Wednesday, May 31, 2023 PM

Thank you for that Tonight I'm gonna start with an introduction of a text that I'd like to hit a few times over the next

Weeks or months whenever I get an opportunity to teach which is it might come less often now that we have three boys but we are so very thankful for that new one, and I'm very thankful to be able to have time to study and Prepare little things here and there for you guys to think about as well as for me to think about But tonight

I'm going to introduce the text an overview of the story and its literary qualities and Then from then on we're going to be hitting different parts

Text by text or verse by verse through it and we're gonna be in Psalm 2 tonight So if you would go ahead and turn to there

Really quickly and after you guys get set up.

We'll begin with prayer Father we thank you that you have given us

This evening to fellowship to eat to sit at a table with brothers and sisters

To give us a picture and an image of what we are to inherit and come into when we are present with the

Lord that he is Both the bread of life and The cup that we receive

Is his blood in the New Covenant? We know father we look forward to joyous plentiful times in his presence

We thank you that we may Be here now to read your text to consider your text to meditate upon it and to see how it points towards your son

Who has all things Coming to him and All glory should be ascribed his name.

So we praise him. We ask that You submit our hearts to the text that we are

Under your guidance and that your spirit Speak through your word Giving us all that we may know of your son the one

To whom we praise. Amen Okay, so Psalm 2

I'll be reading out of the New King James Version Why do the nation's 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 and 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 and his deep displeasure

Yet 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 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 Sun 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.

So you may have heard this text referenced within the last few months Who's heard this psalm reference preached or read recently anyone

Okay, why in what context Joel have you have you heard it referenced preached or read Okay, so he did it in the context of eschatology.

Okay and sometimes we'll We'll go there or we'll go to the beginning of the text whenever we see

One of the kings of the earth being a knucklehead on television Right. Why do the Kings rage?

Why do the people's plot in vain? And we start to kind of pick points here and there from the psalm that we see examples of in real life more if there's a eschatological debate that we're having we'll bring this up because it is quite prevalent in certain schools to To bring up this text and to use it in in a different fashion than maybe your other brothers would

But we reach for Psalm 2 in the current era for a few few select reasons We do this because it is rich with character and characters though.

It is only 12 verses long We do this because it gets right to the point with two very simple questions at the beginning

Why do the nation nations rage and the people's plot of anything? We do this to Take comfort when kings and nations do rage against Christ.

There is no denying how comforting this psalm is When we see the lengths to which kings and nations go to rage against the

Lord how they attack his truth His church and his image that they bear within themselves and we do see these examples on a regular basis

We may reach for this psalm to remind ourselves of God's sovereignty over the events of history and that Christ's incarnation

His death his burial his resurrection and ascension are not simply details of historical events

But are at the very center and focus and purpose of history these are all very good reasons and Might I say right reasons to read sing preach and pray this psalm, but our study of Psalm 2

Will comprise of its literary structure its genre its intertextuality, which means how it's handled

And referenced elsewhere in the text of Scripture and its characters and tonight

I'll be given an introduction and an overview of the overall narrative and I'll be given an assertion about the second psalm that we may affirm deny or refine in The coming weeks and months as I do have other opportunities to Come up here again

So my I would like to start with the assertion that Psalm 2 is prophetic comedic and chiastic narrative structured in four separate acts simultaneously covering the entire breadth of history and Pointing directly to the person or work of Jesus Christ now

I'm gonna Pause here and ask you guys to look back at your Bibles And if you have a heading at the top of the psalm psalm 2 in your particular translation

What what do you have mine says the Messiah's triumph and kingdom what do you have anybody?

Is it is anybody are we all reading now the King James Version? Okay The reign of the Lord's anointing

Okay, yes, that's that's another one. I saw that came up quite a bit anything else Okay, that's another one that I was looking up earlier as well

I got on Bible hub and tried to find as many different headings as I possibly could and They all do a great job of getting to the climax of the story

Right the triumph of Christ the his reign his coronation and these things are all a great focus on the climax in the center of The chiasm of this structured text but as a whole we should be treating this a little bit differently and I find in the

New King James Version heading its its scope is narrow and It deals like the rest of them only with the climax of the psalm and not what the psalm might rightly be described as a whole

The heading I would like to replace it with is the comedy of the Sun Dealing with the beginning text all the way to the end

This may seem awkward as an assertion given the past 50 years of comedic entertainment But those familiar with the classics can read this psalm and say oh look a classical comedy

Our modern notions about comedic about the comedic are shaped by a very narrow and lowbrow content now.

Don't get me wrong. I Am a fan of slapstick comedy of the Looney Tunes and so are my sons

But Looney Tunes is a far cry from the type of high comedy found in classical literature Though God does laugh in the text.

This is not why we consider the narrative to be one of high comedy High comedy is defined as a narrative employing sophisticated wit and often

Saturizing the upper classes. This is what the Greeks and Romans would would use in some of their plays their comedic plays

And we may consider this psalm story high comedy But it is far far richer than anything the ancient

Greeks and Romans could muster, but they had no character. So great as Christ In the first verse we are introduced to raging

Kings nations and people Since this is a comedy being played out by the

Lord. His focus is not merely Kings or the upper classes He cares not that his enemies are powerful or powerless

He cares that they have plotted against himself and his anointed his Messiah But he does specifically address the

Kings and rulers setting themselves Taking counsel together and saying let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us

Now, have you ever heard? The act of setting oneself down somewhere described as rebellious or antagonistic

Sometimes my sons they'll seat themselves to pout But given the language of the psalm the

Kings have yet to begin to pout Some of your translations may translate the word yesab

Found in verse 2 as to take their stand or even stand against does anybody have that you have that ESV?

In ASB. Yes, they do that as well. Okay, and the ESV does that the

ESV does that as well and the word does have a wide semantic range that you can use that with but My New King James version

I prefer the translation of the word as set or to place I believe this translation fits best with the main tension and wordplay within the poem in This comedy there is a seat being fought over The posture of Kings is a seated posture even today

You may not be aware of this but in the English -speaking world. There has been a recent coronation

The comic artists of many publications whether they be royalists or Republicans Have drawn

King Charles the third of that name in a seated position May God save his soul

This is the proper place for Kings Seated from their thrones. They make judgments decrees and may at times show mercy

In verse 4 we are told that he who sits in the heavens shall laugh and in verse 6

It says yet I have set my king upon Zion further enforcing this image being built up and frankly hammered into our minds of kings upon their thrones and Being placed there set there sit set the same word being used over and over again

And threefold actually within there's a lot of threes within this text and we'll figure that out later as we we go along and study different portions of it

Thrones are seats of power that we generally think of as difficult to uproot Displace or better yet be brought to order in righteous rule.

That's the toughest thing to do We have numerous examples from our Bibles post -canonical history in recent history of rulers diving headfirst into rebellion against the

Lord and his anointment and It seems like it we get more examples every day, doesn't it? And the

Lord has the proper response to this rebellion Laughter it is a comedy after all

They have gone to great pains like villains in most comedies to seat themselves in advantageous positions

Where they may rebel against the king of kings Thus far the kings of the earth have plotted them.

They plotted they've set themselves and counsel together the Lord's response is also threefold and laughter holding them in derision or scoffing and speaking to them in his wrath, which we see in verses four or five

And four and five if you'll notice all the

Lord's initial responses are corrective. The Lord is patient. Is he not? Even to these kings and rebellion very very patient this leads to the question.

When will judgment come? Right. We have a confrontation of the

Most High God and the kings of the earth When Lord when and we get examples of the

Lord's people asking that same question before judgment comes when will judgment come and who has been given the authority to judge in This comedic narrative the

Lord allows tension to build even to the point to where the Kings openly say let us break their bonds and pieces

And cast away their cords from us The rulers who as God's servants in the civil realm are prescribed in Romans 13 to punish the evildoer and reward the righteous

Desire to throw off this very prescription They wish to be set loose from the bonds

Set upon them a set upon their seats of power by the king of kings foolishly and in their jealous jealousy they plot with the power that the

Lord has given them as His deacons to overthrow his righteous constraints if at this point you are reminded of descriptions of the fools from the

Proverbs Then you are headed in the right direction and you may accurately say that the king who works to throw off the

Lord's prescriptions Rightly finds himself a fool and description So the king who works to throw off the king's or the

Lord's prescriptions rightly finds himself a fool and description How are they made foolish, how are they how are they made out to be foolish they counsel together as the rulers of the world

Surely they would know how to best direct the events of the world and show themselves to be on the right side of history

Surely entire peoples and nations coming to a consensus cannot be wrong And surely as they have proven themselves liberators of oppressed peoples and the dispensers of freedom around the world the annals of history

Will venerate them Surely as keepers of the law and the temple they are destined to rule over the earth when the

Messiah comes But professing themselves to be wise they have become fools

It is this turning point in the narrative that solidifies the second psalm as a poetic and prophetic rendering of the comedy of the

Sun and Most classical comedies it was the most least it was the least likely to become the hero who became the hero

Flip -flopping roles and flip -flopping classes, but here the Lord takes the kings of the earth and subjects them to his son

The gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has turned the world upside down has it not

Everyone that has fancied themselves to be the main character in the story of creation Has been confronted with the fact that Jesus ruling from the heavenly

Zion is in fact the main character It all belongs to him and is for his glory

How might we say this? Well, we can we can return to verses 6 through 9 If you'll look there with me

Says and this is the Lord speaking Yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion And now we have the perspective of the

Sun and verses 7 8 and 9. 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 interestingly

The Lord's answer to rebellious kings and rulers is not to pronounce immediate judgment from his heavenly seat

But he confronts their rebellion in a more direct way He sends his son into their midst

The incarnation of the Sun highlights the foolishness of rebellion against the trium God The kings of the earth have become prideful and they believe this realm belongs to them

They believe they cannot be Unseated as it were enter the one who is to inherit all things and their jealousy is kindled Yet they can do nothing to inherit even in their jealousy.

They crucify the Messiah Thinking they may inherit now that the heir is dead. They forget that nothing they do or they can do

Changes the Lord's decree in verses 7 through 9 The resurrection proves their foolishness yet again

Christ then ascends and takes the highest seat at the Lord's right hand as a king of kings

Inheriting the nations that king that these kings thought were theirs and even to the ends of the earth that these kings have yet to see

Classic comedies were usually written as political critiques and at the expense of the rulers about them

They rarely if ever offered instruction encouragement or a solution to turning away from their oppressive ways of ruling but here at the end of the comedic narrative when we turn to Verses 10 through 12 at the end of the narrative

The Lord graciously instructs the kings of the earth and wisdom which may establish their thrones on the earth

He does not immediately unseat them, but places them in their proper seat under Or and order beneath that of the sons who in turn is given the rod and authority to do as he pleases

With these nations that he has inherited They are to serve and fear him

We'll go ahead and read Verses 10 through 12 to see this instruction

Verse 10 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

They don't only receive a gracious instruction on how to receive the Messiah and his rule But are given a further warning and then a blessing if their trust if they put their trust in the

Messiah how great and gracious is our God and Patient yet again showing himself to be patient This concludes the overview of the narrative that I wanted to have in the second

Psalm tonight as a comedy We have touched briefly on its prophetic elements as well looking forward toward Christ and we'll also look backward toward David who

Who wrote this psalm and the troubles that he had as well with? Raging nations about him and how the

Lord preserved him how the Lord established his kingdom on Zion But I'd also

I would like to continue next time as well Exploring its poetic and what's known as this chiastic structure how it's formed and shaped

Revealing in it it reveals yet another layer of beauty to this song about Jesus So from here on out we will be looking at structure and then going through Section by section or act by act of each part of this song and I know that was short tonight

But that's okay. We get more time to pray But if you have any questions or if you would like clarifications about something

I said because I do say things differently We you can go ahead and ask now.