I'm going to be reading again from Psalm 110. Hear the word of the Lord. A Psalm of David. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning. You have the due of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not relent. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand. He shall execute kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the nations. He shall fill the places with dead bodies. He shall execute the heads of many countries. He shall drink of the brook by the wayside. Therefore, he shall lift up the head. Father, we thank you for this, your word, and I pray that as I preach it, you would guard my lips and enable me to faithfully deliver the things you have laid upon my heart, and I pray that each one of us would grow into the purposes you have for us. In Jesus' name, amen. If you were to ask the average Christian what his favorite psalm was or which psalm he considered to be the most important, it is unlikely that it would be Psalm 110. He would probably pick Psalm 1 or Psalm 23 or some other psalm that brings comfort or in some way ministers personally, and I love those psalms. They're wonderful psalms. But we saw last week that apparently the New Testament considers Psalm 110 to be its favorite psalm. One commentary says Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to 33 times in the New Testament. That's a lot. And if you were to look up all of those references in the New Testament, which I have done, you would see that it gives a rather full theology of the nature of Christ, of his resurrection and ascension, of the nature of his kingdom, the timing of his kingdom, the future of his kingdom, his overcoming of the curse that came upon this world. So there is a lot that is packed into that little psalm. And we began looking at some of those things last week. We saw that this psalm presented Jesus as fully God and fully man. As God, he represents God to us. As man, he represents man to God. And as God, he has all the power he needs to fulfill everything that he has promised to do. There is nothing too hard for Jesus. We also saw that this psalm presents Jesus as currently reigning over a disputed empire. We shouldn't surprise us to see enemies around during certain periods of his kingdom anyway. And yet we also saw that despite the opposition, he is destined to eventually gain the entire victory. shows the kingdom is starting very, very small at its beginning in the first century. We also saw that he fights against anything that is in us that resists his lordship. So he's not just fighting against enemies outside. Anything in us that defies his lordship is going to be subdued under his feet eventually as well. And so there's a lot to chew on and apply from last week's sermon. Today we're going to finish off the psalm, begin looking at the promised victory of our risen conquering king. You could basically think of this as an introduction to post-millennialism. Now in the chart there's a little image here that shows that there are three different orthodox views of eschatology that all share a common core doctrine belief, it keeps them within orthodoxy, and then you see full preterism is outside of that box because it does not share those core doctrines. But I'm going to be introducing you to post-millennialism today. This is the promised victory that has spurred some of the most successful missions movements and the most effective mission movements in history. And it certainly has energized me over time. Charles Spurgeon, the famous Baptist preacher from the 1800s said, I myself believe that King Jesus will reign and the idols be utterly abolished. For I expect that the same power which turned the world upside down once will still continue to do it. The Holy Ghost would never suffer the imputation to rest upon his holy name that he was not able to convert the world. I love that. And yet there are good, godly, sincere Christians today who doubt that because they have wrong presuppositions and they don't realize the absolutely disastrous consequences of having a faulty eschatology, especially the dispensationalism that I grew up with. And again, I don't want to smear the godly character or the sincerity of these These people, some of them are very godly and sacrificial saints, and as I said, I once held to this on biblical eschatology, but what I want to point out is there are consequences to being wrong on this first point. This first point is probably the most critical point in the whole sermon. Ken Gentry said, It should not go unnoticed that the 20th century may not only be called the age of the triumph of dispensationalism, but also the age of the triumph of humanism. Many believe, with good reason, that the two victories are closely related. In other words, as Christians backed away from trying to influence this world of salt and light, they formed a vacuum that humanists immediately inserted themselves into. And it's inevitable. When we back away from what God has called us to, vacuums always demand to be filled by something. Vacuums should not exist. We need to be filling those, right? And many commentaries And commentators from all persuasions have said that your eschatology, in other words, your belief of God's promises concerning the future, dictate your faith and your actions. Spurgeon and thousands of post-millennialists like him have found incredible encouragement in this song. R.J. Rushdooney said, If I believe that the world will see the progressive triumph of Christ's people until the whole world is Christian and a glorious material and spiritual era unfolds, I shall be motivated very much differently from either a premillennial or an amillennial believer. Thus, we cannot hold that these differing doctrines of eschatology are a matter of indifference. They make a very great difference in how we view the world and our work and future in it. And so we're gonna be looking at the post-millennial, at least what I consider the post-millennial theology of the New Testament that it draws from this psalm. I hope that Greg Bonson in a paper, if you ever want it, I can send it to you, clearly demonstrates that the church fathers and John Calvin and Tyndale and the Puritans and Matthew Henry and William Carey and Jonathan Edwards and so many other very, very well-known men held to. They said that their faith to attempt great things for God flowed out of their expecting, from passages like this, their expecting great things from God. And I hope it gives you great encouragement today as well. In any case, be Bereans. You know me. I tell you, don't believe it because Phil Kaiser says it. You got to be Bereans, study the scripture. If you don't see it flowing from the scripture, don't accept what I have to say. But we're going to dig into this psalm more deeply and build upon what we looked at last week. By the way, last week's sermon, I'm not going to repeat it. It's the foundation for what we're looking at today. And that's why, weirdly, we're starting with point seven. Because the first six points we looked at last week. So point seven says that Christ's reign is gradually and progressively advancing, which logically means that Satan's kingdom is gradually and progressively losing ground. A majority of Christians today deny both the gradual part of that equation, and that's because they believe in the future the kingdom is going to start instantaneously as Christ comes back, and it's going to be done without any help from us, without any help from what verse 3 calls volunteers, and they deny the advancing part of the equation because they think that things are going to get worse and worse, and that the church will eventually be completely extinguished. Faith won't be completely extinguished, because there will be a few individuals, but the church will be. For example, one very godly amillennial theologian by the name of J.C. Ryle, who otherwise has written some fabulous stuff, I love his writings, but he claims this, there will be comparatively few believers upon the earth when he comes again. True faith will be found as rare as it was in the days of Noah, when only eight persons entered the ark, or in the days of Lot when only four persons left Sodom." Wow, that's quite a different vision. Quite a different vision. He thinks that the faith will progressively diminish over time until it is almost extinguished. His version of Christ's manifesto is, I will try to build my church, but eventually the gates of hell will prevail against it. I mean, that's in effect what he's saying. Now, some people are impatient with differences like this, and they say, who cares about eschatology? I just don't have the patience for that. The cavalierly say, I'm a pan-millennialist. It'll all pan out in the end. And let me assure you, things will not pan out if you don't have faith. Hebrew says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And you can't have faith if you don't understand God's promises for the future. Your sense of morale flows out of what you believe. There have been many soldiers who have been willing to lay down their lives for a good cause that they believed would be won. For example, the soldiers under Robert E. Lee. enthusiastically charged into battle against enormous odds because they trusted their leaders and really thought that it was a winnable battle. With the death of Stonewall Jackson, it kind of took the wind out of their sails. And interestingly, he wasn't killed by the enemy. He was shot by one of his own soldiers. And my application here is we're not defeated because of the enemy. No, no, no, no, no. We are being defeated today because the church can't get its theological and moral act together. And what you believe about the future has a profound effect upon your life. It really does. And so let's look at the evidence of a gradual advancement of Christ's kingdom. There is no hint in this psalm that Christ's kingdom is instantly and perfectly established, like some people think. Verse one says, yeah, it affirms this battle is winnable. It's promising a time when all enemies will be under Christ's feet. Verse 2 reinforces that. He is not coming down from heaven or ending his current reign until all enemies are already subdued. Verse 4 assures us that our general will not relent. He will not give up. Verses 5 through 7 make it clear which side you better be fighting on. Okay? It's clear who wins in this psalm. What about the second side of the equation? Will this be won all at once at the second coming, or will it be won gradually over history? Let's look at the evidence. The word till in verse one implies that God has ordained that there will be a long period of time before all enemies become Christ's footstool. Paul emphasizes that word till to give encouragement to persevere. It's going to take a while. It's not going to happen immediately. We've already seen that verse 2 implies that enemies are not conquered overnight. He's ruling for a period of time while enemies are still around. The enthusiastic volunteers in verse 3 are not enthusiastic because they start off as a majority. No, far from it. They started off in Acts chapter two with only 120 disciples in the upper room. The kingdom started as small as a tiny mustard seed, which is exactly the imagery that Jesus uses for the beginning of the kingdom. Not the end, but the beginning of the kingdom. It's almost unnoticeable, and yet those 120 were enthusiastic because they were convinced that the Great Commission could be achieved by God's power. Then verse 3 uses three metaphors or images to convey this idea of gradual growth. One is a womb, which indicates conceptions and beginnings. The church in Acts 2 was pretty small. It was, as it were, still in the womb, developing, growing. Many people could not even tell that the kingdom had come yet, that it existed. It was hidden in the womb, so to speak. Second metaphor is morning, and that's very significant because evening conveys the idea of the sun going down into darkness. This indicates darkness going into dawning and into brighter and brighter times. So it's not getting worse and worse, it's getting better and better. It's getting more light as time goes on. So one question that people have is, will there be a time of darkness at the end of this age of day? And I say no. God doesn't keep time from morning to evening. Genesis 1 begins with an evening-morning progression. The evening and the morning were the first day. The evening and the morning were the second day, etc. So God's definition of days started with darkness and they end with light. And this is the way it is in history. The darkness of the Old Testament gives way to the dawning of the kingdom. And there will be no end to this metaphorical day because at the end of the day, everything is going to be ushered into eternity. When everything in the earth is converted, then and only then will Christ cease his reign, hand the kingdom over to the Father, and usher the world into eternity. Now by combining those two images of the beginning of the kingdom, the womb of the morning, two images, he powerfully conveys the idea that the kingdom started in darkness with just a haze of light showing, and the kingdom of light will from that time on keep growing. Now it's true that the New Testament predicted that in the last days of the Old Covenant, leading up to A.D. 70, there would be a falling away and things would be getting worse and worse as the birth pangs of the kingdom came upon it. But a womb is dark, right? The womb stage was the 40 years from Pentecost to 8070, and the womb gives birth to the early rays of morning. And so three New Testament passages describe the days from Pentecost to 8070 as being like painful birth spasms. A woman giving birth, John 16, 21, Romans 8, 22, Revelation 12, verse 2. But those were just the last days of the Old Covenant. And the womb was the beginning of the days of the New Covenant. So there is a 40-year overlap between when the Old Covenant ends and when the New Covenant begins. And the Bible speaks of that 40-year period as being a bride travailing, giving birth. Once AD 70 happened, the church began to take off so fast that within 250 years, a majority of Rome, actually many people estimate, was Christian despite persecution. Now, was the kingdom in the 3rd and the 4th centuries pretty immature and young? I would say yes. Yes, it was, but it was still growing. But back to the 1st century, those are the images of the womb and the dawning of the morning. The 3rd and 4th images in verse 3 are the refreshing dew that waters the earth and the image of a baby. The Hebrew word for youth, yaldut, is simply the form of the word yelod, to be born, and I think that too is beautiful imagery. Last week we saw the dew represents the Holy Spirit that began the church at Pentecost. It was a kind of conception, okay? And the word youth or babyhood refers to the end of the womb period when the baby emerges in A.D. 70. And so the church started at Pentecost. It emerged from the womb in A.D. 70. A.D. 30 to A.D. 70 is the overlap of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Those are the last days of the Old Covenant, the time when the kingdom is established and when it begins. And there are other indications of this gradual but progressive growth of the kingdom. For example, verse 4 says that he won't relent. The Lord is sworn and will not relent. What does that imply? Well, it implies there's going to be resistance to His reign. But secondly, it implies that God will persevere. Persevere implies time, right? It requires time. God will keep at it for a long time. Why? Because He's ruling in the midst of enemies. There is opposition. He has to persevere. Verses 5 through 6 also indicate that it's being advanced over quite a long period of time as he wars against nations, as he executes heads of countries. And we'll get into that in a bit. But verse 1 is the most quoted verse in the New Testament. It says, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. And as I already mentioned, the word till indicates the purpose, the goal of Christ being assigned a position at the right hand of the Father. And the goal is to make enemies his footstool. He's doing that from heaven. Okay, not at the second coming when he comes down to the earth. But what does it mean to be a footstool? In the Old Testament, for a nation to be a footstool of another nation was to be conquered by that nation and to remain under its rule and under its dominion. That is what Christ is in the process of doing. And the word till indicates it'll be a gradual process. Now, when you think about it, I think that makes perfect sense. How does he subdue us individually? in our sanctification. Do we get sanctified overnight? No. It takes a long period of time in our own lives. And there are literally hundreds of scriptures that speak of not just our progressive sanctification, but God's progressive sanctification of the world as a whole. And I'm not going to go over all of those. There are a lot of images, Levin, there's many different images, but I just want to look at one image in the Old Testament that is, I think, a perfect image for what God intends for this time of the Great Commission. So anytime you want to think of how this psalm is fulfilled, think of how the land of Canaan was conquered in the Old Testament. The book of Hebrews says that the conquest of Canaan was given by God as a type, as a picture of our work in the Great Commission. So how does that happen? Well, from the exodus of Israel out of Egypt to Joshua entering the land, there are 40 years. And those 40 years correspond to the 40 years from Pentecost to AD 70. So the conception of the kingdom in the Old Covenant was in that exodus out of Egypt. That's when God constituted them as a kingdom. Kingdom was conceived. There was some conquest of Canaan that happened on the east side of the river. It was actually a fairly large territory that was conquered. But you can liken Israel's 40-year period to the 40-year period between Christ's resurrection and 8070. It was the womb of the kingdom, so to speak. Now, a lot happened, but they had not yet crossed into the land of Canaan. Then Joshua goes into the land. Does Joshua conquer the land in one day? Obviously not. Does he conquer it in one year? Obviously not. It took many years for Joshua to pretty much consolidate things, but there were still enemies. And there were literally hundreds of years that span the period of the judges when things sometimes went well and sometimes they went backwards. And the conquest was really finished under Saul and David. And it was only under Solomon that there was an extended period of peace. where all of the nations then flocked to Israel. So that is a symbol of the gradualness of the growth of the kingdom over the last 2,000 years, and who knows, perhaps thousands more. In Exodus 23, verses 29 through 30, God says, I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beast of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little, I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and you inherit the land. He promised to do it little by little. See, our God is a God of order, and He establishes the kingdom as more and more His people become ready. Is the church ready today? Not by a long shot. Not by a long shot. Now, I've harped on this point because I've seen so many people discouraged over the slowness of the advancement of God's kingdom. I've seen people give up on their own sanctification because they have falsely expected to overcome the enemy instantly. And when that doesn't happen, they become disillusioned. Why? They have a false hope. That's not the way God works. Many others are discouraged because they don't see a national election won or they don't see abortion instantly abolished. There are so many who have lost hope because they are banking on a false hope. Now last week I quoted both premillennialists and amillennialists who think that it's hopeless to convert the world, absolutely hopeless. Let me just give one quote here. Amillennialist Herman Henko said, the world is filled with sin and getting worse, a hopeless situation beyond repair and impossible to salvage. You get those words? Worse and worse, hopeless, beyond repair, impossible. Now that's your hope. It's going to affect what you're willing to try. Nobody's going to be willing to try to do something that God himself says is a hopeless task. You're going to say, well, fine, I'll go on and do something else, right? It does affect your actions. So, for many Amillennialists, they know that the Bible says Christ is having the victory, so they reinterpret victory as, well, we're losing in this world, but hey, at least we're getting victory inside. We're being sanctified through all of these losses. R.A. says, the darker the world gets, the lighter my heart gets, because that means we are that much closer to the second coming of Christ. So it doesn't really bother him that things are getting worse. That's what he expects to happen. Actually reminds me of the Peanuts comic strip I read one time. Charlie Brown had been criticized for having such a negative outlook on life. So he said, OK, I'm going to make a New Year's resolution. And he said, I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. But we ought not to be dreading life as if everything is working together for the church's disaster and extinction. God is making all things work together for our good. According to this psalm, it would be much more biblical if the church would have a vision of Christ's kingdom that made them convinced it is Satan who is dreading every day. It is Satan who is doomed. And even when he roars against the church that is filled with the Holy Spirit, like we looked at last week, even when that happens, he cannot stop the church militant. Now, he can slow them down for a period of time, yes. He can, you know, give them some temporary setbacks, yes. In fact, he can actually make the church backslide so that God Himself fights against the church. But why does God fight against the church? It's to purify the church and to turn it back into taking the conquest of Canaan. It is strengthening them. Even the blood of the martyrs blossoms into hundreds of new converts. And this is one of many passages in the Bible that gives a full-hearted optimism in the power of the gospel to conquer this world for King Jesus. So when you get discouraged over the state of America, stir up your faith by meditating upon these words. Till, sit, footstool, your power, womb of the morning, the dew of your youth, etc. It's not Satan's kingdom that is advancing, it is Christ's kingdom. Now, how much has Christ's kingdom advanced over the last 2,000 years, you know, from 120 in the upper room till now? Well, in 2013, John Piper and actually the International Evangelical Alliance estimated that there were more than 700 million evangelicals worldwide. That's more than any time in history. That's 2013. Eleven years later, the same organization, International Evangelical Alliance, is estimating that there are around one billion evangelical Christians. Again, more than at any time in human history. But even though it's been advancing very, very rapidly in the last 11 years, it's gotten to this place gradually. In any case, we've got to be convinced of the increase that God promises to His kingdom if we're going to have the kind of faith and the kind of hope for the future that will enable us to persevere. Point eight is that Christ's reign advances through us. Now, many people actually assume the exact opposite. They say that we will be utterly passive when Christ establishes the kingdom for them. It's future tense. He'll do it all by himself, instantaneously. It's not going to involve any activities on our part. Tommy Ice says, kingdom of Christ will be brought in instantaneously without any human agency whatsoever. Salem Kurban said, without the hope of our Lord's return, what future do any of us have? So he's waiting for something to happen. Wolvard said, Christians have no immediate solutions to the problems of our day. A solution to this unrest and turmoil is provided in the Bible, and there is no other. That solution is that Jesus Christ himself is coming back to bring peace and rest to the world. So he'll do it, right? But what does this psalm say? Verse 3 says, Your people shall be volunteers in the day of His power. Yes, we need the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to achieve this, but we do have a part to play. God's kingdom is not advanced by Christ coming out of heaven and snapping His fingers. God establishes His kingdom just like He established the provisional kingdom in the Old Testament through His people. So Israelites didn't get to sit on the grandstands with, you know, eating popcorn and drinking Coke and watching Joshua take the conquest of Canaan all by himself. No, no, no. They had to risk their lives and their livelihoods to take Canaan. No great thing was ever won without sacrifice and hard work. The founding fathers of America risked their lives and their fortunes to make this nation, and we're never going to get this nation back if Christians don't have the same attitude, similar sacrifice. The ninth point shows that Jesus advances both salvation and righteousness. He's not just interested in being our priest. Praise God, he is our priest. We love that doctrine of salvation. But he's also interested in being your king. Another way of saying it is that Jesus is both Savior and Lord. Verse 4 says, Now Melchizedek was called a priest and a king in Genesis 14. In fact, his name Melchizedek, if you translate that, That's Hebrew word. It means king of righteousness. King of righteousness. That's key. God holds Christ's priesthood and his kingship so tightly together that they can never be separated. You can never separate his lordship from salvation, and you cannot separate his salvation from lordship. We are saved unto good works. And the only way good works will be exalted in the earth is through salvation. And this is why we say evangelism has to come before any lasting societal transformation can be seen. But it also means that kingdom people need to be evidencing the kind of life transformation that will make the world, as the Apostle Paul words it, jealous of the gospel. Where Christian life looks so good, they want in on it. They want to have what we have. Look at how verse 3 words it. Now verse 3 starts by showing who will produce this righteousness. Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power. God's power advances His cause through His people, but then He gives the character of this kingdom when He describes it as the beauties of holiness. And that's the phrase I'm going to focus on here. He then indicates it will start small, grow over time. From the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth. But the heart of that verse is the beautiful holiness that God desires for planet Earth. And that is what we should be seeking. King Jesus told his people, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you. Seek it, seek it, seek it. He prophesies in Isaiah 62 too, that the seeking will be successful. The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, all kings your glory. Jeremiah 23, 5 says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness. A king shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. So here's the question I have for you. If you are selling God's kingdom and the beauties of his holiness, does it look beautiful? Are you good ambassadors for the central purpose of His kingdom, holiness or righteousness? Do you yourself love righteousness? Do you see it as a beautiful thing that you long for? Matthew 5 says that this is one of the indications that the King of righteousness actually dwells within our heart. It says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. So do you hunger for the King of Righteousness to produce that righteousness within your heart, the beauties of holiness? And what kind of a sales job are you doing in promoting this kingdom to others? Does your life beautifully display it in a way that others wish they had what you have? Do you model beautiful solutions to broken marriages? and abused children and confused genders and other ugly things that we are seeing in America. Our lives should display more and more of Christ's grace and power that flows from his priestly office, and it should display more and more of the righteousness that flows and law-keeping that flows from his kingly office. Paul said this is how his kingdom grows. Romans 11 verse 11 says this is how the nation of Israel is eventually going to get saved. Israel is going to look at all of the Christian nations and become jealous of what those nations have. Now, you can tell from the nations we're looking around, we've got a long ways to go. We don't have a lot for Israel to be jealous of. The 10th point indicates that Christ's reign is cosmic in its scope. Verse 1 indicates he has authority in heaven. Verse 6 indicates he has authority on earth. And when was Jesus given that authority, all authority in heaven and on earth? It's not in the future, at the second coming. Matthew 28 says it's already happened. Now, unfortunately, even with Reformed people, there is a tendency to look at the kingdom in a pietistic way, you know, as within us individually, praise God that's true, or within the church, and that's true as well. Verse 2, for example, indicates that he reigns in Zion, That includes the church. It's a heavenly Zion. You know, there's a church in heaven. But verses two and following indicates he's also ruling outside of Zion. David Chilton very rightly shows how the Great Commission in Matthew 28 mandates converting the nations and teaching them to live under Christ's kingship. Let me quote him. It says of the Great Commission, that it does not end with simply witnessing to the nations. Christ's command is that we disciple the nations, all the nations. The kingdoms of the world are to become the kingdoms of Christ. They are to be discipled, made obedient to the faith. This means that every aspect of life throughout the world is to be brought unto the Lordship of Jesus Christ. families, individuals, business, science, agriculture, the arts, law, education, economics, psychology, philosophy, and every sphere of human activity. Nothing may be left out. Christ must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet." And all I can say is amen to that quote. His reign is cosmic and our interests must therefore be cosmic. We tried to give our children in homeschooling a passion to see the cosmic reign of Christ extended and how the Bible applies to absolutely everything in life as the hymn writer worded it. All for Jesus, all for Jesus, nothing left out. But many dispensationalists disagree with Chilton's exegesis of the Great Commission, even though it's the same exegesis that Church Fathers Calvin, Matthew, Henry, thousands of others have had, but they disagree. For example, Thomas Ice says, however, this passage, and he's referring to the Great Commission, however, this passage does not say what Chilton wants it to say unless a priori assumptions are carried into it. He is reading his theology into the passage and then citing it as proof of his theology. Why is this passage not talking about evangelism? Now, I find that statement to be incredibly blind, but he's saying, why is the Great Commission not talking about evangelism as most understand it? So he admits he's out of sync with what most people think. But he goes on, he says, premillennialists certainly believe that all those things Chilton mentioned will occur But they disagree with the postmillennialists on timing. These changes will occur after Christ returns, not before, and agency. Just as in creation, the flood, the exodus, and salvation, Christ will accomplish this directly, not through secondary means. Now, this is a huge, huge deviation from what the church has always historically held about the Great Commission. And Tommy Ice actually admits it. Turn with me to Matthew 28. And let's see if he's right about timing and agency. He claims that Christ will do it without any human help whatsoever, no volunteers, and that he will only do it after the second coming. So Matthew 28, let's begin reading at verse 16. Then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. And so the first thing to notice is who is he talking to and about? He's addressing the leaders of the church, the 11 apostles. Verse 17, when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Now, the dictionary defines the Greek word for doubted as to be uncertain about taking a particular course of action or to hesitate. Well, Christ is going to give them certainty about what course of action they should take. Verse 18, Jesus came and spoke to them saying, all authority, not some, All authority has been given to me. Notice he isn't waiting for the second coming to gain this authority, both Psalm 110 and this passage connect his authority very tightly with his resurrection and his ascension. He is about to ascend to heaven. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Notice how cosmic this is. Nothing's left out of his authority in heaven or on earth. Verse 19, go therefore. That therefore indicates that based on his cosmic authority, There is a logical conclusion that must follow. It's not a command waiting to be fulfilled. It's a logical necessity of his already having been given all authority. So he says, go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And I don't know how Tommy Ice can say this does not include evangelism. It does. It's making disciples. It's baptizing disciples. And notice that it's entire nations that will be Christianized. That's the goal. But it's far more than simply making them Christian. Verse 20 says, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen. I know many pastors who say, oh yeah, what did Jesus command them to do? Evangelize. And so we have to command people to evangelize. And it goes a lot beyond that. Let me read to you what Jesus had earlier commanded them as he's extending the kingdom. It's Matthew 5, 17 through 19. He said, Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Now, last time I looked around, heaven and earth has not passed away yet, even though full preterists claim it has, but that's weird. Anyway, from my perspective, that means every jot and tittle of the Old Testament continues to have relevance, including the ceremonial law, which we're not under, which we're not bound by, but it still teaches us all kinds of things. As we saw in baptism this morning, it teaches us. But anyway, it says, whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So what did Jesus command earlier? Remember the Great Commission says we're to teach everything He commanded the apostles to teach. Well, in this passage, Jesus commands us to teach the nations to obey the blueprints of the whole Bible, even the least commandment. What's the least commandment? Well, every commentary will tell you the least commandment is Deuteronomy 22, verse 6. That's what all of the hearers then would have assumed. And let me read Deuteronomy 22 verse six. If a bird's nest happens to be before you along the way in any tree or on the ground with young ones or eggs with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall take the mother with the not take the mother with the young. You shall surely let the mother go and take the young for yourself that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days. And you might think, really? I have to follow that commandment? Sure, I could see how it could have ecological implications, but really, does that affect my relationship to God? And Jesus says, yeah, yeah, it does. He said, whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he should be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So the bottom line is that Jesus wants the church to teach nations, not just magistrates, even though magistrates are included, but he wants to teach every part of a nation how to live out the entire Bible. And there are many other New Testament passages that also point to the cosmic scope of Christ's current kingdom. 1 Corinthians 15, 22-28 quotes this psalm and says this, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, after the word, those who are Christ's, it is coming. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father. Notice at the second coming, that's the end of his kingdom. When he hands the kingdom to the Father, it's not the beginning of his kingdom, as so many people think. No, it's the end. And then verse 25 explains, for he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. Wow. If death is the last enemy to be destroyed, that means every other enemy has already been destroyed before the resurrection in the future, right? It's all been taken care of by the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know how full Preterism can survive with verses like this. Verse 27, for he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. Now when all things are made subject to him, then the son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. So how extensive does it say that His authority was intended to be? Jesus is called by the Father to bring everything into submission with one exception, it says, except the Father. If He's the only exception, that means Christ's authority is cosmic. Cosmic. Ephesians 1, 22-23, and he put all things under his feet, gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Philippians 2, 9-11, therefore God also has highly exalted him, given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So that's the goal of his kingdom, to eventually have every knee-bowing, every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord. Colossians 1, 16 through 18, another of several New Testament passages that confirms how cosmic Christ's reign is. It says, for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have the preeminence. Now I could give more. I think that's enough. Jesus is currently exercising his rod of iron from the right hand of the Father. He's going to remain there until the entire cosmos glorifies God. That's postmillennialism. Now the 11th point is that God will not give up and neither should we. Verse 4 says, the Lord has sworn and will not relent, so relenting is giving up. It's exactly the problem that we many times have. We give up because the task looks too hopeless. There seems to be way too many enemies around. That's precisely the problem that the 10 spies had in Numbers chapter 13, right? They looked at the giants in the land and they relented in their determination to advance. But as we've already mentioned last week, God does not honor lack of faith. And He won't let us abandon the greatness of the Great Commission without suffering negative consequences. Nothing short of discipling the nations and teaching them to observe all that His word commands should satisfy us. Now, I'll grant you, it can sometimes be discouraging out there. You read the newspaper, wow. And certainly we sense our weakness. But the point of the psalm is to take our eyes off of ourselves and put them onto the sufficiency of Jesus. David didn't see himself as the solution. He was looking to the coming Messiah and realizing, if he doesn't get discouraged, I'm not going to. Here's how author Baliat words it. The church has been paralyzed by its false, short-termed, pessimistic, predestined view of the future. The enthroned Christ, who has been given all power and authority and dominion, has stretched forth his mighty hand to the paralyzed cripple and said, Arise, take up your mat, and walk." In other words, if we feel just as weak and inadequate as that paralytic did, Christ's power is what counts. Okay, and he calls us to have an action of faith, faith action, like he called the paralytic to faith action. God will ensure that Christ's priestly and kingly work are successful. God will not go back on either his purpose to save or his purpose to rule through Christ. He has sworn he will not relent, and there should be no turning back for us either. Notice in verses five through six that Christ also brings judgment in history. The Lord is at your right hand. He shall execute kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the nations. He shall fill the places with dead bodies. He shall execute the heads of many countries. I mean, in some ways, those are chilling words. They were literally fulfilled in A.D. 70. And in a revelation series, we see that it was also being applied to A.D. 135 to 136 in the Bar Kokhba rebellion when Literally, there were bodies everywhere, scattered everywhere. It was filled with it. But that was just the beginning of his historical judgments. Does that mean that America might suffer a high body count and high losses if leaders do not repent? I believe so. Psalm 2 says that Christ takes his rod of iron and he smashes every nation that rejects Christ's rule. Every nation, not just Israel, not just Rome, no exceptions, every nation. And there is no way to escape without repentance when we have been killing millions and millions of babies through abortion. And by the way, slowing down abortion slightly with a 15-week ban, that's not repentance. It's actually entrenching abortion in the first trimester, and yet it's Christians who are promoting that non-repentant stance. Even our politics needs to take seriously the claims of Christ as priest-king, Melchizedek. one of which is the complete abolition of abortion. That's what we need to keep pressing for. There is no way God can turn a blind eye to pornography, sexual perversions, gender fluidity, socialism, all of the other evils we see in America that actually resulted in the Canaanites being cast out of the land. You've seen, you may have seen the blasphemy. Yesterday was the day before when Biden declared Easter to be the day for recognition of transgenderism. Absolute blasphemy, but you know what? I'm seeing in all of these weird things that are going on in America, the beginnings of God's judgment. It's the beginnings of His judgment. You just see it everywhere. They're giving up, giving up onto a reprobate mind. According to Romans, one of the kinds of judgment So normally, here's what happens. Normally, for the sake of his church, God restrains people. People on their own, their depravity would make them go down into worse and worse depravity. God restrains the reprobate for the sake of the church. But when the church itself is becoming carnal, God gives them up. And when he gives them up, he just turns his hand away. They plummet into every kind of sin. And we are in a free fall. When you see the irrationality of woke corporations who support gender fluidity, even though they know they're going to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, when you see politicians supporting, you know, all of this wokeness, it is evidence of being given up onto a reprobate mind. Even the latest atrocity of a national budget, if you can call it a budget, shows the reprobate mind that our politicians have. How else can you explain the stunning irrationality that gets reported in the newspapers every day? Verse 5 says that these judgments of Christ flow from heaven. The Lord is at your right hand. But the rest of the passage indicates his work from God's right hand affects the earth. It affects kings, nations, places, bodies, heads of country. This is very tangible stuff. God used Rome to smash Israel in the first century, and then He used other countries to smash Rome. And the last 2,000 years has been a series of smashings by the Lord Jesus Christ as King. You've got to read history through the lens of the Bible itself. And I don't believe that we can be exempt, and this is why I am so passionate in calling family, church, and culture back to God. And by the way, If you are disobeying God's words for your family, don't be hypocritically calling the nation to repent. We've got to start and get our own houses fixed first. But the encouraging thing about these judgments is that they are usually redemptive judgments that drive pagans to the gospel. In fact, most judgments down through history have been used redemptively by the Lord to save multitudes of people, praise God. So not all is lost. There are more Christians today than ever. And by the way, as things have gotten worse and worse in the last two or three decades, there are more reformed people today than two decades ago. There are more Reconstructionists, there are more post-millennials today than 20, 50 years ago. And so what happens is many times judgment results in the purification of the church. And so the rest of the Bible calls us to be in agreement with His judgments. Don't try to avoid them. Those judgments are advancing His kingdom. Don't disagree with verses 5 through 6 as if such judgments can't produce anything good. For some people, this is really the hard part. But it is imperative that we agree with Christ's judgments. And the easiest way to come into agreement with Christ's judgment, that's the God-authorized way, is by praying the imprecatory Psalms against His enemies. Revelation 8 promises that should the whole church do so, there will be immediate responses of judgment from Christ. It describes a censer of incense filled with the prayers of the saints. And verses 5 and 6 of Revelation 8 say, then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, threw it to the earth, and there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. And so the judgment comes from heaven, just like in this psalm. But it affects the earth, just like in this psalm, and then it describes regiment after regiment of angelic beings, warriors, being sent into the battle. If Jesus is the general and we're the volunteers of his army, then we need to be taking up the spiritual weapons that he has given to us. And one of those weapons is the imprecatory psalms, asking for God's judgment. I believe that when we seriously do so as a church as a whole, I'm not just talking about our local church, Church as a whole, we will see the advancement of God's kingdom as we have never seen it before in our lifetime. The last point is that ultimately Christ will gain the victory. We've already been saying that the whole time, right? But let me just... Finish off with this. Verse four says that God has sworn it. His very integrity is at stake. His truthfulness is at stake. He cannot break his oath. So that's what I'm banking on. But look at the symbol portrayed in verse seven. It says, he shall drink of the brook by the wayside, therefore he shall lift up the head. So it's a picture of exhausted, battle-weary soldiers drinking from the brook after a successful battle and then rising in triumph. Christ is pursuing the enemies until he can stop fighting, drink from the brook metaphorically, then lift up his head and triumph over them. But that means that we, as his volunteers, need to be just as dedicated. Here's how Isaiah 42 words it. He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands shall wait for his law. God never said Christian conquest would be easy. Sacrifices are involved. Sanctification is not easy. Sacrifices are involved. Spiritual warfare, you know, it's always difficult. And we are in a war with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Our sword is the Bible. Our armor is described in Ephesians 6. Our power is the Holy Spirit. But this verse gives us the comfort that Christ is leading the battle. And he has no intentions of giving up and going back to camp until he has completely vanquished every foe. He will not settle for the half-baked victories that so many Christians settle for. He calls for total submission of everything to the Lordship of Jesus. One of the professors at Westminster Seminary was asking his daughter what the book of Revelation teaches, and her answer was pretty good. Girl says Jesus wins. And, you know, everybody says that. You know, all three of the orthodox schools say Jesus wins. But how does he win? How does he win? Amillennialists, while affirming that he wins at the second coming, deny that he wins in history other than producing sanctification in his rapidly decreasing church. For example, Richard Gaffin says, until Jesus comes again, the church wins by losing. And he goes on to prove over and over, we're going to lose, lose, lose. And we only spiritually win by being sanctified through these losses. And he puts wins in quotation marks because losing sure doesn't seem like winning. But this psalm assures us that Jesus will win in history by putting all enemies under his feet. And we need to keep that firmly in mind. During times when you get discouraged in the growth of your own holiness, remind yourself Jesus wins and he's on your side. He is for you. Okay. Remind yourself, he won't give up on you, and he's not going to give up on the church until he can finally present it as a bride without sprawl or wrinkle to the Father. So don't give up on yourself. And when you're tempted to grow discouraged about Christ's battle against other enemies, remind yourself that 1 Corinthians quotes this psalm and interprets the enemies as all rule, all authority, all power, and all things in the world. And Paul says Christ is going to eventually Christianize all of that. So this psalm should be a tremendous encouragement to us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for guaranteeing Christ's victory. And I thank you for your judgments. Thank you for your salvation, which is offered to all full and free. We do not want to worship a God made in our own image. We want to see you as you are in glory and your plan for history. So thank you for giving us the privilege of being volunteers. We seek your power to do so in holiness. We seek your wisdom for our work. We devote our lives to Your cause. In Jesus' name, amen.