June 12, 2022 – Sunday Service Live Stream

Let us open the hymnal to number 381, 381. Brethren, we are come to worship. As we practiced just before the service, this has a very lively tune to it. And DJ, will you start us off, brother? Please take the insert with the psalm of the week labeled 123A.

I lift my eyes to you. The tune may not be familiar to you, but I think it's one to which we can easily pick up. DJ, if you would start us off, brother. Please continue standing for the reading of the word.

We'll be looking at Jeremiah chapter 17, Jeremiah 17.

Jeremiah 17. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron. With the point of a diamond, it is engraved. On the tablet of their heart and on the horns of your altars, while their children remember their altars and their wooden images.

By the green trees on the high hills, oh my mountain in the field, I will give as plunder your wealth, all your treasures, and your high places of sin within all your borders. And you, even yourself, shall let go of your heritage which I gave you.

And I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you do not know. For you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever. Thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.

For he shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is the Lord.

For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

As a partridge that broods, but does not hatch, so is he who gets riches, but not by right. It will leave him in the midst of his days and at his end, he will be a fool. A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.

O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be ashamed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed.

Save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise. Indeed, they say to me, where is the word of the Lord? Let it come now. As for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd who follows you, nor have I desired the woeful day.

You know what came out of my lips. It was right there before you. Do not be a terror to me. You are my hope in the day of doom. Let them be ashamed who persecute me, but do not let me be put to shame.

Let them be dismayed, but do not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of doom and destroy them with double destruction. Thus the Lord said to me, go and stand in the gate of the children of the people by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out and in all the gates of Jerusalem and say to them, hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and all Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who enter by these gates.

Thus says the Lord, take heed to yourselves and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem, nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day as I commanded your fathers.

But they did not obey, nor incline their ear, but made their neck stiff that they might not hear nor receive instruction. And it shall be if you heed me carefully, says the Lord, to bring no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day to do no work on it.

Then shall enter the gates of this city, kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses. They and their princes accompanied by the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and this city shall remain forever.

And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains and from the South, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord.

But if you will not heed me to hallow the Sabbath day, such as not carrying a burden when entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and it shall not be quenched.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Please take up the bulletin and let us confess our common faith by the singing of the Apostles' Creed.

Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the forgiveness of sins.

Let us take up once again the red hymnal and turn to hymn number two. Oh, worship the King. Hymn number two.

Oh, glorious Abba, oh, grateful in the day of the year.

Please prepare yourself for the prayers of the people. After this manner, therefore pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Pray that we may glorify God in all that we do as we live and work in the creation that displays his powers and be pleased to dispose all things to his glory. Hear our prayers. Pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced.

Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it and the kingdom of glory hastened. Pray that God for Christ's sake would freely pardon all our sins. And we are encouraged to ask this because by his grace, we are able from the heart to forgive others.

Lord, hear our prayers.

Given so much to, on a daily basis, we struggle and fall. The great father that gives us to live a life where from these wicked things, they may not control our lives,.

How we live their lives,.

But they control us for our lives. In keeping with this, we pray that this would impact the way we interact with others. Then others fail us and commit sin against us that just as you have forgiven us perfectly for our sins, that we would readily extend that same forgiveness to one another and our neighbors in this way, Father.

Just as you've loved us in Jesus' name, we pray.

Pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted. Lord, hear our prayers. Our father, taking encouragement and prayer from you alone in our prayers, we praise you ascribing kingdom, power and glory to you and to testify of our desire and assurance to be heard.

We say together, amen. Please stand and pick up the insert listed as Psalm three for the Psalm of the month. This is to the tune of Amazing Grace, Psalm three. If you'll open your Bibles with me to Psalm number two, the second Psalm, Psalm number two.

Psalm 2 and the Rebellion of the Nations

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 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. We believe that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of the true and living God, our only infallible rule of faith and practice.

Let us pray. O Lord, as we open now your word, we pray that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened so that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that we may be filled up with all the fullness of God.

Amen.

You may be seated. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great Welsh preacher of the 20th century, often stated that the Bible alone, of all books, gives an accounting of what really is or what reality really is. He says that this book answers all of the great questions of life.

Among them, what is wrong with the world? How did it come to be this way? How can it be made right? How does this, making things right, affect me? How did this world come to be? Where is the world going?

How did life begin and how does life begin? Or when did life begin? And yes, even a question that has stumped many in our days, the Bible answers that question, what is a woman? It also provides us answers to the events which we see unfolding around us that have unfolded in history and what we see in the pages of scripture.

The Bible deals with facts. And this psalm is no different. It provides an accounting of facts, of how people react to God and how God reacts to them. Although this psalm does not bear an author's name, it has been historically and biblically attributed to David.

This is a psalm of David. It is about or points to the literal David, but also more particularly David's greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We see the events surrounding the establishment of David on his throne, the opposition he faced from Saul when Saul first learned of David's anointing in favor with God, and then the opposition of Ish-bosheth, Saul's son in Abner.

We also see the events surrounding the true King of Israel, that son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, the opposition of the devil, the opposition of the religious establishment in his day, the opposition of the Jewish and Roman political order, and the opposition of the spread of Christianity throughout the world in the time of the apostles and down to this day.

However, this psalm points to the final triumph of the Lord Jesus. The psalm can be broken down into four parts. Verses one through three, the nation's raging and rebelling against God. Verses four through six, God's response to the nations.

Verses seven through nine, the King's decree. And verses 10 through 12, the King's command. Let us take a look at verse one. Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? This is nothing more and nothing less, I should say, than unbridled hatred of Christ, the hatred of human nature against Christ.

The psalm opens with a question. Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? When we think of raging, we think of two things. Typically, we think of anger or somebody losing control in anger or wrath has gotten so built up inside of somebody that they let fly.

But we also may be thinking of an ocean, say. When a great storm comes through, I know we live particularly close to the ocean and many of you may have gone down to the seashore and seen the ocean raging in storm or seen it depicted in movies.

This is a picture of a stormy ocean, of a raging out of control, tossed to and fro. The nations, that is the people, have lost all control in their raging. The apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 3 .8 that with anger and wrath is also accompanied with malice, slander, and obscene talk.

That anger and wrath produce bitterness. Proverbs 15 .18 says that a hot-tempered man stirs up strife. All of these things are bound together here. The nations are raging and they're plotting in vain.

Have we not seen the nations raging in our own day? Have we not seen it in our own lives, perhaps? An example of this may be response to the pro-life movement that we've seen recently. This raging of the pro-abortion, pro-death crowd is raging against the very thought that a baby would be born.

This raging is uncontrolling and uncontrolled, rather, venting of emotions. But what are they doing in their rage? They are plotting a vain thing. The Hebrew word that is translated plotting is to murmur and ponder.

The old King James Version called it imagine. In Acts 4 where this verse is quoted, the Greek word that is translated imagine means revolve around the mind or meditate upon. They're conjuring up in their minds.

They're thinking about in their imaginations, plotting vain things in their wrath. Imagine an angry man, imagining how he might vent his anger on the object of his anger, running over in his mind many plans.

But they are not alone. If we turn to verse two, we read this. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, the people are not alone and it's not only the people that rage.

A man once said, the many have done their part and now the mighty will join in with them. It is rarely the people alone. The leaders of the people are always involved. When it is good, that is the leadership of people.

When that is good, the people rejoice. Proverbs 29 too tells us when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in charge, the people are led astray. The leaders will provide what the people want.

Paul warns us of this in 2 Timothy three through four. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth.

The people, the leaders of the people will always give them what they want. Isn't it the case when the wicked turn their ears from the truth and focus on the lie? But what are these leaders doing? They're setting themselves and they're taking counsel.

They are setting themselves, the Hebrew word translated set means to position. They're taking up a position. It is like a military position. They're standing fast. This is not a fit of passion. Sometimes we think of anger or wrath or raging that somebody has lost control, but not in this case.

This is something where they are doing it deliberately. They're setting themselves against with the intent to continue their opposition. They are setting themselves for war. And they're not only setting themselves, they're taking counsel together.

All of this is done deliberately. The raging, the plotting, the setting is all done on purpose. They're planning for it. It is not done in haste. It is the outcome of careful planning. We may think of Pharaoh and Annas.

When Pharaoh considered the fact that the Israelites were growing and prospering, he said, let us deal wisely with them. He took counsel with his wise men and leaders to destroy the Hebrew children, specifically the males.

And Annas, who was related to the high priest and had been high priest himself, saw the situation with Jesus getting out of hand. And he gathered together with his cronies and the religious leaders and he said, it is expedient that one should die for the nation.

They are taking counsel. And with sinners, all of their counsel is wise to evil. But what is the object of their setting themselves, of their taking counsel? We read here, it said, it is against the Lord and against his anointed.

All of this raging, all of this plotting, all of this setting is directed to the Lord and his anointed. But why? Why all this raging? Why the plotting? Why the purpose of setting themselves? What has caused this unity of the people with their leaders?

Well, we have it given to us right here in verse three. They say, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. They are rebelling against the Lord. They are saying, we will not have this man rule over us.

We will not submit. We will not have God define for us what male or female is, what young or old is, or what a marriage is, or who is righteous. We will not have it. They are saying, it is up to us to make something of life.

We will have the right to define what happiness really is, or define what success is, or define what life itself is. Notice that the verse starts with, let us, let us. It seems how often it is that when men rebel against God, it starts with a simple thought, let us.

We see this in several places in scripture. In the incident around the Tower of Babel, recounted for us in Genesis 11, three through four, they said, this is quote, they said, then they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.

They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the earth.

Again, we see it, as mentioned, with Pharaoh's plot against the Hebrew children, recounted for us in Exodus 1, 10, the children of Israel were getting to be too populous, and the Egyptians were afraid that if they had gone to war, the Hebrews may side with their enemies.

Come, let us deal wisely. Let us kill the boys, lest they become our enemy. And we see this again, even with the people of God. In the Exodus, when Moses had tarried on the mountaintop, when he had spent this time with the Lord, the people came together in the golden calf incident, said, let us make gods for ourselves.

For this Moses, we do not know what has become of him, and by extension, what had become of God. They are saying, we want freedom to do all our abominations. We want no law over us, no restraints on our behavior.

They're calling the perfect law of liberty, as James said, the law of God, they're calling them cords and bonds of slavery. They wanna give full vent to their lusts. Paraphrasing Ephesians 2, they want to walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now is working in the sons of disobedience.

They not only wanna walk in these things, they want to be sons of disobedience, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and by nature, make themselves children of wrath. They want to be their own gods.

They wanna be rid of all restraints. In other words, they wanted to be as God. Has anything changed? Had we not seen this before? We may remember that we have this constant, a constant temptation to be as God.

And not only this, not only do they imagine vanity, foolishness and folly, not only do they set themselves and make plans against God and his anointed, but they think it will be easy to do. They think they can easily break the bonds and the cords of God and cast them away.

They imagine themselves as Samson's, being able to snap the cords and cast them aside so very easily. Where there is much rage, Proverbs tells us, there is much folly. And where do we see this? Where do we see this behavior carried out?

Well, I mentioned the Tower of Babel incident. I mentioned Pharaoh, but we have seen it in the gospel accounts. We've seen it leading up to the crucifixion, when the religious leaders and the chief priests and the political leaders and the people all plotted against Jesus.

In Luke 23, it says, even Herod and Pilate, who were enemies, became united against Jesus. This is summarized for us in Acts 4, 27 and 28. For truly against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined to be done.

But we also saw this behavior against the apostles themselves in that same chapter four, where this Psalm is quoted. It is not only pointing to the conspiracy and confederacy against Jesus, but also against them in their preaching.

The same leaders forbade the apostles to speak and preach in the name of the Lord Jesus. And we've seen this throughout history, not only in the Roman Empire. In the early days of the Christian faith, the Roman Empire attempted to extinguish the faith, only to be conquered by it.

We've seen this in our own day, perhaps in the last hundred years plus, where communism tried to blot out the name of Christ. They wanted to be as God. They wanted to define good and evil, defining what history is and who man is.

Oh, how the nations have raged and the people imagined a vain thing. And we have seen the rebellion. We have seen the rebellion. We have seen that people are rebelling against God and against his anointed.

God's Laughter at the Schemes of the Wicked

But how does God respond? In verse four, we have this. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision. So the scene shifts here from the raging and the counsel of the leaders and the wicked against the Lord and against his anointed.

And the scene shifts to the throne room of God. And we see the Lord, the king, the rightful ruler of all things. As he considers what's going on, he laughs. The Lord sees what fools they are. Note the difference between the two scenes.

There's raging on the one hand and no activity on the other, just sitting. The tempest of raging is replaced with the quiet of the throne room. Think about the account of our Lord calming the sea. One moment raging, the next moment complete calm.

There's no taking of counsel, no setting, no plotting, just laughter. Have you learned to laugh with God? Have you seen the raging of the people around you, the enemies of God, the rulers and leaders and proper authorities?

Are you scared of what they may do? Do you have anxiety? Do you think that the rulers, the kings of the earth, the enemies of God will round us up and put us into concentration camps and make all manner of sport with us?

Or do you, with God, laugh at their vain plotting, laugh at their impudent plans? Matthew Henry, the commentator, noted, sinners' follies are the just sport of God's infinite wisdom and power. And those attempts of the kingdom of Satan, which in our eyes are formidable, in his are despicable.

The Lord does not take the trouble to rise up and do battle with them, but rather he despises them. He knows that they are absurd. He knows that they are impotent. He knows that they are irrational and that their efforts are futile.

He holds them in contempt. What shall man do to him? Can he frustrate his plans? Can man defeat his purposes? Can he injure his servants completely? No. No matter the confederations, no matter the combinations, no matter how powerful they may appear, they can do nothing to upset or change God's sovereign's plans, decisions, and purposes.

But notice the repetition here. We see laughter and derision, or derision. This Hebrew word comes from the same root and it is a repetition of laughter. And this repetition of this theme of laughter should give us great hope.

God's laughter, God's holding them in derision is shown that despite all the planning, all the plotting, all the scheming will come to naught. Many of you know that in Hebrew, when something is repeated, it is not just for importance, but it is a fact, a sure thing.

These plans of the wicked will come to an end. But let us now consider verses five and six. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure. Yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion.

After his laughter, he shall speak. He will answer them, but he need not strike a blow. The breath of his lips are enough. In 2 Thessalonians 2 .8, we have this. When the lawless one will be revealed, and make no mistake, the people who were raging, the leaders, they were lawless ones.

They did not want any law to bound them. They certainly did not want the law of God. Whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming. We see this again in Job 4 .9.

But by the blast of God, they perish. And by the breath of his anger, they are consumed. The breath of his lips are enough. Just when it appears that the enemies have the upper hand, then his word will go forth and destroy them.

But what is God's response to all this? How does he answer the enemies? How does he address their raging and their imagining? How does he speak to the ones who set themselves against him and against his anointed?

He says this. Yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. The very thing that they were hoping to do with themselves, God says, I have done it. I have set my king. Isaiah 59 .19 says, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of God will lift up a standard against them.

And what is that standard? The Lord Jesus Christ, the king set upon Zion. The very thing that the enemy wanted is to take over. The opportunity to set up shop for themselves, to rule and make laws and decide right from wrong, good and evil.

They saw the opportunity to rule for themselves. Yet, God says, I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. When God's will is done, man frets in vain. God has set his king, the kings of the earth, the presidents and prime ministers of the earth, the potentates and dictators of the earth are nothing compared to our king.

I have set my king. The nations of this world, the rulers are accounted as nothing compared to Christ. Isaiah 40 verse 15 says this, behold, the nations are a drop in a bucket and are accounted as small dust on the scales.

They may look powerful to us, but not to God. Unlike the imaginations of the people and their leaders who thought it would be an easy thing to break the bonds and cords of God, God's will is an easy thing for him.

He has spoken it and it is done. Now let us turn to verse seven. In verse seven, we read, I will declare the decree. The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you. This is where the anointed speaks.

We have looked into the councils of the wicked. We have looked into the throne room of God and now another is speaking to us. I declare the decree. The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you.

This is the anointed of God. This is the king of God, declaring his rights of sovereignty and warning against rebellion and their impending doom. And not only does this refer to Christ's kingship, just a quick aside, this particular verse is quoted in Hebrews 1, five, establishing Christ as preeminent in all things as the king, but in Hebrews 5, five, we also read this verse quoted, so also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest, but it was he who said to him, you are my son.

Today, I have begotten you. It establishes Jesus as king and as priest. This is further evidence that this psalm is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, the preeminence of Christ in all things as prophet, priest, and king.

Christ acts as a king towards us and toward the father as a priest on our behalf. God has laughed at the wicked. Now Christ, the anointed, who had been declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, we read in Romans 1, four.

The Lord Jesus speaks and seems to say to the raving, the raging, their arrogant claims, what we read in Psalm 46, 10, be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted on the earth or in the earth.

The declaration was a direct conflict of what sinful man wants. Sinful man wants dominion. Sinful man wants to be his God. This has been true from the very beginning. In Genesis 3, verses four and five, we read of the original temptation of our first parents.

And the devil said, when we read here, the serpent who is the devil said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.

That's the temptation, to be like God. But the one who is speaking to them is God. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. This is the heir, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is, as God says, my son.

Hebrews one, verses one through three, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things.

Through him, whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

This is Emmanuel, God with us. We may remember in Isaiah nine, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This is clearly pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. But let us now turn our eyes to verse eight. Ask of me, and this is still the anointed, quoting the father. We'll go back to verse seven. I will declare this decree.

The Lord said to me, now quote, 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. It was a common practice in times of old where great kings to ask favor of the ones that they wanted to bestow a favor upon.

We know this in several instances. We can see this in Esther five, three, where we read this. And the king said to her, that is Esther, what do you wish, Queen Esther? What is your request? I will give it to, it will be given to you up to have the kingdom.

And we know that this is something that was promised by an oath. We think of even perverted Herod would do this. It was a common practice. You remember when Herod was at this feast, and he had the daughter of his brother's wife dancing in front of him, and then he promised to her with an oath to give her whatever she wanted.

But this is a different kind of promise. This is a promise from God. Jesus had been asked, and it will be given to him. Note that his enemies are even his inheritance. Not only does the Lord laugh at the wicked, not only will all the plans and plotting of the nations and kings come to nothing, but they shall be subjects to the anointed.

Remember the temptation of our Lord recounted for us in Matthew 4, 8, we read this. Again, the devil took him up on an exceeding high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and of their glory, and he said to them, all these things I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me.

We need not think that somehow having all the kingdoms given to the Lord Jesus Christ was the bad thing. No, it was an illegitimate giving. They were not Satan's to give. But here, the anointed is asked, what would he receive, the kingdoms of the world and of their glory?

He was going to receive them in a different way, by the crucifixion. You may be saying to yourself, well, when did this all happen? We see it. When did it happen? I believe this happened after the ascension.

Daniel has a vision of this event for us, which is recounted in Daniel 7, 13 and 14. I was watching in the night vision to behold, one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him.

Then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him, his dominion as an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away and his kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed.

Think of that other vision in Daniel, the great statue of gold and silver and bronze and iron and clay and the stone not cut with hands coming down and destroying the statue and filling the earth. At the ascension of our Lord, there was a great victory parade, which I believe is recounted for us in Psalm 24, verses seven and eight.

We read this, lift up your heads, oh, you gates and be lifted up you everlasting doors. And the king of glory shall come in. Who is this king of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle.

Excuse me, lift up the ancient gates.

And allow the king of glory to come in. And what was the victory that was being celebrated? The cross. And it was an unexpected victory, was it not? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2, 8, which none of the rulers of this age knew.

What didn't they know? That the cross would be their doom. For had they known, Paul says, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Talk about the heathen raging. Talk about people plotting in vain.

What didn't they know? That I have set my king on my holy hill and I have given him the kingdoms of this world. And remember, this is not a future event. Revelations 11, 15 says this, the kingdoms of this world have become, past tense, the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.

And he shall reign forever and ever. And you should be hearing that refrain from Handel's Messiah ringing in your ears. And he shall reign forever and ever. But let us look on further. In verse nine, we read this, and you shall break them with the rod of iron and you will dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.

Verse five and nine go together. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure. You shall break them with a rod of iron and you will dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.

This, when he shall become angry in his wrath, he shall break them with the rod of iron. Unlike what the heathen thought, that it would be easy to break the cords, this will be as easy as breaking a clay pot with an iron rod.