God's Response to Rebellious Leaders

I do commend you on your openness and allowing people you've never seen before to speak. It's very similar to the Jewish tradition. You may recall that Paul and Silas or Barnabas would be invited to come forth and speak when they were visiting a synagogue they'd never been to before.

So I did have to use Google to find the location this evening, but I'm glad it worked. And it's because you all had disguised the place. You changed the light post out in the parking lot, and that's just enough to just completely throw some of us off.

So it is good to be back, though I will admit that being at 7 ,500 feet in Colorado for lengthy periods of time, it's nice and cool. Nice, cool breezes and short afternoon showers. Lots of green stuff, very, very different than here.

Psalm 2 and the Rebellion of the Nations

But we're back, we're back. So I actually, if you'd like to turn your Bibles to the Psalter, Psalm 2, actually, I looked at, I made plans to to use this text. And then afterwards I started thinking and I went, where are we in the Psalter?

I was a little concerned that maybe last week or something you all did Psalm 2 and this was going to be bad. But actually, it was probably the first week that I missed, which I think I missed the Wednesday before I left.

So that may be why. But hopefully taking a little different tack, even if I don't, it would be at least an educational and interesting experience to compare. The comments, given that Pastor Frey and I did not discuss any of these things, there was no collusion or anything like that.

But I started thinking today, it's sort of hard not to at this point in our culture and nation's history of texts where God addresses men and especially kings and rulers and those in positions of authority who purposefully stand against God and against his ways.

And there are there are texts, there are numerous texts like that. There are numerous texts and say in the prophets where you have a specific application to Israelite kings and and to the rebellion that was theirs.

That's that's true. But when you think about the classical texts, Psalm 2 is truly one of them, because you'll notice that it's not addressed specifically to the nation of Israel. It says, why are the nations in an uproar?

The Gentile nations, why are the nations in uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? And so you have a text here that really has direct relevance to looking into the relationship between a governmental system, between rulers and peoples who are purposely and specifically rebelling against God's truth and God's plans and then God's attitude toward them.

And Psalm 2 addresses that. So let's let's read through it again. Why are the nations in uproar and the peoples devising a vain or empty thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against his his Mashiach, his anointed one, his Messiah, saying, let us tear their feathers apart and cast away their cords from us.

He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. Then he will speak to them in his anger and terrify them in his fury, saying, but as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.

I will surely tell the decree of Yahweh. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance in the very ends of the earth as your possession.

You shall break them with rod of iron. You shall shatter them with like earthenware. Now, therefore, O kings, show discernment, take warning of judges of the earth, worship Yahweh with reverence and rejoice in trembling.

Do homage to the son that he not become angry and you perish in the way and his wrath may soon be for his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him. Now, of course, just in these few small verses, there are a number of items that call for our attention.

We're not going to be able to deal with all of them in any meaningful way. But right at the beginning, we really get an idea of the background here. You have the nations in an uproar and the peoples and peoples and nations very often in Hebrew poetry.

These are it's a form of parallelism where you're expanding upon the meaning of something where we're primarily talking about the. Gentile nations throwing off the rulership of God, and that leads us immediately before we can even think about the king of the earth and the rulers that they are taking counsel against Yahweh and his anointed now.

I've said many times, I'll say it again, just so you make sure to remember it. One of the most dangerous places for a Christian, spiritually speaking, is a Christian bookstore and especially in the commentary section.

And if you were to look up the various commentaries, especially more modern commentaries, but even some of the older ones, you'll be immediately faced with a number of discussions of, well, what did this phrase mean?

We will be inappropriately warned against just automatically reading one particular understanding into the term, looking backwards through New Testament eyes. Yes, yes, we I understand the warning. We need to first understand what it said to its original audience and then allow for fulfillment and things like that.

But some of the options, there's really only only three when you think about it. One is the anointed as in the people of Israel as a whole. And there are some places in Isaiah where the people of Israel are viewed in this way, even as the servant of the Lord in some contexts or more specifically in the king.

Of the people of Israel, because the king would be anointed and so he would have that position of leadership, and so that's that's understandable on that level. And of course, you go down to and I have for six months for me, I even saw my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.

He said to me, you're my son that I had begotten you. These were often interpreted and these phrases used in the kingship passages in the Old Testament kingship psalms where the king of Israel is being described.

But we know that when we look at these kingship songs that they are never fully fulfilled in any one king. And what's interesting is the Jewish people during the intertestamental period wrote a lot of literature and they recognize the same thing.

They recognize that none of the kings in the line of David, even if they saw a initial application to them, they they recognize that many of the things that were said seem to point to something greater, something farther down the road to where this one king, this one Solomon or whoever it might be, was but a rather dim representation.

And hence, there was a lot of discussion amongst the Jews prior to the time of Christ of of what these texts would mean. Messianically, they they were looking for a messiah because they didn't they didn't look at this and go, oh, yes, there's a messiah.

It was one of the ancient kings were done. No, they recognized that there was something more. There would be a greater fulfillment. And certainly we know that Psalm two is used a number of times in the New Testament where the New Testament writers will take these words and will make application to demonstrate that the one ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and very ends the earth possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron. Well, how is Jesus described in in one of the letters in Revelation as ruling over the nations of the rod of iron? And so it clearly became central to the preaching of the early church, the writing of the church, that especially this tax had its ultimate fulfillment and could only have its ultimate fulfillment in light of how small Israel was in comparison to all the nations of the world in the messiah.

And then obviously in the messiah's rule and reign over the world. Through the kingdom and that kingdom being his his people, it wasn't a military conquest by army and an addition of territories and things like that.

And so if we keep that in mind and recognize that, then possibly some light is shed upon our thinking. That is forced upon us by really these days, if we if we turn on a radio, if we turn on a computer, if we turn on a television screen.

Unless we're making a concerted effort to not listen to what's going on in our society and not listen to what's happening this evening in Philadelphia and so on and so forth, we cannot help but hear over and over again the nation's in an uproar and the people's devising a vain thing.

I mean, that term I was I was actually looking a little bit more. I'm not sure why I did. But when I was looking at this, I looked a little bit more at the Greek than I did at the Hebrew, the Greek translation, Greek Septuagint.

The Septuagint sometimes doesn't a really good job in rendering the Hebrew in certain in certain of the songs. And the term here, a vain thing, is that is that standard term for something is foolish or empty, foolish or empty.

And I cannot help but have been reminded both last week and this week in the conventions taking place, the vanity of man's wisdom outside of submission to God's truth. I don't care which side of the political aisle you're on.

If you open your mouth. And seek to engage your brain. And yet you are in rebellion against him in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Some of the things that I've said I've heard said by people on both sides of the aisle, vain things, empty thing, just just rhetoric and foolishness and such short sightedness and no ability to see the relationship between this thing and that thing because their worldview has no central focus.

It has no way of holding all this together. So many people want to do something over here and then they complain about things over here. They don't realize that what they want to do over here would make things over here a whole lot worse.

They don't even see how it's connected, just emptiness, foolishness, vain things. And yet they seem to feel so wise. It's like we've thrown off the yoke and that's exactly. Let us tear their feathers apart and cast away their cords from us isn't isn't that we see around us in so much of the educational system.

You know, we used to be bound by the worldview that said there was a God and there are certain inalienable rights. They come from God because we are the creatures of God. We're made in his image. Human life is is is has transcended value.

These are all the cords and the fetters of the old way of thinking. What's the term today? Progressive, progressive. That's the term today. And it's like we are progressing from what away from the day of darkness.

When we were bound and shattered, their cords of this old worldview held us back. And now we've only broken through the glass ceiling. Yeah, that's what we've done. And I hear this over and over and over again, and it's all around us.

And and this is it says the kings of the earth take their stand. The rulers take counsel together. And so there's there's this elite. There's these people of power and authority. And there's no neutrality toward Yahweh.

And his anointed one, and when you think about it, what what do we say that is so radically offensive to the world around us? It's our confession of faith. Jesus, Jesus is Lord. And we shouldn't just mean that he's my personal lord, and that's just my snuggly feeling.

That's true, but the proclamation is Jesus is Lord of all. Every nation, every person, he's the maker, he's the creator. It's in him. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. He's the one who made all things are in heaven or every power and dominion.

Authority is under his control. And that is so offensive to these kings and these rulers who want to cast off these fetters. They don't want to be bound by the fact that they're creatures under the lordship of someone else.

And they're going to be judged by that someone else. So they don't want that. And so it is, I think, appropriate to point out that the the only way to really see a full fulfillment of this type of taking a stand and taking counsel against Yahweh and against his anointed one is in the context of the ministry of Jesus Christ and then his resurrection into glory at the right hand of the father.

And then the proclamation of the church, it goes out and says, Jesus Christ is Lord. And he sends us into all nations and he gives us authority. And it is that authority that they they rebel against. They don't want to have anything to do with it.

They want to present a different view of man, a man who is merely an animal, an accident of of of uncontrollable cosmic forces that have no purpose and no end and no transcendent meaning. Well, how does God respond to this?

God's Response to Rebellious Leaders

This is how God responds. I think sometimes we take the idea, well, we should be like God. Well, in many ways, that's a true statement, but God sees everything. God has perfect knowledge of the thoughts and intentions of men's hearts to keep that in mind, because it says he who sits in the heavens last, the Lord scoffs at them.

So I think the first thing we have to take from that. Is that God does not feel threatened. By the combining of the kings and the rulers in the seeking to throw off his kingly control, I think sometimes we we go, well, I need to laugh at these things.

I just stop at these things. Well, in some ways that the foolishness of man needs to be laughed at and scoffed at. But that's not what this is about. And I wouldn't I wouldn't derive that from this text.

What it is, is that he who sits in the heavens laughs because, you see, those upon earth have no authority in that realm. They don't seem to understand the true authority is is delegated in the way that God has created this universe to exist.

Is it any wonder, then, why you have the the motto coming out of the 1960s and 70s and that in the musical form, only sky above. There's no heaven, there's no God, there's no rulership, there's no authority, it's just it's just an ever thinning atmosphere out into nothingness, out into a place where if we're not protected, we will immediately die of the lack of oxygen pressure or all the lethal radiation one way or the other.

It's going to get us. And for the naturalists and materialists, it's all about there is nothing above us. And so he who sits in the heavens last, he scoffs at them because he realizes just it's it's the foolishness.

What does what does the scientist, why is the scientist concerned if? Well, I raised thirty five thousand Drosophila, Llanogaster fruit flies my senior year in college. And doing genetic experiments with them and it would be like if I look through that microscope and I saw a fruit fly that was angry at me for having done experiments, not much the fruit fly can do about that, not much at all.

We don't like that. Unless we desire to be submitted to him who sits upon the throne. And so God says that he will speak them in his anger and terrify them in his fury. He will make known his truth. He will is established the kingdom of the Messiah.

Yep. He gives the nations, even though they may be in rebellion, they're given as an inheritance and they will come. And verse nine says, you shall break them with rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earth.

And where here you have the same Jesus of the first few chapters of Revelation seen in his power ruling. He has authority. And so in light of that, now, therefore, kings show discernment, show some thought, show that you're thinking some things through.

Take warning, oh, judges of the earth, judges of the earth. Wow. I'm glad they're addressed. Take warning, oh, judges of the earth. Worship Yahweh with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the sun.

Do homage to the sun. That he not become angry and you perish in the way for his wrath may soon be kindled, how blessed are all who take refuge in him. Did you catch that? So many times that I think one of the problems in reaching out to the Muslim world is that very often the Jesus has been presented to them as the long haired hippie Jesus from the 1960s, who's carrying around a lamb and wearing Birkenstocks.

And when you present the Jesus of the Bible, who has a rod of iron and rules the nations and is their Lord and their maker, that provides the proper biblical basis for understanding the depth of his love and his mercy and his grace.

But if you don't have a balance, then you just get a bunch of sticky sentimentality. Do homage to the sun. This is addressed to the judges of the earth. Do homage to the sun. That he not become angry and you perish in the way for his wrath may soon be kindled.

There are many judges today that think that they are the highest authority in all of mankind. And a wise judge take warning of judges of the earth, worship Yahweh with reverence and rejoice in trembling.

Do homage to the sun that he not become angry and you perish in the way. Those are words that need to be heard. Those are words that need to be heard. I wonder how long it's going to be before if you say that you will be accused of hate crime.

It's interesting for his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him. One God, if you're in rebellion against him, is anger. But if you seek to take refuge in him, repentant heart, broken heart, worshipful heart, blessing, refuge.

Not two different gods, one God. So it just strikes me that almost every phrase in this particular psalm could be unpacked appropriately when God's people are observing a conspiracy of the rebellious.

We want to join together to throw off the yoke and the fetters of the only worldview that actually answers to man's experience, which is the worldview of scripture based upon God's revelation. Gives us tremendous insight and it gives us encouragement.

We have a message. Be warned. The wrath of the sun, but also encourages us. God is not concerned. He's still upon his throne. And we, therefore, can take refuge.