THE DIRECTION OF THE LORD'S MOVE TODAY
Message Four
To Prepare the Bride as the Counterpart of the Bridegroom (2) Praising Christ as the King in Himself, in the Church as His Queen, and in All His Sons, the Overcomers as the Princes
Scripture Reading: Eph. 5:25-27; Psa. 45:1-17
I. The entire Bible is a divine romance, a record of how God courts His chosen people and eventually marries them—Gen. 2:21-24; S. S. 1:2-4; Isa. 54:5; 62:5; Jer. 2:2; 3:1, 14; 31:3, 32; Ezek. 16:8; 23:5; Hosea 2:7, 19; Matt. 9:15; John 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25-27; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9-10; 22:17:
A. The Lord's recovery is for the fulfillment of Matthew 16:18 and Revelation 19:7-8—the building up of Christ's church and the preparation of Christ's bride.
B. When we as God's people enter into a love relationship with God, we receive His life, just as Eve received the life of Adam—Gen. 2:21-22.
C. It is this life that enables us to become one with God and makes Him one with us.
D. We keep the law, not by exercising our mind and will (cf. Rom. 7:18-25) but by loving the Lord as our Husband and thereby partaking of His life and nature to become one with Him as His enlargement and expression to be the living portrait of God.
E. We are not letter-keepers of the law but loving seekers of God; we love Christ as our Re-deemer, as the life-giving Spirit, and as our Bridegroom—Psa. 119:58; Eph. 5:25-27.
F. In order for God and His people to be one, there must be a mutual love between them— John 14:21, 23.
G. The love between God and His people unfolded in the Bible is primarily like the affec-tionate love between a man and a woman—Jer. 2:2; 31:3.
H. As God's people love God and spend time to fellowship with Him in His word, God in-fuses them with His divine element, making them one with Him as His spouse, the same as He is in life, nature, and expression—cf. Gen. 2:18-25.
II. Psalm 45, the highest and greatest of all the psalms, is one of the psalms of the sons of Korah, a song of love according to the melody of "lilies"; it praises Christ as the King in Himself, in the church as His queen, and in the overcomers as His princes:
A. The great work of God is to restore the desolated building of God and to recover "the sons of Korah" by transforming rebellious ones, through His unlimited mercy and grace, into Christ's overcomers to make them the constituents of His bride, His overcoming queen— Num. 16:1-3; Psa. 106:16; 26:11; ch. 42, title; 1 Chron. 6:33-37; Psa. 88, title; Rev. 19:7-9.
B. If we are those who affectionately love the Lord, we eventually become His love, His fa-vorite—S. S. 1:1-4, 14-15; 2:4.
C. A lily denotes a pure, simple, single life of trusting in God—vv. 1-2; Matt. 6:28-29; cf. 1 Kings 7:17-19.
D. If we have an affectionate love for the Lord Jesus, our tongue will be the pen of a ready writer, ready to write our love for Him and our praise to Him with our experience and enjoyment of Him according to all that He is in His full ministry—Psa. 45:1; cf. Matt. 12:34b; 2 Cor. 3:3, 6; Isa. 6:5-7.
E. Psalm 45 praises Christ the King as unveiled in the four Gospels—Psa. 45:1-8; Matt. 1:1:
1. The psalmist praises Christ the King in His fairness; Christ is fairer than the sons of men—Psa. 45:1-2; cf. 27:4; S. S. 5:9-16:
a. Grace is poured upon Christ's lips—Luke 4:17-22; cf. Eph. 4:29-30.
b. Because the man Jesus is fair, sweet, and full of grace, God has been moved to bless Him forever—Rom. 9:5.
2. The psalmist praises Christ the King in His victory—Psa. 45:3-5:
a. In the eyes of Satan and his fallen angels, Christ is the mighty One who has girded His sword upon His thigh, the One with majesty and splendor as signs of His vic-tory—v. 3.
b. In His splendor Christ rides on victoriously because of truth, meekness, and right-eousness; regardless of what the situation is on earth, regardless of what the nations are doing, Christ is riding on triumphantly, prosperously; from the day of His ascension, He began to ride on, and He will continue to ride until He comes back in victory—v. 4a; Acts 5:31; Rev. 6:1-2; 19:11-16.
c. His right hand performs awesome deeds; Christ's awesome deeds include His cru-cifixion, resurrection, and ascension; everything that the Lord Jesus does, whether great or small, is awesome—Psa. 45:4b.
d. His arrows are sharp in the heart of His enemies, and the peoples fall under Him—v. 5; cf. Rev. 6:2.
3. The psalmist praises Christ the King in His kingdom—Psa. 45:6-7:
a. As God, Christ's throne is forever and ever, and the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of His kingdom—v. 6; Heb. 1:8.
b. As the King, Christ has loved righteousness and hated wickedness, and God the Father has anointed Christ with the oil of gladness above His companions—Psa. 45:7; Heb. 1:9.
4. The psalmist praises Christ the King in the sweetness of His virtues—Psa. 45:8; cf. 1 Pet. 2:9:
a. All His garments smell of myrrh and aloes and of cassia—Psa. 45:8a:
(1) Garments signify Christ's deeds and virtues, myrrh and aloes signify the sweet-ness of His death, and cassia signifies the fragrance and repelling power of Christ's resurrection.
(2) The way to experience Christ in His crucifixion by the power of His resurrec-tion is by the Spirit Himself, who is in our spirit—cf. S. S. 2:8-14; Rom. 8:16; Phil. 3:10.
b. From palaces of ivory, harpstrings have made Him glad—Psa. 45:8b:
(1) Palaces signify the local churches, ivory signifies the resurrection life of Christ (John 19:36; cf. S. S. 7:4; 4:4; 1 Kings 10:18), and harpstrings signify praises.
(2) The local churches are beautiful in the eyes of the Lord and are His expression, and they are built with the resurrection life of Christ; from the local churches come the praises that make Him glad.
F. Psalm 45 praises Christ the King in praising the queen, the church, His wife, as revealed in the Epistles—Psa. 45:9-15:
1. The queen typifies the church, especially the overcomers, as the unique wife of Christ, and the honorable women around the queen signify Christ's overcoming guests; this indicates that the bride of Christ is actually a group of overcomers—vv. 9-10:
a. The daughters of kings signify the believers of Christ in their royalty.
b. The king's most prized women signify the believers of Christ in their honor and majesty.
c. The more we hear the Spirit's living, up-to-date speaking and forget the past, the more beautiful we become in Christ's eyes—vv. 10-11.
2. The king desires the queen's beauty; the queen's beauty signifies the virtues of Christ expressed through the church—v. 11:
a. In verse 1 Christ is the King, in verse 2 He is a man, in verse 6 He is God, and in verse 11 He is the Lord.
b. Christ is worthy not only of the church's love but also of her worship.
3. In Psalm 45 the queen has two garments:
a. The first garment is the gold of Ophir, the woven work inwrought with gold— vv. 9b, 13b:
(1) This garment corresponds to Christ as our objective righteousness, which is for our salvation—Luke 15:22; 1 Cor. 1:30; Isa. 61:10.
(2) The queen's being covered with gold signifies the church's appearing in the divine nature—Psa. 45:9b.
(3) The garment of woven work inwrought with gold signifies that the Christ who has been dealt with through death and resurrection is the righteousness of the church to meet the righteous requirement of God for her to be justified before God—Gal. 2:16; Rom. 3:26.
b. The second garment is the embroidered clothing—Psa. 45:14a:
(1) This garment corresponds to Christ "embroidered" into us by the transforming work of the Spirit and lived out of us as our subjective righteousnesses, which are for our victory—Rev. 19:8.
(2) As our subjective righteousnesses, Christ is the One dwelling in us to live for us a life that is always acceptable to God—Phil. 3:9; Matt. 5:6, 20; Rom. 8:4; cf. Psa. 23:3.
(3) The garment of embroidered clothing signifies that the church will be led to Christ at their marriage, clothed with the righteousnesses of the saints to meet the requirement of Christ for their marriage—Rev. 19:8; cf. Matt. 22:11-14.
4. The king's daughter is all glorious within the royal abode, and the virgins will enter the King's palace—Psa. 45:13a, 14-15:
a. The king's daughter is the queen, signifying the church, and her being all glo-rious within the royal abode signifies the glorious church taking Christ as her royal abode—v. 13a; John 15:4a.
b. We take Christ as our abode, we become His abode, and this mutual abode even-tually becomes the palace, which signifies the New Jerusalem—14:23; 15:5; Psa. 45:15b; Rev. 21:3, 22.
G. Psalm 45 praises Christ the King in praising His sons, the overcomers as the princes, as seen in Revelation—Psa. 45:16-17:
1. "In the place of Your fathers will be Your sons; / You will make them princes in all the earth"—v. 16:
a. Here fathers signifies Christ's forefathers in the flesh, sons signifies the over-comers of Christ as His descendants, and princes signifies the overcomers of Christ as His co-kings, who will reign with Christ over the nations—Rev. 2:26-27; 20:4, 6.
b. Only Christ the King reigning on the earth with the overcomers as His helpers in the kingship can solve the problems of today's world—Isa. 42:1-4; Hag. 2:7a.
2. Christ's name will be remembered in all generations through the overcoming saints, and Christ will be praised by the nations through His overcoming and co-reigning saints—Psa. 45:17; cf. Rev. 12:11; Isa. 12:1-6.