Psalm 110:1-7 The LORD said to my Lord, Sit you at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.… I. HIS HEAVENLY EXALTATION. 1. Elevation. 2. Power. II. THE STATE OF OUR WORLD AT THE TIME WHEN CHRIST WAS THUS EXALTED TO BE ITS KING. We are all by nature the enemies of Jesus Christ, as much alienated from Him as we are from His Father. This blessed Jesus was not hated in Jerusalem only where He was crucified, as though there was something peculiar in the men of that place — He was hated wherever He appeared; and had He gone out from Judaea and Galilee into other countries, He would have been hated there also; Rome, with all her boasted admiration of virtue, would have cried out for His destruction, and polished Greece would have cast Him away with scorn. III. THE MEANS EMPLOYED BY JEHOVAH TO OVERCOME THE HOSTILITY OF THE WORLD AGAINST HIS SON (ver. 2). Has the Gospel proved itself the rod of Christ's strength? That something produced a mighty effect on the world soon after our Lord's ascension is quite certain. "Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies," says the text to Him, and in the midst of His most violent enemies Christ did rule. In the inveterate and lately infuriated Jerusalem, thousands bowed at once to His sceptre, and throughout pagan Greece and Rome His name was called on and adored. And what wrought this change? Preaching — the simple preaching of Christ's Gospel by a few determined, faithful men; holding up Christ on a cross to men, and bidding them look to Him and be saved. IV. THE HAPPY RESULTS OF THIS INTERPOSITION OF JEHOVAH (ver. 3). Here is a description, and a beautiful one, of all Christ's real people in every age of the world. 1. They are a willing people. "Willing," we may say, "for what?" For anything and everything which Christ desires. The language in the original is stronger than in our translation. It is "willingness," the noun for the adjective — a Hebrew way of expressing a thing forcibly. This people are eager to receive Christ as their Prince and Saviour; they feel it to be their delight and joy to come under His dominion. 2. This willing people are to be numerous. In the land where the Scriptures were written, the dew is much more abundant than in our country, but even here the drops of dew as they sparkle on the trees and grass, are sometimes countless. As numerous, this psalm says, shall be the people of Christ. 3. The people of Christ are to be beautiful, and beautiful because holy — "willing in the beauties of holiness." The drops of' the early dew are beautiful. The rising sun not only discovers them, it brightens and gilds them, makes them the glittering ornaments in the early morning of our gardens and fields. And what were the early Christians? Their very enemies were constrained to do them honour. They hated but they admired them. As they led them forth to persecution and to death, they wondered at their lofty and splendid characters. But their graces were not their own. The dew does not sparkle when the sun does not shine on it. Even a Christian man has no beauty, no holiness, but as Christ imparts it to him. And what is his highest beauty and holiness? It is only a faint reflection of his Lord's beauty and holiness — a dew-drop reflecting the sun. But still that dew-drop does reflect the sun; and so does every real believer in Christ Jesus reflect in some measure his Redeemer's likeness. (C. Bradley, M.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: {A Psalm of David.} The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. |
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