Raging World, Laughing God - Psalm 2 — Sam Caldwell

We'll take a break for a few weeks from our study of the Sermon on the Mount and go wherever the Lord takes us. And I wanted us to go to Psalm 2 today. And the name of this sermon, if you like, is Raging World, Laughing God.

Raging World, Laughing God. If my journal entries are right, we've read this psalm four times in the last two years in our prayer meetings. And it tends to come up in my heart when news events get difficult.

Viewing World Events Through Psalm 2

And I believe that's the right use for Psalm 2. When you see the world raging, when you see things going on that hurt your heart in the world, you should turn to Psalm 2 and seek to see everything that's happening in our world through the lens of this psalm.

We have a great need for this psalm. This last week, we had that horrific shooting in Nashville, horrific, horrific. A few weeks ago, we had the Asbury revival. Yesterday, there was purportedly this trans day of vengeance.

There are very weird things going on in our world. And we see people raging against God daily, daily in our world. The three sections of this psalm, if you like, would be this, a raging world, a laughing God, and a kissing church.

But we're not going to get to all of the psalm today. But think about those three sections with me for a second and how vital it is that we refresh our mind with those ideas. The world is raging, God looks at it and laughs, and thirdly, His church kisses.

We kiss the Christ. And those are the three things we want to see going on. When you see something in the news that hurts your heart, you want to go back to this psalm and say, okay, world is raging, but God is laughing at that, and we are called to kiss the Son.

Those are the stakes of psalm two. We might be in it for a week or two or three, I'm not sure. But let's read this incredible psalm. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine 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 bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. Amen. Amen. Lord Jesus, please show us Yourself from this psalm.

Please guide us, Lord, to consider every precious golden word of this psalm. Lord, please edify Your church through a study of this incredible psalm. And Lord, please get me out of the way and let us hear from Jesus Christ Himself today, by Your Holy Spirit.

Father, thank You that there's access to Your throne as we sit here today. And this is not vain. We're in an act of worship here, Lord, as we open Your Word. We're in an act of worship, enlarging our hearts, Lord, enlarging our hearts to see how this world actually works, enlarging our hearts, Lord, to have wisdom to go on and to persevere as Christians.

So we thank You, Lord. Please open up Your Word to us. Help us be like Bereans who don't just take what's said for granted, but who go home and seek to see if what's been preached is actually in Your Word.

Lord, help us to honor Your Word today. Enlighten us and refresh us with Your Word. In Christ's mighty name we pray. Amen. Amen. This psalm has three divisions. You might want to mark them out in your Bibles.

The Three Divisions of Psalm 2

The first one is verses 1, 2, and 3, which present the problem, the problem of a raging world. And then we have verses 4 through 9, which present God's response, God's response. And then we have verses 10 through 12, which present our response.

So that's pretty simple, is it not? The psalmist sets forth the problem, and then God Himself reacts to that problem. And then finally, the psalmist tells us how we should respond to that problem. I don't believe we're going to get all the way through this psalm today, but hopefully let's try to get through the first six verses or so.

And again, my title for you today is Raging World, Laughing God. We see the raging world in verses 1 through 3, and we see our laughing God in verses 4 through 6. Let's study this. And before I even give us those two points, let me just give you the application for this sermon right at the start.

Here's our application. View all of life through the lens of this psalm. View every difficult news event that comes up through the lens of this psalm. That's our application. When things come up, when you start to become confused about where the world is going, when you start to wonder what in the world is happening on the streets right outside of our homes and apartments, go back to Psalm 2.

Let's train ourselves. Go back to Psalm 2. Pray Psalm 2. Learn Psalm 2. So that's the application. Very simple today. We look at all of the world through this lens. Let's look first at the raging world, verses 1 through 3.

The Raging World and the Emptiness of Its Thoughts

And we're going to go word for word and study this psalm together. Verse 1. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Is that not a good question, brethren? Why do the heathen rage?

The psalmist is asking a question that's on our minds almost, what, daily now? Why do the people around us rage and imagine a vain thing? You could sum it up this way. What in the world is going on? What in the world happened in Nashville?

That was such a horrific tragedy. What was going on? Why is the world raging? That's the question of verse 1. Why do the heathen rage? That first question is external. And the word that's used there is the same word that's used for when a horse rears up and starts neighing.

Gets on its hind legs and goes, Whinnies and neighs like that. That's the verb right here. Why are the heathen just neighing and going crazy like a wild horse? Is it not a good question? That's external.

So when you look at the first half of this verse, you say, I can hear them. I can see them on the streets. I can hear them on news reports. I see the people around me literally going crazy like a wild stallion.

Right? We can hear it. We can see it. That's external. The second half of verse 1 is internal. So look at it. And the people imagine a vain thing. So now he takes us not just into the news reports, but into people's minds.

And the psalmist tells us that deep in their hearts, they're imagining emptiness. The literal word in verse 1 is that the people are meditating a vain thing. Go back to psalm number 1 and look at verse 2.

And it says, The godly man's delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Now you come to psalm 2. And these people, the nations around us, are also meditating. But what are they meditating upon?

Upon emptiness. Literally, they're meditating emptiness. They're imagining a vain thing. Isn't that amazing? We see them on the outside. So now we're studying biblical psychology here. We see from the outside, and we see people going insane.

But here, the psalmist takes us into their hearts, and we realize, what are they doing all the time? What are they thinking about all the time? Well, vanity. Nothing. Nothingness. Emptiness. Do you all remember when you were in the world?

Do you all remember meditating upon vanity? Just upon things that don't matter at all? I remember, and I still go with lost family and extended family on vacations. And the central thing is always just food.

Just what's the next thing? What's the next thing we're going to eat? Just food. Food. Food. And then you relax for maybe an hour, and then it's, what's the next meal? Food. Food. What's the next meal?

Right? And it's like, well, why is that? The psalmist tells us right here. The people of the world, without Jesus, they're just meditating on emptiness. On nothingness. And this verse also ought to convict us for our own Christian lives.

Do we have times in our life where you say, I'm a Christian, but all of a sudden I realize, I've gone for hours just meditating on emptiness. On nothing. I've just been flicking through Facebook. I'm doing nothing.

I'm not redeeming the time. I'm not doing anything whatsoever. We want to make a marked difference between these heathens in verse 1, and the godly man back in Psalm 1 verse 2. We ought to say, no, I want to fill my life, and my thoughts, and my days, and my hours with God's law.

With beautiful things. With singing good songs. With having purpose. With redeeming the time. But here, well, just ask yourself that. Do you ever meditate a vain thing? Let's clean up those hours in our life.

Let's not be like these people. Let's be a people who redeem the time. That's the raging world, verse 1. There's so much to study, even right there. He tells us what's going on by asking this question.

Rebellion Against Yahweh and His Messiah

And now we get an answer to the question in verse 2. The question was, what's going on? Why are people raging? And here comes the answer, verse 2. This is why people are raging. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed.

So why are people raging? Why are people full of emptiness? Because they're actively setting themselves against God and His anointed. And you all see that word there, His anointed? That's Hebrew, Meshiach, or Messiah.

So they've set themselves up against who? The Lord, Yahweh, and His Christ, His Messiah, Jesus Christ Himself. Another thing to notice about verse 2, it speaks of the kings and the rulers. And most commentators will say that this verse is using metonymy.

You all know the figure of speech called metonymy? It's where you take a part for a whole. And the frequent example is, you say, the sails are coming into the harbor. Many sails coming into the harbor.

And what do you mean? Well, many ships are coming into the harbor, right? Here, He speaks of kings and rulers. And what He's really speaking of is all the heads of the earth and all the people that come under those heads.

It's a way of saying everyone in this world. The kings, the rulers, all their subjects, all their nations, what are they doing? They're setting themselves and taking counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed.

Now, there's a wonderful diagnostic here that even if we don't get very far in our study of this psalm today, I want everybody to get this. When you see people raging, what does the psalmist tell us about the answer to that rage?

Well, that rage is all based upon the way they are exercising their own will and responsibility against Yahweh and His Messiah. Okay? We need then to analyze each situation where we see people raging.

And this can make us better defenders of the Gospel. What we need to ask is, how precisely are they against the Lord and against Christ? Okay? If you want to sum that up, we could say, how are they against a Creator and a Redeemer?

And then we start to get really an advanced apologetic, because you look at these raging nations and people around us and you say, okay, what do they hate about a Creator? And secondly, what do they hate about a Redeemer?

You see how useful that could be if we start to think that way? This woman, Audrey Hale, who murdered six people in Nashville. Let's first ask, okay, why was she raging? Where did that rage come from?

Well, let's apply our psalm, verse two. She set herself and she took counsel against Yahweh and His Messiah. Amen? Okay? Now let's ask a little bit deeper. What did she have against a Creator? Well, we see in the very act of murder that she decided that she wanted to be the one who gives life and takes away life.

No? Someone who is set on murder is dead set against a Creator God, because the Creator God is sovereign over when life begins and when life ends. No? I remember being a suicidal lost person and the thought was, I can take my life whenever I want.

I can end this thing. Right? But again, we return to our psalm and we say, what's at the heart of that? It's hatred for Yahweh. It's hatred for a Creator God. Amen? You all see that? Now, go a little bit deeper again with this woman, Audrey Hale.

What about Christ? What were her feelings about Christ? We don't know yet, but I can, I think we could all predict that when her manifesto is released, and I do hope it is released, we're going to hear something about workspace of salvation in that manifesto.

And how do I know that? Because she set herself against Yahweh and against His one and only Redeemer, the Messiah. So just watch, when it comes out, you'll see things about workspace salvation, about our own goodness.

It's just inevitable. Okay? And so this is what we're learning from this psalm here. Another sneaking thought that comes into the mind of the unbeliever. They might not come out and say, yeah, I'm against Yahweh and His Messiah.

But they might say something like this. I know what God really wants. Do any of you remember being lost and thinking that way? I thought that way all the time. You're not denying God necessarily. You're not making any claims about the God of the Bible.

But deep down inside, what are you saying? You're saying, I just know He doesn't want what they all say He wants. I know that His will is a little bit more like my will. Right? So deep down inside, we're saying, God, even this Creator God, is more like me.

And God, in His redemptive plan, He's more like me. And He will forgive me. And I can decide on what terms I get to heaven. Those are the really deep thoughts of the lost person. Are you all learning with me how to analyze the world around us?

Just from verses one and two? It's very, very vital. I want to share something with you from Fox News. It's very rare that I would quote Fox News. But this is from Tucker Carlson. And he looked at that event, which was happening in Nashville.

And he said something that was so spot on that made me praise the Lord, that he was, I don't think Tucker Carlson is a Christian, but he was preaching pure gospel, right on Fox News. I want you to listen to this.

And listen to how, what he's analyzing is exactly what we're talking about here. You know this woman who shot up Christians and precious Christian children at this Presbyterian school. You know that deep in her heart, she had set herself against a Creator and a Redeemer.

No, the biblical Creator and Redeemer. Listen to what Tucker Carlson said. What he preached, rather. The trans movement is the mirror image of Christianity, and therefore its natural enemy. For Christianity, the price of admission is admitting that you're not God.

Amen? Christians openly concede that they have no real power over anything. For that matter, they have very little personal virtue. They will tell you to your face that they are sinful and helpless. This is on Fox News.

Listen to how he preaches the gospel. Saved a wretch like me, goes the most famous Christian hymn ever written in English. The trans movement takes the opposite view. Trans ideology claims dominion over nature itself.

We can change the identity we were born with, they will tell you. Christians can never agree with this statement because these are powers they believe God alone possesses. Amen? That's Yahweh. That's the Creator God.

That failure to acknowledge a trans person's dominion over nature incites and enrages some in the trans community. People who believe they are God can't stand to be reminded that they are not. So Christianity and transgender orthodoxy are wholly incompatible theologies.

Amen? That's quite the statement. That's quite the gospel presentation. And I praise God that that's happening on our news stations right now. We need to learn to think with this sort of prescience, this sort of clarity about what's going on around us.

We need to learn as we seek to go out on the streets more and more that we see the rage but we have to identify where the rage is coming from. And then we need to make clear statements about how exactly do they hate the Creator and how exactly do they hate the one and only plan of redemption.

Amen? We might not get very far in this sermon but I want you all to, let's go a little bit deeper here. Kiara and I were doing a little study yesterday of the difference between non-Christian music and Christian music.

Creation, Redemption, and the Shape of Music

And we compared Joni Mitchell's music with Rich Mullins' music. Now look, this is interesting. Think about this. Both of these people, I don't know if you know them, Joni Mitchell, both of them use a ton of allusions to nature.

They have these beautiful pictures of nature coming up in all of their songs. Joni Mitchell, a lost person on the one hand. She's still alive though, so pray that she gets saved. And then Rich Mullins, a follower of the cross on the other hand, right?

And we just started thinking about the difference between their songs. Think about what happens. Both of them are pointing, let's say, to a beautiful river and skating on the river and then the birds that come out and then the animals and the sunsets.

The one who does not have the creator God, what happens in Joni Mitchell's songs? As Francis Schaeffer would say, the things are not in their right place. That's what happens when you take the creator out of your songs.

If you go to Rich Mullins' songs, he's talking about, let's say, a partridge over here, a bird over here. But all of those things are referred to as creations, wonderful creations of the creator Yahweh.

And he's putting them in their right place and he's seeing that humans are actually more valued than that creation, right? And he's sort of structuring the world in his songs in this beautiful way. Joni Mitchell, you take away any thought of our creator God and all of a sudden, I love this phrase, things are not in their right place.

You have, she talks in one song about this winding river and she says, I wish I had a river that I could skate away on it. And you find that God's beautiful creation, this river, is all about her self-aggrandizement.

It's all about how she can use it to heal her own psyche, her own head, how she can use it for her own romantic tale. You see the difference? You take the creator God out and all of a sudden, things are just out of whack.

They're in weird places. Both songwriters refer to lips and heads and eyes and parts of the body. But for one, it's used for personal romance and for the other, it's used for praise. So that's what you do when you take Yahweh out of it.

Now what about when you take his Meshiach out of it, when you take his Messiah, his Christ, out of it? What I notice is that you get a false sense of self. All of a sudden, Joni Mitchell's songs become self-obsessed.

They become almost, it's like she's her own trumpeter and she's the one who's figuring out what matters in the world. And then what happens when you take out a Redeemer is that all of a sudden, there's no sense of thanksgiving and there's no sense of wonder.

Right? So the minute we come to learn that we need Jesus, that we need a Redeemer, that we need a Messiah, we also say, whoa, I'm thankful for everything around me. I'm thankful for that Lord. And then everything starts to be filled with wonder, no?

Because it's not only are you thankful for it, but you're amazed that you even got the chance to glimpse it and that you're not in hell. Amen? When you take that element of the Messiah out, you get self-obsession and you get a Savior complex.

And it's really fascinating to watch as you compare secular music with good Christian music. So we've looked at verses 1 and 2, and I want to again give you that as a diagnostic. You look at someone and you ask, why do you hate the Creator?

Why do you hate the one and only Redeemer? And then you start to get somewhere with someone. Then look at verse 3. There's something more that happens here. They say, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.

Sin's Progression From Rebellion to Approval

How are people reacting to Yahweh and His Christ? First they're saying, I will not serve that God. It's the chant of Luke chapter 19 and verse 14. Do you all remember that little parable where they say, we will not bow down to that man.

That's what they're saying right here. They're saying, if that God has a law, I will break it. If that God has a gospel, I will break it. I must break it. I will not submit to it. And then look at the progression of sin in verse 3.

It's not only let us break it, but let us cast it away as far from us as possible. And we also want to look for that as we're diagnosing the world around us. You see people breaking what God says. That's stage 1.

But stage 2 is, you throw it as far away from you as heavenly possible. We see the very same thing in that last verse of Romans 1. Do you all remember that? Where people are not only doing sinful things, but they're what?

Giving hearty approval to those who practice them. We want to look for that sort of progression deeper and deeper into sin in those around us. That's the raging world. The raging world. Let's look for a moment at God's response.

The Laughing God and His Appointed King

Verse 4. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. And this is what he says, verse 6.

Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I think what we're going to do is come back to this psalm in a future week. But let me just give you a few little inklings of what happens right here.

Look at God's response. Verse 4. The one who sits in the heavens shall laugh. We need a deep concept in our minds of a God who, on the one hand, so loves the world that he gave his only begotten son to redeem it.

And on the other hand, when the world rages against him, what is he doing? He laughs. He mocks him. He holds it in derision. He is nonplussed. He's not impressed. Isn't that quite amazing? We need to be able to see that our God is reacting in that way.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. And I'm just going to end with this. And we'll come back to this psalm. In verses 1, 2, and 3, we have diagnosed what this world's rage looks like. What we start to get a picture of in verses 4, 5, and 6 is that God, the Father, points to his son.

And he says, this is my plan, that everything happens through him. And in effect, what God here is saying is, there's no other plan. This is plan A, and there is no plan B. And he points to his son. And he tells everyone, you look at my son.

Look at verse 6. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. We'll have to study that more, exactly what that means. But consider just this. He says, that's it. That's it. That's the answer. And how is he saying that?

Just think about this. He's saying that in wrath. We often want to say that our God is offering up Jesus in mercy. He's offering up Jesus in grace. But right here, he's proclaiming his son as an act of wrath.

And it's very, very startling. And the picture we get is of a world raging around us, and God pointing to his son. And when everybody says, I don't care at all. I want to continue raging. God, the Father, says, that's all I'm going to offer you.

And if you don't accept it, you receive my wrath. That's all I'm going to offer you. And if you don't accept it, you receive my sore displeasure. It's remarkable here to see the gospel of Jesus Christ presented from the stance of the Father's wrath.

I'll leave it there, and I just want to give us those tools to deal with what's happening in the world around us. We've covered the raging world, and we've started to see our God's response is what? The laughing God.

He says, this is nothing to me. And regardless of what you do, that's still my answer. My king, my son is still my answer. That gives us a backbone when we start to evangelize. And when we, for years and years, if you think about it, just in this church, for let's say six years, we've given the gospel to people and given the gospel to people and given the gospel to people.

Persevering in Evangelism While God Points to His King

And what have they said? They continue just to rage around it, just to rage around it and say, I don't want it. I don't want to come in there. I don't want to hear more of that. I don't want to follow that God.

But then consider this. Our Father says, yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I'm still pointing to him, and there's no other answer. And I'm not going to help you in any other way, raging world.

And he just keeps pointing. That can give us a strength in evangelism, can it not? Let's just keep pointing with our Father and our king on the holy hill of Zion. And let's keep pointing, but no one comes in, but no one receives him.

But we keep pointing, and we keep pointing. It's really a frightening message, but it's also a beautiful and a glorious message that points to God in his sovereignty sitting in the heavens. I'll give you this application one more time.

This is what we're going to work on as we study this psalm. View all of life through this lens. View all of the news events around us through this lens. And take comfort in this, that God has this whole world mapped out.

God knows exactly what's happening. And he sees these three elements happening always. World raging, God laughs in response, and God calls us to kiss his Son. Amen? Lord, we thank you just for opening the eyes of our hearts here and teaching us something about how we ought to react to this world around us.

Lord, please do help us to use this diagnostic, Lord. Help us not to be flabby in how we approach this world. Help us, Lord, to see the world raging and to ask, Why do you hate Yahweh? Why do you hate the Messiah?

Help us, Lord, to ask these simple questions. Equip us, please, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.