Friday, March 1, 2019

The Exalted Ascension to the Throne - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 47:9,

"The nobles of the nations assemble as the people of the God of Abraham, for the kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted."

While I recognize that the Lord is the God of all nations today, pursuing his agenda of building his kingdom in this age through his interaction with both individuals as well as nations, this psalm appears to me to prefigure the ascendancy of God the Son over all the nations at the end of this age. "God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets. Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise." Psalm 47:5-7.
The picture of the ascendancy of the Lord over the nations brings to mind a couple of passages for me. "With justice he [Jesus Christ] judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. 'He will rule them with an iron scepter.'"

The end of that passage is a quote from Psalm 2:7-9 where we read the Father's statement to the Son, Jesus Christ, "You are My Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel." NKJV.

In Psalm 2 we see the nations in rebellion against God. However, the culmination of the ages sees Jesus Christ's defeat of sinful mankind and his enthronement with the "ends of the earth" his possession as spoken of in Revelation 19. So it is today as in Psalm 2, with Team Cain, lost in its rebellion against God and his Son, the heir of all the nations of the earth. We are told in Psalm 2:4 that God laughs at mankind's rebellion against him as he lets them know, "I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain." Psalm 2:6.

As we may feel distressed over the sinfulness of all the nations, be reminded that God in heaven laughs, because he knows what he has in store for them. One day, following God's judgment of sinful mankind, all the nations will gather as "the people of the God of Abraham", exalting him with cries of joy, just as is pictured here in Psalm 47!

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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