Fairer Than The Sons of Men || a message from Eric Gilmour

if you can turn to psalm 45. some of you have read psalm 45 many times and it's very special to you so you're extremely excited about a text from this chapter this chapter psalm 45 is called the song of love some people say to me sometimes how come you always talk about the same thing in different ways well to be honest i can't speak of him in a way that is contrary to the way that he presented himself to me so as he is so we speak what he shows he gives so if he shows something to you he is giving that to you and we can only give what we've received so it's not my fault it's his [Music] because all he shows me is love upon love and kiss upon kiss tenderness upon tenderness and gentleness upon gentleness he is a matchless lover how can we give our hearts to anything else when he has taken them with him we can only give our hearts to other things if we haven't given them to him our affections are divided in exact proportion to the lack of giving ourselves over to his love so i'm going to talk to you from psalm 45 i have three points they are number one the king's beauty number two the response of the bride to that beauty and number three the result of that beauty but before i jump into this can i just talk to you with an open heart for a second now i'm still processing through this in my own heart but i want to share it with you because i feel like there's something in it for you because it was rising in my heart in prayer this morning there's these certain phrases in the scriptures and they are called hard sayings there's these certain things jesus has said and we in the church and even in theology we have grabbed them and we have brought them into this category of harsh statements or suffering or you know the hard sayings if you will one of them would be count the cost another one would be take up your cross and follow me and we grab these statements and we put them into oh these are the harder things these are the things that are not so lovey and for years i would hear people speak of these things like count the costs or pick up your cross and the way they speak of it the emphasis is so much upon how difficult things are going to be that it just kind of puts a weight upon everybody and everybody feels so discouraged and wonders if they'll ever be able to do it and it would bother me so much because when jesus would come with shining splendor shimmering shining with glory into my room all of those weights were lifted off of me and so i would look at him who says my yoke is easy and my burden is light and then i would try to reconcile the quote hard sayings with these wonderful beautiful words that are unlike anything that any man has been able to utter and i would say to the lord will you show me what's going on here how do i put these things together and the lord spoke to me clear as day one day when i was just meditating upon him you know when i say meditating upon him we just let our hearts go up and we just hold our hearts on him and here we find everything we could ever have wanted if we find that our prayers have vanished and we find him to be everything we ever needed and we're freed from the need to have anything else as our hearts just are held upon him while i was doing this the lord gave me some type of a seeing in my mind how many of you have ever had something like this while you're praying you just start seeing something well i saw the lord and his disciples they were all kind of dirty and there was sheep walking around and jesus is sitting and he looks at them and it's i'm able to see a scene in which these words were uttered for the first time and there he is he opens his mouth the disciples are looking at each other he's about to speak what is he going to say and he looks at them and he says if any man wants to come after me let him pick up his cross and follow me or count the costs and it hit me like a ton of bricks that the emphasis that we should see in these statements is the mouth that they're coming out of it is him who's saying these things it is jesus the glorious bridegroom who loves you with everything on the inside of himself who gives himself over for you he's the one saying these things which shows me something when he says statements like this it's not even so much about what he's saying it's what he's revealing or what he's exposing and what that is is this how valuable am i to you when he says count the cost he's saying look at all the stuff that you could lose but on one side that's the stuff you could lose that could possibly go wrong but on this side is me and if you put anything on the scales next to the perfect glorious god man jesus always tips the scales so when jesus says things like count the cost what he's really saying is how much value do you have for me do you value me over the things that could go wrong or the things that you could lose am i more valuable to you than the stuff that could happen and when he says pick up your cross and follow me with such tenderness and the sweetness of his voice and the love upon loves upon loves upon what he's saying is am i more valuable to you than you are to yourself that's what he's asking he's he's putting things right before you and he's saying in essence do you love me do you love me more than these do you love me more than yourself how much love do you have for me that's the essence of what he's saying i'll put in in a story just to help understand help you understand what i'm saying imagine a guy and a girl comes walking into the service and he sees her and says oh my goodness i'm gonna talk to that girl he goes over and he says i was stunned at the sight of you i'd give anything to take you somewhere and she says okay they go out they start spending their time together then they start spending all their time together and they fall so head over heels in love with one another and one afternoon they have a picnic in an open field and they lay side by side looking up at the clouds and she turns to him and he turns to her and he says to her you know what i love you and i want to spend the rest of my life with you will you marry me and she looks at him and says you know if you ask me to marry you that means you're saying goodbye to all the other girls and he looks at her and he says that's exactly what i want i only want you forever that's marriage and you know what that's what jesus is saying when he says if any man wants to live his life with me then he's got to say goodbye to all their loves what he's saying is the cost is you're not going to be able to seek out your own pleasure you're going to have to find all of that in me now so what he's saying in essence isn't any hard saying at all all he's saying is will you marry me will you lose all of that to find everything in me that's the essence of it and it takes the weight of performance and striving and the twisting and turning and tooth pulling of this religious mentality out and it gives to you a vision of a beautiful lover who says will you marry me and let me be all to thee because none can be what i can be give ears to hear and eyes to see through your soul with ecstasy fill your heart with joy and peace make internal wars to cease lift you above life's mysteries and bring you into my victories love you now and endlessly and marry you eternally [Applause] psalm 45 he opens this song of love a little theological note here this psalm is called the germ of song of solomon g-e-r-m the very beginning of what solomon's thoughts could ever have come from charles spurgeon said some theologians see in this the marriage of solomon to pharaoh's daughter and then he says they're short-sighted he says some people read this and they see solomon and christ and he says they're cross-eyed then he says but those with pure sight see the heavenly bridegroom loving his bride psalm 45 verse 1 he says my heart first two words already got me my heart you know what the heart represents the heart is the seat of love you know in deuteronomy god shows us this when he says love the lord your god with all your heart it's the heart that holds love it's the heart that lets love out love is a heart issue the heart is the love issue when we look at the heart we look at the seat of a man's affections and love some people have called it the immaterial center of your being and he says my heart the immaterial center of my being in the seat of my love and my affections is overflowing he says my heart overflows the word overflows shows us that his heart isn't just fixed it is fixed but it's not just fixed and his heart isn't just fixed and filled it is fixed and filled it is fixed filled and flowing over this is a kind of emotional eruption that he's having this writer is saying my emotions are bursting out and over i'm fixed upon him i'm filled with him and i'm flowing over with love for him some people in christianity today shoot their arrows at feelings but these first four words destroy everything that they're trying to build listen jesus is full of love for you he is head over heels for you he has died for you and in that he steals your love again and again the more you look at the gospel the more you fall in love with jesus the less you look at the gospel the more distant you get from love for jesus my heart he says overflows look at this with a good theme in other words he's got a subject at hand and whatever this subject is that's what's causing the overflow of affectionate love and desire the eruption is coming from somewhere he's saying and he says my heart overflows with a good theme quote i address my verses to the king that's his subject matter is the king himself not a prince not some governor he goes right to the highest place where there's none higher i address my verses to him who is the king of all my heart overflows and it that love overflowing is this jesus he has caused my heart to overflow the next thing he says here is and i love this my tongue is the pen of a ready writer what what if perfect way of saying a a a a phrase of of of words i remember cs lewis said isn't it funny how the perfect string of words can tickle your soul like music and that's what i think this is my tongue is the pen of a ready writer in other words love makes poets of us all when you fall in love with jesus as you all have experienced those of you who have fallen in love head over heels with jesus and he has stolen your heart away and ran away to heaven with it you know that when you're alone with him and you're stuck in sweetness with him and you start writing these things like oh lord how i love you my heart is bursting over with love you satisfy my soul lord god you know these types of things that you that come out of your heart when you start saying things like i love you lord you make me strong you are a bedrock under my feet the castle in which i live love makes poets of us all now he goes into his poetry look at this next statement you o king are fairer than the sons of men the sons of men is a term that has to do with humanity it doesn't just mean he's only fairer than the sons of men it means he's fairer than humanity that's what sons of men means it means humanity not just present that's living when he's writing this he's talking about the sons of men that have lived before him and the sons of men that will come after him the sons of men is humanity as a catch-all you are fairer than all of humanity take every glorious person every good person every kind person every noble person every righteous person that has ever lived from adam all the way to the end of time you pile them all together and they still pale in comparison to the one who's fairer than the sons of men jesus is greater than all he trumps all of them he's outstanding among ten thousand and ten thousand again is another way of saying all he is greater than every single one of them you say eric but what's the point of even saying you're fairer than the sons of men well let me just put it to you like this when jesus who is fairer than the sons of men comes in he has this ability to make everybody else disappear you can't see anybody else when he comes in that's the kind of symmetrical beauty jesus has and his person and his work his character his nature the excellencies of who he is and how he lives his life and how he feels for you and how he governs the universe it is so perfect and so resplendent with glory that he steps in and his character shining out of him like light beams causes you not to be able to see anybody else anymore eric what are you trying to say i'm trying to say don't look for in the sons of men what can only be found in the son of man if you if your heart is looking to find peace or joy based upon how people treat you or how people make you feel then your eyes are on the sons of men and not the son of man because if your eyes are put upon the son of man then all the sons of men and all that they can do disappears say eric is that possible absolutely positively yes it is when he has our hearts the next thing it says here is grace is poured on his lips isn't that an incredible statement it doesn't say it's on it's smeared on his lips like lip balm grace isn't just dripped on his lips it says grace is poured on his lips and this word poured actually has to do with the emptying of the contents in other words there is no grace outside of his lips all of grace that will ever be comes from the lips of this one who is fairer than the son of man what's the what's the significance of this it means that you need kisses it means that he revives your soul with the kisses of god it means that when jesus kisses you he kisses your fears away your tears away it means when jesus comes in the impartation of grace is the sweet touch of the spirit upon the soul god longs to give to you his intimate love repeatedly remember the song the song of solomon says let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth i don't want just one kiss i have been kissed and now i want more kisses bill johnson's one once said people say that i want more quant quality over quantity and then he says but when you get the quality you want more quantity of the quality and isn't that the truth once you get a kiss from the lord you begin to say oh lord give me the kisses of your mouth i was lost before your kiss and now i'm lost without kisses lord kiss me back to life kiss my heart back to life you say eric is jesus actually kissing you know it has to do with the touch of grace upon your soul the first act of the kiss of god upon you is your salvation that's the first time grace touched you that's the first kiss what's the second kiss well when the spirit of him who raised jesus from the dead touches your soul that's the second kiss and what's the repeated kisses it's continual fillings of the spirit again and again and again and again bernard claravo said the kisses of god are when his word touches your soul the word of god coming into you like kisses so i'll move on to the response of the bride you can see it in verse 10 after you see this glorious revelation of him who's fairer than the sons of men and causing eruptions of love on the inside and he who has all of grace upon his lips and and he make empowers you and quickens you by his sweet kiss once you realize this there's a way to respond and it is this verse 10 listen give attention and incline your ear that's a attention listen give attention and incline your ear many times in the scriptures there is something said twice for emphasis but this is thrice it's a it's a it's a deep and wholehearted full solicit connection it is all that i am and all that i have attentive to you the proverbs tell us my son give me your attention that you may gain understanding which means if you don't give attention there's no understanding for you but if you give attention understanding can pass into you and this is a threefold attention that's the kind of response that his beauty deserves the beauty and majesty and splendor of this son of man deserves a three-fold kind of attention ah not only am i gonna just quiet my mouth and listen not only am i going to set my mind upon you but i'm going to put the entirety of my being upon you and fullness i'm going to give you every ounce of attention that i have i said this last night but i'll say it again because it fits really good here there's a story of a little boy and he's trying to get away from his shadow and he's running here and he's running there and he's twisting and he's moving his arms he's trying to kick the shot away every movement he does all the sweat all the striving all the the the things he can come up with in his mind to try to get away from his shadow and they don't work so when his father recognizes what he's trying to do he says he says you're trying to get away from your shadow and the boy says yeah so the father grabs the boy and he turns him towards the sun in the sky and in a moment the boy recognizes my shadow it's completely disappeared it's gone i can't see it anymore how'd you do that dad and the dad says all you have to do is turn towards the sun and he'll cast the shadow behind you and i want to say to you some of you are trying so hard to get away from sin you're twisting and fighting and struggling and all of this you're or you're you're trying to get away from a bitterness that you have and you're churning and you're you're trying to push it away or you're trying to figure out a way to get away from unforgiveness or depression or some kind of something that you just can't shake off of you i'm telling you if you give threefold attention to the beauty and majesty of the resplendent son of god he'll cast behind you this like a shadow the doubt fear unbelief depression all these things that are that are literally over taking you and overpowering you and overwhelming you will be thrown behind you that's the kind of attention that jesus deserves but look at this he goes on even further he says give me all your attention and then the next words are forget your people and your father's house do you know what that means that's what we talked about at the very beginning that's will you marry me when a woman in this day is giving herself over to a husband or takes a husband she leaves her father now the scripture tells us a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife literally the man when he comes in to marry a woman he takes her away from the provisions she once knew the satisfactions and life that she once knew all that she got from her father and her people he now removes her from them and now she is to find all of those things she found in them in him trusting him for them and receiving all of that from him now that's marriage and so when jesus says give me threefold attention and turn your back on the ways of your father adam turn your back on what you knew to be your old life or the things that were plaguing you before in the past turn away from them and now find satisfaction and fulfillment completely in me that's the essence of the response that his beauty deserves to see the glory and splendor of jesus christ it melts away your ability to resist him the more you look at him the more he casts that shadow behind you and the more that you see how valuable he is you say oh lord you name it i'll do it because in you i have everything if you give me him and take away everything i have everything but if you give me everything and take away him i have nothing that's the essence of this love that we have that we see here in psalm 45 with the bride now i want to show you the resp the the results of looking at his beauty i've already touched on it with the shadow story but there's something in this chapter that is absolutely incredible we see a picture of a violent lover the king is a lover yes but he shows a violent side to himself and for the sake of time you can read it later but there's this image of the king riding on his horse victoriously and then the scripture says that his right hand pulls back an arrow and he shoots the arrow into the heart of the king's enemies and they quote fall underneath him while he's riding his horse do you see the image this is a lover who is so jealous for all of your attention so jealous for all of your affection so jealous for all of your love that he shoots arrows into any and everything that gets between you and him and then he runs them over with his horse you say eric what is he running over well it says he rides forth victoriously for the cause of listen to this for the cause of righteousness truth and meekness which shows me something what he's shooting the arrow at is the opposite of these things because he rides forward in this kind of splendor destroying everything opposite to him the king's enemies and that would be pride instead of meekness that would be unrighteousness instead of righteousness and that would be lies instead of truth so what your lover what your lover who loves you so much does as he rides on in the victory of calvary shooting forth arrows made from the cross into the heart of every lie that comes into your ears shoots into the heart of every bit of unrighteousness trying to rise up on the inside of you and he shoots deep into the heart of pride he kills it that's incredible to me is that incredible to you this is our christ this is the heavenly solomon the glorious bridegroom who loves you so much so you say eric what how do i get him to shoot these arrows i got lies buzzing around me like crazy i've got unrighteousness rising up in me constantly i've got pride that i keep seeing everywhere in my own heart and my dealing with my wife and people around me and and friends and contention here contention there how do i get jesus to shoot these arrows well it says that he rides forth in his splendor and his majesty splendor is the word splendor means radiant beauty and majesty means excellence his his perfect character so my answer to you is this this is how you get jesus to shoot these arrows the arrows are himself the arrows are his own beauty the arrows are his own excellencies in other words turn all of your attention to the splendor and majesty of who he is and that in and of itself is the release of the arrow to destroy the lies you say eric but i need you to be more practical okay you've been having thoughts of god not loving you let's just say that it's a lie so when you look at the scriptures and you see god so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have life everlasting god did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved you read that and it shoots the arrow right into the heart of any thought at all that god doesn't love you because it says god so loved the world you say i just can't get away from the sin the sin is it's it has me in a bind i'm under the snare of it so you turn over to revelation chapter 1 verse 5 and you see to him who loves us and released us from the hold of our sins then you say oh it's a lie you're looking into the text and seeing the beauty and majesty of jesus christ in the word of god i'm telling you you open up this book and this book is a window to the face of jesus christ you know if you read this book in the presence of the spirit the outer shell of it will be cracked and the living voice will come out this book is the only book that demands the author be present when it's read and as and as you uh as you take this book open and you're in the presence of the spirit by giving all your attention to christ and you open up this book you you begin to wonder am i looking at the book or is the book looking at me you feel like the pages are breathing praise god most people's bondage is a dusty bible people are searching here and there for some type of a program to deliver them listen to me the word of god is living and active sharper than any two-edged sword this is all that you need right here in the presence of the spirit under the anointing and power of the spirit which is accessed in one way submission to jesus then you find all that you need right there so how many of you recognize that there's a music inside of him inside of him there's a music that sets in motion a melody in your own soul i'm gonna i'm gonna end right here if the band could come back up but i want to give you a little key this is gonna sound like it's not very important but the scripture tells us that we are not to be drunk with wine where in his excess but be being continually filled with the spirit and then it says dot dot dot in other words continuation dot dot making melody in your heart unto god that's love songs all day people are like how do i live full of the spirit you just keep a melody of love going up unto him oh how i love you oh how i love you i remember when i was working construction i would be digging ditches all day long and i'd be so tired and so worn out in the hot florida sun with humidity just breaking through your skin feel like i'm going to pass out we still got 3000 feet left to dig i'm making like 88 a day and i'm digging and i have a family at home just digging frustrated tired but in one moment if i just opened up my heart [Music] and began to just let a melody of love come up and remember his precious gospel and remember the glorious son of god him who shines like the sun and loves me so the one who went down into the depths for me i began to worship the lord and in one moment though nothing changed everything was different you know the psalmist sorry song of solomon chapter 5 the bride gives a description of the bridegroom in his beauty the very first thing that he she says about him is very intriguing actually it says in song song 5 10 that my beloved is dazzling and ruddy so the first thing that she tries to explain to those who are asking her what is so special about your beloved what makes him so beautiful is she says he's dazzling and ruddy [Music] now i look at this and i think to myself what in the world is she even saying and i look at the word dazzling and check this out the word dazzling is bright white that has to do with the fact he has no imperfections he is perfect sinlessness he is light unapproachable he is perfection to the nth degree but then the ruddy bothered me so i looked up the root of the word ready and it means blood red why is he so beautiful well he's brightness extreme and a bleeding dream what makes him so beautiful well he he is resplendent with majesty and he drips with blood for me he's in the heights of heaven with god who dwells in light unapproachable yet then then he falls down because of the weight of his love it drops him to the earth and then he goes to the lowest point and he dies for humanity he's covered both his bases no one's been higher none have went lower this is jesus christ the son why is he so beautiful so you you think of this [Music] and he steals your affections he steals your mind he steals your heart and everything on the inside of you begins to to throb and say oh how i love him there's not one like him he makes my heart overflow and your tongue becomes the pen of a ready writer and you begin to say things like you're fairer you're fairer lord you're fairer than the sons of men you're fairer than the sons of men so i beseech you i guess tonight by the wounds of the redeemer and by your soon appearance before him to lose no more time and just turn away from the failure to recognize this conquering act all conquering acts by looking unto jesus at the end of leonard ravenhill's life they asked him how did you walk so faithfully with god all these years his answer was looking unto jesus i love the second part of that says looking unto jesus the author and the finisher of our faith which means he starts the thing and he brings the thing all the way to completion he is able to present you blameless and faultless before god it is only him praise god can i just can i just drop one more gospel note just real quick then we'll be done listen closely to this next statement if christianity is merely following the commandments of jesus then jesus is not a savior because by following his commandments we've effectively saved ourselves so what are you saying eric i'm saying there is only one way to salvation and it's complete and total abandoned faith into jesus christ and his person and his work this is the only way to be saved you cannot muster it up you cannot live it up you can't learn enough you can't fight it up the only way to be saved is to cast yourself upon the perfect work of jesus christ that's it some people stiff-arm god by breaking all the rules other people stiff-arm god by keeping all the rules the problem is neither one of these are faith in jesus christ you say eric what am i supposed to do i should i just like not obey the commandments of jesus no i'm trying to tell you the the commandments of jesus now after faith are written on the inside and god causes you to walk in his ways that's real genuine christianity where his yoke is easy and his burden is light and he doesn't put weights upon you he carries you there's a gospel that is actual good news and sometimes we forget it but it's only found in a threefold attention to the resplendent glorious son of god that says my heart overflows and i address my verses to the king you are fairer than the sons of men jesus i i worship you i praise you blessing and honor glory and power be unto you jesus

Channel: Eric Gilmour

Views: 8,135

Rating: 4.9772296 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: fz-fYVYtC-U

Length: 37min 14sec (2234 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021