The Resplendent Son of Man

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

You may remember that in first Corinthians, when Paul talks about the husband and the wife and he speaks about headship, he says this thing which seems a little bit strange. He says that the husband is the glory of the wife. And feminists and many others get themselves bent all out of shape about it. But really, it’s got quite a simple explanation. The bride delights to see her husband flourish. And when the husband flourishes, the bride flourishes. And so it is with Christ and the church. The church of Jesus Christ should delight in nothing more than the glory of her husband, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so it’s quite interesting the way the change takes place in the psalmist here. In verse one, he declares his hand. He says what he’s going to do. My heart overflows with a song, with a theme, with a praise to the king. And then in verse 2, he turns his face towards the king and begins describing his beauty. And then in verse 3, it shifts again. And now it’s almost like having looked at the beauty of the king. He brings forth this deep yearning desire. this burning desire in his heart for the king to ride forth triumphantly, victoriously, so that his glory would be established in the kingdom. And so too the church. The psalmist cries for this. And don’t our hearts also? When we see the name of our Lord taken in vain, when we hear him derided by others, when we see people hating him, when we hear of people destroying his church, does it not pain our hearts to see our bridegroom mistreated? And don’t we long for his glory to be established in the heavens and upon the earth, for his name to be hallowed, for his kingdom to come, and for his will to be done?

And so we look into this set of verses, recognizing that these verses are our verses. This is or should be the longing of us as a family, as a church. And I want us to look at 3 different things. Firstly, I want us to consider his weaponry, the king’s weaponry. Secondly, the king’s armory, the armor he wears. And then thirdly, the king’s victory.

So firstly, let us consider his weaponry. The psalmist desires for the king to display his strength and to strap on his swords and his bows and his weapons. You might maybe think of something a little bit more modern. For those of you who are older than me, you might remember countries going to war and countries doing military parades. Or maybe if you’re younger, you’ve seen some of the videos or photos of countries like North Korea or Russia Parading their strength. And what do they do? You see the video of the king or the prime minister or the president standing on a balcony somewhere and marching before him are troops and tanks and airplanes and they fire weapons and they achieve, well, nothing really. But what do they do? They flex their power to the world. And they say, look how great God We are. Look at our king’s strength. And so the psalmist says, O king, strap on your weaponry.

And there are 3 weapons that he asks the king to take up. Firstly, he said his sword. Have a look at verse 3. Gird. You know what it means to gird something, to strap something? Gird your sword on your thigh. Gird your sword on your thigh. I hope you realize, children, that generally speaking in the olden days, people didn’t live with swords on. It would be really uncomfortable to sleep, firstly. Secondly, it would be very impractical when you tried to sit down on your lounge suite. But they didn’t always have a sword on, did they? When did they put a sword on? When they went to battle. When they went to war, they would strap on their sword. And you can think of those wonderful movie depictions you get. One of my favorites is, of course, in Lord of the Rings, when the king of Rohan, he stands and there’s this blazing light behind him. And the king stands there and his armor bearer comes and straps armor upon him. And he stands there regally preparing to go to war. So the psalmist says, put on your sword.

What is this sword that he speaks of? Of course, in the psalmist’s mind, it’s a sword, right? But we’re thinking of Jesus. There’s no king that this psalm fits other than Jesus. And so we know that when we cry out, strap on your sword, that we cry out for him to take up his word. the sword of his word, to strap it to his thigh, to make it ready, to sharpen it, to hone it, so that it would do what swords do. Now, what do swords do? You say, well, they kill people. And you’re right. Do you remember that word that Jesus says in Matthew 11? He says to his disciples, I tell you, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword that will divide who? Father and mother, father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife, friend and friend. And so this sword of the Lord is something that divides asunder between believer and unbeliever. But it’s also, it is a sword that devours. So that Jesus, we’re told in Revelation, has a sword with which he destroys all of his enemies. And the sword being depicted here is a destroying sword.

He doesn’t just have a sword though, does he? But we’re told he has a bow and an arrow. And so in verse 5, it says, your arrows are sharp. Take up your bow, take up your arrow and pierce them where? In the heart. You see, this bow and arrow of the Lord Jesus Christ is what? Well, it’s his gospel. The word of God, as we heard this morning, can destroy But the gospel, it brings life, doesn’t it? So the psalmist’s longing, our longing, is that Christ would take up his bow, strap on the gospel of Christ, and send its sharp arrows home. Because it’s only by the gospel that the kingdom of God will be advanced. It’s not by law change. It’s not by Christian politicians, though we want them, but it’s through the gospel changing hearts. And so we cry out with the psalmist, oh Lord, raise up your gospel. Send forth your gospel. And we say with Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it is the power of God unto salvation.

But then we see another weaponry. I told you there was 3. There’s a sword, there’s an arrow, and there’s a horse or a horse and a chariot. So the psalmist says in verse 4, in your majesty, ride out. Now, when you think of Jesus riding, what do you think of? I’m sure many of you think of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, right? What did he ride The colt of a donkey. An animal of peace. But that’s not the picture here. It’s not that. It’s not Matthew 21, but it’s the picture of Revelation 19 11. The one who sits astride a white horse. with truth and righteousness written upon his thigh, who comes from Bozrah to destroy the nations and tread the winepress of God’s wrath. He has a horse. Why is a horse so important? Well, we don’t understand medieval war like the psalmist would have, right? If you’re against infantry and you’re on a horse, you have a severe advantage, right? You can ride straight over your enemies. No one can stop you. And the psalmist is pleading for him to ride out. Why? Because in riding forth, he is in a position of power. And so what do we do as the church? We long for Christ to come in power, to visit in power. And so the Apostle Paul would say, when we came to you, we did not come to you with human words of wisdom, but with words of power.

You know, as much as I can’t stand all of the different churches you see with like power ministries written across their banner somewhere, we are engaged in power ministry as the Lord Jesus Christ rides out into this world with the sword of his word in his hand and an arrow and bow upon his back, ready to make war among the nations. Brothers and sisters, Our longing, our longing for Christ’s kingdom to be advanced is wonderful. But if it just ends there, we’re missing the whole point. You see, the psalmist doesn’t just say, I really wish My king was victorious. What does he do? He cries out to him, right? He says to him, gird your sword. It’s an imperative. It’s not a command because he can’t command the king, but it’s an imperative of request. Please do it. And shouldn’t this be our heart? Shouldn’t this be the overflow of our heart when we see the King and His beauty and His majesty and His glory? Shouldn’t our heart erupt with prayer that He would go forth and do that which He’s promised? Because He’s promised to advance His kingdom. He’s promised His kingdom won’t fail. He’s promised to use His gospel to save sinners. And so shouldn’t we as a church be marked by this same heart that our prayer meeting on Wednesday, which is such a joy to my heart, as I know it is to yours, that our prayer meeting would sound like this, with this urgency, Lord, work! Save. Act. Because we have no hope if you don’t. May this be the attitude of this church, not just now in this new season, but when, Lord willing, we grow. And if we’re to have a hundred people, may there be 99 in the prayer meeting on a Wednesday night pleading with God to work. Because we can’t do it. Who of you is able enough to wield God’s sword? I mean, let’s be honest, brothers and sisters. Compared to Christ with his sword, I look like a 4 year old swinging a 2 handed claymore. If you don’t know what a claymore is, it’s a massive sword. And I pick it up and I try and wield it, but I can barely get it off the ground. And I drop it and I fumble it. But oh, how the king takes it with one arm. And I can’t even bend the bow of the gospel, but Christ, he wields it with power. And the horse, who would dare to ride the white horse of Christ? Not me, but Christ. Oh, do you long for him to visit? Do you long for him to ride into Karaka with a sword on his thigh and a bow in his hand to conquer this nation?

And so we see him with his weaponry and we see also the king in his armoury, in his armour. See, a king riding forth with a sword and a bow on a battle horse in his bathrobe would look very outrageous, right? And so the psalmist likewise wants him to clad himself in his holy armor And so to us, the church. And so notice several pieces of armory, like the braces and the leg shields and the back shield and the breastplate that this king adorns. He says, gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one. In might. It’s an interesting phrase. It’s one that’s used of this guy called Nimrod. I don’t know if any of you remember Nimrod in the book of Genesis. You get this genealogy in Genesis, and it’s, you know, so-and-so, the father of so-and-so, and there was this guy and that guy. And by the way, there was this guy called Nimrod. He was the first mighty one, a mighty hunter to the Lord. I like to imagine that he slayed dinosaurs. knows? He was a mighty hunter to the Lord. What does it mean? Ability. Able to defeat his foes. He is mighty, we’re told. Isaiah 9, 6, you remember that little song we sing? Wonderful counselor. Do you remember the next line? Wonderful counselor, mighty God. It’s the same phrase applied here to the king. What earthly king deserves to be called mighty like God? Only Jesus Christ. And yet he is the mighty king. And he dresses himself with majesty. And so we’re told several times, in your splendor and majesty, verse 3. In verse 4, in your majesty, ride out victoriously. And you can imagine a king in the medieval times, can’t you? The armies approach. The armies make war and almost all the soldiers look the same, right? They’ve all got the same armor. Maybe certain captains have funny plumes of feathers on their heads so that they know they’re the captains. But in general, most people look the same. And you’re fighting in some quadrant of the battle and you’re losing. But then someone says, the king has come. And you turn and you look and you see a man riding on a white battle horse clad in glorious shining armor. And everyone knows who he is. He shines forth, we saw this morning, like the noonday sun. And that’s what our King garbs himself in, not in human armor, but in the glory of God.

Our Savior is dressed in the glory of God, but he also puts on truth. This little section here in verse 4, in your majesty, ride out victoriously. You can translate this as, on truth, justice, truth, meekness, and righteousness, or for the cause of. We’re going to take it both ways. Firstly, on. He clothes himself with truth. And isn’t it true that when Jesus was upon the earth, what did he say? I am the truth. Who is true other than Jesus? I can remember being a child. I know it’s a long time ago. I just turned 40. But I can remember getting caught lying. So lying to get out of the lie, but then getting found out. And so lying about the lie about the lie to try and get out of it. Falsehood is part of who we are as sinners, right? It’s so easy. but not our king. He is robed in truthfulness. There is no falsehood. There is no error. There is only truth because he is the very essence of truth.

But he’s also robed, and this is interesting for a warrior king. He’s robed in what? Meekness. It’s the same word as gentleness. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I want a warrior king, I’m not sure I want a meek, gentle king. I mean, I kind of like the idea of Saul, whose head and shoulders are bigger than everybody else, or a Goliath, who’s got a spear like a weaver’s beam, 9 foot something tall. I mean, that sounds pretty good to me, but gentle? Meek? And yet did not Jesus say when he was upon this earth, come to me. Why? Because I am gentle and lowly of heart. And he’s so gentle that he does not break a bruised reed or even snuff out a smouldering wick. Why is this so important? Because though he is gloriously powerful, he is as gentle as a lamb. And the smallest little babe in arms, the most fragile, elderly person can find solace in this king. The battled king, this battled king, does not turn away anyone.

But he’s also righteous, perfect, holy. There is no sin found in him. I mean, think about David. What a king. Incredible. They think about the battles. Think about the way the Lord used him. Think about the kingdom he built. And he took another man’s wife and murdered him. Or think about Solomon. I mean, the wisest man on the earth. And his very first marriage breaks God’s law. He writes how many parables on being aware of the adulterous woman? And he has seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Sounds like the most foolish man upon the earth. One wife is enough to keep a man busy for his whole life, let alone 700. Show me a king without a blemish in the Bible. It’s just Jesus. Perfectly righteous, just like his dad. This is our king.

And so when this king rides forth, He rides forth with his sword in his hand and we cry out, strap on your sword, take up your bow, hop on your horse, adorn yourself in your battle garments. And he rides forth. And it’s a little bit like in that wonderful scene, sorry to reference Lord of the Rings again, when Gandalf comes riding down the hill in Helm’s Deep. You don’t have to have seen it. And as he rides down, leading the charge, the light erupts and blinds the enemies. And so it is with our Savior. He rides forth and all forces would quail before him. This is captured really beautifully in Calvin Miller’s The Trilogy, the singer trilogy that I’ve mentioned before. At the end, it pictures the final day of battle. when all of the nations are arrayed in their pomp and all of the nations are gathered and they’re proud and they’re arrogant and they’re powerful and they’re arrayed in all of their majesty, ready to overthrow the singer, Jesus. And you know what the singer does? As he walks forward, his glory shines forth like the light and his enemies are obliterated. All he does is sing. This is our king. This is who we look to.

And so as we raise our cry as a church, as we’re marked as a people for a longing, an urgent, desperate, burning zeal to see Christ’s kingdom advanced, as we do that, we do it with hope. It’s not wishful thinking, brothers and sisters. Because though the gates of Hades might try to overthrow the kingdom of God, it never will. And so we can come to him as a people with boldness, expecting great things from God and asking for great things from God. Remember Ephesians, the blessing in Ephesians 3, where Paul says, to he, to him who is able to do far more abundantly than anything you can ask or think. Now I can think some really big stuff. I’m a dreamer, right? I dream big. I always have been since I was a child. Someone says, let’s start a business. I’m thinking of a worldwide company. Someone says, let’s plant a church. I’m thinking of a church planting movement. This is just how I’ve been born. And Paul says he can do way more than Logan can think or dream. So never be shy to come to God and make your requests known. And may that be true of our church.

I remember hearing the story of this old Scotsman who would come to prayer meeting in Scotland every week. And every week he would pray the same way, not the same things, the same way. And he would list off everything that was wrong. He would say, this is wrong and that’s wrong and this is broken and that needs fixing and this is the end of the world and there’s this problem and that problem. On and on and on he’d go. And then all of a sudden the prayer would shift and he would say, but we come to you. Isn’t that our heart? We look around ourselves. God, what are we doing? Everything’s a wreck. Everything’s a mess. Everything’s a disaster. But we come to you. Have hope, brothers and sisters, with this King in our company.

there’s one more thing. We see the king in his weaponry. We see the king in his armory. And we see the king in his victory. The psalmist shifts again. And he goes from longing to actualization. You might put it this way, he begins to picture what it will look like on the day when it comes to pass. And so he pictures the king in victory. You know, no king lasts forever, except for Jesus. Think of King Josiah. What a wonderful king. There was no king that devoted himself to God before or after him, the text says. And one day he rode out to meet the Egyptian army and he died. And there lay King Josiah. No earthly king lasts forever, but our king eternally goes forth victoriously.

Have a look at the text with me. Firstly, we’re told the psalmist asks him to ride out victoriously. Ride out successfully. Don’t just ride out, but ride out to win. Don’t race to lose, race to win. Give it your all. And it’s striking, one of the themes that picks up on this all through the Old Testament. So in Daniel 4, let me just read these out really quickly. Daniel 4, Job 9, Isaiah 14, Isaiah 43, Isaiah 46, to mention a few. You can get them off me later if you actually want them. There’s this refrain. Who can turn back the hand of God? No one. And so when the psalmist says, ride out victoriously, he says it because no one can stop him. No one can stop our king. No one can stop our Lord.

But here’s where we see the other way in verse 4 of truth, meekness, and righteousness. Because the other way, the way it’s translated in the ESV, is that he would ride out victoriously in order to bring about these things, in order to establish truth, meekness, and righteousness. It’s one of the promised things in the Old Testament and Zephaniah and Isaiah. that the coming day of the Lord would bring with it the establishment of peace, of the truth, of justice and righteousness, of meekness and gentleness, where those who are praised, those who win, are not those who are strong enough to take what they want. but those who are gentle enough to come to a gentle Savior. Isn’t that what we long for? Well, he’s already established it. Because blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are you when people slander you. Blessed are you when you suffer for my sake. Blessed are those who weep. Blessed are the poor in spirit. This is the way it is today, right? And what we’re seeing is that glory being established through the victorious work of Christ.

But then he says also that people are struck by It’s quite a strong picture in verse 5. The order’s actually the other way around. Your arrows are sharp. People fall under you in the heart of the king’s enemies. You might say, well, so what are you saying? Jesus is going to go around killing people? Yes, but not quite what you think. People talk about being slain in the spirit in crazy Pentecostal churches. There is a slaying in the spirit that takes place. It’s when the arrows of Christ’s gospel pierce the heart. And an idolater is killed, but only to be made new. And so you can think of the day of Pentecost. Do you remember how it describes it on the day of Pentecost? After Peter’s preached the gospel and he says to them, he whom you crucified. Do you remember what it says? They were what? Struck to the heart. The arrow of the gospel struck them straight square in the heart and three thousand believed. This is the work of Christ. He does it with Saul as Saul travels along the road. He pulls his bow and he fires and he strikes the mark perfectly every time. He does it to the jailer in Philippi, doesn’t he? He does it with Lydia. He does it with John Wesley. You remember that saying where the Wesley brother says, my heart was strangely warmed. He’d been pierced by the gospel. And hasn’t he done it to you? You know, one day you were going along in your sin. Or maybe you were still coming to church. Maybe you weren’t. You were in your sin. And your heart was hard. And you worshipped idols and you loved yourself more than God. You didn’t have time for that religion stuff. And then one day you heard a sermon or you read a text or a friend made a comment or you watched a video and out of nowhere everything changed. And you were made new. Your heart was changed because Christ had lodged the gospel arrow in your heart. And everything’s been different ever since. Because you’re a dead man. to this world, but alive in Christ.

And then there’s one more in this victory. Verse 4, the end of it, he says, let your right hand teach you awesome deeds. When I was a child, my auntie used to frequently chastise me for using the word awesome. Maybe some of you had these family members. She would chastise me for using the word awesome because it was a word reserved for God only. And I can understand the sentiment. It’s very easy to trivialize good words. I would say, oh, that’s pretty awesome, dude. No, you’re not allowed to say that. That’s only God’s awesome. When you think of awesome, I wonder what you think of. Glory, lights, splendor, majesty. The word awesome here is trying to encapsulate a word which means fear. You might say awfulness. Not awful as in yuck, awfulness. Awfulness. What the psalmist is saying is that he wants the king to ride forth and to let his deeds cause awe in the world, awe for the church, so that the church would sit back and go, Look at our God. Look at our Savior. And don’t you find yourself doing this sometimes in your Christian life? Something happens out of nowhere and you’ve been worried and you’re not sure how it’s going to play out. And all of a sudden, God fixes it. And you just sit back and you just look and you just go, God, how did you do it? That’s amazing. I mean, we prayed this morning that these 3 wonderful people would sit here. And here they are. Because Jesus delights to act in such a way that all hearts and minds would be filled with awe of him. Because he is awful, isn’t he? He is awesome.

This is the victory of Christ. He rides forth successfully and dispenses and establishes truth, mercy, and righteousness. And he goes forth with his bow and arrow and he strikes people left, right, and center. And instead of killing them, they join his army. And his army grows and his kingdom is established. And in doing so, all of those very ones that have just been slayed lift up their hearts and minds in awe of he who rides on the white horse.

Brothers and sisters, there’s 3 very simple lessons that come from this. In closing, 1, is this our cry as a church? Is this our cry? That we would see Christ victoriously riding forth with the kingdom and advancing it here in our very midst. Whatever the cost. To see his glory established upon this earth. Or are we too focused upon our own glory? It can be a problem, can’t it? Bless me, Lord, so that all people would know that I am blessed. Rather than bless us, Lord, so that your name may be exalted. Or bless the church down the road as long as your name is exalted. If we perish and we fold, but Christ rides forth victoriously, would we be content? That’s a challenge, isn’t it?

Secondly, are you being used as part of the weaponry of Christ? You see, Christ shoots bows and arrows of the gospel. He shoots arrows of the gospel, I should say. We are the bow. No bow, no arrow. He uses us to shoot forth the arrow of the gospel into the hearts of our enemies. That’s what’s happening in Nigeria. That’s the other side of the story we don’t hear. I mean, there can’t be that many Christians in Nigeria, but they managed to kill 53 thousand of them in a year. Where are they all coming from? They’re being converted, aren’t they? How did Russia manage to kill five million Christians? Because as fast as they killed them, People were converted. Are you being used as a weapon in the hands of God, in the hands of the king?

And lastly, have you been pierced by his gospel arrow? I mean, all of this counts for nothing if he’s not your king. Because if he’s not your king, one of 2 things is going to happen. Either he will conquer you with a sword, a sword of devouring, Revelation, Revelation, or he will conquer you with an arrow of the gospel and make you live. Have you been pierced by the gospel? If not, I invite you to be pierced by the gospel right now. With Paul, I implore that ye be reconciled to God.

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