A devotional on Psalm 110.
Of David. A Psalm
1 The Lord says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”
This Old Testament verse is one of the most quoted in the New Testament. In it David prophetically reports the Father’s words to Jesus as Jesus himself, Paul, and Peter recount and quote. With it, Jesus’s authority and superiority over all beings in creation is established.
Twice in today’s reading we read about the right hand like we did yesterday. Sitting assumes that work is done so this verse alludes to the Father inviting Jesus to sit in a position of power, favor, and authority until the Father made Jesus’s enemies a footstool for his feet. Imagine the humiliation of having to be on hands and knees while your vanquisher sets his feet on your back. This is a sure promise of the end of those who oppose King Jesus.
2 The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying, “Rule in the midst of your enemies!”
The scepter is a powerful symbol or dominion. The Father will see to it that the enemies see and acknowledge Jesus’s rule. They will not be destroyed until they have experienced it.
3 Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, your young men will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb.
Imagine being a king and needing to go to battle. The enemy lines are drawn and they are pulsing, ready. The trumpet is blown, calling your army beside you, and no one shows up. Perhaps a few sickly soldiers come straggling in. How disheartening that would be. Not so on the Lord’s day of battle which may be this current time period. We are God’s troops. We are the soldiers of the cross. We are many and we are willing. We are trained and we are ready for battle.
“The night is nearly over; the day has drawn near. So let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light,” Romans 13:12. “The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the world. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds,” 2 Corinthians 10:4. We come with “truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;” 2 Cor. 6:7. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes,” Ephesians 6:11.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind:
“You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
“God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?” Numbers 23:19. His word stands for all time.
We know we are chosen, ordained, and anointed priests in service to God in the order of Aaron (Exodus 29) by the sprinkled blood of the offering as 1 Peter 1:2a states: “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood…” Now we, his little brothers and sisters are priests after him in the order of Melchizedek. “”For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren,” Rom. 8:29.
5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.
7 He will drink from a brook along the way, and so he will lift his head high.
The Lord is your strength and your power. If he will crush kings on the day of his wrath, how much more will he crush mere civilians that vex the body of Christ? The carnage wrought by this judge of the nations will be immense and final. So mighty is he, and superior, that in his pursuit of his enemies he will have time to enjoy a cool draft from a brook along the way, refresh himself, and hold his head high, high in valor and in conquest. He is at your right hand.