The Throne Room of the Eternal King

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI and edited by Sjannette Hagoort

The Royal Invitation

I want you to imagine for a moment it’s the 18th century, in Madrid. Philip V is the king, and his palace has burnt down in 1734, and so he takes up the grand task of building a new one. Of course, being a very powerful, very important king, his palace must far outstrip anybody else’s.

Once the work is finally done, you receive a special invitation to attend, as the king, for the first time, sits upon his royal throne in his new throne room.

As you walk in, you look and you see walls gilded with gilded moldings, and you see velvet purple drapes dripping down the wall. You see enormous crystal chandeliers that have been imported all the way from Bohemia. And as you look up past the chandeliers, you see the work of Giovanni Tiepolo, the Italian painter who has elaborately designed the roof with frescos that show the divine nature and favor that lies upon your king, and his royal power and victories.

And then you look down and you see two thrones, raised up on stairs, and on each side of the stairs, a golden lion on each side. And here, two thrones sit, framed in pure gold, chiseled and refined with elegant beauty and the most delightful, rich velvet cushions you could ever imagine.

The awe and the splendor of it all is almost overwhelming. You can see pictures of it online. Dripping with splendor. And you’d be left with awe if you went there, wouldn’t you? Seeing this in person?

Brothers and sisters, we are going into a throne room that makes the throne room in Madrid look like a thatched barn. We are invited by the psalmist, by faith, to gaze into a throne room of which its glory outshines the sun. And what the psalmist wants us to do is to be drawn into this throne room, and as we’re drawn into this throne room, to see and understand that all the pretenders and idols of this world are not worth an ounce of your energy. Because they’re like thatched barns, they’re trinkets, like chaff that blow in the wind.

So join me as we gaze into this throne room.

I. His Eternal Reign of Authority (v. 6)

As you walk into the throne room of glory, the first thing you see is His eternal reign of authority. And so the psalmist tells us in verse 6, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness.”

As you walk into the throne room, you see three things at first.

1. The One who sits upon the throne is God

He’s a man, the Son of Man, but He is God. You notice that we’ve been dealing with a king from verses 1–5, a handsome son of men, and yet now, in verse 6, the psalmist says, “Your throne”—speaking of the king—“O God.” He doesn’t say, “O King.” “Your throne, O God.” And notice again, in verse 7, he’s going say, “Therefore God”—speaking to the king—“Therefore God, your God, has anointed you.”

You see, this King that sits upon the throne that you look at, our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, is God. He is as much God as Yahweh of the Old Testament. He is God of gods and Lord of lords. He is no mere man.

It’s just as was prophesied by Isaiah in Chapter 9, that one would come who would be a wonderful counselor and God, our father. It’s He of whom John would say in his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Ho Theos. God, the only God. Or it’s as the writer to the Hebrews will say in Chapter 1, “The exact imprint of God.” This is our King, seated upon the throne.

Step aside, Charles and Philip. Our King is also God.

2. His throne is eternal.

And so the psalmist says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” Now, you might not fully understand what’s meant by “forever and ever.” Yes, it means going onwards, but it actually uses two different words here to describe it. The first, forever, is reference to eternity backwards. Your throne, O God, is eternally in the past. There was never a time, O God, that your throne was not in place and you were not seated upon it. And it’s everlasting, into the future. Never will there be a time when your throne will cease.

And so, when you lift up your eyes and you see this Man and this God seated upon the throne, you realize that this is a throne and this is a kingdom that will never end. It will never be toppled.

It is as David sees the statue, it has the head, the body, the legs, and the feet, and they’re all made of different things, Eventually a stone rolls down (Daniel 2) and it strikes the statue and destroys it, and up from the rock comes a mountain, and the mountain is the Kingdom of God. “And it shall fill the earth and it shall have no end,” we’re told.

This is the Kingdom of God that Jesus comes and declares, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come. The time is fulfilled.” And when Jesus ascended in glory, He sat down upon His royal throne as we see Him now.

3. In His hand is a scepter

He has the royal scepter; “Your royal scepter is a scepter of uprightness,” It’s an interesting word, this Hebrew word for uprightness. Literally or physically speaking, it means straight. It’s straight, and it can be used, not often, but occasionally it’s used of something like moral rectitude, uprightness. You can take it as literally, physical. It’s straight. His scepter is never crooked. He wields His authority, which is what the scepter represents. He wields His authority and scepter with perfect straightness at all times. He never misses the mark; His authority is always fair and secure.

This is He of whom Jacob prophesied when he blessed Judah and he said, “A scepter shall rise up from among you.” It’s He of whom Balaam, the wicked prophet, would declare by the Spirit of God in Numbers, “I see him far away, a rod and a scepter that will be raised up above the nations,” in Numbers 24. And the Book of Hebrews confirms this is Christ. In Chapter 1:8, it takes this exact verse verbatim from the Greek Bible and applies it directly to Christ and says, “This is our Lord. There is no unrighteousness in Him, but everything is upright.”

Brothers and sisters, where is Philip V of Spain? He’s dead. And where is his glorious kingdom? His throne room is now an exhibition. Where is the glorious Armada and the Kingdom of Spain? It’s a fraction of what it used to be. Where is the glory of Babylon, of Persia, of Greece, of Rome? They’ve all perished. But the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ will never fail. His kingdom is secure. His authority is fixed. His throne shall never fail, because He’s God.

And the devil may be scary to you and me, but he is nothing but a creature to the Lord Jesus Christ, as much of a creature as you and I and a cockroach on the ground. This is our King, exalted, high, and lifted up upon His throne.

II. The Anointed Joy of Blessing (v. 7)

And as you walk into His throne room, your senses are sort of overwhelmed with the splendor of it all. You know what it’s like when you’ve been in a dark room and someone flicks the light on and all of a sudden it’s you can see properly. Your eyes take time to adjust because of the brightness. Well, this is a little bit what it’s like when we walk into the throne room.

First, our attention is drawn to the center, to the throne, with the King seated upon it. But as our eyes adjust, we’re able to begin to take in more details, and so now we look further and the second thing we see is the anointed joy of blessing.

For the psalmist says, in verse 7, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

Now, it’s important to see here that God has anointed Him. In the Old Testament, who does the anointing? Prophets, right? God tells different prophets, such as Elisha, to go and anoint kings and priests and different individuals. Do you ever see God Himself pouring an anointing upon anyone in the Old Testament? Never. But this King, He is anointed by the right hand of God Himself with the holy anointing oil, and is that not exactly what we saw in the Jordan River with the Lord Jesus Christ? As He comes up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him, a holy anointing of God, and God says; “This is my Son. He’s my King, whom I have chosen.”

And when on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father says; “Listen to Him because He’s the King.” He is chosen especially by God. In Isaiah 61, we’re told that He will be anointed with the Spirit, a spirit of wisdom and power, to drive out spirits and evil. And then Luke picks up those exact words in Luke 3 and 4 and applies it to Jesus Christ, and shows that Jesus is the anointed King of God.

But notice what He’s anointed with. We’re told He’s anointed with the oil of gladness. I wonder if you remember that beautiful little verse in Hebrews 12, where it talks about fixing your eyes on Jesus, and running the race with a cloud of witnesses around us. In verse 2, it says, “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross and the shame.” And so as a man of sorrows, He embraced sorrow and suffering so that He might receive joy and gladness, and this man of sorrows has now been enthroned with joy.

And there’s two ways to understand this. One is that He is anointed for His own gladness, which is definitely true, because Jesus’ chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But He’s also anointed for the gladness of His people, because who else is anointed by the hand of God alone? You. What happened at Pentecost? The Spirit of God came down upon the Church of Jesus Christ, and the King bestowed the same glad pleasure upon His people. You have been brought into the joy and gladness of God to share in it.

And what’s the result of God choosing and anointing Him with all of this joy and wonder? Well, we’re told in the beginning of verse 7 that He loves righteousness, and to translate it more literally, hates unrighteousness. Or to say it differently, He loves what God loves and hates what God hates.

Maybe you’ve heard that saying, “God loves the sinner but hates the sin.” Psalm 5 says, “God abhors all evildoers.” There is a reason sinners go to hell, because God hates unrighteousness and those who do it. And so too does this King; He will put up with no unrighteousness, He will level His power and authority to remove all unrighteousness from His Father’s kingdom so that in the coming day, at the end of Revelation, we will be told that there was no unclean thing there in the City of God because it had been removed. No adulterers, no liars, no cowards, nothing.

You might say to yourself, “Well, that’s a terrible type of king. Why would I want a king like that?” Well, you have to understand the way that He does this. There are two ways that the King removes and hates unrighteousness.

1. The Sword of His Power

The first is by the swrod of His power, whereby He destroys the wicked, casts them in hell, and sends them to an eternity of damnation because they refuse to kiss the Son. Psalm 2, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in your way.” And if you’re unrighteous, that is your lot right now, that is where you sit tonight in this message.

2. The Other Way

And yet you must know the other way, because this King removes unrighteousness by making people righteous. Not by removing them, but by removing their unrighteousness so that Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “He who knew no sin,” (our King) “became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God.”

You see, the King will delete and destroy all unrighteousness from the Kingdom of God, and He does it by bearing the weight of all unrighteousness of those who believe on Him, and He will take that to the cross, and He will lay down His head upon the dirt and die so that you might be declared righteous before God. Our Father has laid the iniquities of us all upon Him, but we have become children of God.

Earthly kings and idols, show me their blessing, show me their anointing, show me the blessing they are to this world, and show me their love for the things God loves. Is it not the opposite? As Romans 1 tells us, “They call good evil and evil good.” They celebrate the murdering of unborn children. They celebrate the death of vulnerable and weak elderly. They celebrate teenagers mutilating their bodies for the sake of some abominable cause. They celebrate the worship of goat gods and child sacrifices in their own name.

But our King—He celebrates that which is lovely. He rejoices over that which is good. He honors that which God honors, and He makes us lovely. He makes us presentable, and He brings us into the kingdom of God. This is our King. He’s indescribable.

III. The Sensory Splendor of the Throne Room (v. 8–9)

But as we look into the throne room, again, our eyes begin to adjust and widen, whichever it is, so that we can see more. And as we see more, we’re able to take in what’s around the King, and the first thing we see is garments.

Have a look at verse 8; “Your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.”

He has garments, garments of sensory delight. This is a throne room that is not just for the eye. As you walk in, the aroma of His perfume is intoxicating. In the olden days, you would perfume your clothes, not your body. So, you would perfume your robe, or you would wear, as it says in Song of Solomon, a sachet of myrrh between your breasts. It’s a perfume, and so we’re told of these different perfumes that He has. He has myrrh, He has an Indian aromatic wood called aloe, and He has cassia, which is a type of cinnamon. And so there’s sweet and cinnamon and myrrh mingled together, and it gives you the picture of a fragrance that woos all people towards Himself.

Those of you who are older can remember when you first tried to woo your husband or wife and you thought to yourself, “I’ll find something that smells beautiful,” if you were one of the romantic types, and you wrote a letter. And you got some perfume and sprayed it on the letter and put it in an envelope with hopes that when she opened it up, the aroma would come forth from the envelope. Why? Because you want to draw them to yourself, right? You want people to think and smell and say, “There is a lovely person.” This is our King, with a gorgeous aroma.

But notice particularly the smell that He has. Does He not have the smell of the gospel upon Him? For what was the gift given to Him by the kings of old but myrrh, frankincense, and silver? And what was the thing that He was anointed with on His grave but myrrh? He has the aroma of gospel work. As Paul would call it in 2 Corinthians, “The aroma of Christ.” For those who are being called to life and for those who are perishing, He only has one aroma, the aroma of the gospel, and it’s an aroma that woos people to Himself and drives people from Himself.

But then, as you’re appreciating the sensory delight of His aroma, your ears begin to tingle because you hear something. You hear, “From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad.”

The King has reached out and He has found the most exquisite, rich ivory instruments that can be obtained. He has obtained them from whole palaces of ivory. It’s the picture of what? Opulence, richness, splendor. No mere lyre of wood, but ivory. You see, the King’s music is only the finest. Revelation 4, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who wass, is, and is to come.” And Revelation 5, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is filled with His glory.” And so we hear the song of holiness erupting from all of creation before the King, all in the courtroom cry out His holiness.

But then we notice further again, daughters, not His daughters, I hope you see. Daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor, ladies set to serve Him and minister to Him and do His every need. And among them, the kings of the nations. And you ask yourself, “Well, what are the kings of the nations’ daughters doing here?” Well, in Isaiah 60, there’s this interesting promise that talks about the judgment of God and says, “God has judged you, but now He will send the kings of the nations to serve you.” And when you get into the Book of Revelation, at the end of chapter 21 it says that the kings—talking about the City of God—“The kings of the nations will bring their wealth into her.”

What’s it a picture of? It’s a picture of Revelation 7, peoples of every nation, every language, every tongue, every tribe, bowing down before the King, and not just peasants, right? It’s not peasants who serve as His ladies of honor, but the very treasures of other kings. The most precious thing to a man, outside of his wife is a daughter. She’s like a precious, delicate flower, that you will do anything to defend and protect. The kings aren’t there, but their daughters are, because the daughters have left their own fathers’ households to cleave to this King, because He is the only King worthy to serve.

But then you see one more. You see the queen. “At your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.”

Ophir was the land of gold. It’s where Solomon sent the ships to get gold on a yearly basis. It goes all the way back to Noah. I think it’s the 6th or 7th generation after Noah, through Shem, is this man called Ophir. And he settles in a place which is called Ophir, and it’s flowing with the finest gold this King has brought. And He has clad and robed His queen in gold.

The queen is the church, it’s the bride of Christ, it’s she who we will give our attention to in the rest of the Psalm. It’s she of whom Paul says that Christ will wash her, Ephesians 5, and make her blameless. It’s she of whom the Book of Revelation tells us is dressed in white robes, and these robes, Revelation 19, are their works of righteousness. And so Christ has clad the church in such perfect, spotless righteousness that she shines forth like the sun, and people are almost tempted to say, “The queen is more glorious than the king,” because He has arrayed her as such. And she stands beautifully upon her right, at His side, with His arm around her, protecting her and loving her forever, because His throne is forever.

Now, compare this to Philip V. He smells like death right now. He does not have a pleasing aroma. But our King smells of beauty. The music of this world is filled with filth, and adulterous language, and blasphemy, and godlessness. But our King’s music is holy, holy, holy. And the queens of the kings of this world, compared to the bride of Christ, they’re not even worth looking at.

Four Lessons from the Throne Room

And as you gaze into the throne room of God, as you look at its unveiled splendor, the psalmist draws you into Christ’s glorious throne room with Him and His bride seated upon an eternal throne. And four very important lessons come from this.

1. Kiss the Son

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way. Be like the daughters of the kings and become part of the queen. Come and join the bride of Christ. The queen is on the right hand of the King, did you notice who’s on the left hand of the King? No one. Did Jesus not tell a parable in the Gospel according to Matthew; “When the Son of Man comes in His glory with His angels, He will separate the goats from the sheep, and the sheep will be upon His right hand and the goats upon His left.” But they’re not here now because they have been cast into eternal fire, as Jesus says, forever and ever. So, let me invite you tonight. Kiss the Son. Make peace with Him today, and be on His right hand.

2. Turn from Your Idols

You who are believers, turn from you follish idolatry. We look to the glory of Christ enthroned in heaven, and then we turn to the peasantry kings of this world and the idols of our hearts, and we bow down and worship them as though they’re kings. Is this not the height of folly? It is as C. S. Lewis paints the picture. We’re like children playing in mud pies, and our parents come and they offer us a holiday at the beach, and we go on playing in the mud pies because we have no idea how good a holiday at the beach is. And yet, what makes that analogy even worse is we know how wonderful the beach is, and we decide to pack up, go home, and jump back in the mud pie. Isn’t it true? Isn’t it true of you? Though you know the splendor of the King, yet you bow down to the idols of your heart and the idols of this world. I know it’s true because it’s true of me. And what the psalmist is doing is calling us to burn them, to take our idols and smash them. Like Gideon, even in his weakness, even in his timidity, to get a group of men in the middle of the night when no one else is watching and go and cut down the idol. May we be like Josiah who purges a whole kingdom for the sake of the glory of God.

3. Serve Him

Since He’s this glorioous, bring your best to serve Him. And, yes, I’m talking money, but I’m also talking far more than money. He is worthy of your all, whether it’s $5 or 500 hours, whether it’s on an instrument, in a kitchen, or making a meal for a sister. Whatever it is, give the King your very best. Don’t give your best to the world and give to God the leftovers. Give to Christ your first fruits that you gather in, of your time, your energy, your efforts.

4. Delight and Rejoice in the King

And lastly, delight and rejoice in your King, because that’s ultimately the answer to the first three applications. You see, you serve, you worship, you love, and you follow that which you delight in. Why do we turn to sin? Why do we turn to idolatry? Why do people turn to pornography? Why do people have affairs? Because they love it. They hate themselves for it, but they delight in it. The solution to sin is delighting in Christ. The solution to idolatry is delighting in Christ. The solution to our waywardness, our lethargy, and all of our spiritual problems is treasuring Christ, our King, above every other thing. Or to put it another way, fulfilling the greatest commandment, to love the Lord, your God, with all of your soul, and all of your strength, and all of your might, and all of your heart, and all of your mind. Or to put it as the Westminsters so aptly did, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Or my favorite Piperism, by enjoying Him forever.

May God grant us to delight in our King.

---