes in all the earth. One of the most fascinating things is to see how God establishes David as a prince. The Lord is the king, and David is the prince, and then David becomes the king. And now he's representing God, but he's a man, and it all is binding together, and it's this that's symbolizing the incarnation of the Messiah, who is ultimately not the son of Joseph. He's the son of God, and yet he's fully and completely human. And so point number four, and here we close, to simply consider the collection and the book. And I won't say a lot here today, but I've been working with a very important academic book that has helped me and persuaded me more clearly that there is a structure, a clear structure to the Psalter, including the five books of the Psalter. And so last week we talked about Psalm 3, and we thought about the contention that that is present in the Psalter. Today we're looking and we're using Psalm 45 as an example of Book 2, and the key word here, if you want to fill this in, is the word communication. And I'm persuaded, looking at this book, these 20 Psalms, or 21 Psalms, 42 to 72, that this is in fact a wonderful word that summarizes a distinct note that book two of the Psalter is communicating. That is that now here is David who these are his enemies, these nations are hostile to him, but he wants to communicate who God is. He wants to communicate God's purposes. It's a wondrous, wondrous thing. Well, with these thoughts in our minds, let's pray and then we'll come to the Lord's table. Oh Lord, our God, how we thank you that you are an awesome and a sovereign God. Oh Lord, how we thank you that you have drawn near to us in the person of Jesus Christ. And we pray that you would help us to have this loyal love, this chaste love, this dedication to you. That Lord, this feast would be a symbol of our delight in you. Oh Lord, give us more of yourself. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. We ask, oh Lord, that you would bless us as we come. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.