Psalm 2 (Kiss the Son, Jeff Kliewer)

We pray also, Lord, that for all of us here this morning we would be strengthened for the war you've called us to fight, that we would be given power to work in the harvest field that you've called us to work in, that you would equip us for the deeds of the ministry, for love and for good deeds.

Help us, Lord, this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Last week we studied Psalm 104, and it was exciting to see how the psalmist delights in God. Oh, God, you are very great, and he goes on to recite the creation that God has made.

He celebrates this earth so perfectly positioned, and hills and valleys raised up and dropped low so that the earth would be filled with water and yet not overrun with a flood. He celebrates the fresh water that rises to the top, greenness to the earth and life.

He celebrates rocks and trees and homes that we have. He celebrates every created being looking to God, and God sustains them, and all of creation is in this, of creation, the beauty of creation, the joy that we experience when we walk outside and we take a deep breath of fresh air, and we feel the sun on our skin, and we recognize that this is our God who has given such good gifts to his children.

But remember that in Psalm 104, there is a jarring verse. The last verse of Psalm 104, the 35th verse, after all of the celebration, is kind of shocking. After all of that, he says, let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, praise the Lord. It's a strange twist in the plot, isn't it? After all of that beauty, celebrating creation, there's this imprecatory, which means calling down curses upon the wicked, upon the sinner.

And what I think the psalmist is doing there is showing the perfection of the things that God has made here in contrast to the problem that entered creation with Adam and Eve in the garden, when mere creatures, yes, made in the image of God, but just dust called.

Forth.

Adam was made from dust. Eve was taken from Adam's rib. And yet these beings rebelled against the creator, their God.

And it's a horrible thing.

It's a devastating thing. So with this glorious creation, all of a sudden comes sin, and with that comes death. Let sinners be consumed from the earth. You see, while it is all sunshine and roses in the original Garden of Eden, sin has come in and it's tainted the world that God has made.

Now we have hurricanes that kill. Now we have the sun so blistering hot that some people die of dehydration for lack of water and diseases that take lives of babies. Now we have sickness and death. All of this in God's good creation, now tainted by sin.

The Nations Rage Against the Lord and His Anointed

You see, God is a good creator, but turn with me to Psalm chapter 2. There is also a war. Psalm chapter 2 is a psalm of warfare. It's a psalm of rage versus wrath, which inevitably leads to a clash. There is the nations raging and a God who holds and withholds his wrath for a coming.

Day of judgment.

God has decreed that an offer of refuge from his righteous wrath will be extended to enrage rebels. But rejection thereof leaves only terrifying judgment. This is a psalm of judgment, a terrifying psalm.

Any person who reads this, in fear of God whatsoever, should be left trembling by what we read. And yet, the last verse we'll get to, verse 12, turns out to be an offer of forgiveness, an offer of refuge.

What starts as wrath and war ends in reconciliation and hope and the gift of love that God is offering to all. Notice the word all, blessed are all who take refuge in him. So that's where we're going today.

We'll notice, first of all, the wrath, the rage, the just mindless anger that people have towards the God who made them. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and passed away their cords from us.

This is the rage of the nations. We notice, first of all, that it's kind of irrational. The rage is directed against the creator and his Messiah. Why do the nations rage? There's an irrationality to what's going on here.

The laws of logic are not applying in the minds of these who are at rage. The very God who made people is the subject of their rage, the people's plot in vain. Well, the first answer to why this is has got to be that there's something deeper going.

On.

This is not normal human emotion. This is supernaturally, demonically inspired rage. We learn from the New Testament, Revelation 11, 15 to 12, 12, nations are enraged against God because the devil, the spirit of this age was warring against God from the beginning.

He is that serpent that appeared to Adam and Eve in the garden. He is animating this rage. This is a demonic rage. If you read Ephesians chapter six, you see that it sometimes looks more ordinary. Like children, obey your parents.

Why are children so rebellious against parents? Fathers do not exasperate your children. Why are fathers sometimes harsh in exasperating their children? It looks like just the ordinary stuff of life. And yet this ordinary rebellion is not the ordinary creation of God.

It's demonically inspired. And so as you get to the end of Ephesians chapter six, we're to put on the whole armor of God.

Why?

Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against angels and powers and principalities in high places, spiritual forces of this present darkness. There is a devil. And I know this sounds kind of uncouth in a modern age.

There are demons that are at war against God and they animate the hatred of men. They exasperate it. They press it. And it's not just human. It's also demonic. So why do they? Well, it's insane that they do, but people are raging against God.

So notice three things about this kind of anger. We've already said that the devil's behind it, but notice what it's like. Why do the nations rage? First of all, it's raging. When someone is in a fit of rage, it's not controlled.

It's not measured. It's carried away with emotion. It is a noisy assembly. That's another translation. It's a clamoring. It's out of control. It's a rage against God. Second thing to notice, it's vain.

You see that at the end of verse one? Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? It's vain because it's weak. The rage is directed against the omnipotent one. What can man do to God? His acuity, his complete independence and needing nothing, the acuity of God cannot.

Be assaulted.

He stands in heaven as the creator of all. And what can man do to him? And yet this rage is against him, the almighty one. The rage of people is weak. It's vain according to the scripture. Look at verse two and three.

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. So it's directed against the father and the son, against the Lord, against his anointed, saying, and here's the key to what this rage is all about, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

What is this rage? It is immoral. It is against the law of God. God has set boundaries for mankind. And these constraints, these strictures are inhibiting the people. They feel closed in by them. They want freedom.

They want to be the God of their own lives. So the third aspect of the rage of man is that it's immoral. They would like to break the bond. They would like to cast away the cords. This is an immoral kind of rage.

Now, it's not always obvious. When you see the nation Israel situated on that small plot of land in the Middle East and the nation that surrounds Israel filled with an irrational, demonic, immoral, vain rage against that nation, it's obvious.

This is more, this is supernaturally, demonically inspired by people who would in this moment wipe the face of the earth with a blinking eye. We see Christians around the country, around the world, I should say, being persecuted, being sawn in two, being killed, being put in cages and dropped into the water.

You say this is a rage. It's obvious to see. But in our culture, the rage against God tends to be more hidden, tends to be more subtle. Nevertheless, the underlying rage is still there, even if it's domesticated in our American.

Culture.

I was driving the other day and somebody cut us off. They drove across the white line after the dotted lines had ended and at the last second moved in front. We noticed on the back of this car was a bumper sticker that said coexist.

So we noticed that and I explained that and we talked about it in the car for a little while and as we were leaving and pulling around, all of a sudden at the last second, this person just veered off without signaling, slammed on the brakes, almost caused an accident.

We noticed this and we talked about what coexist meant and the comment of my passenger was it'd be nice if they learned turn signaling instead of virtue signaling. I thought that was clever. But what is virtue signaling?

Virtue signaling is when a person portrays themselves as moral to look good for others, like putting a bumper sticker on the back of your car in a country where this isn't really the problem. Take that bumper sticker and go to Saudi Arabia and drive around with that there and now you'll be making a strong moral statement.

But it's virtue signaling in America. Virtue signaling is the effort to appear moral when in fact you are throwing off the bonds of God's law. His law of conscience and his law, his moral law, which still applies through his word,.

The Ten Commandments.

A perfect example of this in our culture is the rise of so-called social justice. Let me point by point show you that biblically what's being presented as quote-unquote justice modified by this adjective social isn't very much intended to throw off the bonds of God's created order.

The morality that God has defined in his word is refuted by so-called social justice, which masquerades as justice when in fact it's not. Quickly, five examples. God says in Genesis 2, 21 to 25, that he makes man and woman and he tells the man to leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

God's design. Jesus affirms that in Matthew chapter 19, such that the boundaries, the bonds around marriage is that sex is meant to be between a husband and a wife in marriage. Defined as the male gender and the female gender in union in marriage according to the design of God.

Social justice comes along and says the true value is equality and anyone who says what I just said is the bigot, is homophobic, and is intolerant, and is narrow-minded, and the social justice virtue signaling claims the moral high ground, but in reality is a very rejection of the bonds that God himself stated in scripture.

Number two, race. Do you know that our Bible presents the creator God making mankind, Adam and Eve, in his image? One race from Adam and Eve and then from Noah and his wife. And yet the virtue signaling social justice warriors will do this.

They will take an evolutionary model and define people according to supposed race based on how much melanin is in somebody's skin. So they will see white people versus people of color and assume victimization at every.

Point.

In truth, Colossians chapter 3 says that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, barbarian, Scythian, but Christ is all and in all. One race. Amen. This is how God has created the world.

One race from Adam and a new race in Christ for those who come into Christ. And it's a beautiful picture. If you read Revelation chapter 7 when Ponta to Ethne, every ethnic group, ethnic cultural distinctions, differences of melanin count in the skin, they all gather together before one throne, the throne of King Jesus, and together worship the King of Kings.

This is the presentation of the Bible, of morality. A third issue which is perverted by social justice warriors is the issue of gender. Claiming to be virtuous and the help and the deliverer of those who feel trapped inside of the wrong body, born physically male but feeling as if they're female.

They encourage such thinking which is really just gender dysphoria. They encourage that and will go so far as to perform surgeries, to mutilate the body, to transform what God has made into something that he is not.

Yet claiming to be deliverers of the oppressed. Signaling that. And women and men who claim to champion the rights of women, claiming to be feminists. When noticing that women and men do not have everything the same.

Women and men are made in the image of God and are equal before God. And yet men and women are not the same. Women can become pregnant and at times that will affect their careers. The immorality of social justice would go so far as to defend the killing of people made in the image of God so as to allow women the equality, the freedom of determining their own lives and courses of action.

Masquerading as justice. Claiming to be a social justice cause. It is the very defacing of justice. The killing of people made in the image of God or the mutilating of bodies. And yet in virtue signaling they will call me and any one of you who agrees with that sexist, misogynistic, transphobic, and every manner of assault that they can heap up.

The truth is God in his word, according to Matthew 19 .4, Jesus himself said, male and female he created them.

Fourth, nationality.

God says in Job 12 .23, he makes nations rise, he makes them fall. First Peter 2, he creates governments. Romans 13, the government does not bear the sword in vain. Acts 17 .26, he determines the boundaries of a person's habitation.

Yet virtue signaling against what God has made, which is governments with national boundaries, social justice calls moral the transgressing of national boundaries. And anyone who would say that God is the one who creates nations and makes them rise and makes them fall is called a hater and racist and xenophobic.

The issue is true biblical justice as defined by God in the Bible versus the social justice of those who truly seek to throw off the bounds of morality. And lastly, economics. We're told in Exodus 20 .17, thou shalt not covet your neighbor's property.

But the very essence of economic social justice is the coveting of what other people have.

You follow me on this?

To demonize the quote-unquote 1 and to assume victimization based on how much wealth somebody has, don't you know that God made Job very wealthy? And then God made Job very poor. And Paul says he knows what it's like to be very wealthy, to abound.

But he also knows what it's like to have nothing. God is the one who determines. He makes men to differ in many ways. And we have no idea how wealthy we are just by having been born in America in this century.

When I read John Owen and read about his life, this great theologian from England, why is it that 11 children died before he did? Because that was not uncommon for children not to make it to adulthood.

We are so blessed to live in an age and in a place where we have what we have. But the social justice warrior will demonize people who have more and claim a moral high ground that doesn't belong to them.

The truth is the Bible defines morality. Plain old justice is defined by the Bible. Although cloaked in fine-sounding arguments, Colossians 2, 4 warns us of that. Social justice is simply immorality.

You hear that? Wherever you see lies signaling their virtue, wherever you see immorality and a fit of rage against what is actually moral, wherever you see justice perverted yet claiming the moral high ground, you have identified social justice.

Can you tell I'm no fan? It's kind of hard to identify what social justice is. I've described it as like nailing jello to the wall. How do you describe this thing? It takes so many different forms. But I'll tell you this, the word of God is able to nail the jello to the wall.

Point by point, you take the cause, whatever the issue is, you bring it to the holy scriptures by which God defines morality. His word speaks to that issue. Social justice is nothing more than Psalm chapter 2, verse 3.

Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. It is a subtlety and yet it is very much the same thing as we had back here when David was the king. It's the same thing that happens when people attack Israel or throw Christians to the lions.

This is an attack on the very truth of God. And so now we see the rage of man. Second, let us look at the wrath of God. The rage of man was hasty and it was weak and it was immoral. But the rage or the wrath, the word rage is not used.

Notice it's a different Hebrew word. The wrath or the fury of God is measured and it's powerful and it's righteous. He who sits in the heavens laughs.

The Lord holds them in derision.

Then he will speak to them in his wrath.

You know that God has wrath?

And terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. It's a done deal in God's economy. His king, Jesus, will reign. His wrath, his fury as described here is, first of all, moral.

Juxtapose that to the immorality of the world. It is his holy hill, his righteous hill. It is moral and it is pure and it is right and it is just. Notice second, that it is powerful wrath. As opposed to the vanity of those who oppose the God who made them.

This is a powerful wrath. He can affect change. He can affect whatever he wants to affect by this. And I think the most terrifying part is the first description in verse four. He who sits in the heavens laughs.

Any human effort to oppose God is laughable. Any effort to rise up against him is no threat whatsoever. When we come under assault, when we're attacked, we feel the need to defend ourselves. We feel threatened.

God feels none of that. He laughs and holds them in derision. So it's powerful. It's moral. But notice also that it's patient. This perhaps is just as terrifying. It's not this hasty clamoring of rage against God.

No, God's wrath here is described as patient. He just laughs and he holds them. Then he will speak to them in his wrath. As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. And here we are 2 ,000 years after the king appeared awaiting his return.

God is in no rush, second Peter three. He's patient. This is terrifying because God's wrath is being stored up against all the wickedness and godlessness of men. He doesn't feel the need to vindicate every wrong.

Habakkuk had trouble understanding that. And then calling out to God, it was explained to him. In time, God will right every wrong, but he's not hasty. So while people go along thinking that they're fine, thinking that all things are working together for their good.

If they're in a rage against the God who made them, the wrath of God is abiding over them. And they're like a spider being dangled over the fire with nothing but a thread holding them from eternal destruction.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God. It's how Jonathan Edwards described it. His fury and his wrath is real, but people don't know it's there.

They feel comfortable.

They feel peaceful.

They're sure everything will work out well. And yet that wrath is real and it's there and terrifying. It's patient. You see this wrath explained in Hebrews 12 30. We know him who said, vengeance is mine.

I will repay.

And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Jude 14 and 15. It was also about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied saying, behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

And in Revelation 6 16, in case you think that the wrath only belongs to the father, it's not part of the New Testament. If you think that Jesus is not like the father, Revelation 6 16 says they were calling to the mountains and rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb.

The wrath of the father and the son is real.

It's scary.

The Decree of the Son and His Eternal Begottenness

Continue on Psalm 2 7 to 9. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son, I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Picture a piece of pottery. There's coming a day when that pottery just made of clay hardened by the sun will be dashed to pieces with a rod of iron.

It's a terrifying description of the wrath of God.

But is it certain?

I mean, so far we've seen that there is a rage of nations against the God who made them and there's wrath of God. So these two things are in conflict. War is inevitable. I know some of us are peacemakers.

We love peace.

As Christians, we should love peace and hate war. But war is inevitable. In verse 7, we learn that the decree is certain. The decree is certain. The final victory is assured. I will tell of the decree.

So let's take a pause here and notice who is speaking at this point? Look up in the psalm and notice who's the author? Is there a prescription at the beginning?

Is there an intro?

No, and Jewish scholars have for years debated, is this King David? It looks like David. Nobody could really say for sure. Guys, I can tell you with certainty who wrote this psalm.

David wrote it.

And I'll tell you how I know that because Luke told me that. In the fourth chapter of Acts, it says, David speaking by the Holy Spirit said, why do the nations rage? The people plot in vain. So Luke tells us that this is David speaking.

The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. God spoke a decree that David would be king. Remember that? He was anointed king by Samuel, declared to him that this would be the case and the nations would have to bow down.

The nations will not be able to conquer David's kingdom. He was coronated as king. You are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

This applies to Israel. That David would not be conquered by his enemies. But hold on. There's something else I want to ask you. Who else does this apply to? This applies to Jesus. I don't know that with certainty.

Because Luke told me in Acts chapter 13. We're told in the 33rd verse that God fulfilled his promise by raising Jesus as it is written and then quotes from this verse. The Lord said to me, you are my son.

Today I have begotten you. So a couple quick things I want you to notice. David was begotten as king and coronated as king. So at what point was this verse referring to Jesus? Answer, when he rose from the dead.

But today in this verse, according to Acts 13 verse 33 is when Jesus rose from the dead, he was begotten. In other words, coronated as king. And forgiveness of sin was released to be preached in his name.

So should we say then that when God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Should we say that he became the begotten when he rose from the dead?

Not quite. When Jesus rose from the dead, he was coronated. According to Psalm 2, declared to be the son of God in that time. But this is a very important teaching. Christians, we need to dig a little bit right here.

Jesus was never made. The early creeds affirm that. Begotten, not made. And the important point to notice is the begetting of the son is an eternal generation. The son is eternally generated from the father at no point in time or before the creation of time was Jesus non-existent.

He always was. He has always been generated from the father. So God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten. Monogamous, only generated, only begotten one from the father. Many who attack Christianity think that that means that Jesus was created in the womb of Mary and begotten through birth.

No, it doesn't refer to that. This is an eternal beginning. I think the best verse to understand this is John chapter 5, verse 26.

Turn there quickly.

We got to do a little Trinitarianism when we get the chance because it's so important. And then we'll come back to the conclusion of the war, which is good news. John 5, 26.

Jesus speaking,.

For as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself. Now this is going to be some deep theology, so put your thinking cap on. Explains it this way. Therefore, the father remains life.

The son also remains life. The father life in himself, not from the son. The son life in himself, but from the father. The son was begotten by the father to be life in himself, but the father is life in himself unbegotten.

Anybody a little confused at that point?

Good news.

You have your notes to take home and you can read that again and again. And you can go back to John 5, 26. Understand this though, that Jesus is equating himself to God in saying he has life in himself.

That's very important. All of us, you're taking a breath here today, right?

You're breathing.

Your heart is beating. You do not have life in yourself. You are dust. Sorry if that sounds offensive. You're a mere creature created by God, but the son, he has life in himself. He was never created or made.

He has life in himself, the uncreated one, out of nothing. He's always been. Everything else was created ex nihilo, just from nothing. God, however, is eternal. Jesus is claiming to have life in himself, but notice this.

The son's life is given or granted by the father from all eternity. Do you see that part as well? Verse 26. So he has granted the son also to have life in himself. Both have life in themselves, but the son's life is granted or given from the father, like some kind of radiance coming out from the father.

And the image, according to Hebrews 1, the father has always existed. The son has always existed, and the son is the exact imprint of the father's being. He's generated from the father, not the other way around.

So both God the father and God the son are eternal beings, perfectly equal as God. Yet in this economy, it's the son who submits to the father. The father eternally generates the son. A little bit deep, but we got to go a little deep sometimes, right?

So that's Augustine.

You have the notes. Big picture here, back to Psalm 2. Notice all of these things are decreed. God has decreed that David would not be toppled from his throne, and when the son of God comes, he will be victorious.

It's a certainty that he will win the battle of Armageddon. God is not biting his nails as to who will win when the end times come. He has already said, my king on my holy hill. And he's going to break their bonds and shatter them like pottery with a rod of iron.

These are the decrees of God, and I've given you in your notes some examples of the decree of God, the things that God has declared to be the case. In Psalm 46, we learn that he makes the earth melt when he speaks.

He speaks in some ways. Ephesians 111 tells us that all things were decreed by God.

All things.

Deuteronomy 29, 29 reminds us we don't know what God has decreed. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. So there's a secret decree of God.

What he has said would be we don't know that decree, but we live by the prescriptive will of God, the things that are revealed. Lamentations 338, Proverbs 1633, Daniel 435 all speak of the decree of God.

Here's what I want you to hear before we do our grand finale. The victory is certain.

It's decreed.

God has spoken it. He uses that language here in verse 7. It's a decree. The war has already been won in the mind of God. And so we have this wrath versus wrath, this rage versus wrath. The end is certain.

But now this amazing good news in the last three verses, all of this hatred, you would assume that this crushing of the enemies is just the next thing he's going to say. It's like Psalm 104 twisted at the end and we saw that there's hatred.

Now we see there's war, but at the end there's a twist in the plot.

Do you see this?

Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. And that refers to the great rulers, but also the people under them. You'll see it says, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice in mind that this is written a thousand years before the Son of God appeared.

Because this is the offer of the gospel. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. You see, the Son of God, who has wrath against godlessness, is also loving.

And here is the good news of the gospel. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. He is offering a refuge for sinners who stand in need of a savior. There is wrath in heaven against all godlessness and all wickedness of men who suppress the truth.

Romans chapter one. That wrath is real and it's there and it's imminent. But God, in his great mercy, has stepped in and the Son of God, before conquering the world, before conquering Israel and Rome and setting up his kingdom, before doing that, he submitted himself unto death.

This is the message of wrath escape. Brothers and sisters and those of you who don't know the gospel yet, this is the heart of it. There is a rescue. There is a salvation for a sinner like you and me.

There's a refuge that you can run into. The Son of God came and he lived among us and he died the death that I deserve to die. He took a penalty of wrath from the Father on himself and that wrath was poured out in the most horrific way.

Jesus suffering and dehydrating on the cross, pierced through his hands and feet, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth,.

Darkness covering the land.

And that was the wrath of God poured out on Jesus. So that all who look to him come under him and he's like a shield to that wrath. He clothes you in righteousness and the wrath that the Father has against your sin and against my sin is completely satisfied.

Jesus says it is finished. For the one who looks to Christ as a savior, they find him to be a perfect savior and a refuge. This is so beautiful. The wrath is real. The war is real.

The end is certain. But therefore, O kings, be warned. Do you see that?

That's mercy. He's warning the reason that we preach like this. Evangelicals, the reason we preach like this is love, genuine love. How hateful would it truly be to go about your day pretending that God has no wrath when in fact the wrath of God hangs imminent over the heads of sinners.