So, people of God in Christ, whenever we open Scripture to the pages of the Old Testament, we need to read in light of what Jesus says in Luke 24, verse 27. You might remember that after His resurrection, Jesus appeared to two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were kept from recognizing him at first. And he was later revealed to them through the breaking of bread, even as Christ is revealed to us today in the sacrament. But while they were still on the road, if you recall the story, Jesus spoke with these two disciples. And in Luke 24, verse 27, it says, in beginning with Moses and all the prophets, This would certainly include the Psalms. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. We ought to recognize what an audacious thing it was for our Lord to say this. This is one of those moments in the in the life of Christ when we need to decide for ourselves whether this man is our Lord or whether he was not quite in his right mind. In another place, Jesus says much the same thing. In John 5, verse 46, John says to those who would not believe in him, he said, if you believed Moses, because they claimed to believe Moses. But if you believed Moses, said Jesus, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But God's Word clearly proclaims Christ as Lord. And the point to be made here is that God's Word proclaims Christ. There's a sense in which if somebody asks you, I see you have a Bible there. What is that book about? You could say, God. And that would be a good answer. But the problem, of course, is that just by spelling God with a capital G does not mean that you're necessarily talking about the one true God. In order to know the one true God, we must know Christ. who is God's own revelation of Himself. And so, if somebody were to ask us, well, what is that book that you have in your hand? What is that about? We could say, it's about Christ. The entire book is about Christ. And so we ought to expect to be reading about Christ, our Lord, on every page of our Bibles. And so I introduce us in this way to Psalm 110. Psalm 110 is rightly understood as what we say, one of the messianic psalms, which means in plainer language that it's a psalm about Christ. It's a psalm that speaks prophetically about the Messiah or the Christ. And if we have any doubt about this, we can turn to Matthew 22 to hear Jesus himself quoting Psalm 110 verse one and taking it as a reference to the Christ, which just so happened to be who he was as he was standing before those to whom he was speaking. which which which is who he was, although he was speaking to those who would not believe in him. So he was using Psalm 110 to. To help them to to bring them to believe that he is the fulfillment of this great prophecy in. The Old Testament in Matthew 22 verse 41, Jesus asked the Pharisees, what do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? Well, that's a low, easy pitch, right? That's a softball pitch, as we call it. Everyone knew the answer to that, and they gave him the obvious elementary answer, the answer that everyone knew, that the king who would one day come to reign over God's people would be the son of David. And Jesus challenged them by asking further, well, then how is it that David, speaking by the Spirit, he acknowledges the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? For he says, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. Now here is a point where we need to understand something, that whenever we find the word LORD, you've heard this before, it's worth repeating and making it all the more clear, whenever we find the word LORD, and whenever it's in all capital letters, The translators of our Bible are telling us that the Hebrew word here is Jehovah or Yahweh, which is the name that God took for himself, if you recall, when he was speaking to Moses in the burning bush. Exodus chapter 3 recalls that story. Maybe it's one of the favorite chapters for the kids because it's indeed a great story. But in the burning bush, God took to Himself a name. And that name is Yahweh. Whenever we see the word Lord printed in only the capital L, well, then that's a different word in the Hebrew. It's the word Adonai, the more generally equivalent word for the English word Lord. Now, if that seems too confusing, simply understand that we can read Psalm 110, verse 1, this way. God or Jehovah said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. David is referring to God and he says that God said to his Lord, which raises the question, who is David's Lord? David was the king. Does a king have a Lord? Well, yes, he does. He is referring to even His own Son as His Lord. He's referring to the Messiah. Jesus' explanation and the understanding that even the Pharisees seem to accept although they didn't like all the implications of it. But the understanding that Jesus gave and the Pharisees accepted is that David was speaking prophetically, or as Jesus puts it, he was speaking in the spirit. David was prophesying about the Christ, who God promised would be David's own son, and yet who David refers to as his Lord." In other words, Psalm 110 verse 1, or in Psalm 110 verse 1, we hear a father, this is the thing here, we hear a father referring to his own son as his Lord. Have you ever heard a father, even when his children are all grown up, Have you ever heard a father saying yes, sir, or no, sir, to his own son? No, as children get older, they are yet the ones who always say yes, sir, and no, sir, to their father. And Jesus' point here is to confront the Pharisees with the implied question. If David was willing to submit himself to the Christ by calling Him Lord, even though Christ would be his own Son, then why are you, Jesus was saying to the Pharisees, why are you not willing to submit to Me, to the Christ, even as He stood before them in that day? Are you greater than David was essentially Jesus' answer or His question to them. But the Pharisees, of course, were simply exhibiting the rebellion that is common to all of us. We may be very happy to have a God whom we recognize and pray to and maybe even sing some praises to Him. But when the one true God puts His Son on the throne as Lord and King over all the earth, rebellion is greatly stirred within our sinful hearts. But Christ is indeed our Lord. He is Lord over us. And as we will see, he is Lord over us for our good. That is, he is Lord over us in order to be our savior, as we will see as we continue in Psalm 110. So the first thing that we need to learn about Christ in Psalm 110 is that Christ is Lord over his enemies. Christ is Lord over his enemies. Verse two says, the Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. You will rule in the midst of your enemies. Christ is Lord over his enemies. He reigns over them. Christ is not the fighter entering a boxing ring who needs to fight in order to establish his rule. Christ is not like the general who has to march onto the battlefield in order to push back his enemies and reclaim an area of this world that is not already his. The reason we might mistake Christ as being like a fighter who has to prove something, or like a general who has to reclaim ground that has been taken from him, is because Christ came into this world to take on our own flesh. And having done so, he won a victory on the cross. But what we need to remember is where Christ came from before he did this. He was on his throne. He was reigning over the whole world. And we need to remember where Christ ended up afterwards. Again, on his throne, reigning over the whole world. So what was the difference between before and after? The difference is that now he is on his throne in our own flesh. Now he is on his throne, fully qualified to be our savior. He needed to win no victory for himself. He did not need to establish his own authority. He demonstrated that over and over again as he healed the sick, as he opened the ears of the deaf, as he opened the eyes of the blind, as he cast out demons, as he commanded the wind and the weather to obey him. He showed that he has an inherent authority over this world. So what He came to do was not to gain authority for Himself, but to become the Savior in our own flesh with the authority to save us from our sins. You know by now, after almost four years, that I grew up with the Heidelberg Catechism. And the Heidelberg Catechism question in answer one speaks of this very clearly. It says that Christ has fully paid for all my sins and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. Tyranny refers to the malicious reign of the evil one. But are we to understand that the evil one was some threat to Christ himself? No, Christ left his eternal throne not to win his own victory, but to win our victory by taking on our flesh and by dying our death and by rising again with victory for us. And now He reigns in the midst of His enemies. To say that Christ is reigning over this world is not to say that He doesn't have enemies. Like we said, the human heart is in rebellion against Him. And if you want to test this, then all you have to do is this, as you go out into this week, start talking to somebody and talk to them about God. And even if you're not dealing with print, with just your own speech, you can talk about God, whether or not, in your own mind, you're capitalizing the word God or not. But whether by speech or by print, you can talk to someone about God and they will listen to you and they will say, oh yes, yeah, I hear what you're saying. I appreciate your faith. And that's a great thing. But all you have to do is instead of talking about God, start talking about Christ. Have you experienced this? You can talk about God almost all you want. Now, there are some, of course, who don't even want to hear you mention the word or the name God, but all you have to do is start talking about Christ. If you want to talk about something beyond God, talk about the Holy Spirit, and people even then might, oh yeah, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. But just talk about Christ. And sadly, it will often shut down the conversation, and the lights will go off, and the door will close. because even now Christ is reigning in the midst of his enemies. But what about that passage where Jesus said to his disciples, whoever is not against us is for us. Doesn't that mean that people aren't against Christ until they have deliberately rejected him? Well, we might want to think that, but the context of that passage in Mark 9, verse 40, is that the disciples had seen someone, not of their number, casting out a demon in Christ's name. And Jesus tells them, don't stop him, for whoever is not against us is for us. In other words, if you hear someone confessing Christ as Lord and Savior, don't get upset if he's not from your group. After all, you have enough enemies in this world. It most certainly is not that the people of this world are innocent bystanders until they accept or reject Christ as Lord, as some would claim. And what that means for us is that we do live in the midst of enemies, but we do so even as we live in the kingdom of Christ. It's not an either or. Either this is the kingdom of the evil one or this is the kingdom of Christ. It is the kingdom of Christ. He rules over all, even as there is much and heinous rebellion within his own kingdom. There's no threat to Christ himself. He is on His throne. He always has been and He always will be. And there's no threat to our salvation because Christ reigns as our Savior King. Our salvation is as sure and secure as His place is sure and secure at the right hand of the Father. The only threat is that we lose sight of Christ on His throne. We're doing a study of the book of Revelation in our Sunday morning Sunday school hour. And there we see Christ on His throne. And that's certainly the vision that we need to have, the understanding that we need to gain and keep of who Christ is and what His authority is in this world, so that we would not rejoin the world in rejecting Christ as King, but live within His Kingdom, even as He rules in the midst of His enemies. And so we need to be reminded from Psalm 110 that Christ is not only King, He is also Priest-King. Verse four says, the Lord has sworn and will not change His mind. You are a priest forever. Now, wait a second. I thought he was king. Well, he is king, but he's also priest. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Here's a tough reference, but one that Scripture itself explains for us. The writer of Hebrews explains for us in Hebrews 7 that the point is not that Christ is Lord over His enemies, but is not the priest king who has authority to save his people from their sin. He is both our king and our eternal high priest. He has as much authority to reign over us as he does over his enemies. But he also has authority to forgive our sins. He has authority to reconcile us to God, to bring us into the very presence of God. And that's finally the thing that will drive the rebellion from our hearts. His willingness, His love, His authority to save us will turn our hearts away from rebellion and will bring us to submit to His gracious reign, His gracious reign as our Lord. We see a model of this even in the parent-child relationship. Parents stand in authority over their children. If they don't, they're in a whole lot of trouble. Parents stand in authority over their children, and that authority is meant to be for their children's good. But children will inevitably resist that authority, and they may even throw it off completely as they get older if they do not see that they are loved by their parents. And so it is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not that Christ has left his throne simply to be our equal and our buddy. The gospel is that Christ remains upon his throne and that we must bow the knee to his reign because he loves us and because he saves us from our sins. So we submit to him. Words like authority and submission, I know, are not popular words. Not easy to hear and not easy for us to accept, but they are words that ring with truth. And if we understand the authority of Christ and the call to submit to Him, as He serves to save us from our sins, then we will not have such a problem with these otherwise quite difficult words. And so we come to the end of Psalm 110 and we come to another image of Christ that is too often at odds with our preferred understanding of who Christ is. Verses 5 through 7 teach us that Christ has authority to judge His enemies. Early in the Psalm, we see that Christ rules in the midst of His enemies. He is Lord even of His enemies, even of those who live in rebellion against Him. But here we see that Christ has authority to judge His enemies. Verse five says, the Lord is at your right hand, and so we are reminded again of Christ's place of authority. But verse five goes on to say, he will crush kings on the day of his wrath. And verse six adds, he will judge the nations, heaping up dead, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. How's that for Jesus meek and mild, right? A day of judgment is coming. It's interesting that while so many of the Messianic Psalms prophesy the first coming of Christ, We know, you know, Psalm 16, you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. That's the resurrection of Christ. Psalm 22, they divide my garments among them and cast lots from my clothing. Clearly a prophecy of the crucifixion of Christ. These psalms speak prophetically of Christ's work on the cross and of His resurrection, which all is within the realm, if you will, of His first coming. But Psalm 110 speaks of Christ's second coming. even before his first coming had occurred. Psalm 110 is speaking of the second coming and of the judgment that he will execute upon the world. Verse seven gives us the image of a victorious king. He will drink from a brook beside the way, therefore he will lift up his head. The battle has been waged. We need to understand that. Will it be a battle where Christ has to establish His authority, where He did not already reign? No. It's the battle of final judgment. It's the end. It's the point at which Christ will lift up His head. So each of us needs to decide. We talked about the decision this morning. It makes some Reformed folks uncomfortable. But there's a decision to be made. Will we submit to Christ's authority now or later? Only two choices. Will we submit to His authority to save us as our priest-king Or will we wait until His Lordship means judgment for us? And a terrible judgment it will be. As we read the Gospels, we see a Jesus who is full of compassion. He saw the people like sheep without a shepherd, and He had compassion on them. In the Gospels, we see a Jesus who comes to bless. and heal and save his people. And this is meant to draw us to him. This is meant to melt our hearts and to bring us to lay down our arms and to end our rebellion against him. But in the meantime, let us not forget where he came from. and where he reigns even now, at the right hand of the Father, and let us not miss what Psalm 110 and other passages like Revelation 19 make clear, that the day is set for judgment. And let us recognize the day we live in today, a day of salvation, a day of of opportunity for faith in Jesus Christ and being ready, starting today, for that day that is to come. Let us yield to, let us bow to, let us rejoice in the kingship of Christ and His rule over us, because it means today at least, our salvation. And even tomorrow, it may mean His judgment upon this world. That's Psalm 110. I hope that you can read it and sing it with greater appreciation for what we are seeing of Christ and what we are believing as we sing it about our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we do rejoice to sing, to read your word, but also to sing it. And we thank you for the Psalms and we thank you for Psalm 110. And we thank you that even from the Psalms, we get to hear about Christ and to sing about him and to know who he is and what a great salvation that we have in him. Grant that each of us would look to Christ in faith and not wait even another day for tomorrow may be the day of His return to judge the living and the dead. We pray that we will rejoice in the authority of Christ, live under His Lordship, rejoicing that by His reign and His rule we have a great and eternal salvation. Work this faith in us, we pray, O Lord, and keep us, keep us looking to Christ and always trusting in our glorious King. In His name we pray, Amen.