Why don't you go ahead and grab your Bibles and turn to Psalm 110.
We're going to jump right in.
No fancy introduction this morning because we have a lot of work to do together this morning.
And I'm just going to warn you upfront.
I'm going to warn you, this is not going to be your average every Sunday sermon because this
Psalm that we're about to study is deep.
It is complex and it is technical and it has massive implications for our faith in Christ.
So as my old third grade teacher, Mrs. Greenspoon used to say to me way back in the day,
yeah, I don't know what was her name, put your thinking caps on, Jeff, because this is going to be a hard one.
So put your thinking caps on and get ready.
All right.
If you found your way to Psalm 110, you'll see it's only seven verses long.
Yet catch this, it is the most frequently cited or alluded to section of the Old Testament,
cited in the New Testament.
More than any section from Genesis or Deuteronomy or Isaiah, this Psalm is cited or alluded to more
than any other passage in the Old Testament, which means the Spirit of God wants us,
new covenant believers, to learn something important from what we're about to study.
Listen to this, bits and pieces of Psalm 110 are found in Matthew 12, 22 and 26, Mark 14 and 16,
Luke 20 and 22, Acts 2, Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 1, Colossians 3, and Hebrews 1, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12.
Just these seven verses.
Now that is three of the four gospel writers plus Peter and Paul and the author of Hebrews,
oh, and Jesus himself uses the logic of Psalm 110 in one of his great doctrinal debates with the
Pharisees, which we'll get to in just a moment.
So this is really important.
In fact, let me tell you how critical it is for us to understand the depths of this Psalm.
In Hebrews 5, the author of Hebrews famously divides his audience, who he's writing to,
into two categories.
He says, some of you are still on the milk of the word and some of you are ready for solid food.
And if you ask the question, well, what is the issue that divides the milk-fed folks from the solid food folks?
You look at the previous verses and what is the issue that he's talking about?
He's talking about understanding a portion of the prophecy of Psalm 110.
So the reasoning goes, the grasp that you have on the theology in this Psalm may well be an indication
of whether you are ready for the solid food of Christian doctrine.
Let that be a challenge this morning.
Okay.
We want to know and understand this Psalm.
Okay.
Look at, look in your Bibles.
You do see there a superscription, right?
It says a Psalm of David, and that is very, very, very important.
And we'll come back to that in just a moment and we'll look at why.
Let's read it first of all.
And then we've got a whole bunch of work to do.
Verse one, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
The Lord will stretch forth your strong or mighty scepter from Zion, saying rule in the midst of,
or rule over your enemies.
Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power in holy array or holy garments.
From the womb of the dawn, your youth are to you as the dew.
Verse four, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.
You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
The Lord is at your right hand.
He will shatter kings in the day of his wrath.
He will judge among the nations.
He will fill them with corpses.
He will shatter the chief men or the leaders over a broad country.
He will drink from the brook by the wayside.
Therefore he will lift up his head.
Okay.
As we've been doing each and every week, let's look at the broad country.
As we've been doing each and every week, let's look at the breakdown, the structure of this particular Psalm.
Unlike some that we've been looking at recently, this one is very, very simple.
In verses one through three, we learned that this person who is the subject of Psalm 110 is a king.
In verse four, we find out he's a priest.
And then in verses five through seven, we find out he is a warrior.
And we'll explain this as we go along.
Now, this is obviously a Messianic Psalm, but you have to know this.
It's not an ordinary Messianic Psalm.
Why do I say that?
Because ordinarily you see a psalmist writing about his own personal experiences.
And then we as an audience get to read what he's written about his life.
And we can see in his words something that foreshadows something about the Messiah to come.
Something Messianic that's in the future.
But we see it in his personal experiences.
That is not the case here.
Psalm 110 really has nothing to do with the life of David.
It's not about his life.
This is what we call in theology a divine oracle.
It's a direct revelation from God through the human author,
who's being carried along by the spirit of God to write about
something beyond his experience and really beyond his full understanding.
It's a divine oracle.
So David is writing here as both a poet and a prophet.
Now, let's go back up to verse one.
Verse one and verse four are the critical verses we're going to focus on today.
Those are really the two direct oracles in this psalm.
So verse one, you see the Lord.
You see the capital letters there in the Bible, right?
That means that that first Lord is Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel.
Yahweh says to my Lord.
And when I use that term oracle, by the way,
I'm referring to a Hebrew word that you see in that phrase.
It's the Hebrew noun ne'um and it's translated says in that very short phrase.
But there's more to it than just, well, he said this, there's more to it.
The Lord says is actually better translated.
The Lord declares or the Lord utters.
Okay.
It's describing a direct utterance from Yahweh.
The key question to this, the controversial question is
the identity of the person that Yahweh is speaking to or declaring to.
Someone who was called my Lord or in Hebrew, Adonai.
Who is that person?
Now, in a lot of the Psalms, we look at the theology in them and we say, well,
the authorship doesn't really matter that much, whether David wrote it or Asaph wrote it or the
sons of Korah, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.
But here in Psalm 110, the whole crux of the argument hinges on the authorship.
It's very important because if Yahweh is declaring something to David's Adonai,
that's incredibly meaningful because David is the king of Israel.
So who would his Adonai be? That's important.
By the way, this is why every Jewish rabbi, and you guys know, I always go to my Tanakh,
my rabbinical commentary to see what they have to say about this.
Every Jewish rabbi and many liberal Gentile scholars will try, they will do everything
in their might to deny the fact that David wrote this Psalm.
And they will do one of two things to try to do that.
Number one, they'll say, well, perhaps the superscripts of the Bible,
perhaps the superscription was added at a later date.
By the way, that's the favorite argument of almost every liberal scholar.
Well, that was added later on.
They don't have proof for it.
They just like to make that statement.
I was added later, so it doesn't apply.
Or they will say, actually, the author of this Psalm is somebody in David's court,
maybe somebody like Asaph.
Right.
And so Asaph then is writing about my Lord or my boss, which would be David the king.
So they try to shrug this off.
They try to say, well, this is just a royal Psalm that lifts up the lofty status of the
king of Israel.
There's a whole bunch of problems with taking that position, but I'll give you two really
important ones.
Number one, that superscription won't go away.
In every manuscript that has come down to us, that superscription, a Psalm of David
is in there.
So it doesn't make any sense from a historical perspective.
Number two, a much stronger argument.
Jesus himself says in the gospels that David wrote this Psalm.
And for us, that's case closed, right?
Because God in the flesh says David is the author.
But let's come back to the big question.
If Yahweh is declaring something to David's Lord, who is that person?
Who's greater than David?
Who would the king of Israel call my Lord other than God himself?
And the obvious conclusion is, and this is Jesus's argument in the gospels, is that
in Psalm 110, Yahweh is addressing his chosen servant and David's Lord, the Messiah.
It has to be.
And David's role in all this as the prophet is to simply overhear this conversation and
report this declaration from God the Father to God the Son.
That's all he's doing in this, is reporting this divine oracle.
Now, what does Yahweh have to say to this son?
He says, sit at my right hand.
Right?
That's what the next statement, sit at my right hand, sit at Yahweh's right hand into
our ears.
We're like, that sounds a little bit strange, but in the language of the ancient Near East,
this was a well known phrase.
It was well understood, very specific because the right hand is the position of honor.
The one who sits at the right hand of an ancient Near East King shares in his position and
power.
It's where the King's heir would sit if he were to rule with his father as a co-regent.
And you see that often amongst ancient Near East Kings.
The son, the heir, sits at his right hand as his co-regent, they rule together.
So this is Yahweh telling Messiah to take his rightful place of authority, announcing
what we call in theology, his heavenly session, the heavenly session of God the Son.
And this session, where Jesus sits down at the right hand of power, covers that position
from his ascension from the earth, 2000 years ago, up into heaven, and it will end when
he returns to, physically returns to the earth in power and great glory.
We call this his session.
And Peter describes this to the Jews in his day, in his famous sermon on the day of Pentecost,
in Acts chapter two, remember after the Holy Spirit falls on the apostles and the tongues
of fire, and it's a wild scene of the Spirit being poured out.
This is what Peter says to the crowd.
He says to the Jews, this is a Jewish crowd.
He says, this Jesus, God raised up again to which we are all witnesses.
Oh, witnesses to the resurrection.
Good.
Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, that is the beginning of his
heavenly session, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,
he, Jesus, has poured forth this work of the Spirit that you see happening in the world.
The Spirit that you see happening, these tongues of fire.
Listen to what he says.
For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself, meaning David, says, the Lord
said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
So now that Jesus has been seated, now that he has sent forth the Holy Spirit into the
world to do what?
To remind us of all that he did and said, Christ is now in session.
He's fully divine as he's always been.
He's eternal.
He is all powerful.
He is omniscient.
He is omnipresent, yet he still maintains his glorified human nature in his session.
And he's not resting.
Jesus is ruling, and that's the picture we get here.
Sitting at the right hand of the Father, Jesus is exercising his authority as God.
You have to know that.
And to this very day, to this very minute, he rules over the realm of angels.
He rules over his church.
He rules over our lives, and he sustains the entire universe, according to Hebrews 1, by
the word of his power.
That's what he's doing during this heavenly session.
And how long will he do it for?
Until I, Yahweh, make your, Adonai's, enemies a footstool for your feet.
Now, again, that sounds weird.
What does that mean?
How many of you guys have a footstool at home?
Oh, some of you do.
Okay, nice.
Talk to me later.
But that phrase meant something in the ancient Near East, and it referred to military conquerors.
This is what they would do.
When a military conqueror, a king, would conquer a people, he would drag in the king that he
had just conquered, make them get down, and he would use their back and their neck as
his footstool.
It was a statement of overwhelming victory.
By the way, Joshua does this to Canaanite kings in the book of Joshua.
So this is, again, well known, right?
And that day's going to come when Jesus does this, right?
When the Father brings all of his enemies under his feet, when all things will be consummated.
Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians 15.
He says, then comes the end when he delivers the, just Jesus delivers the kingdom to God,
the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and every power, for he must
reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
And of course, the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
So that's who we worship, guys.
That's our Savior.
All powerful.
He is God.
Amen.
So let's take a quick look at why we can be so confident in this interpretation.
And to do that, what I want to do is now fast forward a thousand years.
We have Psalm 110, fast forward a thousand years from the time of David to the time of
Christ, to the time of the incarnate Messiah being spoken of in Psalm 110, to Matthew chapter 22.
Now the setting for Matthew 22, this is the day after Jesus' final triumphal entry into
Jerusalem.
And he has just made this bold messianic claim.
Remember?
He humbly wrote the first verse of the book of Joshua.
Remember, he humbly rides in on a donkey and the people are shouting,
Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
There's this big messianic scene and the whole city is abuzz over the identity of this
rabbi from Galilee.
And then he amps it up even more by going into the temple and he drives out the money changers
and he confronts the chief priests and the scribes, right?
Then he teaches the crowd in a whole series of parables.
Then the Sadducees come up and try to trip him up with the question about marriage and
resurrection and Jesus shuts them down.
And then here's what we read after that.
It says, but when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered
themselves together.
And I love how descriptive this is.
Remember that this is the rival party.
They're like, ah, those foolish Sadducees got shut down.
Ah, okay, let's pull ourselves together and let's trip this guy up.
That's what the Pharisees do.
But as they come up to him, Jesus asks them a question.
He says, what do you think about the Christ or the Messiah?
Whose son is he?
And they say, they shoot back the answer, the son of David.
And that's the right answer, isn't it?
The Messiah was prophesied in their own scriptures to be a physical descendant of David.
So listen, every Jew in the first century knew this.
This was an easy question.
But with that stated, now Jesus springs the trap on them, these learned men.
And he says to them what he says.
Then how does David in the spirit call him Lord saying the Lord said to my Lord, sit
at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet.
Yeah.
Jesus himself quotes Psalm 110.
One.
And the way I picture this scene going down is the Pharisees who are all, they had their
own plan to trip them up or all of a sudden staring at him blankly and their minds are
spinning, trying to remember what they know about this particular Psalm.
Everybody look, they all would have known Psalm 110 one, but now they're like, uh-oh,
this guy's challenged us and probably in front of a crowd.
So they they're likely to look really, really foolish at this moment.
So their minds are spinning around here, right?
They're trying to recall their study, but Jesus doesn't give them much time.
He goes on.
He says, if David then calls him Lord, how is he his son?
Crickets.
Crickets, because in, in Hebrew culture, a son is always said to be inferior to the father.
But here, David calls his son, his Adonai.
His son is his Lord.
So in their blindness, the Pharisees had never considered this, this really core
tenant of Old Testament prophecy that Israel's Messiah would not just be the son of David.
But also David's Lord.
Hmm.
And if that physical descendant of David was also going to be Lord, what does that mean?
And this is why Matthew goes on to say that they, they stopped asking him questions after this.
Because they're stumped by this.
If the coming of Messiah was both David's son and David's Lord, he would have to be both human.
According to the descendants, uh, the, you know, being a descendant of David, but also divine to
be his Adonai.
There's no other way to fulfill this.
There's no other way.
And so this is what trips these guys up and, and subtly beneath the surface, what Jesus was
basically claiming was, look, I am that divine Lord and the Messiah is speaking to you now.
But they're blind.
They don't see it, but that's, that's what's going on.
So listen, praise the Lord.
We have, we have Jesus's own commentary on Psalm one 10 one, which is really cool.
Isn't it?
I mean, could you imagine like, wouldn't that be cool for every song?
We just, let's see what Jesus says about it.
That'd be really cool.
Three things Jesus confirms in this little story.
Number one, that yes, David authored Psalm one 10.
There's no question about that.
Number two, that David wrote in the spirit.
Do you see that?
Divinely inspired by the Holy spirit, meaning he wrote in Psalm one 10, wrote exactly what
God wanted him to write.
Whether he had full understanding of it or not is not the issue.
He wrote in the spirit and number three, he states that David wasn't writing about just
any Israelite King, but Jesus affirms that Psalm one 10 is indeed messianic.
It's about him.
Okay.
So that's a lot on just first one, but understanding that is the solid food.
So beginning of that solid food of the Christian faith.
Now, what about the rest of this first section?
Verses two and three, what does it tell us?
About this Messiah?
Well, here we learn more about Messiah is King.
Look at verse two, the Lord will stretch forth your strong or mighty scepter from Zion saying
rule in the midst of your enemies.
This is obviously a prophetic picture of a future time when God's Messiah will rule over
all of Israel's enemies.
And this is not a new teaching.
This would not have been surprising because the old Testament is filled with this promise
of a reborn Israel and a Messiah who will come in and rule the entire world and rule
over Israel's enemies.
Every, every Jew in the first century believe this.
What's interesting here is the language about the scepter.
Again, that's not a word we're familiar with, but a scepter was the symbol of a King's
authority to rule.
And that language gets picked up in Hebrews one.
We heard it already this morning in our call to worship in Hebrews one.
Here's what it says.
After making purification for sins, and that's a reference to the cross, Jesus sat down at
the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name
he is inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Skipping ahead, he asked this rhetorical question for to which of the angels has he ever said,
sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
And the obvious answer is which angels? None.
God would never say that to an angel.
He'll only say that to his one and only son.
But, and this is a quote from another Psalm, Messianic Psalm, Psalm 45, but of the son,
he says, of the son, he says, your throne, oh, God is forever and ever.
And the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom.
I love that.
Scepter is the scepter of your kingdom. I love when the old and the new Testament
come together, right? We'll see it all over the place in this sermon,
the old and the new Testament melding together so beautifully.
God the father here refers to his son, first of all, as Elohim in the original Psalm 45,
but here in Hebrews one as theos, the Greek word for God.
God the father refers to the Messiah as God and then speaks of his royal scepter and his kingdom.
And there is coming a day, and I think we're getting close to it, a day when God the father
will be the one who stretches forth the rule, the scepter of Christ across the entire world.
And he will be the one who brings every enemy in subjection to King Jesus.
What that means is the entire world is going to acknowledge the kingship and the rule of Jesus.
And this too has been prophesied. Isaiah said it.
Isaiah 45, I am God and there is no other to me every knee will bow and every tongue will
swear allegiance. And then Paul picks that up in Philippians 2 and applies it to who?
To Jesus, the Messiah. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
A lot going on here, right? And then verse 3 tells us your people will volunteer or offer
themselves freely in the day of your power. And that can be translated on the day of your army.
Ooh, how many guys are excited about being part of the Lord's army?
Right on the day of your army in holy array or holy garments.
This is so cool. The picture is poetic, obviously, but it's simple.
The people who belong to Christ in that day, the ones who are found in Christ by faith,
we will be his soldiers. We will willingly embrace his kingship. The language here is we will be
freewill offerings to him. Remember what Paul calls us living sacrifices. That's what we will
be in that day, gladly serving our King under his authority and power. And then you have the military
aspect. We will be an army of priests wearing holy garments, which by the way is also prophesied in
Revelation 19, that we will wear holy garments as we serve as his priests. I'm excited about being
part of the Lord's army. The only thing for me is this, I don't want to get ahead of Jesus, right?
Like I'll be that guy. Jesus goes, Hey, Jeff, behind me, right? Because I'm anxious for this,
right? Don't we want to see Jesus's rule established and justice, divine justice and
righteousness brought to the earth? Okay, so that's the first section. We've already done some heavy
lifting here, but we have a whole second oracle and it's actually more complex than the first one.
Okay, so, and it's mysterious. So let's look at the second section. It's just one verse,
verse four, and it refers to the priesthood of Christ. Now, deep breath. Verse four is an oracle
plus. Verse four is an oracle with a oath attached to it, which amps up the interpretation and the
importance. The same persons are involved. This is still Yahweh speaking to David's Lord, to his
Adonai, right? And it says the Lord has, the Lord Yahweh has sworn and will not change his mind. And
in the Hebrew that can be translated and will not be sorry or repent of this. He'll never change
his mind. You Adonai, you Messiah, are a priest according to the order or the pattern of Melchizedek.
Now, when the Lord says anything, it's important. But when he swears to something and says, I will
never change my mind, we should all sit up and take notice. This is very, very important. And the truth
of this oath is so important to biblical theology that the author of Hebrews devotes three entire
chapters to various parts of this, of this one verse. It's amazing. So a couple of things we
have to know. We're going to get into the life of Melchizedek. And as I promised in my video
yesterday, just for Father's Day, we do have a map. Now I know, I know some of you ladies love maps too.
Don't get me wrong. That's fine. But this is for the dudes. We have a map coming up.
Couple of things we got to know right off the bat. The priestly order in Israel at the time of David
was purely ancestral, right? You couldn't just go, Hey, I want to be a priest. I want to volunteer
to be a priest. You had to be from a particular tribe, right? The tribe of Levi. And more
particularly, you had to be a descendant of Aaron, who was Moses' brother and the great grandson of
Levi. So you had to be in that line. But with this oath, God reveals through David that he is always
reserved for himself another order of priests, right? And it's an order of priests that predates
Levi. It comes before both Levi and Aaron. You have to know that. That's very important.
The second thing you need to know is that according to the Levitical law in Israel, which was
established later in the days of Moses and Aaron, the two offices of king and priest could not be
held by the same man. It was the ancient version of America's separation of powers, right? You
couldn't be both king and priest. They had to be separate. And by the way, we have examples in the
Bible. At least two kings tried to act as high priest, right? One was Saul and the other was
Uzziah, and they both suffered for it. Saul actually was put to death soon after that. Uzziah was
struck with leprosy for trying to combine these two offices. That's important to know. But now in
Psalm 110, David says of his Lord that this coming Lord will, he will be both king and priest.
So in that day, you would have had to say, well, hold on a second. How is that possible? Is God
contradicting himself here? Well, in order to establish the precedent, what David does is he
reaches way back in history and presents to us this mysterious guy called Melchizedek and says,
this is the basis for this. So here's the journey. We're going to go on a journey here about
Melchizedek, right? And there's so much, we can do a whole series on this, Adam, but I'm going to,
I'm going to be, I'm going to try to be focused on this because this is so important to the argument
because you know, some of you know already Melchizedek is a bit of a mystery, right? He's a
shadowy character. He's found only twice in the Old Testament, once here in this Psalm and once in
Genesis 14. And then he's found in only one New Testament book, which is the book of Hebrews.
Yet he turns out to be this absolutely essential part of the glories of Jesus Christ. And so we
have to know who he is. His story in Genesis 14 is only three verses and it's really mysterious.
So let's talk about this. Now what's the setting of, think about how early Genesis 14 is. Okay.
Remember it's Genesis 11, we're at the Tower of Babel. That's how early this is. It's, it's only
two chapters before there were even introduced to this man named Abram, who later becomes Abraham,
right? The father of the Jewish people. So at the time of Melchizedek, you have to know this, there
is no Israel. There's no nation of Israel. There's no people of Israel. There is no Ten Commandments.
There is no law. And most importantly, at the time of Melchizedek, there is no priesthood.
Got to know all that. All we know at this point in the story is that Abram has been called from his
homeland, which was in Mesopotamia, to come all the way around the Fertile Crescent and down into the
land of Canaan, right? He was called to do that. And by this time, Abram has turned away from his
pagan religion back in Ur, and he has become a monotheist who worships and walks with Yahweh,
and walks with Yahweh, the Lord. And he's settled in a particular place, they're called the Oaks of
Mamre, which is synonymous with the city of Hebron, map's coming, the city of Hebron, which is in the
hill country of what later would be called Judea. Here's the thing most people don't know about
Abram at this point. He's become a wealthy man. He's a landowner. He's an owner of flocks,
and he's something of a local chieftain. He has an army of men who serve him. Those are all things
that you have to know. Okay, map time. Ancient Israel. What are the first two landmarks you
always look for? The two bodies of water, the Sea of Galilee in the north, and the Dead Sea in the
south. That's important to get your bearings. And the blue dot is, ah, trick question, there is no
Jerusalem yet. I got you. I knew I was going to get you, but I'm so glad you guys are on that.
That's wonderful. It's not, there is no Jerusalem yet. It's called Shalem, right? But it's not
Jerusalem, not yet. The yellow dot is Hebron. So that's where, the yellow dot is where Abram has
settled. Okay? And he's not far from Shalem at this point. Now, in Genesis 14, we're given the story
of a man who has the hardest biblical name to pronounce it. It's just the hardest one. It is
Kedur la-Omer. Anybody done? No, you haven't done a study on him. He is, he's a, again, this is very
early on in the story, right? He is the king of a place called Elam. Now Elam at this point is pre-
Persian Empire, but it's off to the east, the east of the Persian Gulf. It would be in an area today
we would call Southwestern Iran. He's from Elam. And this guy aligns himself with four other chieftains
and he decides that he is going to expand their horizons. And he comes around the Fertile Crescent
and down into this area to the east of the Jordan River. And he begins to conquer people group after
people group. So this is basically the path he takes that this king of Elam and his, and his allies
take this right coming down from the north of Fertile Crescent along the east side of the Jordan
River. And he's conquering nation after nation. And again, at this time it's, we say nations, it's not
a lot of people. It's more like tribe after tribe, right? And he comes all the way down through here.
He's conquering. He goes all the way down to the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, which is modern day Eilat
in Israel. And then he comes back up to a place called Kadesh. And then he ends up, see where that
red dot is? South of the Dead Sea. And there are two important cities located in that area, the red
dot. Sodom and Gomorrah. Okay, now this is obviously before God destroys those two cities. Sodom and
Gomorrah. Okay, so it's here at that red dot that this contingent from Elam is confronted by the
kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. And they go to battle with each other. And Sodom and Gomorrah are
absolutely smashed. The Elamites loot their cities and they take a whole bunch of prisoners.
And then they're going to head back up north. Now one of the prisoners was a man named Lot,
because Lot lived in Sodom. Now Lot is Abram's nephew, right? So he's taken prisoner. So the
Elamites continue on their way after this victory in battle. And they start heading up north.
Somebody escapes the battlefield and runs to Hebron, the yellow dot, and says to Abram the Hebrew,
the Bible says, hey, these guys took your nephew Lot. So what does Abram do? Well, again, he's a
local chieftain. He's got guys. So the text goes on. Oh, sorry. And where are they going to head to?
You see the red dot, the red arrow? That green dot is Dan. The Bible's going to tell us that this
contingent from Elam heads up to Dan, and Abram grabs his guys, and they also head up to Dan.
And that's where they're going to fight a battle. Here's what it says. Abram divided his forces
against them by night, he and his servants, and he defeated them at Dan. Now this is quite a feat,
because I think I can go backwards. Yeah. From Hebron to Dan's about 120, 130 miles,
and they didn't have cars. So he marched his guys that far to rescue Lot, and he catches up to this
Elamite army in Dan at that green dot. And actually the text is going to tell us they go as far as
Damascus later on. So this is a serious thing. Abram divided his forces against him by night,
he and his servants, and he defeated this army from Elam and pursued them as far as Chobah,
which is north of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods and also brought back his relative Lot
with his possessions and the people. Now that's an amazing story. An amazing story. It's very
understated in the text. Again, understand this. This army from Elam is winning battle after battle.
They are conquering and conquering. But Abram, with 318 of his dudes, goes up there and defeats
them. There is something supernatural happening here. You have to know that. So then Abram and
his guys make this long trip back. And Abram, the Bible says, meets with the very grateful King of
Sodom to return his people. Right? And they meet in a valley just outside of what would someday
become Jerusalem. And this is what the Bible says. The King of Sodom said to Abram, thank you, bro.
No. He might have said something like, thank you, bro. I mean, but thank you for going up there and
whipping this army and getting my people back. That's pretty good news. But he says, give the
people to me. And you know what? You take the goods for yourself. But look what Abram says to the King
of Sodom. I have sworn to the Lord God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take
a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, for fear you would say I have made Abram rich.
Now, the King of Sodom was actually not being generous here. This was standard custom. Look,
you're a mercenary army. You deserve the spoils of war. Just give me my people back. But you have to
know this. Abram completely rejects that offer. He has sworn to his Lord who he calls God most high.
I will not take a thing from this pagan King. Okay. Abram has distanced himself from paganism
here. I will not take anything from him. Now, that's just the context because here's where it
gets weird. As if it has been weird enough. Right in the middle of this historical account,
another King comes to Abram just outside of this place we call Shalem. His name is Melchizedek.
The very same time. Here's what it said. Here are the three verses about this guy.
And Melchizedek, King of Shalem, brought out bread and wine. Now, he was a priest of God most high.
He blessed him and said, blessed be Abram of God most high, possessor of heaven and earth,
and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And Abram gave him
a tenth of all. That's it. That is super mysterious. Right. But there's a ton of meaning here.
And this is what David picks up in Psalm 110. Okay. What do we discern about this guy? Well,
Melchizedek is a Canaanite King. He settled in this place called Shalem. Right. Apparently,
though, he knows Yahweh in the same way that Abram does. Calls him God most high. They share
that same name. Now, Melchizedek may not have been his real name. It may have been an honorary title
because in Hebrew, it's a combination of two words, melech, which means King, and tzedek,
which means righteousness. He is literally called the King of righteousness. And he rules over this
place called Shalem, which is the same root word for shalom, which means peace. And while there were
a whole bunch of Shalems in the ancient world, based on the geography in Genesis 14, high
probability that he is the King of the very place that will later be called Jerusalem. Right. All
these pieces coming together is really amazing. But what's really important here is look at what
Melchizedek does and says and how Abram reacts to it. This is the mystery. It tells us everything.
First of all, Melchizedek and presumably his servants bring these guys bread and wine, which
if you've made a 150 mile trek, you'd be happy to get some bread and wine. So that's good. But he
gives Abram a blessing in the name of El Elyon, God most high. Again, the same name that Abram
uses for the God that he worships. And then he says, bless El Elyon who has given Abram this
victory over these Elamites. So Melchizedek recognizes the miraculous nature of Abram's
victory, that it was a supernatural act of grace on the part of God most high. Now here's the thing.
As a general rule of thumb in the ancient world, the one who blesses another is the superior man.
The one who gives the blessing is greater of the two. And again, Abram is an important guy.
He's a wealthy man. He's got an army, but he seems to welcome this blessing from this mysterious guy,
Melchizedek. And then in return, he goes, by the way, here's a tenth of everything I have.
Oh, what do we make of this? Right? First of all, there's a catch the contrast here. First,
you have the king of Sodom saying, you know what, keep all this stuff. And Abram says, uh-uh,
I don't want anything to do with that. Total cold shoulder pushes him away. I don't want anything
from you. But with Melchizedek, he not only receives the blessing, recognizes him as a
superior man, both as a king and a priest, and says, here's a tenth of what I have.
There's a contrast being driven here. Clearly Abram would not have received a blessing or given
a tide to a pagan king, only to one who knows and worships God most high like he does.
Okay. So there's two things to keep in mind now about Melchizedek as we go forward. Number one,
as you see in the text, he is both a king and a what? And a priest, not allowed under Levitical
law, right? But remember, this predates the law by 400 years. This is the more ancient, the more
preeminent order of priesthood. And this is going to come up in the book of Hebrews, but notice
there's no genealogy given to Melchizedek. He just pops up and disappears. And I know it's,
we say it's an argument from silence, but D.A. Carson is famous for saying arguments for silence
are good when you expect some noise. And with anybody important in the Bible, there's usually
a genealogy given to them, but not this guy. He just disappears. We have no evidence of
that guy. He just disappears. We have nothing to connect him to. Now, I know some of you maybe
hear, you want to hear my opinion on a debate that has raged in the church for hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of years. Is Melchizedek a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus? Or is he
just a guy who God used as a type of Christ to come? I'm not going to answer that question. I
know some of you want it, but if you grab me after the service or buy me coffee this week,
I'd be happy to share my opinion on that. By the way, just can I slide in for the men
a little bit of archaeology? Forget it. No. There's a famous Israeli archaeologist named Eli
Shukran who is doing an excavation right now. He's the same guy who discovered the pool of Salom
in the last 10 years or so. Very famous guy. He's digging in the city of David right now,
which is the most ancient part of Jerusalem. And he has found a very, very, very, very old altar
that has pottery shards in the vicinity that date back to the time of Abraham.
And he's building a case. Now, this is not open to the public yet. I'm waiting. He's building a case
that he believes he has found a very worship site that Melchizedek would have used as an altar,
which would be amazing. See, that's what the Bible just keeps getting confirmed by archaeology. So
that's more than that as it gets developed, but that would be fascinating. So why does all this
matter about Melchizedek? Well, the answer is, is because of Yahweh's oath in verse four of Psalm 110,
right? That his Messiah and son will be a priest in the order of this mysterious guy. So we should
know what that means. Again, under the Levitical system, a king could not be a priest, but here in
Psalm 110, a thousand years before Jesus, David prophesies that Messiah will come and he will be
both a king and a priest and not a Levite. This is what the Jews should be looking for. This is what
they should have been looking for for a long time, even today. Yahweh is sworn that this is going to
happen, David says. The Messiah will come to his people, not as a Levite, but in this pattern of
a man who was both a priest and a king and a man who has no genealogy, right? It's as if he
transcends earthly existence. He's like an eternal priest who lives forever. He is a type of Christ.
And Hebrews seven, man, go home tonight, read Hebrews seven. It expounds so much on this story.
I'll just summarize it with a few thoughts. First, the author of Hebrews says that Melchizedek order
is superior to the Levitical order. It's a better order. And here's how he makes the case. He says,
look, if perfection had been possible through the Levites, what need would there be to raise up an
order outside of it? If the Levites could purify you, we don't need another order.
True. So long before Jesus arrives, already David's Psalm is saying, basically, we need more than this.
This Levitical priesthood is not sufficient to purify man from sin. In fact, Hebrews calls the
Levitical priesthood weak and useless because it couldn't purify anybody. But through the Melchizedek
order, he says, we have a better hope, a better hope through which we're actually purifying the
people, a better hope through which we're actually able to draw near to God. You couldn't do that
through the Levites, but you can through this other order. Not only is the pattern of Melchizedek
better, Jesus himself is far superior to any Levitical priest in many, many ways. For one,
his priesthood is not based on ancestry. It's based on actual merit, which the author says
is the power of his indestructible life, his resurrection. It's based on his merit, not who
he was born from. That makes him superior. Second, every Levitical priest was temporary. He died,
but not Jesus, right? He lives forever. He's an eternal high priest and therefore far superior.
David says it himself in Psalm 110. He is a priest forever, which is better than any human being who
dies. Third, because of his sinless life, Jesus doesn't have to do what all the other priests did,
which was to make sacrifice for his own sins before he makes a sacrifice for you and I,
because he has a sinless life. And finally, the fact that God swore an oath to make Jesus a permanent
high priest puts him far above all other priests, because they didn't get that oath. They didn't get
an oath from God, but Jesus did. And the author summarizes then, therefore that makes Jesus the
guarantor of a superior covenant. And you have to understand that with a better priesthood comes a
better covenant. And the whole argument of the next chapter in Hebrews chapters eight is that Jesus
has rendered the old covenant obsolete. Now again, that's a whole preaching series I did in like seven
minutes. So go home and read Hebrews seven and see if you can connect more of these dots. Guys, this
is the solid food of Christian doctrine. If we want to get off milk, we got to go deeper and start to
understand these things. Okay, we got, oh boy, we got to finish. Okay, third section, we're going to
do this really fast. Verses five through seven. Let's take a look at this. Here's the thing, as
you read verse four, the second oracle, the reader might suspect, well, okay, give us more details
about this priesthood. We want to know more. Give me more commentary on it, but that's not what David
does, right? Where does David go? More information about the power and dominion of the priest king,
right? He's already established, king and priest. He's the great priest king.
More about his power. In verses five through seven, what we get are echoes of what John is going to
describe for us in Revelation 19. Remember what John says in Revelation 19? I saw the beast and
the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against him who sat on the white horse
and his army. That's us. Well, look at David says in Psalm 110, he will shatter kings in the day of
his wrath. He will judge among the nations and fill them with corpses. Hmm. It's bloody.
It's a slaughter. It's an overwhelming victory. Can you imagine what a divine being, a divine being,
omnipotent who comes to earth, what he can do to those who have blasphemed his name and opposed his
rule. He'll fill the nations with their corpses. He's a warrior. And look at how verse five begins.
The Lord is at your right hand. So there's a interesting switch in verse one, and in verse
one, it was the Messiah seated at the right hand of Yahweh in his session. Now in verse five,
it's Yahweh who comes to the right hand of his Messiah to act through him as the day of the Lord
unfolds. And that's what's going on here. Remember it's Yahweh who promised, I will make your enemies
a footstool. He says, I will extend your scepter from Zion. And so Yahweh comes to the right hand
of his Messiah and acts through him to do this. Now it's fascinating to see how David describes
this. He's already made the case that his Adonai is divine, but now he adds, and it looks so useless
and so out of place, but it's so important. He adds a human dimension to what this warrior king
is going to do. He says, he will drink from the brook by the wayside or by the road. What? Messiah,
this warrior figure, he's a physical man, although he's divine, but he's so human, so physical that
as he's on the march to pursue his enemies, he stops to refresh himself in a stream
and then lifts his head and moves forward to finish the slaughter.
Again, I know it's subtle and it seems useless, but it's a combination of both divine and human.
And the order is so important to recognize. First, Messiah King is enthroned at the right hand of the
father and there he functions as our high priest. And that's all wonderful, but it's not the end of
the story. What's the end of the story? The final chapter in the story of Messiah, which we read in
Revelation 19 and 20 is actually not his reign in heaven. The final chapter is his physical return
for the purpose of conquest and judgment and the establishment of his kingdom for a thousand years.
That's what David is describing in Psalm 110. That's the final chapter in the story. And in that day,
David's Adonai will be for you and I and for every human being on earth, either one of two things,
our high priest and our advocate or our adversary and our judge. And that's what separates mankind,
right? He's either going to be your high priest and your advocate or he's going to be your adversary
and your judge. You guys did really good. So as we wrap up, how do we respond to this prophecy?
Like, what do we do? Well, how should we respond? Two words, very seriously, because first of all,
the full measure of this still is in the future. It's still in the future. And secondly, we can be
certain that it will come to pass. In fact, the fact that that Yahweh has fulfilled a portion of
Psalm 110 by sending his son makes it so much more certain that he'll fulfill the rest of it.
Right? We judge the faithfulness of God based on his faithfulness in the past. He's always faithful.
He will fulfill this. And so we would do well to pay close attention. But then consider in a more
sort of general and grand sense, the immensity of what David tells us here. We have a savior who is
not only a king, but he's a good king and a loving king and a kind king and a long suffering king
who rules over the church, our church and the lives of his people, us. Aren't you glad that we have a
good king to rule over us? He's a king that will confront the enemies that come against us that
seek to do us harm. We have a king who promises to consummate this, this present age as our warrior
and to establish a kingdom on earth that is so magnificent that we cannot even fathom it. And
all of those things about our king should cause us to joyfully submit to his rule. But I think
even more importantly is this idea of our great high priest. Don't we love this? Right? A high
priest who was steadfast love can sympathize with all that we're going through down here on the
earth because he's walked in our shoes and he can sympathize with us. He is the perfect mediator
between us and the father. He is our advocate at the throne of grace. He's infinitely greater
than any Levitical priest you could ever hope for. We sing this song, right? We sing before the throne
of God above. I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives
and pleads for me. Such a beautiful song. And there's actually even more. He's not only our
great high priest, he's our sacrifice. He's our lamb of God. He's our temple too. The place where
we meet with God and his body is the veil through which we have access to the kingdom of God.
He is the veil through which we have access to the throne of grace. He is our all in all.
And this is why we worship as we do. This is why we need a king, a righteous king to rule over us.
Why we need a warrior who defeats our enemies. Why we need a perfect high priest who offers
himself up for us. Because if he hadn't, we would still all be in our sins. This is the Messiah that
David spoke of, guys, 3000 years ago in Psalm 110. And this is the Messiah that today we proclaim
and look forward to his return. Wonderful, merciful Savior, precious Redeemer and friend,
who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of men? That's our Savior. Let's pray.
Father, I am just so overwhelmed and blown away by your incredible wisdom. Your ways are so much
higher than our ways, Lord. And the way that you spoke through your servant David so many years ago
in this Psalm, giving us this amazing promise that so many people were blind to, but you have opened
our eyes and you have removed the veil so that we can see the beauty of your word and we can see
what you promised and how you have fulfilled it and how there's even more to come. God, I am
just blown away by you, blown away by your love, by your grace, by your amazing wisdom.
Father, I pray for our church family now that we would strive to keep digging into the solid
food of your word, to understand the depths of all the things you've written. We'll never plumb the
end of it, Lord, but help us to want that, to desire, to plumb the depths of your word
so that we might understand all that you're doing in our world and all that you're doing in our lives.
So thank you for this morning. Thank you for this word. Continue to work these truths deep into our
souls for your glory and for our good, we pray. Amen.