Thou Art My Son — Carl Armerding

Thee and all that in them is. For by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why do the heathen rage? And the people imagined vain things. The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.

For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together. For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

Peter's Bold Witness and the Acts Series

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken, where they were assembled together, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. As we have been saying on previous evenings, we always have present some who have not been with us earlier in the week to look into the earlier portions in this book of the Acts.

For their information we say that we have been looking into various portions here in the early chapters of the book of the Acts to see the various ways in which our blessed Lord is presented to us. And we were noticing in chapter 1 how is the man who was taken up, the ascended one who went home to glory, the wonderful reception he got.

And in chapter 2 we noted the coming of the Spirit, which is something which is attributed to the Lord himself, the risen Christ. And so we followed along in the third chapter. We came to other aspects of our Lord's person and work, the Prince of Life, the Cornerstone.

And this evening we want to close this brief series, and I think I shall begin with a little review of the early chapters, noting particularly the Old Testament scriptures which are referred to in these chapters in the book of the Acts.

If I mistake not, there are no less than eight of these Old Testament scriptures which are referred to in the early chapters of the book of the Acts. And we'll come up to the scripture which is referred to this evening, which we have just now been reading, a quotation from the second Psalm.

Old Testament Quotations in Acts 1 and Acts 2

But to begin with, we go back to chapter 1. There we notice a quotation that actually has to do with Judas Iscariot, you'll notice in chapter 1 and verse 16 we didn't consider this in our talk. But here it is, the Apostle said, Men and Brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.

For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with a reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his vowels gushed out.

And it was known unto all the dwellers of Jerusalem, insomuch that that field is called in their proper tongue, aseldoma, which that is to say the field of blood. For it is written in the book of the Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric let another take.

Now a word of explanation is in order at this point because very frequently we go back to the Old Testament reference and we don't find the wording is exactly like we have here. The reason for that is that many of these quotations which we have in the New Testament are taken from the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

This Greek translation is referred to as the Septuagint, and is sometimes represented in print by the Roman numerals LXX, which of course is Roman numerals for seventy. And it is from this that that translation takes its name, from seventy men or so that made this translation some centuries before the Christian era.

And evidently this was in use among people, and so when references were made to scriptures, frequently they referred to the Greek translation rather than to the original Hebrew, which of course had a broader meaning in many places.

I say this by way of explanation lest anyone should think that, well, how can you trust this because it isn't exactly as you find it in Psalm 69 where this quotation is taken. This is the first one. Then we turn over to chapter two, and there we find in verses sixteen to twenty-one another reference to the Old Testament, Acts 2 and verse sixteen.

But this is that, and it has been noted by commentators that the apostle does not say this is the fulfillment. He says this is that. It's very evident that the scripture which he's quoting here was not fulfilled in those days, because you'll notice that it has to do with all flesh, whereas all we see here in chapter two of the book of Acts is the Spirit of God coming down on a very few people.

But nevertheless, the apostle identifies it with that which is yet going to take place in the day to come. So he says here, Acts 2 .16, but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, and blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

The Spirit's Outpouring and Joel's Prophecy

I might remark in connection with this quotation that here we have an explanation, shall we say, of the pouring out of the Spirit, even though it is only partial as compared with that which is yet going to take place in the day to come.

But how wonderful to know that there will be a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in these days of which the prophet Joel spoke. You know, a lot of people get the idea that this is the age of the Holy Spirit, and this is the only age in which he does anything.

The fact of the matter is that the Holy Spirit has been operative since the very beginning. He is the first person of the Holy Trinity to be named by name in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, where we find the Spirit of God brooding over that chaotic mass.

And then in chapter 6 we find him again striving with men. And so we could go along and point out other references to the Holy Spirit which we did on a previous occasion. But here we find another ministry of the Spirit of God, and how wonderful it is to see that even in those dark days, people who have never had an opportunity to hear the gospel, who have not heard his name nor seen his glory, are going to have an opportunity to hear what the Bible calls the gospel of the kingdom, and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And that prophecy has to do with that particular time. We believe it is true now, of course, but its particular primary reference is to those days of which Joel was prophesied. Then in the same chapter we have another reference, an Old Testament reference.

Chapter 2, and verse 25,. For David speaketh concerning him, that is, the Lord Jesus. And I saw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad.

Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption.

Here is a lengthy quotation from the sixteenth psalm, one of the most wonderful and magnificent of the messianic psalms in the Old Testament, having to do particularly with the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Then in the same chapter we have still another reference to the Old Testament. I continue reading at verse thirty-two. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses, therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.

For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Another quotation, this time from Psalm 110.

Prophecies of Christ's Sufferings and Moses's Prophet

So you can see that Peter is continually giving us the foundations upon which he is building everything that he has to say about the Lord Jesus. Now in chapter three. We have here a very comprehensive statement in chapter three.

No particular prophet is named here, but looking at verse seventeen, chapter three, verse seventeen,. And now, brethren, I know that through ignorance ye did it, that is, crucified the Lord of glory, and did also your rulers.

But those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. So the prophets told about the sufferings of Christ. And what Christian is there tonight who has not again and again, notice this, for example, in such wonderful passages as Isaiah 53, which has been referred to as the golden passion of the Old Testament.

Such psalms as Psalm 22, which unmistakably applied to the Messiah, opening with the very words that he uttered upon the cross when he said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then, of course, in Psalm 69, from which we had a quotation in chapter one, we get another one of those wonderful outlines of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so I could go on. I could go into the prophecy of Jeremiah, go into the prophecy of Zechariah, but here the Holy Spirit simply says all the prophets testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ.

Then we come in that same chapter, chapter three and verse twenty-two,. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me. Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.

It shall come to pass that every soul of which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people, yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that followed after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.

And here we have Moses actually prophesying concerning the Lord Jesus in the book of Deuteronomy and calling the Lord Jesus a prophet like unto himself. You know, it's remarkable when you think of it that so much of what we hear about Moses in the New Testament stands out in contrast to the ministry of our Lord, yet here we have a similarity, a likeness, a prophet like unto me.

Shall the Lord your God raise up. Then in chapter four, the passage which we were considering last night, verse eleven, This is the stone which is set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner, a quotation from Psalm 118.

Psalm 118 and the Foundations of Bible Study

Now this will give you some idea of how this whole portion of the Word of God is based upon one prophecy of Scripture after another, and I would especially commend this to my younger friends who are perhaps just being introduced to Bible study.

I'm not pretending to teach those of you who are older, but if any of you here tonight have only recently begun to dig into the Word of God for yourselves, I trust that this will be a little hint as to how you might go about it.

But now coming to the passage which we read in chapter four and beginning of verses twenty-three and following, you notice that here they're in the presence of God. These men who a little while ago were standing in the presence of their enemies, and Peter being filled with the Holy Ghost, speaks out boldly and tells these men the truth right to their faces.

But now he's in the presence of God. And here he quotes from another one of the Psalms, and this time from Psalm 2. And inasmuch as we've been looking at the various names of our Lord Jesus as revealed to us in the opening chapters of this book of the Acts, I would like to go now for the rest of the evening back to Psalm 2 to see what the Holy Spirit has to tell us about the various characters of our Lord Jesus.

Psalm 2 and International Unrest

The second Psalm. You'll notice that here these very words, almost exactly as you have them in Acts 4, "'Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?'. This has been translated, "'Why are the nations in tumultuous agitation?''.

And you can see that this psalm probably had a fulfillment in the days of the psalmists, when the nations around little Israel were in agitation against them, trying to swallow them up, even as they are now.

And then we can see how this also had a fulfillment in the days of our Lord Jesus. We get that in the fourth chapter of the book of the Acts, from which we've just been reading, that at the time our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, the apostles say, then that second psalm was having another fulfillment.

But I'm persuaded, beloved, that we're living in days when this psalm is due for another fulfillment. And I don't know of any passage of Scripture which more aptly describes the international situation as you see it today.

International unrest. Of course, if you read this archaic English, "'Why do the heathen rage,' you don't get this idea. But if you consult a translation, for example, like that of Mr. Darby, which was made a hundred years ago or more, he gives you the idea, "'Why are the nations in tumultuous agitation?'.

What's the matter with them? What's the reason for all of this international unrest that we see? And the peoples imagining a vain thing. And the peoples here, I should explain that the word in the original language refers to peoples of a common origin, and how aptly that describes both the Arabs and the Jews.

Yes, they're singled out here. The nations, the Gentile nations in tumultuous agitation, but the peoples imagining a vain thing. Now, I'm not going to speculate as to how this might be applied in detail tonight to what Israel may be thinking about in her present possession of the land, nor yet of what the Arab countries around her would do to her if they could, but merely to point out to you that the Holy Spirit has given us a comprehensive statement here concerning the unrest, the international unrest in which we live today.

Now, there have been many explanations of this. Many will tell you that the reason for all this international unrest is because, well, first of all, there's the economic inequalities that we see, the haves and the have-nots, and they tell you this is it.

Others, again, have other reasons which they offer for the international unrest, some going even into the idea of philosophy and psychiatry and so on. But, you know, the Bible simplifies this thing very easily right here in this second psalm.

Here it is. The kings of the earth set themselves, verse 2, and notice it's not the common people it's referred to here. This thing doesn't start at the bottom like some revolutions, but this comes right down from the top.

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. What do they say? We don't want any restraint from that quarter. Let us break their bands of thunder and cast away their cords from us.

That, my friends, is the reason for international unrest. One doesn't have to be an expert diplomat or a politician to know this. Here it is in the book. This is the reason for it, because men no longer wish to be governed from above.

Let us break their bands of thunder. We don't want to be restrained from there. Neither do they want to be drawn by the cords of love. Let us cast away their cords from us. But I just want to notice the name which they give to the object of their hatred.

You notice it says in verse 2, against the Lord and against his anointed. And that word anointed should have been printed with a capital A. That's none other than the Messiah. We have three words in our English Bible which are synonymous.

The word anointed, which is the Greek form, or rather a translation of the Greek form, Christos, and then Messiah. These three words, anointed, Messiah, Christos, these three mean the same thing, and that's the one who is referred to here.

The Anointed King and Son of God

So the very first name we notice in Psalm 2, given to our blessed Lord, is the anointed of God. It's remarkable that there's only one other man that I know of who was singled out in this way, and that was a Gentile king by the name of Cyrus, referred to in the book of Isaiah and given the title of the anointed.

But usually we find this title is connected with one person only. You even talk to the common man on the street who doesn't know very much about the Bible, and you mention the name of Christ, and there's only one person that he connects that name with.

That's the Lord Jesus, the anointed of God. But then you'll notice in the, as we read down in this psalm here, we get another name of his. He that sitteth in the heavens, verse 4, shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision.

Then shall he speak of them in his wrath, and vex them in his sword as pleasure. And yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. And you don't need to spiritualize this text and make it refer to something in heaven.

We believe that God is here speaking in what we call the prophetic past, because he's so sure of fulfilling it that he can speak of it as if it's already done. I believe that this text of Scripture was literally fulfilled in a place called Zion.

And God says, I have set my King. What a reply to those who refer to him merely as Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. God says he's my King. He brings out his royalty right here. My King, and I have set him upon my holy hill of Zion.

Yes, it's as good as done. I give you another sample of how God speaks in the prophetic past. This was a rather embarrassing situation for me as a young Christian. I was about 17 years of age at the time, and I was taking my vacation in Nova Scotia on a farm very near to the scene of Longfellow's Evangeline.

It was a rainy day, and we were kept indoors. We couldn't work on the farm very much in the rain. And as I looked out of the window, I saw a man coming up the lane with a white cane, moving it from side to side, which of course indicated he was a blind man.

He had a little black case in his hand. And I went right to my hostess, Mrs. Stewart, and I said, there's a man coming up the lane. He must be blind. He's wearing a white cane. Oh, yes, she said, I know who that is.

Has he got a little black case in his hand? Yes, I said, he has. Oh, she said, that's Diamond the Jew. Diamond the Jew. I said, what does he do? Well, she said, he sells eyeglasses. And this struck me funny.

You know a blind man selling eyeglasses. Well, she said, he can't use them himself, but he sells them to other people. And he had a whole box full of them. She says, I've got nothing on the stove today but some pork.

And I can't give this dear man pork. I know he doesn't eat it. Neither does your speaker eat fresh pork. I have a kosher stomach when it comes to that. I can eat the cured meat, all right. But let's forget about that.

Let's focus our attention on this Jew coming up the lane. And my hostess said to me, you entertain him in the parlor. You remember that word? That was a good old word, wasn't it? And you entertain him in the parlor till I get something else cooked for him.

So considered was she of this dear old Jew. But now it was up to me, a 17-year-old boy, green as grass, shall I say, with regard to dealing with men like this, to entertain him. He sat down and stroked his beard and sat there with his blank stare, you know.

And I said to him, Diamond, would you like me to read to you while we wait for dinner? Yes, I would like that very much. All right. So I said, I'm going to read to you out of your own scriptures. All right.

So I read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and I came down to that verse. He was wounded for us. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. I said, Diamond, do you know to whom that refers?

Well, he said, who can tell? Well, I said, we have in our part of the Bible, the New Testament, we have a verse which refers to this, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Ha, I said, yes, but that was spoken 700 years before he came.

Well, you can imagine how red my face was. A man facing me with a text in the past tense, he was wounded for our iniquities, bruised for our iniquities, wounded for our transgressions and so on. All in the past tense.

I didn't know then that we don't really have tense in Hebrew. This is decided by the context. But that's something for the classroom. I didn't know just what to say, but I sent up a silent prayer, Lord help me now.

Answer this man. I said, Diamond, do you believe that God knows everything ahead of time? Oh yes. Yes, he said. We say Elohim. He is omniscient. Good. I said, then he knew what was going to happen 700 years later.

He wasn't so ready to say yes to that. But it was true, wasn't it? And God could speak of it 700 years before as if it was already, as the French would say, un fait accompli. It was an accomplished fact.

So in the same way, in this psalm tonight, I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. It's as good as if it were done. And oh, how we long for the day when we're going to see our blessed Lord seated there on his throne, seated there by God the Father.

But now we let the King speak for himself. You notice here it says here in verse 7 of our psalm, Psalm 2 verse 7, he says, I will declare the decree the Lord has set unto me, Thou art my Son. Anointed, King, Son.

Yes. And you and I have been looking at some of those passages, haven't we? We've been referring to them in the Gospels. How the Lord, in approving his Son, opened the heavens over him at his baptism and said, This is my beloved Son.

Hear ye him. Again in the time of his transfiguration, This is my beloved Son. Hear him. And then in the fifth chapter of the Hebrews, we find that this was actually a call to the priesthood, because when he's brought into the priesthood, it was by the one who said unto him, Thou art my Son.

The Heir and Judge of the Nations

God recognizing him as such. Yes. That's the third name we have here. And then we move on to verse 8. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

You know, friends, if he's the Son, he's also the heir. It's true the name heir isn't found in this eighth verse, but the idea is there, you see. Very simple, isn't it? Incidentally, let me say this in connection with this eighth verse.

I often hear it quoted and claimed in missionary meetings that the promise was never made to you and me. This promise was made to one person to whom God says, Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

How easily the Lord Jesus might have referred to this when Satan spread all the kingdoms of the world before him in a moment of time, as you know he did on the Mount of Temptation. Sometimes we wonder how this was done in the days when there was no television and so on.

How could Satan present to the Lord Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time? It seems to be a physical impossibility. Some have tried to get around the difficulty by saying, Well, yes, he was right there at the junction of three great continents and the known world, and it was easy enough to see parts of everything, and therefore the part must do duty for the whole.

Has it ever occurred to you that this may have been a summit conference of the princes of the various nations of the world? We have been referring to some of them in the tenth chapter of the book of Daniel, for example.

We have the prince of Persia, a superhuman being, the prince of Grisha, a superhuman being, Michael, your prince, who is undoubtedly a superhuman being, and these are the princes. And if Satan wanted to call together a summit conference there as he could have, bringing together all the representatives of these kingdoms, and the scripture says he showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, how easily our Lord could have said to Satan, And where is the glory?

Pray tell. The glory of Babylon had passed. The glory of Assyria had passed. The glory of Egypt had passed. Yes, the glory of these great nations had already passed, and the nation which was in power at the time, the Roman Empire, was on the point of going to pieces as well.

But let us leave the statement stand. The Lord Jesus never invoked this promise. He never said, All I have to do is ask, and I'll get it. Why didn't He? Because in the temptation He was taking the place of a man, and He was not using any other means except those which you and I can use.

Therefore, He simply says to Satan, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. And you look at the answers which our Lord gives to Satan in that wonderful temptation scene.

In every case He uses only that which you and I can use. Man shall not live by better law. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. But He is the heir, and He is so spoken of in the first chapter of the epistle of the Hebrews, isn't He?

Yes, He is the heir of all things. But if He is the heir, He is also the judge. Look at this, please, in verse 9 of your psalm. Thou shalt break them in pieces, thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

That doesn't sound like a missionary text, does it? And yet it fits perfectly with the eighth verse. This is what He's going to do as the judge. A lot of people get the notion, you know, that the Millennium is going to be a sort of a lackadaisical time when everybody's going to do pretty much as He pleases, and nothing is further from the truth.

This is going to be a time of the despotic rule of the Lord. He's going to rule with despotic power, and I use the term advisedly because in the very passage of Scripture which we read to open with this evening, when they said, Lord, thou art God, they used the word despot.

Despot. Thou art God. Despotic power. He's going to come down in judgment upon us. See how these various things then are brought together. The anointed, the king, the son, the heir, the judge. Is that all?

Reconciliation and the Invitation of Psalm 2

No, we have a little bit more here. Verse 10 of our psalm, Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun. Now you say, we had that up in verse 7.

Yes, you do in English, but not in Hebrew. It so happens we have two words for sun in the original language. Up in verse 7, it's the word B-E-N, Ben, which you find as a prefix in names like Benjamin, Ben-Hadad, and so on.

The plural is sometimes seen over the gate of a Jewish cemetery, B 'nei B 'rith, the sons of the covenant. But down here in verse 12, it's the word Bar, B-A-R. It also means son. But why did the Holy Spirit here use the word Bar instead of Ben?

You remember when they rejected the Lord Jesus? What did they say? They said, not this man, but Bar-Abbas. Bar-Abbas means the son of the Father. That was the devil's counterfeit. And now the Holy Spirit is bringing this word home to their consciences.

And He uses the very word which they used when they said, not this man, but Bar-Abbas. Now He says, come and kiss, which of course is the Old Testament way of saying what St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, to be reconciled to God.

This is it. It's the kiss of reconciliation. How marvelous, isn't it, that a psalm which opens up with this international unrest and universal hatred of the Lord closes with this beautiful invitation to come and be reconciled to the very one that they nailed to the cross.

And then this concluding word, blessed are all they that put their trust in him, having warned them that if this offer will not go on forever, this is an offer which may be terminated tonight, when his wrath is kindled but a little.

But blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Friends, I trust that this little outline of names of our blessed Lord will bring before you pictures as you read the word of God for yourselves. I trust that whenever you read the second psalm again, the thing that's going to loom up in your thinking as you go from verse to verse is this blessed person of whom it is said in the book of Revelation, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

And dear friends, in this little series which we conclude this evening, for we'll be doing something else next week, God willing, I just wanted to sum things up, to have leave in your minds and your thoughts the blessed person of the Son of God himself.

And how sweet to think that in these closing words, the last thing we hear is an invitation from God himself to be acquainted with this one. And so we say in the language of the book of Job, acquaint now thyself with him and be at peace.

In closing, I couldn't think of anything better to sing than those words of Bernard of Clairvaux, hymn number 327. Bernard of Clairvaux was a Roman Catholic, and he certainly did not love the Protestants, but he loved the Lord Jesus.

Closing Exhortation and Prayer

And he wrote this lovely hymn, Jesus, the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breath, but sweeter far thy face to see and in thy presence rest. Number 327. Jesus, we bow here in thy holy presence at the close of this meeting and the close of this brief series this week.