Lord, High Priest, and Coming King (Psalms 107–110)

Start with a map for real-life trouble: Psalm 107 charts a path from crisis to gratitude with a pattern anyone can follow—cry out, receive comfort, confess thanks. From wanderers in deserts to sailors in storms, we see how God meets people in need and turns distress into worship. That pattern becomes a template for praying honestly and trusting deeply when life feels unstable.

We then explore how Psalm 108 proves that truth doesn’t expire. By reusing lyrics from earlier psalms, David shows how tested promises can carry us through new battles. You don’t need a novel word for a new problem; you need a faithful word for a faithful God. From there, the tone shifts in Psalm 109 as David faces slander and malice. Rather than grabbing the gavel, he entrusts his reputation to the Lord. It’s a bracing reminder for anyone walking through false accusation: integrity is your task; vindication is His.

The crescendo arrives in Psalm 110, one of the most quoted passages in the New Testament. We trace how Jesus claims this psalm for Himself, revealing the Lord at the Father’s right hand as our reigning King and eternal High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. That priestly role anchors Christian prayer—there is one mediator between God and humanity—and His royal authority secures our hope for justice, judgment, and a coming kingdom rooted in Zion. Across these psalms, we discover a unified message: Scripture is timeless, God hears the desperate, and Christ reigns now and forever.

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Chapters

• 1:57 Setting The Stage For Book Five
• 3:28 The Fourfold Pattern In Psalm 107
• 5:30 Timeless Words In Psalm 108
• 6:46 False Accusation And Psalm 109
• 8:36 Psalm 110: Jesus As Lord And King
• 10:07 Priest Forever After Melchizedek
• 11:57 Conqueror And Coming Kingdom
• 13:41 Closing Blessing And Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

So far on this wisdom journey through the Bible, we've spent several lessons in the Psalms. The Psalms greatly enrich our worship of the Lord. They remind us to be thankful for the many times and the many ways God has delivered us. The Psalms increase our knowledge and understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our God and our King. Today we come to Psalms 107 through 110, and Stephen called this lesson Lord, High Priest, and Coming King. Here's Stephen.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14

As we set sail today on our wisdom journey, we arrive now at the last of the five books in the book of Psalms. Now, this final section here in Psalms includes what we would call congregational hymns. Many of them would be recited, they'd be sung uh during Jewish festivals. In fact, some of them are still sung to this very day. Now, in the last section of Psalms, the covenant name of God, Jehovah, or Yahweh, is used 236 times. Your English translation will most often translate that name, Lord, and it'll put it in all capital letters. This is the name that emphasizes the personal commitment of the Lord to his covenant promises to Israel. Now, Psalm 107 opens book 5. It's going to follow a pattern that repeats itself several times. First, you'll have some sort of crisis. In fact, verse 4 says, Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in, hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. In other words, this is the crisis they're facing. They're homeless and they're hungry. But then the psalm moves on here to a cry for help. Verse six says they cried to the Lord in their trouble. So you have a crisis, you have a cry for help, and now they're going to experience the Lord's comfort here again in verse six. They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Well, now following the Lord's deliverance, there's this fourth element in the pattern, and we could call it a confession. He writes here in verse eight Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love for his wondrous works to the children of man. Well, that's the pattern. You have a crisis, you have a cry for help, you have comfort from the Lord, and that's followed by a confession of thanksgiving. Now, this pattern is repeated in different contexts through this particular psalm, first of all, by those who are falsely imprisoned. You'll have this pattern repeated from the heart of foolish sinners who come to their senses, and also by those who are facing dangerous circumstances beyond their control. And here's what we could call a timeless application for us today. It doesn't matter what your crisis might be, cry out to the Lord about it. Don't hold back. Bring all the details out in the open, let him know all about your trouble, and then trust him. Trust him. And know that he has a plan to get you through it and take you to the other side. Now Psalm 108 here has a little interesting twist to this pattern. David repeats the last five verses here. He takes them from Psalm 57 as he begins Psalm 108. And then he uses the last six verses of Psalm 60 to finish Psalm 108. So David is essentially repeating lyrics that he has already penned and he's already been singing. Now we've we've dealt with these Psalms earlier in our wisdom journey. But I want to at least uh make the point here that by doing this, you know what David's essentially saying? He's saying this. The truth of God's word doesn't go out of date. What I sang about earlier, well, guess what? It's still true to this day. And I love that because the power and relevancy of Scripture doesn't fade out over time. It doesn't get stale. You don't have to take it down from the shelf. All scriptures God breathed, 2 Timothy 3.16. And so the principle it teaches us is this God's word never goes out of date. It is timeless. Now here in Psalm 109, the tone immediately changes. The composer is still King David. He happens to be rather upset. He seems to be fairly uh frustrated. He writes here in verse one Be not silent, O God of my praise, for wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me, with lying tongues. Well, evidently somebody's attacking David's reputation. In fact, in verses six through nineteen, you have the singular pronoun he or him, and that's used thirty-two different times. So there's some he, there's some guy out there, somebody who's causing David uh a truckload of trouble. Now, throughout these verses, David is calling down judgment against this person. This is what we call one of those imprecatory psalms. We've covered that in past studies. David is taking the same stand against the wicked as the Lord himself is taking. So David isn't necessarily being vengeful. He is frustrated, he's irritated, he's hurt, but he happens to be personally representing God's law. What he wants here is God's reputation to be honored. Let me tell you, beloved, this psalm teaches again another timeless principle. Believers who are falsely accused must rest their case with God. If you're experiencing right now some false accusation, well, here's what you ought to do: commit your reputation to the Lord. Vengeance, trying to get your own vindication. Let me tell you, that belongs to the Lord. You just leave it in the Lord's hands and you just keep on doing the right thing. Now, with that we arrive at Psalm 110, and that's going to be quoted or alluded to uh some twenty-five times in the New Testament, more than any other psalm. In fact, the reformer Martin Luther describes Psalm 110 as the main Psalm of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Well, because it celebrates Jesus as King, high priest, and conqueror. Verse 1 opens here. The Lord Jehovah, that is, says to my Lord, Adonai, is the word used, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Now get this. The Lord is speaking to the Lord. In other words, what you have here is a great text of the triune God. You have God the Father speaking to God the Son. Well, how do we know that? Well, because a thousand years later, Jesus is going to quote this verse and declare to the religious leaders over there in Matthew chapter 22 that he is the Lord, referenced in Psalm 110. He is the one who's going to sit at the right hand of God the Father. And can you understand why Jesus created a stir with that kind of application to himself? Did the religious leaders get the fact that Jesus was taking this psalm here, claiming it for himself, claiming to be God the Son? You better believe they got it. In fact, over in John chapter 10, verse 33, Jesus asks the religious leaders, You know, why do you want to stone me to death? And they answer, Well, it isn't for a good work that we're going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God. Oh, they got it. In fact, the rest of this psalm applies to Jesus. Verse 2 says that he's going to reign. He's going to have a royal scepter that he'll receive. He'll rule from Zion, that is, from Jerusalem in its coming kingdom. Verse 3 says here that people will offer themselves freely on that day, the day of his power. In other words, when Jesus comes to establish his throne, those who believe in him are going to worship him. Well, there's no question about it. David is declaring that Jesus, our Savior, is King. Now, secondly, in verse 4, we see Jesus as high priest. The Lord, that is Jehovah, has sworn and will not change his mind. You, Adonai, again another reference to Jesus, are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Well, this reference takes us all the way back to Genesis 14, where Melchizedek appears as the king and priest over there in Salem. That's the city that will become Jerusalem. Salem is from Shalom meaning peace. So Jerusalem or Jerusalem is the city of peace. The coming Messiah will be according to the order of Melchizedek, that type of leader. Like Melchizedek, Jesus will be the king and priest ruling one day in Jerusalem. Only, of course, in a much greater and glorious manner. In fact, according to Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 10, God has designated the Lord as our high priest. In other words, he represents us to God the Father, and he represents God the Father to us. He is, 1 Timothy 2, verse 5 says, the only mediator between God and mankind. By the way, that's why we're not praying today to other priests. We're not praying today to the saints. We're not praying to Mary. We pray to and through the only mediator, our one mediator, the Lord Jesus, God the Son, who is our eternal high priest. Verse 5 talks of him as a conqueror. David writes, the Lord will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. So get this here. In this psalm, written a thousand years before the Lord Jesus arrives, before God the Son takes on flesh, David is already predicting his ultimate victory and his coming glorious kingdom. So we can celebrate today that Jesus is Adonai, that is our divine Lord. He is our eternal high priest, and he is also our soon-coming conquering King. Well, with that, we're out of time. Till our next wisdom journey together, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 13:46

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