Wednesday, November 1, 2023 PM

We'll go ahead and pray before we get started. Father, we thank you for your word and for the depths that it has for us to explore and enjoy, and that those depths always are filled with truths about Jesus.

From your lips, from your breath, we get to learn more about our Savior from this word. And we thank you, Lord, that you have afforded us time, energy, 24-hour light that we may come and have a different kind of illumination before us, that his word be revealed as the truth that it is to our hearts by your Spirit.

And it's in Jesus' name that we pray and ask that you have mercy on us and help us as we read and study tonight. Amen. So we will begin again in Psalm 2. Yes, we are finishing and wrapping up tonight.

You're welcome. It's been a while, but it's good. And we will go ahead and read the entire Psalm before we get started. So Psalm 2, beginning in verse 1. Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds in pieces, and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh.

The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath, and distress them in his deep displeasure. Yet I have set my king on Zion, or I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion.

I will declare the decree. The Lord has said to me, 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. Now, therefore, be wise, O kings. Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in him.". Okay, so we've broken this text down, the psalm, into four separate blocks, like the New King James Version does, and we have been considering them as separate acts of a comedy, the comedy of the Son, and it stretches across the breadth of history.

Acts, or the Act 1 of this comedy was verses 1 through 3, is how we broke that one down. Act 2 was verses 4 through 6. Act 3 was verses 7 through 9, and tonight we will enjoy Act 4, verses 10 through 12 of this comedic psalm.

The third act of the psalm was the anointed's retelling of the Father's decree, and in this retelling, it is revealed that the anointed is the Son, and is revealed that his inheritance is the nations and the ends of the earth, which he shall break with the rod of iron.

So the Son is on Zion, and his kingdom, and how he will rule that kingdom is prophesied in this decree. Verses 7 through 9 is where the quotations in our English translations usually end. Does anyone else, does anyone's translation continue with quoted portion, or does your translation have no quotation at all?

Anybody have something different there with the quotations? Okay, so from what I've seen, the King James Version has no quotations, in some of the versions that I've seen of the King James Version, but most translations assume this is where the Son's monologue of what the Father has decreed, it ends, and I agree with the end of that quotation.

And in this final act of this comedy, it opens with therefore, or now therefore, as it's translated. It's one word though, and when we hear the word therefore, are we supposed to think of something in reference in the past, or in the future?

In the past, right? What's being referenced is something that has already been said, therefore this. And that's how we're supposed to think. When we hear therefore, it's supposed to be, it's supposed to function much like a deductive statement, if this, then that.

Therefore, when we hear the word therefore, we should be considering what we have just heard, as should anyone who is being addressed. Remember when we mentioned the Lord's laugh could be a sign of both his active pleasure and displeasure, back in what we broke up as Act 2?

Was the Lord looking backward or forward when he laughed? He shall. So I would say both. He's looking backward in his displeasure upon the rebellion that he sees, but he's also looking forward in his pleasure at the glory and splendor of the Son's obedience that is to come.

Now, verse 10 reads, now therefore be wise, O kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth. David here is addressing kings and judges. Does he expect them to be looking backward or forward? Both. There you go.

You saw where I was going with that. Both. He expects them to be looking at the glory and splendor of the Son's obedience, which has just been prophesied, but also forward to the Son's instruction to be wise and, as it says, to be wise and be instructed.

An interesting quote is attributed, since this is All Saints Day today, it is attributed to St. Patrick of Ireland, one of my favorite saints in history, and I think it'd be helpful to us in receiving this instruction.

It would be helpful to us to think of Christ in this way. The Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arised, Christ in my heart, or in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.

Salvation is of the Lord, salvation is of Christ. May your salvation, Lord, be ever with us. This is a prayer that's attributed to him. Most of us are not kings or judges on this earth, and most of us never will be, but this instruction is no less glorious when it is heeded by peasantry or by royalty.

Christ's instruction is glorious in every eye, mouth, ear, and heart. So with these kings and judges, we look back at verses 7 through 9 and the glorious truths that the Lord promises and declares about the Son's kingdom and rule, and then we look forward with them on how he would have us follow him.

And you should have gotten all of that just from the word, therefore. The kings are told to be wise. The judges are encouraged to be instructed. By whom or by what are these kings and judges supposed to be instructed and get.

That's not rhetorical, I'm asking. Who's writing this psalm? Who do we understand to be writing this psalm? David, as a king. What was David required to do with the law as the king of Israel? Copy it, correctly?

Correct. And in copying the law, could David have found wisdom? Could he have been instructed? Yes, absolutely, he could have. What evidence do we have within the psalms themselves of such a thing occurring?

Can we think of a famous psalm that talks a lot about the law and instruction and wisdom? Psalm 119 speaks thoroughly of wisdom, instruction, and insight of the law. It speaks of meditation upon the law and a love and thanksgiving for the law.

And in Deuteronomy 17, verses 18 through 20, expressly states that one of the reasons the king should copy the law is that he may learn to fear the Lord. He may be instructed to fear the Lord. Now, in this psalm, does David mention the law?

Does he say be instructed in the law, you kings? No, he's looking both backward at these promises and forward to the son's instruction. At this point in the comedy, the one who is greater than Moses has come.

And just like in Deuteronomy 17, 18 through 20, David tells the kings to be instructed and quickly follows that with an admonishment to fear the Lord. So we look at verse 11, which reads, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

Who are the kings of the earth meant to serve? The king of kings, that's correct, the Lord. Why? Because of what was just laid out about who he is, where he rules, and what is rightfully his. Kings have a difficult time hearing that they are, earthly kings have a difficult time hearing that they are also subordinates to a truly sovereign Lord, and that their role is one of service rather than a role that is to be served.

Do we have that problem today? Okay, we have that problem all the time, right? And much is made of Christ's service to his apostles in the church today, in the gospels, and placed under a microscope, as if that was the extent of how he served.

It is highlighted and emphasized in such evangelical concoctions as servant leadership, which truncates his kingly service of cleansing the temple, pronouncing judgment, carrying out judgment, and conquering his enemies.

We would do well to remember that Christ's service is that it's a service of a king, the king of kings. And here in verse 11, the kings of the earth are called to imitate their Lord's service. So it's not just that he's calling them to serve him, but to serve like him as well, and in doing so, they serve him.

Now, the second part of verse 11, and rejoice with trembling. Not only are they to be wise and be instructed or serve with fear, but they are exhorted to rejoice with trembling. Act one, with all the mention of rebellion and raging juxtaposed with what we see here in act four, reminds us that there truly are only two types of men, there are two types of men, those in Christ and those in Adam.

Can a king or a judge in Adam truly follow this instruction given in this psalm? Can he make, can he make, can he be instructed or or be wise in his judgments? Sometimes. But can he, can he rejoice? Can he serve the Lord with fear in Adam?

I would say no. In Adam, there is rage and violence and no rejoicing. They may be happy for a time, but it is fleeting. And in Christ, kings may rejoice with trembling to know that the kingdom they pursue, a kingdom that cannot be touched, on the mountain that cannot be touched, extends past their own breadth, something David knew as well.

So we have kings who serve earthly things passing away, and we have kings that serve eternal things lasting forever. And David is trying to exhort these kings to serve the one that will not pass away, the one that is eternal.

Now this will be, it'll be interesting to see the differing translations for the first word in verse 12 that everybody else has here. My New King James version says, kiss the sun. What do you have? Do homage, okay.

That is a common one. Pay homage to the sun, submit to the sun, embrace discipline of the sun, or something similar along those lines. And I didn't do an exhaustive study because there were too many different ways of looking at it, but that's generally, that's the, around the consensus.

And they seem to be following the Septuagint's lead on this, on this translation, as it uses a form of the word paideia, which is closer, closer to those other translations that we just mentioned, rather than kiss the sun.

But I prefer kiss the sun, along with the New King James, the ESV, and the NASB, because that's more of a direct equivalence to the Hebrew. And as Westerners, or especially Americans, we don't know what it would be like to kiss a king, much less the king of kings, so we find it quite odd to the ear.

We kiss no one except for our spouses, right? Right? That's the rules. And this odd feeling we get should give us pause. It should, it should make us go, whoa, kiss and kiss the king, kiss the sun. Where are there other famous kisses in the Bible?

So this is where we're going to pause and look at the other kisses in the Bible. Didn't think I was going to talk about kissing tonight, did you? Yeah, no. But where are the other kisses in the Bible that you can think of right off the top of your head?

Judas, okay, great. Great, you want another with a holy kiss, okay. Where else? There's, there's actually quite a bit of Old Testament Genesis kissing, but it, and it actually ties pretty well with this.

In those kisses, who's usually kissing who is another question that we might ask, and in the Old Testament, it's usually mentioned that fathers and sons kiss or brothers kiss, and many times it's a sign of loyalty or respect, and like kissing or greeting each other with a brotherly kiss, it has that sort of thought in mind across the biblical narrative.

The only spousal fist, the only spousal kiss I've actually found in the Old Testament was between Jacob and Rachel. That's the only one that I found mentioned, and so when we think only, only kissing spouses, well, the Bible only mentions one in the Old Testament, so that's, that's rather interesting.

But in the New Testament, what, we've already mentioned the famous kiss, right, in the Gospels. Judas gives Christ a kiss. What was this kiss meant to signify? Betrayal, right? So, well, and what was he trying, what was his plan?

The one to whom I give a kiss, that, that's Jesus. This is the one you're looking for, right? The express purpose of this kiss was betrayal. It was to signal to the authorities which man was Jesus whom they had sought to murder.

So Judas kisses the son. Is he obeying, is he obeying here? No, it's not in service to the son, and it's not in fear or rejoicing or trembling, and he's not kissing him as a brother, but as a rebel. He kisses the son to multiply silver for himself, something kings should have never done.

And in Adam, this kiss smacks of death, and Judas indeed perishes in the way. What are, I've kind of mentioned this, most kisses, if not all kisses in the Bible, signify some sort of allegiance or brotherhood or fellowship.

And whether to brother, father, or mother, kissing is usually a sign that precedes blessing, an allegiance sign that precedes blessing or follows forgiveness, as in the case of Joseph and his brothers, where he, he weeps over all of them, and he kisses all of them and holds them.

And knowing, knowing that, it makes Judas's kiss all the more false. He used a sign for allegiance in the Bible and the biblical narrative to prove his disloyalty, to show his disloyalty to all present in that moment.

And without this allegiance, the kings and judges are promised to perish in the way of the son's wrath and anger. So if they follow, if they follow like Judas, if they fall in, and with him, in Adam, they receive Christ's anger and his wrath, and they perish.

And I believe this comedic narrative wraps up there, as do most high comedies. Or no, I don't believe that, that this wraps up here. But there, there's always a sifting of the characters at the end, and they either inherit or they lose out.

So I'm not with Calvin and thinking that the blessing at the end of this psalm is on its, its own or a standalone phrase that acts like an epilogue or more, more appropriately, like the final monologue of a chorus at the end of a play.

Rather, I, I think the blessing, blessed are all those who put their trust in him. I think this blessing is the promise to those who actually do kiss the son. So it's, it's not something that's separate or outside of the narrative that we have in this comedy, but it should be seen as attached to it.

Kind of like the end of a comedy movie. How does that usually work? The guy who's been, who's been beat down, who's been kind of just, everybody's had their thumb on him. He's the guy that gets the girl, right?

Then he gets to run off. All the guys who've been, the villains who have been on, on his case the whole time, they're, they're kind of done away with. They perish, if, if you will, for, for lack of a better term, in the narrative.

And when the characters are all sifted, they're either found here in this narrative, they're either found to have their trust in Christ when they inherit all things with him, or they perish in the way.

And now I know that was, again, rather quick, but we have 10 minutes for questions for all of you to fill. So if we, if we want to ask questions or have thoughts about how we've wrapped up this psalm, and I know there are a lot of ways we could study the psalm, a lot of ways to look at this psalm, and to do an extensive study of it would take a year for a proper preacher.

But we're here with a devotional length, so all the questions you have or the thoughts that you have on this.

Psalm are very welcome at this time. So the way I, I debated whether to make an extended time for.

That portion, verses 7 through 9, because I think Acts, or sorry, Psalm 110 is basically an expansion of verses 7 through 9. I think it's giving you the prophecy here in Psalm 2, and then it's expanding to what this is going to look like over a longer period of time and with greater detail.

And I debated whether to go ahead and do that or wrap up, and I decided to wrap up here. But I think a treatment of the connections between Psalm 110 and Psalm 2 are, they're definitely needed when you get a, to get a fuller picture of what Psalm 2 is saying.

And I think we can, you can apply Psalm 2 to much of the gospels as well, right? Like you can, you were doing that the other night after one of the devotionals I had, and you can find connections of how the Lord rules in much of the gospels as well.

But yeah, I completely agree. Psalm 110 would be one of the first places you would need to go to give this a better, deeper treatment.

Yes, right. Maybe, to a certain degree, we've, our views of Jesus have been, like I've talked.

About, truncated in how he serves. He does serve in those ways, but he also serves in this way, in judging, in judgment for those who are kindling his wrath. It is not uncalled for, for him to do so as King of Kings, especially when he is addressing kings and judges.

And we need to understand too that there is a greater responsibility for kings and judges to rule and judge righteously. A lot of, a lot of Proverbs is about, and much of the law is about right judgment and fearing the Lord to make judgment for both the rich and the poor, for there's no partiality with him.

So I would say the view that this is, this doesn't sound like the Jesus I know. Yeah, you're probably right. Right? Like, so maybe we need to have an expansion on how we view Jesus and how the Bible talks about who Jesus is and what he does.

I think we're good to wrap up with prayer. Thank you all for listening through, through the Psalm and thank you for your time and your patience with me in it. And Father, we thank you. We praise you.