The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Here comes the bride. Today on The Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, we're all invited to a splendid royal wedding. Psalm 45 is full of poetic imagery and deeper meaning, as a noble king comes for his waiting bride. You can probably guess whom the king and his bride represent here, but what can this unique psalm teach us about our future as well as our past?

Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Have you ever thought about what forever means? What forever would feel like? Someday Jesus will return for his waiting bride, his church. If we're to be ready to spend forever with him, we must look beyond earthly kings, beyond the world around us, and fix our eyes on the coming king, Jesus Christ. If you have your Bible, turn to Psalm 45.

Dr. James Boice: Over the months as we've studied the psalms together, we've discovered a lot of psalms that are fairly similar to one another. They arise out of the same type of experience, perhaps depression or defeat or a sense of the absence of God, and they progress as they work through those things and search God out.

This 45th Psalm that we come to in this time together is unlike any of those other psalms. It's a unique psalm; nothing like it. We haven't seen anything like it so far, and there's not anything quite like it in the psalms to come. It's a wedding song, written by a court poet on the occasion of a royal wedding. It evokes all the signs, wonder, movement, splendor, and emotion of that occasion, but at the same time, it's also a Messianic Psalm, which is clear because when we get to verse six, we find that it's talking about God, addressing the king. But verse six says, "Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever." That's also a verse that is taken up by the author of Hebrews and used there in reference to Jesus Christ, so the New Testament endorsement shows us that it's Messianic, even if we don't understand that in any other way.

What king is this written about? What royal wedding was this? It's after the time of David. It's certainly not David. Some of the commentators, most of the older ones, say, well, humanly speaking, it was probably written about Solomon and his marriage to the princess of Egypt. But others say no, it was perhaps Solomon and a princess of Tyre, or Joram and Athaliah, or a Persian king and his bride, or even somebody says quite strangely, I think, Ahab and Jezebel.

If it was really written about Solomon, which seems to be the best possible guess, it's nevertheless written in a way that far exceeds anything that could be said about that earthly king. Alexander Maclaren, one of the great expository preachers of an early age, said, "Either we have here a piece of poetic exaggeration far beyond the limits of poetic license, or a greater than Solomon is here." And I think he has it exactly right.

What we are to understand then, as we look at this psalm, is that it is written about an historical occasion by a court poet, but presumably with one who was well aware as he wrote that his language exceeded what could be said of an earthly king and actually pointed ahead to the Messiah who's to come.

Now, among these psalms, some have Messianic elements without being strictly Messianic. What we mean by that is that most of the psalm is about something else, but then there are verses in it that can be applied to Jesus Christ. We've seen a couple of those: Psalm 8 and Psalm 40 have verses in them that are used by the author of Hebrews to refer to Jesus. So those are Messianic elements, even though the psalm as a whole is not Messianic.

But then there are also psalms that are exclusively Messianic or fundamentally so. The second Psalm falls in that category, the 22nd Psalm, the 16th Psalm, the 110th Psalm particularly. And this 45th Psalm, in my judgment, fits that category as well.

Now as far as its outline goes, it has a little introduction by the author, verse one, and then personal comments by the author as well that sort of tie it together that come at the end, verses 16 and 17. And in between, and the main body of the psalm, we have two addresses. Verses two through nine are directed at the king, the one who's getting married. And then verses 10 through 15 are directed to the bride, the one who is marrying him.

Now that's what we want to look at. Walter Chantry, whom I've referred to sometimes on other occasions, a pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, one who writes often for the Banner of Truth Trust, has a little book on three of the Messianic Psalms. And in that book, the last of the three psalms he treats is this one. And he points out at the beginning of his study of that, that the way to understand this psalm is to know something about wedding customs in the ancient world. They're not like ours, and yet this psalm reflects them. So the way to understand what the psalm is saying is to understand something about these customs.

First thing that happened, first step toward a marriage in the ancient world was a betrothal. That was like our engagement, but was far more serious than that. It was a formal thing. In our way of going about an engagement, a fellow just simply has to say, "Will you marry me?" Sometimes he doesn't even have to say it; she assumes it, and they agree. At any rate, they come up to an agreement; that's an engagement. It happens between the two of them; nobody else has to be involved.

That was not the way it was done in the ancient world. Marriages were arranged largely by the parents of the couple, though quite often by consulting with the couple. It wasn't a tyrannical kind of thing, but nevertheless, this was something families did. And there would be a very formal engagement in the presence of the leaders of the city, the elders by the gate, in which the prospective bride and the prospective groom would exchange vows and a dowry would be established, a dowry price to be paid. And then there would be an official blessing on them.

This was so formal that the young man and the young woman could be called husband and wife at that time, even though there hadn't been any physical union. That was the case, you know, with Joseph and Mary. They had been betrothed in that way, and yet there had not been a physical union. If for some reason that had to be broken, it was a serious matter, and it was referred to even as a divorce, so serious was the engagement.

Now, for a variety of reasons—the dowry that had to be paid, perhaps propriety, or even the young ages of the bride and the groom—often a considerable period of time went by between that betrothal and the wedding. It could be a matter of years. But eventually, the wedding day would come and it would transpire this way: the groom and his attendants would get ready, and the groom would be all fixed up in his best clothes as splendid as he could be.

And then he and his attendants would make their way in procession through the city to the home of the bride's father where she was waiting. And in the meantime, she would get ready and she would have all her attendants with her. And then when the groom would reach the home, she would come out to meet him. And then there would be a procession back through the city, a second procession, reversing the first one, back to the groom's house. And there would be a great deal of rejoicing along the way.

And they would go in, they'd have a great wedding feast. Depending on how wealthy the family was, it could last any length of time, from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. And it was a very joyous thing. In the ancient world, there weren't a whole lot of things to celebrate, but weddings were one of them, and all sorts of people would come. This would really be a big event. Then at the end of that, everybody would go home, and the bride and the groom would be there in their new home.

Now that's the kind of background we have in this psalm. In the first part of this, in verses two through nine, where the words are addressed to the groom, he is coming to collect the bride. He's progressing through the city with his attendants. Meanwhile, the bride is waiting, a bit anxiously, because it means a major change in her life. She's going to have to leave her own home, her father, and her family, and go with the new husband. And so there's counsel given to her there while she's waiting, keeping her eyes out for this procession that's coming.

And then eventually it does arrive, and so she goes with him. And toward the end of that section, with verse 15, they arrive back at the home of the king and they all enter in. And then when that's over, the writer himself has those little words that I referred to earlier. Now that's what we have to study.

Verse one is unique among the writings in the Psalter. It's a unique psalm, and this is a unique introduction. There's nothing quite like this. The poet says that his heart is stirred by a noble theme. He's very emotional about this. It's an emotional theme, and because it's such an important theme, all of his skills are drawn out by it. Well, no wonder they are. If this was just a royal wedding, the wedding of a king and a princess from some part of the town or the country, or even another country, that would be important. The writer would want to do everything he could to extol the virtues of the king and the new queen well.

But if this is a Messianic Psalm, as we believe the writer had a sense at least that it was, then his skill should be drawn out even more than that. He's referring here to a noble theme, but it's more than a noble theme; it is the theme of themes. It's the great theme of all history: the Lord Jesus Christ coming for his bride, the church. There's just no greater story anywhere than that. That's what history is all about: Jesus Christ coming to claim his bride, the church, who is going to live with him forever and ever in perfect joy and happiness.

So the writer says, "My tongue is the pen of a skilled writer as I begin to talk about this." There's a suggestion in the Hebrew that's used here that he may be saying that what I am about to write is inspired in a special way. We don't always find that in the Old Testament, a sense of inspiration, but that is probably what he's saying here.

One of the German writers, a commentator, even translates the verse this way: "Mein Herz wallt über von begeisterten Worten." And what it means is "My heart overflows with inspired words." So maybe that is what he is saying. At any rate, it is inspired because it's part of the canon of Scripture.

Now having introduced himself that way, he begins in verse two to praise the King of Kings. He does it in several different ways. There's kind of a progression here. He talks first of all about his character. He calls him "the most excellent of men." And then he talks about his words: "Your lips have been anointed with grace." Then he talks about his military conquests, and finally talks about the wedding itself, describing the way he's come forth from his own palace to pick up his bride.

In the ancient world, the way kings were generally praised and leaders were both praised and chosen was on the basis of their physical attractiveness and the winsomeness of their speech. I was reading that in some of the commentaries, and when I read it, the first thing that occurred to me is this. I said, yeah, well, so what's new? That's just the way we choose our political leaders today. I don't know if you noticed, but many people that are in political office are unusually tall. I'm sure that's no accident. People who are tall command a certain measure of respect. And especially in a television age, you've not only got to be tall, you've got to have a reasonable amount of attractiveness.

William Taft, you know, one of our presidents, would never get elected today because he weighed over 300 pounds. You only could elect a president like that in an age where nobody got to see him. But in a television age, it doesn't work that way. So we choose people on the basis of their attractiveness and their ability to speak, generally more on the basis of the way they look than their ability to speak because people write their speeches for them, and what they try to do is write them so they don't offend anybody and don't say anything. But that's the way we do it today.

Now, there's something of that here. And yet it would be wrong, wouldn't it, to say that when we're talking about this excellency of the king, all we're talking about is outward physical attractiveness. A little later on, it's going to talk about certain virtues—virtues like truth and humility and righteousness. And you have to understand that when we're saying that Jesus is the most excellent of men, it's those things primarily that we're thinking about.

Any characteristic that you can think of that's truly laudable is something in which Jesus Christ excels. If we think love is laudable, well, he is the prince of love, the king of love. If you think truth is important, he is the one who said, "I am the truth," and so forth down all the other virtues and all the other characteristics. It's a description of him.

Second thing we find there is a reference to his words. His lips have been anointed with grace. That was certainly true of Jesus Christ when he was here on earth. You recall that on one occasion, his enemies sent soldiers to arrest him. They wanted the soldiers to slip up on him, arrest him, bring him back into the palace where they could handle him. And the soldiers came, and they heard him teaching, and they listened a little bit.

And pretty soon they came back to the rulers who had sent them, and the rulers said, "Where is he? Why didn't you bring him?" And their defense was this. They said, "No man ever spake like this man." What kind of a defense is that for a soldier to give? Soldiers are supposed to go arrest somebody, go arrest him. You know, here's a policeman in our city, supposed to go arrest a criminal. He comes back and says, "Nobody ever spoke like that man." Well, he'd get fired from the force. But that's what happened when these soldiers went to arrest Jesus Christ.

His disciples had the same experience. On one occasion, the masses were leaving because Jesus wasn't feeding them as they wanted to be fed. And so he turned to his disciples and he said, "Are you going to go away too?" And Peter said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." Peter didn't understand a whole lot what those words meant at that time. He had a whole lifetime of learning ahead of him. But he knew that if there was life to be found in anyone's words, it was to be found in the words of Jesus Christ.

So we read a psalm like this and we say, "Oh yes, that may have been true of Solomon and maybe it's true of other people as well, but it is certainly true of Jesus Christ above all men." And then the third thing he praises him for is his military victories. Now, all of this is described in graphic military language, but we have to understand that the victories that are described here, even though they're described as victories over one's enemies—sharp arrows in the hearts of your foes—are nevertheless victories in behalf of, verse four, "truth, humility, and righteousness."

That's the kind of battle the Lord Jesus Christ was winning when he was here on earth, and it's the kind of battle that we are supposed to win as his representatives. You see, if you think in terms of power and conquering your enemies and ruling and that sort of thing the way most of us do things most of the time, well, then Jesus Christ was defeated because his enemies triumphed over him. They crucified him.

But if you think of his victories as victories of truth, humility, and righteousness, then he was supremely triumphant, even in his apparent defeat. You see, he stood before Pilate, and he said, "I have come to tell about the truth. That's my kingdom. My kingdom is a kingdom of the truth." And there was never more truth than in that moment. Pilate didn't understand what he was talking about—truth. He didn't even know how you found truth. But the truth was standing there. And that's the way Jesus triumphed.

Incidentally, this is where one of our hymns comes from, verse four: "In your majesty, ride forth victoriously." We have a hymn that goes "Ride on, ride on in majesty." And it picks up this phrase and it uses it of the triumphal entry. We sing it often on Palm Sunday, and the point of the song is that Jesus was riding triumphantly when he went into Jerusalem to die. And you see his victory is in just that sort of thing.

Now Christians have to remember that as well. Our victories have to be won the way Jesus Christ wins his victories, and it's not by power or politics that Christians are to triumph. Our battles are battles for the truth and they're won by words as the Holy Spirit blesses them. That's what we stand for. Whenever the Christian church has forgotten that, as it obviously did in the Middle Ages and tries to use the world's weapons to achieve spiritual battles, it loses the spiritual battles and becomes like the world—the very thing it's trying to oppose. And we've got to be careful that we don't do that in our own day. To put it in other words, the only sword we have to wield is the sword of Jesus, which is the truth of the Word of God, according to Ephesians 6.

Now having talked about his battles, the psalmist goes on to talk about his wedding. And he describes him coming forth from the palace, his robes fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia out of these palaces adorned with ivory. I mentioned a moment ago one of our hymns, "Ride On, Ride On in Majesty." There's another one that is based upon that verse, "Out of the Ivory Palaces." You may have heard that one sung. That's where it comes from. Somebody, a psalm writer, obviously understood this in reference to Jesus Christ.

Verse six is an extraordinary verse, and we need to pause just to look at that, because verse six says, "Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever." Now here's the psalmist, the court poet, writing about the king who's getting married, and he calls him God. "Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever."

Now that's startling enough, but then in the very next verse, he refers to this God's God. "Therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions." Now that's an extraordinary juxtaposition of ideas. You might expect that commentators do everything they can to wrestle their way out of that one. And so do some of the translators. Some of them say it doesn't really refer to God; it really means something divine. And so they get ideas like this: "Your divine throne," or "Your throne is like God's throne, eternal," or "Your throne is God's forever and ever," and so on.

You find it even in the Revised Standard Version; it says "Your divine throne." And the New English Bible has another kind of attempt to avoid that clear teaching. But it's there; it's what the Hebrew means. And interestingly enough, the ancient versions all do it that way. You would think if trouble was to be found in the text and it was to be misunderstood, then the ancient versions would clarify it by making it obvious that it's not referring to the king as God, but they don't do that. The Septuagint doesn't do that. And when the author of Hebrews quotes this verse in reference to Jesus Christ, he obviously takes it in its original meaning.

Now what would possibly explain that? And how can you possibly make sense of that combination of ideas? Here is one who is God, but who nevertheless has God as his God, who set him above his companions. The only possible explanation of that is the incarnation, which is why we say this is chiefly a Messianic Psalm. Arrives in an historical context, perhaps referring to an earthly king, but it certainly has its meaning explained in Jesus Christ.

You ask at that point the question: did the psalmist really understand that? When we ask that kind of question, it's sometimes hard to answer. We don't know how much the ancient writers really did understand what the Holy Spirit within them was leading them to write. Although I sense the more I study Scripture, the more I sense that they understood a lot more than we give them credit for.

I would say that this psalmist, as he wrote it, was conscious of what he was doing. And for this reason: he understood the promises that were made to David, that one coming after him, the Messiah to whom they were looking, was going to sit upon that throne forever and ever. And so as he writes his poem on this occasion, praising the earthly king, he is consciously looking beyond the earthly king who is a type of the Messiah who is to come, and he's writing about the Messiah. I think that's the only real way to understand what's happening.

Now having done that, he turns in verse 10 to the bride. She has been waiting in joyful expectancy as I suggested, but also with just a touch of anxiety since the arrival of the groom will mean such a momentous change in everything she's known in her life up to that point. Now, at this delicate moment in the psalm, the writer, in what is surely one of the most engaging touches of this psalm, turns to the bride and he offers fatherly counsel.

It's as if he understands what's going on in her heart and he says to her, "Listen, daughter, listen to what I have to say." And then he gives her three points of advice. First of all, he tells her to forget her people and her father's house. Now he doesn't mean that in the absolute sense, of course, but he does mean it in terms of her attachments and her overriding loyalty.

That carries over directly into the Christian life. You remember that when God called Abraham to go into a land that he was going to show him, he gave him words almost exactly like that. He said to Abraham, "Leave your country, your people, and your father's household." Because he was leading him into a new land, a new relationship.

And when Jesus spoke about what it meant to be his disciple, he said, "Look, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow me." And then a little later on in the same gospel, in Luke, in the 14th chapter, he spelled it out like this: "If anyone comes after me and doesn't hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he can't be my disciple."

Now even when you make allowances for a certain amount of Semitic hyperbole, exaggeration there to make a point—Jesus didn't literally mean we're to hate our parents—but even when you make allowance for that, he certainly is calling for a radical shift in loyalties. And he is certainly saying if you love your mother or father more than me, or your husband or wife more than me, you can't be my disciple, because the only people who can be my disciple are those who recognize me for who I am. And I am the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And if you don't receive me as that, you're not receiving me. And if any other loyalty comes before that, you are not acknowledging me as your king and your lord.

Now, that's what we have to do. The Bible says of marriage, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And if we're going to be Christ's bride, we have to do the same thing spiritually speaking. Now is that easy to do? No, it is not easy to do, because the loyalties of this world cling to us very closely.

My wife and I were talking about this because of some problems that came up and we were saying, it is really just appalling how sold out the evangelical church in this country is to a materialistic, affluent lifestyle. We hear the missionary call and we say, "Oh yes, that's important," and we want people to go and be missionaries, but we're not going to experience any discomfort or give up anything in order to carry out Christ's great commission.

Forget about going ourselves, leaving our nice homes or our nice bank accounts or our nice jobs that are giving us all the money. Forget about our going ourselves. We're not even willing to sacrifice much of what we have in order to support other people to go. We're so sold out to our materialism. Is it easy? No, it is not easy. But if we are serious about following after Jesus Christ, we've got to get those priorities right.

Somebody says, "Does that mean you can't have a lot of money?" No, I don't think that's the case at all, but it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus himself said so. It's much easier if you don't have the money. And if you do, you'd better be especially close to God, and you'd better give more money than you ever thought you would give, or might have given if you were poor, just to make sure it doesn't have a hold on you. You see, we really are caught up in that in America. I don't know what kind of a home this bride came from, but she certainly was attached to it. And the psalmist is telling us if Jesus is coming for you, you have to let it all go in order to follow him.

The second point of counsel the poet gives this bride is in the latter half of the same verse: you are to honor him, for he is your lord. This word "honor" literally means "bow down." She's to bow down before him. He's the king, after all.

And it certainly points out that this relationship, the relationship described here and the same relationship that carries over into our relationship with Jesus Christ, is not like one of these trashy romances that so many people read and have in their heads today. It's all romance and most of it immoral, and it is embellished by all of the materialism that I was talking about a moment ago. This is not that kind of relationship. This is a holy love between this bride and the husband. It's a great love, a lasting love, a superior love to anything we can imagine in ourselves. But it doesn't fit our categories. And in this holy, righteous love that this bride has for the husband, she is to love and honor him, and she is to obey him as we must obey Jesus Christ.

And then there's a third thing. He doesn't say it in so many words, but as you read on, what he's really saying here is that this bride has to stop looking back and instead what she has to do is look ahead. "Remember," he says, "when you're seated there at your king's right hand, the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift for you, and men of wealth will seek your honor." What he sees as he talks about this is three things in her future. He sees the love of her king—that's mentioned in verse 11—he sees all this honor that's going to be given to her because of her relationship to him, and as he goes on to verse 15, we see that he's talking about the joy and the gladness that's going to be hers with him forever.

You see, when we say to ourselves, as we often do, but it is costly to be a Christian. And it is true; it is costly. Jesus himself spoke about the cost. What we have to remind ourselves of at the same time—not balancing it off, but reminding ourselves about it at the same time—is this: there is a glorious future before us.

You see, and as long as we're looking back to what we're leaving, we're never going to be wholehearted disciples. We're never going to be much use to Jesus Christ. We certainly aren't going to be an honor to him as his bride, because we're always thinking about what we left and we're unhappy because of what we left and all of that. But you see, if instead of that we can look ahead to what we are in him and what he is making us by his grace and what we're going to be with him forever and ever—why, that transforms where we are and how we think, and we perform quite differently.

What a difference it would make, you see, if instead of just knowing it, we really understood that our future is with Jesus Christ. If we're Christians, our future is with Jesus Christ, and that's a spiritual thing and it's going to last forever and ever. We have a hard time grasping forever and ever. What's forever and ever? You know, is it a thousand years? Is it a thousand thousand years? Is it a million million years? That doesn't mean much to us. It's like talking about the national debt, you know, all the billions of dollars we're in debt. I don't even know what a billion dollars is, let alone the billions that we are in debt. We don't know what that means. But if we could only grasp it, that our future is that eternal future, and what we're living now is next to nothing compared to that—why, it would transform how we live now. It wouldn't be hard to pay a price to follow after Jesus Christ when we're going to live with him forever in glory. It would be our joy to do it. All our lives, 100% would be given to him. We'd be following him wholeheartedly, enthusiastically, rigorously day by day and moment by moment. And the only reason we don't do that is we're still looking at the past.

You see what he's saying? Well, having advised the bride to look to the future, that's what the psalmist does himself. He has paused to give advice to the bride. He's told her to look ahead. But now he goes on and looks ahead himself, and he begins to describe this procedure through the town. The princess comes out of her chamber, she meets the groom, they are making their way through the city. Finally, verse 15, they come to the palace and they are led in with joy and gladness into the palace of the king.

Well, he kind of stops modestly at that point, I think, and rightly so. Why? Well, because no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. That's the reason. What he does is stop at that point and he gives his little wrap-up that I mentioned at the beginning. This is like the poet's own blessing or benediction on the marriage. "Your sons will take the place of your fathers, and you will make them princes throughout the land." It's because of that verse chiefly that I think he is thinking about an earthly king. That wouldn't carry over easily into reference to Jesus Christ. And yet it is true that God has given him many sons and daughters. It refers to it that way in Hebrews, all of whom are children of glory. That's the way it would have to be described.

And then we get to verse 17 and here he says, "I will perpetuate your memory throughout all generations; and for that reason, the nations will praise you forever and ever." Well, that leads us to wonder: are we doing as the psalmist did? Do we praise him—that one who is our bridegroom and who is also the King of Glory and the Lord of Lords? Do we want to? Do we try to?

Or to put it in another language, are we looking for him as the bride was in the psalm? You see, Jesus came to this earth once for the betrothal so that we might be engaged to him and he has covenanted with us to be our bridegroom and our lord. And this is the interim while we're waiting for him. He's coming again. When he's coming again, he's coming to take us to himself. We'll go to be in those ivory palaces that the psalm describes, to live with him forever and ever. The question is, you see, are you looking for him? Are you earnestly and joyfully expecting the arrival of your bridegroom, the King of Kings? If so, you'll be getting ready for it.

John in his first letter talks about the Christian hope. He says, "Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure." The one who's coming for us is holy. The one who's coming for us is holy; we want to be holy too. The one who's coming for us is all love; we want to be loving when he comes. One who is coming for us is radiant; we want to be radiant as much as is possible by his grace, without spot or blemish or wrinkle or any such thing. Question is, do we really desire that or are we so in love with the value of the world and the idols of the world that our eyes are on them instead and we're not looking for him?

Well, the Bible describes Christians as those who have turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath. That's what it says in 1 Thessalonians 1:9 and 10.

And Jesus said it too. He said, "In my Father's house are many mansions. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I'm going to come and get it ready there. And then I'm going to come and I'm going to receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also." We come to the very end of the Bible, chapter one of Revelation, we find John saying, "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him." When we come to the end of that book and Jesus is speaking and he says, "Yes, yes, I am coming soon." And the church, the expectant church of that book, looks up and says, "Yes, so let it be. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." That should be our prayer as well. How is he going to find you when he comes?

Our Father, we thank you for this psalm that speaks in loving and tender ways of your love for us and of our love and responsibility to you. Grant that we might learn from it and so cherish these truths and plant them in our hearts that when our Lord Jesus Christ does come for us to lead us to that great marriage supper of the Lamb, that we might be found ready and waiting and expectant and pure and holy and joyful to the praise of the glory of his grace and with great joy. In Jesus' name, amen.

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