We'll be concluding our study of the first half of Psalms, which was 1372, Psalms and Hymns for Worship and Praise. This is the last lesson in that. Next week we'll start the second half of the Book of Psalms, which is subtitled, Psalms of Boundless Praise because of Deliverance. The books are out in the lobby there, the study guides. If you happen to have gotten one that says Pale of Devotions on it, rather than the adult study guide, please see me and I'll give you the adult study guide. Okay. Skip over it again a number of times. Today's lesson is Lesson 13, The Reign of the Messiah. The text is Psalm 67 through 72. Our focus will be on Psalm 72. Key verse is verse 18, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And the application is to glorify God and rejoice in Christ's coming kingdom. Just a few things by way of context for this lesson. This section, the overall text, it has six chapters I think it is. The theme for that whole section might be hope in times of trouble. If you look back at the subtitles, or the titles of each one of the chapters, you see it's talking a lot about David's troubles and problems. And many of the Psalms have that for a theme. Prior to being selected by God as the next king, David watched his father's sheep. And I think, as I've thought about the life of David and gone through these different events that happened to him and his rise from shepherd to king, I think I might have not thought enough about or underestimated his job as a shepherd. When you think about it, he was a young boy, I'm not sure what age, but you're out there all by yourself with these sheep, responsibility to take care of these sheep, and you've got a lot of animals that are probably going to kill the sheep, and your job, part of it, is to not let that happen. And that could be a dangerous position because he was responsible for, if wild animals came, fighting them off. But then again, when you think about it, knowing the problems he's going to go through later in life, that's probably good training. So his life goes on and God selects him to lead the nation. He becomes the son-in-law of King Saul. But that didn't keep Saul from chasing him and trying to kill him. And so after about 10 years on the run, David finally ascends to the throne. But even this didn't come without troubles. So David had a lot of troubles in his life, but by this time he was well acquainted with problems and dealing with problems. Through it all he places his faith in God and trusts God with delivering when he has troubles. He openly, when he prays to God in some of these psalms, he lays out the case against his enemies, against these people trying to kill him or in some way are standing against him and what God wants him to do. And he pleads with God in some of these prayers to make retribution against these people who are, in effect, rejecting him as God's chosen king of the nation Israel. But, once he's turned that problem over to God, he exalts and praises the name of God prior to God's help coming. Now again, the Psalms in this section, we're only looking at one of them. They continue that plan, or David continues that plan in dealing with his troubles through all those chapters. And he trusts God. And that's a lesson for us. When we have troubles, to trust God through whatever situation He allows us to go through. He's promised that He won't ever leave us or forsake us. He'll be with us through those problems. And we know He's the all-powerful God, He's omnipotent, and He's also a loving God, and He loves us. Psalm 72, if you look at the title before verse 1, is the psalm for Solomon. It would appear, if we get down to verse 20, it sounds like that David wrote the psalm, but we're not certain of that. But if David wrote it, he wrote it for Solomon, because Solomon was going to follow him, and he wrote it for the coronation of Solomon as king. And it's also, Psalm 72 is a prayer for, in fact an extended prayer for the success of Solomon's kingship. But Psalm 72, while it speaks of Solomon's reign as king, it also looks forward to the greatest king, the king, Jesus Christ, who will be the eternal king. And so, because it's a, that makes it one of the messianic psalms by its references to Christ and what's gonna happen later in his millennial kingdom. Either directly or indirectly, there's references to, in this psalm, to the promises that God made to David. The covenant He made with them, which we call the Davidic covenant. And it refers to all the promises that God made to David through the prophet Nathan. And it's found that His promises are found in 2 Samuel chapter 10, there's really three key promises. The first one's in 2 Samuel, chapter 7, verse 10. It says, So the first promise is the land, the promised land. And he's really, in this verse, he's really repeating or reaffirming this promise of the land that he made in the first two covenants, the one to Abraham and the one to Moses. Verses 12 and 13 is the second key promise. It says, verse 12, When thy days be fulfilled, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers. I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. Verse 13 says, He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. So God promises that David's son is going to succeed him as king. and that his son Solomon wouldn't build a temple. The last key promise in the Davidic covenant is verse 16 of this same chapter in 2 Samuel. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee. Thy throne shall be established forever. So here, the promise that he's made continues, and the promises that he's made continue and expand bigger. Solomon lived, he was a man, he lived to his, I think it was 50 some years, and he died, like all the kings. But Christ will live on. He, David's, this extension of David's The kingship going down through David's descendants will go all the way to Christ, who is a descendant of David. But his kingdom will last forever. It will be an eternal kingdom. So, while Psalm fulfilled many of the predictions that are in this Psalm, more of them will wait until Christ comes again to establish His Millennial Kingdom and then reign as the Bible says, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What are some things you know about the Millennial reign of Christ? We won't have to elect another president. Okay? Satan will be bound. Satan will be bound. Satan bound, okay. Anything else come to mind? I'm not probing for anything specific. I just don't want to move on until It's gonna be for 1,000 years. 1,000 years, okay. All right, we can add some things to these as we go along. So the outline is the righteous king, verses one through seven, the king of kings, verses eight through 15, and the king's eternal reign, verses 16 through 20. First, the righteous king. Psalm 72 verses 1 and 2, and again it says, Psalm for Solomon. This is for the coronation of Solomon as king. It says, give the king thy judgments. David, we think, prayed to God to bless Solomon, who's going to be the next king. Give the king thy judgments, O God, in thy righteousness and in the king's son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness and thy poor with judgment. So the first prayer offered for Solomon was that He would reign in God's judgment and righteousness. The Lord Himself is the King of Israel. He never relinquished His reign, even when He gave Israel a human king. He gave them what they asked for. And once he gave them a human king, this human king was to bow down to God, the real king, and rule as his representative here on earth according to God's judgments. And God would only bless this king in his reign if he walked in his ways. In these words of this prayer, Solomon, who I'm sure is there listening to this, and it would appear to them that they made a great impression on Solomon. Early in his reign, the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him to ask for anything he wanted and God would give it to him. And Solomon, instead of asking for something for himself, asked for an understanding heart, a wise, understanding heart that he might be a good judge of the people and might judge honestly, righteously. And one of those times we think of is when the child was born that there was some kind of a mix-up, and two mothers were claiming the child as their own. And Solomon said, OK, we'll slice the baby in half and give each one a new half. And the one that said, oh, no, don't do that. You know, just give it to her. He knew who was the real mother. And that was God's wisdom to tell him what to do to discern who was the real mother. So God was pleased with that, with what Solomon asked for. Not only gave him a wise and understanding heart, but also gave him riches and honor. Verses three through six. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear these as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. Verse 6, He shall come down like rain upon the moon grass, as showers that water the earth. So because of God's guidance, and because He granted Solomon a wise and understanding heart, the king's judgment, the king's reign as king, Solomon's reign as king would bring peace to the people. I'm gonna go back here to his previous slides so we can pick up these other verses. If you look at verse four, it says he would provide for the poor and needy while punishing the oppressors. If we look at verses 5 and 6, it says, He would be greatly respected by the people and would bless them just like rain waters the earth. If we look at verses 5 and 7, we see certain phrases here. with respect to time, it says, as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. And in verse 7 it says, so long as the moon endureth. These phrases would tell us that that they would reach not just Solomon's time up to his death, but on beyond that. We know there's only one king that's going to endure as long as the sun and the moon throughout all generations, and that's Christ. So verse 7, in his days shall the righteous flourish in the abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. So while Solomon was initially a great and righteous king, we know his heart, he had 700 wives and they turned his heart from God to, in his latter years, from God to idols and away from God, away from the Lord. The king fits the full description of this psalm. He will reign in complete righteousness and execute judgment throughout the entire earth. And he'll bring an eternal peace, and there won't be any end to his reign. So, going back to Solomon's request, Solomon asked for wisdom. When was the last time you asked the Lord for wisdom? When it comes to wisdom, I always think of James 1 and 5. It says, if any of you lack wisdom, let them ask of God. They give us to all men liberally, for God doesn't hold back. He gives us all we ask for, to give it to all men liberally and upgrade us not. He doesn't, when we ask again and again and again, He doesn't, He doesn't criticize us for it or anything like that. and it shall be given him. If any of you like wisdom, let him ask for God and give it to all men liberally, and a great thought, and it shall be given to him. Wisdom is something God tells us to ask him for and promises to give him. So, I think we should be asking for wisdom every day. I mean, none of us have all the wisdom that there is, but all of us need all the wisdom there is, and that's, I try to put that at the top of my prayer list. There's a lot of decisions that the right choice, God's will is not evident or not obvious. We need God's wisdom for decisions. Okay, King of Kings. verses 8 through 15. Before we get to verse 8, I want to read a couple of verses out of 1 Kings. During Solomon's reign, Israel controlled more land than at any other time in their history. 1 Kings talks about that. Chapter 4, verse 21. In verse 24, verse 21 says, And Solomon reigned over all Canaanites from the Jordan River into the land of the Philistines and into the border of Egypt. They brought presents and served Solomon all the days of his life. And in verse 24, more about the extent of the of the land of Israel. For he had dominion over all the region on this side of the river, from Tisza even to Azar, over all the kings on this side of the river, and he had peace on all sides round about him. So, Israel had more land than at any other time in our history. It had the entire promised land, except for small portions along the Mediterranean coast. So David had conquered all the enemies of Israel, and Solomon then followed up and made alliances with neighboring nations. Many nations, we find, who read through the scriptures, paid tribute to Israel, which greatly increased Israel's wealth. David had fought all these battles and defeated all these enemies, made Solomon's reign peaceful and prosperous. It gave him the ability to build a temple. If you can't build a temple, if you're fighting a war, people are attacking you. But that gave him the peace so he could do that. And he established it as the center of worship in all Israel. And then he called this age of Solomon the golden age of Israel, the nation of Israel. About this same time, the Queen of Sheba, during Solomon's reign, the Queen of Sheba heard rumors of Solomon's great wisdom and wealth and visited him to see if what she was hearing was true. She was quite wealthy herself, being a queen, and by the end of her visit was amazed at Solomon's wisdom and wealth. And 1 Kings 10 and 6 and 7 is how she described it. It says, And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in my own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. Albeit I believed not the words until I came, and my eyes had seen it, and, behold, the half was not told me. Thy wisdom, and prosperity exceeded the fame which I earned." So, she said, when I saw for myself, they only told me half the story, your wealth far exceeds what I was told. In verse 9, of the same chapter, 1st Kings 10, something else in the Queen of Sheba's discourse with Solomon. She said, Blessed be the Lord thy God. Okay, this is a one that's, she's serving a God that's not the true God, but she sees wealth and his wisdom are due to what his God has done for him. She says, So, Solomon gave credit to the Lord for his wisdom and for his wealth. It probably had something to do with what this queen said that she saw in his life, what she saw going on and how his God had blessed him and made him a great king. But as fantastic as Solomon was, He didn't compare to the Lord Jesus Christ and His future reign on earth. Pick up again, it's at the King of Kings here in verse 8. It says, He shall have dominion also from sea to sea and from the river into the ends of the earth. So when Messiah, when Jesus Christ He will rule the entire earth and not only have Jews worshipping Him, but also Gentile nations and Gentile kings. Verse 9-11 says, They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him, and His enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall bring presents. The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him. All nations shall serve him. But notice there's a progression in these verses, these three verses. First of all, in people, he goes from Verse 9, those who dwell in the wilderness, I'm not sure who that was. There could have been people persecuted who would have been in the wilderness but came out when Christ takes His throne. But anyway, there are those dwelling in the wilderness. And then he talks about their enemies, the enemies of Christ. And then he goes to kings. Sheba was in South Africa or Southern Africa, probably what we would know as Yemen. Sheba was in a North African nation. So you've got Spain a long ways away. You've got Yemen, which was fairly close to Israel. and then Seba, which would be kind of in the middle. So he's got kings coming to him from far and near, from far and wide. And it says those people in the, and there's also a progression here of what they're doing for him. Verse 9 says they will bow before him, those people who come from the wilderness. His enemies shall lick the dust. That's sort of the ultimate in obeisance to the king. If you're down low enough on the ground to lick the dust, you're pretty much humbling yourself. Then it says these kings are going to make presents and gifts and So it talks about specific kings and then verse 11 talks about all kings. All kings shall fall down before him, all nations shall serve him. So Jew and Gentile alike shall serve him. Isaiah 60 goes on to describe some of the conditions and activities that are going to go on during the millennial kingdom of Christ. For sake of time, I'm going to move along and not read all these verses. But Isaiah 60, you can read that. Not just the Queen of Sheba comes, but all nations come to see the glory of God, glory of the Lord. They'll bring expensive gifts, and they'll praise the Lord. They will bow down in worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even his enemies, Philippians 2, 10 and 11 puts it this way. I'm just pulling a couple of phrases out of portions of the verse, but basically it says, every needle bend and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Then Isaiah 60 goes on, and it seems to step forward in into the time of, at the end of the millennium when the New Heaven and the New Earth age begins. The verses 19 and 20 says, of that time period, at the end of the millennium, the sun shall be no more like light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon be of light unto thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall not pour down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thy everlasting light, and the days of thy morning shall be ended. So, they won't need the sun and the moon, because the Lord himself will be the light of the world. So, Solomon had a great reign as king, but the greatness of Solomon doesn't measure up to the Lord's glory. In fact, as King Solomon's reign began to come to an end, he began to oppress the people with higher taxes to fund all his building projects. And the poor were the most vulnerable. And the same principle is today. When taxes go up, people who are just making ends meet for food and clothing and shelter And that's all they have when the taxes go up. Then they have to make harder choices. Okay, verse 12. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth the poor also, and him that hath no helper. So the Lord is going to be the one who delivers the needy. Verse 13. He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy. So Christ is the one who can save souls. Solomon is not a redeemer. Christ is a redeemer. And as Christ was here in His ministry here on earth, He called the needy and oppressed. Remember He said, all ye that are heavy come. So his millennial kingdom will do the same, give rest to those who have been oppressed during the tribulation period. Verse 14 and 15, He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in His sight. And He shall live, and the end shall be given of the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for Him continually, and daily shall He be praised. So, in no way Solomon could claim to be the Redeemer. Only the Lord can save a life. He alone is Savior, and as verse 15 says, to be praised daily. So Solomon was the king of Israel, but he was not THE king of Israel. You see any other prophecies in this psalm that would point to Jesus Christ? Anything that we're going through that These verses. Okay, we'll move along. The king's eternal reign. Again, the days of Saul's kingship were the best days in Israel's history. Just until Christ comes back. Verse 16 says, There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains, and the fruit thereof shall shave like leaven, and the day of the city shall flourish like grass in the earth. So wars and battles are almost non-existent. And this peace, again, increases crop production. It's like the building of the temple can go on because of the peace. Crops can be grown. much better and more bountiful. It wasn't like the time of the Judges when Israel would raise a cross and the Judges or the Philistines would come through and just wipe out the crop or take it for themselves. None of that. Even the mountains, the worship ground for yielding crops, produced handfuls of corn. Corn here, I think, means It can be a lot of different grains and varieties. So the fruit trees were as big as the cedars of Lebanon and produced abundantly. If we just think of the width of the tree or the distance from the tip of the branches from one side to the other, it said the cedars of Lebanon were like between 40 and 70 feet. So I'm not sure how tall the trees got, but that tells you if the limbs were that far, if the branches were that far, not long, then it's going to grow a lot of fruit. Because of the peace and prosperity of this time, the population of Israel also increased. It says here, the day the city shall flourish like grass in the earth. But Solomon's time was not the best time ever. Even today, The average citizen probably would have it better than the average citizen of Solomon's kingdom. But we can absolutely say that the days of the millennial reign of Christ will be the best days ever. The Bible speaks of the millennium as a nearly perfect environment. I'll not quote the scripture or even give you the scripture, but it says it'll be a time of peace and joy and of comfort because the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. A time of enormous wealth. Creation will be freed from the bondage of sin and will flourish. Deserts will blossom and As fertile fields, it talks about the blooming of the rose in the desert. The lion will lie down with the lamb. Animal kingdom will be at peace with each other and with humans. No more war because the Lord will rule the entire earth with a rod of iron, Isaiah 2, 4. And in verse 19 it says, And blessed be His glory, His name forever, and let the whole earth be filled with His glory, amen and amen. So the whole world will be filled with His glory. Back in verse 17 it says, all nations shall call Him blessed. Now when we come to these last three verses, And we're singing the doxology Wednesday night during the hymn time. And this kind of looks like a doxology. So it praises God and it kind of builds. Verses 18, 19 says, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who can only do us wondrous things. That's a key verse for this lesson. and blessed be His glorious name forever and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen. For the whole earth to be filled with His glory means the whole world will be a, like the temple was a holy site, a site of worship. The whole world will be a holy site of worship where God makes His presence known and His prayer is that the whole earth will be a sanctuary. Verse 20 says, the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended. This could refer to this psalm, which I took it to mean earlier, but it could also, it's more likely that this refers to a stage in the collection of the Book of Psalms, 150 psalms. I don't know if it wrote it, if it wrote it, Steve may have talked about this in earlier lessons, but the Book of Psalms is divided into five books. And this verse here is the conclusion of book number two. And so, there will be some other... So that verse 20 could mean that the prayers of David are ended for this book. Because David has other prayers that are credited to him in books three through five. So, what's our application? Well, we talk about Solomon, his reign here on earth, and then the eventual reign of David's descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we said Jesus is going to rule the earth when he comes back. But he's our king right now. And we are actually, when the psalm says we're pilgrims here, our actual citizenship, once we're saved, is in heaven. And so, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, Jesus is our King right now. And He taught us to pray in Matthew 6, 10, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. So He wants His will to be done right now, in our lives. So this gives the essence of Jesus being our King, what it means for Him to be our King. His will done in our lives, right here, right now. And I'll leave you with this question. Is Jesus your King? So, I'm out of time. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this study of Psalms. Thank you for this Psalm 72. It gives us an even greater, it reminds us, and it gives us an even greater appreciation for what the millennium will be like, and what our responsibilities are as citizens of the kingdom right now, and, thank you Jesus, our king right now. Help us as we go through to put it up from day to day to remember these things that we've learned and put them into practice and to not be afraid to ask people for wisdom and to ask for it often, pray as you go. Just be with us as we go from day to day. I want us to be your best. This is your American Christ name. Amen.