Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 110:1-3 | Date: August 5, 2018 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Defining for us the work of Christ, Jesus himself referred to it on occasion, and we’ll spend, Lord willing, this time, next time, and then I think a third time as well, working our way through the psalm. Psalm 110, a psalm of a divine priest-king. A psalm of a divine priest-king.

The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way. Therefore, he will lift up his head.

Today I would like to focus on verses 1 to 3, so let’s look at those again. Notice, by the way, it is a Psalm of David. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we are grateful for this portion of your words, such a rich reminder of Jesus and who he is and what he has come to do. We ask that you will open our eyes, our ears, our minds to understand this, and through it to come to a greater appreciation for Him, a greater love for Him, a firmer faith in Him, and a more strengthened resolve to serve Him. We ask in His name. Amen.

Well, we have been working our way through this lengthy series to show that the Bible is a gospel-centered, gospel-shaped book about Jesus. It is a book about Jesus, but it is a particular kind of book about Jesus, and that is it is a gospel-shaped book about Jesus. It is written to tell us about Jesus and what he has come to do and how he has come to save us, how he has come to fulfill God’s purposes in salvation and in judgment. That’s true of the whole Bible. We’ve been showing that, and if you’ve been here through the series, you’ve gotten a hint now that we could show that in about a hundred different ways. But it is no less true of the Psalms as well.

In fact, we have a category of psalms that Old Testament scholars have taught us to think of, and that is the messianic psalms—psalms that are very specifically about the Messiah to come, about the messianic king telling us about him. This is one of those psalms. But the psalms actually anticipate the Messiah in various kinds of ways. In our prayer group on Wednesday night, we’ve been working our way through the Psalms, just brief reflections on each before we pray. But that’s one of the things that has struck me going through it, is to observe how in these various kinds of ways, the psalmist anticipates the coming of this greater son of David.

For example, a fascinating one I think is in Psalm 34, where David again takes up the imagery of the Passover and of the Exodus in particular to describe his own safety while fleeing from Saul. And through the Psalm, he takes language from Exodus and puts it into the Psalm and refers it to his own experience, like this has been his own experience of the Exodus. He has come through it. And then in the psalm, he makes this statement and applies this word from the Passover to himself: not a bone of his would be broken. Well, now, you know that that’s a reference to the Passover. In Exodus chapter 12, the Passover lamb was not to have a broken bone, but it was to be whole and all of that. And here David refers to me: not a bone was broken. God has preserved me and he’s given me my own Exodus. But you don’t have to reflect on that very long before you think, “I think there’s a little more going on here than that.” In fact, if you’ve read the rest of the book, if you’ve read through John’s gospel, you’ll remember that the Apostle John picks up that reference and says, “That’s Jesus.” And he quotes it while Jesus was on the cross. Not a bone of his was broken. Well, it’s kind of subtle, but once you’ve seen the whole thing, it’s pretty obvious as well. That’s one way the Psalms anticipate Jesus.

Another of my favorite examples is Psalm 45, where the psalmist writes a psalm to the Davidic king on his wedding day. Now keep in mind, behind all of these Davidic psalms, there’s in the background 2 Samuel chapter 7, remember that we’ve looked at, where God made a promise to David that his son would sit on the throne and reign forever. All that lies in the background. And Psalm 45 approaches it in a fascinating way. It’s a psalm written in praise to the Davidic king on his wedding day. So here’s a Davidic king, a descendant of David, being married, and you have a psalm written about him. And he is handsome, and he is great, and he is the strongest, and he’s the most mighty, and he’s going to whip all of his enemies, and no enemy will be able to stand. He’s the greatest of them all. And then it goes another step, and it says, “Your throne, oh God, is forever and ever.” Whoa. We’ve gone another step here quite significantly, haven’t we? We’re not now talking just about some physical descendant of David. We’re talking about great David’s greater son, who is in fact God incarnate. And you remember in Hebrews chapter 1, the writer there picks up that psalm to demonstrate the deity of Jesus. That’s another way the Psalms anticipate the coming of Christ.

Psalm 72 is another one. A Psalm, again, of the Davidic king. It praises the king, the character of his rule. He’ll rule in justice. He’ll take care of the poor. He’ll have pity on those that deserve it, and so on. And then it anticipates his reign in global terms. He’ll be a universal king. And then it uses this language: his enemies will lick the dust, and all nations will serve him. And there in that little phrase, it reaches all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, where God says to the serpent, “You’re going to crawl on your belly and eat dirt. And when this champion that comes is going to be done with you, you will be utterly defeated.” And all the rest, the stream of prophecies that come through that of the universal reign of this coming deliverer. The enemies will lick the dust and all nations will bow before him. Well, that’s another way the Psalms anticipate the coming of Christ.

Psalm 110 is just particularly striking because it is just—there’s nothing subtle about it. This is, we call it an oracular Psalm. This is an oracle of God. This is a direct prophecy from the prophet David about the coming descendant who will be the Messiah and rule universally. Nothing subtle, a direct prophecy of what will come. Verse 1: “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies.” So here we have this direct prophecy of the Messiah, Great David’s greater son who will come. And it’s not just a foreshadowing, a subtle type, or anything like that. A direct prophecy of the Messiah who will come.

Now note the heading of the psalm that I mentioned earlier. This becomes very important, this detail, later on in the interpretation of the psalm. It is a psalm of David. Now that raises the question, of course, are the psalm titles, the psalm headings, inspired? And there are a couple of answers we have to give to that. One, we don’t know for certain, but there’s more to the answer than that. And that is they are obviously very reliable. Number two, we don’t, as far as I know, have any ancient manuscripts of the Psalms that do not have these titles with them. They go back as far as we know, so they may be original. But in this particular case, Psalm 110, we can be sure that the heading is accurate because Jesus himself gives it his imprimatur, and we’ll see that in a few minutes in Matthew 22, where Jesus picks up this psalm and makes much over the fact that it’s a psalm of David.

The theme of the psalm is captured really in two divine utterances. God is speaking here, and in verse 1, “The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” That’s one. And the other is in verse 4: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, quote, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.'” So we have these two divine utterances, verse 1 and verse 4. These capture the theme of the psalm; we have the same person addressed in both. God is speaking, and he speaks to the Son, or he speaks to the Messiah. In verse 1, he’s addressing him as a king. In verse 4, he addresses him as a priest. Both statements are from God the Lord, and they are made to this one whom David calls my Lord. We’ll see more of that in a minute.

The Structure Of The Psalm

The structure of the psalm then, we have really three divisions of these seven verses. The first three verses present for us the Messiah as a divine king, and we’ll look at that this morning. Then next, verse four, Messiah as a priest-king. And then verses 5 through 7, Messiah as a warrior king. So we have Messiah as a divine king, verses 1 to 3; Messiah as a priest-king, verse 4; Messiah as warrior king, verses 5 to 7.

Verses 1 To 3, The Divine King

David here emphasizes the Messiah’s royalty in several ways, and I think that first is just the most fascinating. “The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Now notice in verse 1 then, how many persons are involved. You’ve got David who’s speaking or writing, and you’ve got the Lord who is speaking, and you’ve got this one whom David calls my Lord, and that’s the one to whom the Lord is speaking. So you have the Lord speaking to David’s Lord, and you have David recording it all for us. David, the one to whom God made the covenant promise back in 2 Samuel 7. You have Yahweh, the Lord, the speaker that David sort of overhears in this psalm. And he hears him speaking to this one that he calls “my Lord.”

For those of you familiar with the Hebrew names for God, the Lord—that is Yahweh, used to be pronounced more Jehovah—Yahweh said to Adonai, “my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Now what’s interesting here, first of all, is not just that God is speaking, but that God is speaking here in conversation with his Son. We overhear God the Father speaking to God the Son. “The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand.” So we have this, which from an Old Testament perspective and committed monotheism had to be a puzzling thing. This one that David is talking about, he calls “my Lord.”

Now that terminology, “my Lord,” can be used in just a respectful sense, “sir,” that kind of an idea. The difficulty here is that what David is evidently speaking of is his descendant. And in this kind of a culture particularly, never would a father, or a grandfather, or an ancestor, speak of a descendant as “my lord.” It’s the other way around. The descendant speaks of the ancestor as “my lord,” if it’s going to be a title of respect. So what do you do with all of this? You’ve got three people involved. You’ve got David writing, you’ve got Lord speaking to my Lord, and it’s a descendant of David probably. How do you put all of that together?

Well, you’re Christians; you’ve read the New Testament; it all falls together very quickly and very easily. But notice, keep a marker here, we will be back. But look at Matthew 22, and I want you to see how Jesus himself picks up on this very psalm. Matthew 22. The Sadducees in verse 23 came to try to trick Jesus. They had a question ready for him. They were astonished at his answer and didn’t know what to do with it. Verse 34, Pharisees come again with a question when they saw that he had silenced the Sadducees. And now verse 41, Jesus has a question for them. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question saying, “What do you think about the Christ, that is the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “That’s easy. He’s the son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David in the spirit, that is by inspiration, calls him Lord saying,” and here he quotes Psalm 110 verse one, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.’ If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” No one was able to answer him a word. They decided they would not ask him any more questions.

Now for you, you’ve read the New Testament, you go to RBC, you got this Trinity thing down fairly well, at least in large measure. You understand there’s one God and there’s three persons who are God—the Father, Son, and Spirit—who subsist in their own relations to one another, fully God, each of them equal in glory, equal in power, equal in every way, only one God, but distinct in persons. So the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit. Distinct persons, one God. You’ve got all that worked out, at least somewhat. But Jesus presents that question to the Pharisees, and the only answer they could give is an answer they couldn’t give, and so they decided we just won’t do this anymore.

Well, that confirms for us, then—Jesus confirms for us—one, we are right to refer these Psalms to Jesus, but specifically we are right to read into these Psalms indications that he is a divine Messiah. That’s Jesus’ own take on Psalm 110 verse 1. So we follow his lead and acknowledge the first point that Messiah is Lord. Messiah is Lord, a divine Messiah.

Number two, he presents Messiah—he says, Messiah is enthroned. Number one, Messiah is Lord. Number two, Messiah is enthroned at God’s right hand. “The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” This right hand language is something that’s picked up frequently, both in the New Testament and also in our hymnody. We sang it this morning. “God the Father’s own right hand.” This is language that is standard in Christian lingo, and it is rooted right here in Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

The right hand of God, obviously a place of honor. Solomon, for example, put his mother Bathsheba on his right hand as a position of honor. But it’s more than just a position of honor. It’s an idea of shared rule, co-regency kind of idea. And so this thought of sharing at God’s rule is repeated then in the Old Testament as well, and then in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, in anticipation of the Messiah, we have the most famous, the next most famous depiction of it in Daniel chapter 7. When we finish our expositions of Psalm 110, I think we will go to Daniel 7 to see that as well.

In Daniel chapter 7, you remember these various successions of world’s kingdoms that come in apocalyptic imagery, and these beasts that are coming, and they’ve got horns, and you’ve got this final beast, a nondescript beast. It’s not like the lion or the leopard. It’s just a terrible beast, and it’s got 10 horns, and then another horn grows up, and it’s got eyes, and it’s looking around, and it’s just running roughshod. And then suddenly the scene changes, and you see the throne room of heaven and the Ancient of Days is ruling, and all the world’s called into account. And then the Son of Man appears, and the kingdom of God rules forever.

But in that Son of Man section in Daniel chapter 7, you have this Son of Man, which of course sounds like a human being, but it says, “one like a Son of Man,” appearing before the Ancient of Days, and he comes riding on a cloud. Who in the world rides clouds? He’s clearly not just a man. This is a heavenly figure. And he appears before the ancient of days and he receives a kingdom from the ancient of days. And here he is receiving a rule or the right to rule from the ancient of days—God the Father giving God the Son the right to rule and to carry out his purpose.

So what we have there in Daniel chapter seven and here in Psalm 110 is a coronation scene. The king taking his throne, ascending to rule. Messiah taking his place on the throne of the universe. Now this is something we’ve seen before. There’s a sense, of course, in which God the Son has always been Lord of all. He is one of the three persons of the Trinity. He is Lord forever. But we have in these passages another sense of lordship that the Son has attained.

And again, keep your hand here in Psalm 110, but this time look to Matthew 28. Matthew chapter 28. You remember the setting here? Jesus has been crucified, buried, He’s risen from the dead. There have been appearances of Jesus. They have seen him. They have talked to him. And now we have, beginning with verse 16, the passage that describes the Great Commission. And notice what Jesus says to them in verse 18. Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” He doesn’t say all authority in heaven and earth has always been mine because I’m God the Son. He says all authority in heaven and earth has been given. And of course, the setting is, again, this is post-crucifixion, post-resurrection. He has successfully accomplished the work of mediatorship that has been assigned to him by the Father. And now he has earned the right to rule, the right to carry out God’s purpose in salvation and judgment. And so now he has been given the authority to grant eternal life to those whom the Father has given to him.

We have this reflected, you might remember, in Revelation chapter 5, when all the redeemed stand before the throne, and they’re wondering who’s worthy to take the scroll. Who in the world could ever take God’s purposes of judgment and salvation, God’s purposes in history, and carry them out, and unpeel the scroll, and carry out God? Who could do that? And someone says, “Whoa, wait. There’s a lion of the tribe of Judah,” and it picks up that lion imagery of the prophetic coming of Judah’s great son. And I looked, and it wasn’t a lion. It was a lamb who had been slain. And all of heaven breaks out into this singing, this triumph song. “You are worthy because—You are worthy to take the scroll because you have redeemed us by your blood out of every nation, tribe, kindred, and tongue.” That is, Christ’s right to rule is grounded in his successful saving work.

That’s the way Peter takes it in Acts chapter 2. People see all of these phenomena happening at Pentecost, the tongues and all this happening. And Peter says, “Don’t you see? This is indication that Christ has ascended to his throne. And God has made him Lord and Christ.” It’s a coronation scene. And this is what is happening here in Psalm 110 verse 1. Christ has accomplished his saving work. He’s earned the right to rule. And now he ascends to the throne. And the father says, “You sit here at my right hand until I make my enemies your footstool.” Christ has ascended. Christ has entered into his session, his kingly rule. From there he dispenses his spirit and he carries out his kingly enterprise in history. One fascinating thing here, just a curious observation, is that if a judge or a king or a president or a person of dignity would enter the room, what you would do is naturally stand in respect. Here, Yahweh says to Messiah, “Here, you just be seated here on my right hand,” while he goes to work to destroy his enemies.

All right then, we have Messiah is Lord. Number two, Messiah is enthroned on God’s right hand. He has taken the throne. He has achieved the right to rule. Number three, Messiah will triumph. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. This expression, “your enemies,” generally refers to God’s enemies, and I think that’s what’s going on here. Your enemies, my enemies, we’re gonna make them the footstool for your feet. And that language of making enemies your footstool is the language of complete subjugation, complete triumph over all who oppose.

And of course, if you’ve been reading the story carefully, this kind of rings a bell because the thought is not far at all from Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, where God pronounces the curse on Satan and says, “When I’m done, when this ‘he’ comes, this champion, you’re going to crawl on your belly and eat dirt. He’ll crush your head.” And that triumph theme, this champion theme, beginning back in Genesis chapter 3, works its way through. We find it in Genesis chapter 49. We find it again in Numbers chapter 24 with the scepter and the ruling and all of that. And here he applies it specifically to the Messiah. All of God’s enemies will be brought underfoot. Who else could this be referring to but the Messiah? We’ll pursue that a little bit more when we get to verses 5, 6, and 7, where he takes up that theme again.

So Messiah is Lord. Messiah is enthroned at God’s right hand. Number three, Messiah will triumph. He will succeed in extinguishing God’s enemies. And then number four, verses 2 and 3, Messiah will rule. And here he describes the characteristics of the rule of Messiah. “The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.”

Verse two again: “The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies.” Well, this scepter theme, of course, is something that’s familiar in the stream of Old Testament prophecy that we’ve been seeing in the anticipation of the Messiah. We find it in Genesis chapter 49 that I mentioned, verse 10: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah.” The pagan prophet Balaam picks it up in Numbers chapter 24: “He will take up a scepter and crush the foreheads of his enemies,” and so on.

But notice in verse 1, Messiah sits on the throne in heaven awaiting victory. But now in verse 2, “Rule in the midst of your enemies.” That is, in verse two, he’s pictured not as sitting back guardedly, protecting his borders. Rule in the midst of your enemies. That is, he’s on the advance. He’s the invading force. He’s going out against his enemies. Rule in the midst of your enemies. And yet, in some sense, it is not the Messiah personally who is doing this. But, verse three, he has some volunteer army working for him. “Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments.” So he has an army that is sent out, and these faithful ones are sent out into battle to extend his rule.

So note, first of all, then, how these soldiers in the Messiah’s army are conscripted. Verse three: “Your people will offer themselves freely in the day of your power,” willingly entering God’s service. Messiah rules over these, his soldiers, his servants as well, but they’re volunteer warriors. Now a couple of things here. One, we have then a hint of the means by which Christ then is extending his reign. The means by which he is extending his ruling over the earth. And it’s a gospel advance. That’s how his servants extend his kingdom. They don’t do it with the sword. They do it with the gospel.

Again, let’s look at some passages like that in the New Testament. Keep your hand here; we’ll be back again. But look at 2 Corinthians 2. 2 Corinthians 2. He’s talking about his own gospel ministry here, the Apostle Paul beginning at verse 12. And then verse 14: “Thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” God leading us in triumphal procession. And then, he mixed his metaphors, “through us, spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.”

This triumphal procession could be understood in military language. That is, they’re triumphing as they make their advance. It could be a victory march of the military as they come back. But it has military overtones to it. He leads us in triumphal procession. That’s what the gospel advance does. In military terms, it makes the advance of God’s kingdom by defeating his enemies through the gospel. Another way to look at it is that it’s like spreading perfume everywhere. That’s what it says. That “through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” The world stinks. It’s full of sin, full of corruption of all kinds. And the gospel makes its way, and it’s like spreading perfume everywhere. And as men and women come to Christ, and as the gospel is preached, God says, “It smells good.”

Now, as that gospel goes out to some, it’s a savor of life unto life, and they are saved. To others, it’s a savor of death unto death, and they will be condemned. But in any case, it’s the advance of the gospel spreading the fragrance of Christ throughout the world. That’s the idea here in Psalm 110, in verse 3. We have a reflection of that in the familiar words of Romans 16, verse 20, where the apostle says, “I trust God will trample Satan under your feet shortly.” Reaching all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, we’re going to defeat Satan, and we’re going to do it by the advance of the gospel. Picked up again in Revelation chapter 12: they overcame the dragon by the word of their testimony. This is Christ carrying out his rule in this age through the advance of the gospel.

But there’s more than that here as well in verse 3. “Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power.” Why in the world would they do that? And whatever happened to human depravity? And this aversion to God? And man’s natural bondage away from God? And dislike for God? And then why would they volunteer for an army of soldiers that the world is not going to like and approve of? And what he is speaking of here very simply is the nature of efficacious grace. God comes to us who are in rebellion against him and works in grace in such a way as to make us come willingly.

There’s one song that we sing that I think we’re going to sing afterwards that is just given to unpack verse three here. “Your people will offer themselves freely in the day of your power.” Remember the song, “Who is on the Lord’s Side?” “Jesus, thou hast bought us not with gold or gem, but with thine own lifeblood for thy diadem. With thy blessing filling each who comes to thee.” And then you remember what’s next? “Thou hast made us willing, thou hast made us free. By thy grand redemption, by thy grace divine, we are on the Lord’s side. Savior, we are thine.”

I’m sorry, but this is Calvinism with a vengeance. “By thy call of mercy, by thy grace divine, by thy love constraining, by thy grace divine, we’re on the Lord’s side. Joyfully enlisting, by thy grace divine, we’re on the Lord’s side.” Isn’t that your testimony? You may have continued in your ignorance. You may have continued in your blindness. You may have continued in your outright rebellion against the gospel for a long time. And suddenly, somehow, God worked in such a way that you saw yourself as you’ve never seen yourself before. And you saw Jesus as you’ve never seen him before. You saw his beauty and his glory, and nothing could keep you back.

That’s the doctrine of irresistible grace, isn’t it? It is not, “I don’t want to be saved. I don’t want to be saved. Oh, God, save me anyway.” I didn’t want that. But God took this rebel heart and he so transformed it that nothing could keep me back. I was six years old when God saved me—a dramatic moment, Damascus Road kind of experience. I didn’t know anything about irresistible grace, except that I had just experienced it and I knew it. And I knew there was nothing that could ever keep me back. Not dad, not mom, not an army, no one could keep me back. I had to go to Jesus. Joyfully enlisting by his grace divine. “Your people will offer themselves freely in the day of your power.”

So we have Christ ruling in the midst of his enemies. Working at least for a time through his willing conscripts—a volunteer army. Now the last part of verse 3 I’m going to cover very quickly because, simply, I don’t understand it. It is very difficult. I even have the suspicion that it was difficult for the Septuagint translators, the men who translated it from Hebrew into Greek, because there are some difficulties there. There may be a way to understand it with certainty, but I don’t know that one yet. Some, with this language of being begotten, refer it to eternal generation, the relations of the Father and Son. Others, which is reflected here in our translation, speak of the vigor of youth, the dew of the morning, the vigor with which the Messiah will carry out his campaign. In one way or the other, I’ll just say it that way, it is clearly speaking of the superiority of the messianic king in the carrying out of his rule.

At this point in history, he carries out his rule through the advance of the gospel and his volunteer army. As we will see in verses five to seven, he will take a more personal and visible involvement in days to come. So then we have in verses 1 to 3 a divine king seated on the throne of heaven awaiting his eventual full triumph over all of his enemies. The leading emphasis of the psalm is that the Lord God rules. The Lord God rules. He has established his king. It looks ahead to a climax of history when the Messiah will come. The government will be on his shoulders. No rebellion will be allowed to stand. Every enemy will be put down, and every knee will bow before him. And we may say this much for sure: evil will not triumph. God will. He’s determined it, and he’s established his king to carry out his rule in the earth.

Next time, Lord willing, we will see verse 4, that Messiah is also a priest-king who intercedes on our behalf. Let’s bow for prayer.

Our Father, what a wonderful reminder this passage is of the greatness of our Savior. How we rejoice in the fact that he reigns today, that there is nothing in this world that steps beyond his rule, that even with all of the evil today, he has not lost his grip. We are grateful that we can rest confident in the fact that he will carry out his reign, that history will not get out of control, and how we anticipate the glorious day when all of the world will bow before Him and with us acknowledge His glory. Hasten that day, we pray, in Jesus’ name, amen.