SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
2/18/2012 10:01:44 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Glorious Bridegroom
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
45:7b-17
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we will
look at the final section of Psalm 45 which has three sub-sections in it. Dr. Wiersbe writes “These verses describe the
royal wedding beginning with the
preparation of the Bridegroom (vv. 7b-9):
“Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above
Your fellows. 8 All Your garments are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia;
Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made You glad. 9 Kings’
daughters are among Your noble ladies; At Your right hand stands the queen in
gold from Ophir.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes this about verse
7b, “The anointing in verse 7b is not His anointing as King but as the honored
guest at the wedding feast. It is the ‘oil
of gladness (joy)’ representing the eternal joy that belongs to the happy bride
and Bridegroom (Isa. 61:3).” “To grant
those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of
gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of
fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the
LORD, that He may be glorified.”
When our Lord was hanging on the
cross the soldiers gambled for His garments, but at His wedding feast, His
garments will be fragrant and glorious (v. 8a).
I have to admit that I am having
trouble understanding this portion of the psalm and so I am going to look to an
older commentary by John Gill to help explain the last part of verse
eight: “out of the ivory palaces; see #So 7:4 1Ki 22:39 Am
3:15; meaning the places from whence these garments were taken, the wardrobe;
or from whence Christ came, and where he appears; as heaven, the palace of the
great King, from whence he came down, whither he is gone, and from whence he is
expected again; and the human nature of Christ, in which he tabernacled on earth,
and was pure and clear from sin; and his churches, which are his temples and
palaces, where he grants his presence. Or it may be rendered, "more than
the ivory palaces" {i}, and so be expressive of the excellency of Christ’s
garments above them; and denote the purity of his human nature, the
spotlessness of his righteousness, and the comeliness of his people;
“whereby they have made thee
glad; or, "wherein" or "from whence" {k}; in which
palaces, the churches, the saints make Christ glad, by speaking of his glory;
by ascribing glory to him; and by the exercise of grace upon him, with which
his heart is ravished, #So 4:9-11. Or "for which" {l}; garments of
salvation, and robe of righteousness; they being clothed with them, and
rejoicing in them, cause joy and gladness in Christ: or "more than
they," or "theirs that make thee glad" {m}; meaning his fellows
and their garments, his being more odorous than theirs.”
In
verse nine the women are princesses who accompany the bride and in today’s
weddings they would be called bridesmaids.
Now
in ancient Jewish weddings the groom would first be engaged to his future
bride, which was as binding as a marriage, and when we read the account of
Joseph being engaged to Mary and after finding out that she was with child he
wanted to actually divorce her “quietly.”
The reason for this was because the engagement was as binding as the
marriage. Now after the engagement the
bridegroom would come to the bride’s house and take his bride to his
house. Jesus gave a parable of this in
Matthew 25 which pictures Him as the Bridegroom.
As
we look at the ancient ceremony in terms of Christ as the Bridegroom and His
Church as the bride we see that Jesus left heaven to pay the price for His
bride when He died on the cross for her and then He has given His bride the
Holy Spirit as a down payment (like an engagement ring). Someday Jesus will return and claim His bride
and take His bride back His house that He has been preparing for her. “1 "Do not let your heart be troubled;
believe in God, believe also in Me. 2
"In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so,
I would have told you; for I
go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again
and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also (John
14:1-3).” Now the event in which Jesus
will return for His bride has named the “rapture,” and it is described here in
John 14:3 and also in 1Cor. 15:51-58 and probably the passage that most people
would turn to in order to understand the rapture is in 1Thes. 4:13-18: “13 But we do not want you to be uninformed,
brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the
rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For
this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain
until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16
For the Lord Himself will descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet
of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and
remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort
one another with these words.” When Paul
speaks of those who were “asleep” he was speaking of those who died in Christ,
and what he was saying is that those who have died “in Christ” will have their
bodies go a split second to meet the Lord in the air and then “we who are
alive.” The word rapture is a Latin word
that means to “snatch out” and that is what will happen to the bride of Christ
when He returns to take her home with Him.
A
personal note here: In Jan. of 1974 I
decided to go to Florida on a mini vacation and while there I began to listen
to a series of messages by a man named Hal Lindsey. The messages were on the “end times,” which
was something that I feared greatly. It
was at this time that I received Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord and over
the next years I began to study the “end times” (eschatology). It was my fear of the end times that the Lord
used to draw me to Himself, and it has been the end times that the Lord has
used in my life to lead a number of people to the Lord.
“Next
come the preparation of the bride (vv.
10-13): “10 Listen, O daughter, give
attention and incline your ear: Forget your people and your father’s house; 11
Then the King will desire your beauty. Because He is your Lord, bow down to
Him. 12 The daughter of Tyre will come with a gift; The rich among the people
will seek your favor. 13 The King’s daughter is all glorious within; Her
clothing is interwoven with gold.”
We
see in these verses a queen sitting within her palace chamber (v. 13) in the
finest clothes, and yet today we see the Church spotted by the world and not a
beautiful bride, but according to Ephesians 5:27 there will come a day when the
Church will be without spot or wrinkle:
“That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle,
or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” (KJV)
As
this new queen comes into her palace she must forget about her past life and
server her king, and this is a good thing for believers to do also, “forgetting
what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the
goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13b-14)
A
brief word about the “daughter of Tyre: The daughters of Tyre means the people
of Tyre just as the daughters of Zion means the inhabitants of Jerusalem. When David first became King of Israel it was
the nation of Tyre who first recognized him as king and came to see him. Dr. Wiersbe writes “There will come a time
when the kings of the earth will bring their wealth and glory into the city of
the great King (Rev. 21:24-25).” “The
nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the
daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed.”
“In
the next stage of the wedding, the bride
is brought to the King (vv. 14-15):
“14 She will be led to the King in embroidered work; The virgins, her
companions who follow her, Will be brought to You. 15 They will be led forth
with gladness and rejoicing; They will enter into the King’s palace.”
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “It is a time of beauty and joy as the wedding party enters the
banquet hall in the palace and shares in the wedding feast. (See Rev.
19:1-10.) As the King and His queen
leave, the writer pronounces a
benediction (vv. 16-17), speaking especially to the King. (The pronouns are masculine.) We may paraphrase it: ‘No matter how great your ancestors were,
your descendants will be even greater.
They will be princes in all the earth, not just government officers in
the kingdom. You will reign forever and
ever and your name will never be forgotten.
The people will praise you forever.’
Words like these spoken at an ancient eastern wedding would be
considered polite exaggeration, but when applied to Jesus Christ, they aren’t
strong enough! He is bringing many
children to glory (Heb. 2:10, 13), and His family will share His glory and His
reign.
“Hallelujah,
what a Savior!”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: There
have been a number of things that have spoken to my heart this morning as I
studied this portion of Psalm 45. The
first was how hard it was to understand the first section we covered
today. The second was how great our King
is and how thankful I am for being one of His children. I am so thankful for the salvation that was
given to me back in Jan. of 1974, for I was surely not looking for it when I
went to Florida that year, but none the less the Holy Spirit of God had a greater
plan than I did. I can’t help but feel
being spotted and wrinkled as I live here on earth in the body that I am in,
and I wait expectantly for the Bridegroom to come and take me to be with Him in
His house. I would have to echo the
words of Dr. Wiersbe, “Hallelujah, what a Savior.”
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Serve the King.
2. Continue to learn contentment
from the King as He teaches me through the circumstances of life.
2/18/2012
11:54:17 AM
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