Todays readings .. Genesis 41, Psalm 45, Matthew 27
“THEREFORE NATIONS WILL PRAISE YOU FOREVER …”
The above quotation is found in the final verse of today’s Psalm 45. The whole Psalm is an awesome heart challenging description of the kingdom – and of Jesus – saying that “grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.” [v.2] What awesomely prophetic verses follow! “Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendour and majesty!” [v.3] And what a vision of the divine action to come upon the earth (and how soon now!)
We read on [v.4] “In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness …” Those 3 words, truth, meekness and righteousness “will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.” [v.17]
This “praise” is something the nations will have to learn! What a learning curve that will be, how awesome the start of the kingdom will be! We are told in v. 5 “Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; the peoples fall under you.” We call to mind God’s words through Isaiah in his words about “the latter days” in ch. 2, that He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples … “ [v.4]. We sense from this that the “nations will” learn to “praise you forever.” There is no solution for “disputes” today!
Back in Psalm 45 we read that, as a result of the king’s “arrows (being) sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; (so that) the peoples fall under you.” [v.5]- what an awesome period that will be! But we then note the declaration is, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The sceptre of your kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness”. So Jesus is seen as “God”!? The next verse gives us the explanation, that because “you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness … ”
Finally let us call to mind how Paul describes the climax in his 1st letter to the Corinthians, he tells us that Jesus “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘all things are put in subjection,’ it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” [15 v.25-28] And “therefore nations will praise you forever.”
