Psalm 2
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Last week, we looked at Psalm 1, and we started with a question. Why was Psalm 1, Psalm 1? Who put it there? Why? This week, we're going to look at Psalm 2. We could ask the same question. Why is Psalm 2, Psalm 2? That is, why is it placed here in the Psalter, right after Psalm 1? Although many think that Psalm 1 and Psalm 2, maybe for just a short while, were just one psalm.
But why is it placed here? These two psalms underpin the entire Psalter. They provide context and framework for all 150 psalms. They give God's big picture view of us and our world. There's some differences between Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. Psalm 1 is local. That is, its focus is on the covenant community, whereas Psalm 2 goes international.
It's like the domestic and international terminals in an airport. If Psalm 1 tells us how to live a life that matters in the world, Psalm 2 tells us where the world is going. So where is the world going? Psalm 2 tells us the world has been promised to the Messiah. And if you know where the world is going, you can plan accordingly.
That's the theme for Psalm 2. The world has been promised to the Messiah. Plan accordingly. The world has been promised to the Messiah. plan accordingly if you're using Pew Bibles Psalm 2 is found on 448 and it'd be good if you could look at the text as we go through this sermon have four points three verses each mankind verses 1 through 3 God verses 4 through 6 Christ verses 7 through 9 and response verses 10 through 12.
Man, God, Christ response. If you read Greg Gilbert's book, What is the Gospel? That outline may sound vaguely familiar. Let's read Psalm 2 together. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us he who sits in heaven laughs the Lord holds them in derision then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying as for me I have set my king on Zion my holy hill I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage
and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers 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, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. So point one, mankind and the situation that we're in in the first three verses. So Psalm 2 starts with a question. We've been talking about questions. It starts with a question.
Why do the nations rage? Second question, why do the peoples plot? Even though they're rage and plots are pointless and vain. Well, of course, the theological answer to that is we're separated from God. Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians, not only are we separated from God, but we're at war with God. We're enemies of God in our natural state, which is to say we're born that away. Leanne agreed to take little Ruth, our granddaughter, for her 18-month vaccinations.
Three shots. The first shot made Ruth shocked. The second shot made her cry. The third shot made her furious I mean she screamed with uncontrollable rage she screamed angry screams as she left the doctor's office the nurse scared scurried away and when Leanne put her in the car seat fists clenched mouth open wide screaming in anger she still screamed and when they stopped at Kroger she was screaming she yelled angry red-faced screams in the shopping cart and didn't stop until the man at the deli counter took pity on Leanne and gave Ruth a cookie Leanne, of course, had a theological thought it's not just Ruth's flaming red hair and the temper that seems to go with it it's that she's a 21 pound cute little sinner nobody taught her ungodly rage
it comes with a package of our human condition and it only gets bigger a lot bigger a lot worse I've seen the world's rage up close and personal things I can't unsee my family was caught in riots in Kenya during a violent election season perhaps one of the most dangerous things we ever saw I remember hiking through mass grave after mass grave in the highlands of Central America those murdered from the Guatemalan Civil War driving past mile after mile of refugee camps in Kurdistan from those driven from their homes in Syria.
And those were the fortunate ones who avoided the killing programs of a paranoid government. Just a sampling, just a sampling of the world's rage I've seen personally. William James said, history is a blood-stained record of human ferociousness. In verse 2, we see that this rage was orchestrated by schemes and conspiracies and plots by the rulers of the world who sit together and make plans. The kings of the earth sit themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, verse 2.
It reminds us of Psalm 1 that we looked at last week, whereas the scoffers, the wicked, the insiders sit together and tell the world what to think and to do. Rulers in today's world are anyone who has power. So not only kings and presidents and dictators, but corporate leaders and journalists and heads of NGOs and influencers on TikTok and moms and dads and many, many others. anyone with power so the plan of the powerful is not just rage without a purpose it's far beyond being mad because you got stuck with a needle it's rage against God and his anointed just a quick note about this word anointed if you take the Hebrew word for anointed and you say it in English you get Messiah if you translate the same word into Greek you get the word Christo or Christ. So whether you're saying Messiah or
Christ or the anointed one you're saying the same thing. Psalm 2 is unique in the Old Testament in that it is the only place where the three titles of our Savior come together. Anointed one, God's king and the son of God and that is who they are raging against and it is an ongoing struggle that will continue to the end of time until Jesus will put an end to it according to the book of revelation now this flies in the face of course of modern secular thought drawn from the enlightenment that the world is getting better and better Theodore Parker said the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. President Obama had that exact quote stitched into the carpet of the Oval Office, and it gave rise to Obama's oft-repeated phrase,
the right side of history. Of course, there's some truth in the idea that one day there will be justice, perfect justice, but not because human society naturally evolves over time, moving away from ignorance and oppression towards rationality and liberty and great ethical standards, which is sort of inspiring, but impossible. Impossible without God's guiding hand. Besides, it's hard to believe we're getting better when we look at the empirical data of world history.
Our weapons of war and destruction make Gungas Khan look like a total amateur. and so what is the goal of this rebellion the answer is in verse 3 let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us so we see it's not merely that mankind rages with hate and violence towards each other that's there too of course but the underlying reason of human rage in the world is a concerted effort to knock God off his throne.
It's a rebellion cast as a freedom movement. This quest for autonomy is a war against God that even unites enemies. We see it most clearly in the Bible when the Romans and the Jewish leaders avowed enemies conspired together to crucify Christ. In the end, though you may not always see it, the world hates the Lord, detests the Messiah, and despises the Messiah's people.
And Jesus promises this. Jesus said, if they persecuted me, they will persecute you, in John 15. And that's why there is such ongoing religious persecution of believers. The first persecution was outside of the Garden of Eden where Cain murdered his brother out of jealousy over Abel's accepted worship and not his. For the life of me as I've lived in the Middle East, the only way I could make sense of the systemic, unending persecution of peaceful, good Christian people was by understanding Psalm 2 and John 15.
We live in a world that is insane with rage against God and His anointed. There's a certain kind of insanity in those persecuting Christians. North Korea, an atheistic state where the leadership has been deified, which means Christianity is a threat. You can be thrown in a gulag in North Korea just for owning a Bible. China is a constitutionally atheistic country.
Eritrea, totalitarian state, represses evangelical Christians. Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Saudi Arabia enforce strict, theocratic opposition to Christianity. Together, these ten governments govern about two billion people. Just ten governments. That means just over 20%, roughly one in five people on earth are living under regimes which have official, hostile stances towards the practice of Christianity, which systematically oppresses believers.
And there are many other countries that persecute Christians, perhaps not as officially as the ones I named, just ten, but officially persecute Christians, but they allow it. The world is full of hatred, rebellion, and violence towards God, his Messiah, and his people. So how do we plan to live our lives accordingly in light of the understanding of the world's condition?
Well, expect opposition first. Even irrational opposition to your faith. Persecution of God's people is a given. Secondly, respond with boldness and gospel love. The response of the early church that we read about in Acts 4, that Leanne read, is to pray and to be bold and to proclaim Christ in the face of opposition. And always keep in mind how this ends, that God is on his throne and he has given the world to his Messiah and in the end we will answer to him.
Which leads us to our next point, God. Starting in verse 4. I'm going to read these three sections, four sections together. He who sits in heaven, heavens, laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. In verses 4 through 6, God's response is a bit of a surprise.
He laughs. God sits in heaven, the place of ultimate authority, and he laughs. Though this laugh is not a laugh of mirth, but derision in verse 4. The plots of kings are so foolish. Their rage is so vain and prideful. The very idea that people think they can overpower God is ludicrous. My first job when I was 14 years old was at a dog kennel.
I worked for an eccentric woman named Jean Ellis. She smoked like a chimney and she cussed like a sailor. She cared more about animals than for people. And not just dogs, all kinds of animals, But the most interesting animal she adopted was a lion cub. Because the kennel was in a rural area, Jean would drop off and pick up dogs boarded at the kennel, and the cub would sit in the passenger seat next to Jean.
A friend of our family, Dr. Callis, used the pickup service for his large, powerful Boston Mastiff. This particular dog was sweet to people, but known to be a neighborhood cat killer. Well, Gene drove up to Dr. Kallis' place to get the dog, and the lion, at that point a juvenile lion, lumbered out of the van in his front seat and sat beside the van, licking his paws, cat-like. He was an amiable lion. The dog came out of the house, saw the lion, took off full speed, aiming to take down one more cat.
The lion sat with his tail wrapped around its feet, watching the dog's charge until the dog was almost upon it, and then pow, with one flick of its paws, that dog was knocked into the ditch beside the driveway. The cub continued to lick his paws. Dr. Callis loved to tell the story that that dog never chased a cat again. Why would any dog take on a lion? Why would puny humans take on God? The question asked in verse 1 through 3, is why do the nations rage and plot to throw off the rule of God?
And it's easy to miss the tone of this question. It's like, what? Why for goodness sake would you rage against God? Can't you see how powerful he is? Don't you know you can't win this one? Why sit around and plot against the maker of the universe? You're a creator. Does anyone see how foolish and downright dangerous it is? Lord, for that matter, how ungracious to attack the one who gave you life. How treacherous. How mutinous.
In verse 4, we see God's low view of the rebels. He sees them with derision. They are weak and silly. But more than that, God's derision comes in part from knowing what horrible rulers they would make if they were no longer restrained by him. Then in verse 5, God speaks. He's not a dumb idol. He's aware of their plans and he speaks. The audible voice of God is both rare and monumental in the Bible.
It happens at major events. When he gave the law in the book of Exodus, for instance, it so terrified the people that they begged Moses to speak to them instead of God so they would not die. God speaks here in his wrath. He's right to be wrathful and is furious at the treason of these kings. After reading these verses about derision, after you read this, I know many of us have a hard time with God's wrath and anger, his terrifying fury.
But after you read about this treason, what would you expect from God? What would you think he would do? Remember, he's our maker. He owns us. We are his creation. And moreover, he knows our hearts. He knows our murderous hearts. God knows if these kings could, they would murder him on his throne. Listen, we're talking about Mesopotamian kings.
Do you know what they did when they took down the rule of other kings? They whipped and beat them. They tortured them. They walked them down rows and rows of shouting people. They crucified them on sticks. Does that sound familiar? They didn't vote people out of office in a democratic election. They murdered. God knows what they would do if he sent his son to them.
Maybe you have a son. Or maybe you have a father. you have a father who is a son if that son was murdered would you feel like blowing it off no big deal boys will be boys or would you respond in wrath fury if you could if you had the ability would you call fire down from heaven that would be easy for God yet when he speaks this furious all powerful God says something that's almost most anticlimactic.
I will set my king on Zion, my holy hill. It's not even a very impressive hill if you've been there. Robert Alter, the Jewish commentator, says Zion is the citadel conquered by David in 2 Samuel 5. It's a modest mountain on the crest of which sits a modest, fortified town, the capital of a rather small kingdom. surrounded by vast, powerful empires. That's where he sets his king, on Zion, that hill.
Seems a rather weak place in the world to set his kingdom, though later we found out in 1 Corinthians that he does many things to shame the wise and powerful. And this king, his son, the Messiah, one day will be lifted up on a Roman gibbet a mile or so from that holy hill. in Golgotha, the garbage pit. God will bring his justice to the kings of the world from that place.
It's not fire from heaven, not yet. His plan, his response to treason, to mutiny, even with all the reasons the world gives him and their rebellion to wipe them out, starts with mercy, mercy. The rod of God's justice makes, strikes his son who is willing to be the perfect sacrifice for all who would repent and believe. You know, God does something we can't do.
He holds his love and his fury, his justice in perfect harmony. God loves his creation, especially his people with perfect love. His wrath is perfectly applied in perfect justice such that He rules with perfect love and justice. And so He sends His Son, His only begotten Son, who's the subject of our third point, Christ, verses 7 through 9.
I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. Now, these three verses are some of the most important verses in the Old Testament. So I want to explain some things about them, about what's being said.
Notice here who's talking. It's the Son of God in verse 7, the anointed one, the Messiah. He recounts what God has said to him. So it's Jesus who is speaking. You know, there's a tendency when we read Psalm 2 to think that this psalm is about King David. Now, King David is a wonderful foreshadowing of Christ, but he is only a shadow. The true anointed one mentioned in verse 7 is the one promised to David, his future offspring who will sit on God's throne forever, Jesus of Nathers.
He's the only one who can fit that bill. The Lord makes promises to his anointed that David never experienced like having dominion over the entire world. The best way to see it is that this psalm, Psalm 2 is about Jesus, not David, in the New Testament. That's the best place to understand that. So Psalm 2 is the second most quoted psalm in the New Testament.
Psalm 110 beats it out by a couple of verses. But it's often quoted because the early church leaned heavily on Psalm 2 to explain exactly who Jesus is, the divine, risen, begotten Son. The New Testament authors saw the narrative of Psalm 2 as the entire arc of Jesus' ministry. Let me recount that for you. It's worth taking some time to walk this through. The Lord said to me, that is Jesus, you are my son, in verse 7, which reminds us of another momentous place in the New Testament where God speaks at the baptism of Jesus.
You are my son, and he adds, in whom I am well pleased. It also happened at the transfiguration. Psalm 2 points to the rage and rejection of Jesus. I alluded to this already, but the early church was facing intense persecution. Peter and John are arrested, and upon their release, the believers pray using Psalm 2. They do not interpret the kings and rulers of ancient kings, them alone as the persecutors, but rather the specific political figures who put Jesus to death.
The early church saw the crucifixion not as an accidental tragedy, but as the literal fulfillment of the world conspiring against the Lord's anointed. Paul does this in his sermon in Acts 13, that God fulfilled his promise to the fathers by raising Jesus. It is also written, quoting Paul, in the second psalm. Psalm 2 foreshadows God's ultimate vindication through the resurrection.
And in the book of Hebrews, chapter 1, verse 5, the writer uses Psalm 2 to outline how Jesus was exalted to the highest position in the universe. When the Lord tells Jesus to ask him for the nations in verse 8, he's calling on Jesus to act in his priestly authority to pray to God for the nations. This is the missionary call we see in the Great Commission in Matthew 28, 18, where Jesus, before his ascension to heaven, tells his disciples, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth, and sends his disciples to the nations.
In Psalm 2, verse 9, we see the anointed one, Jesus, exercising his power with a rod of iron. The rod symbolizes kingly authority. It's most graphically seen in the book of Revelation, chapter 19, 15. Yet, there's a sense that under the authority of Jesus, the missionary work of Christians will bring nations to heal as well. In those cases, the rod of iron crushes the hearts of stone and gives us new hearts of flesh, according to the promise of Ezekiel in chapter 11 in the New Covenant, new hearts, the passage we just looked at a couple weeks ago.
It happens slowly, over time, to be the worldwide church of Jesus. But when Psalm 2 was written, it was unimaginable to see the covenant community of faith among the nations as it is today. Still, there's no question that verse 9 points to the book of Revelation in chapters 12 and chapters 19, where the nation's ruling authorities are smashed with a rod of iron. At the right time, the final judgment will come.
The great and terrible day of the Lord when Jesus rules the nation. When God answers our prayer, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You understand when we pray the Lord's Prayer and we pray that phrase, we are praying for God's justice. Amazingly, in Revelation chapter 2, verse 26, he invites believers to share in that rule with him too. So I just, I hope you see how important Psalm 2 is in outlining the arc of Jesus' ministry.
So how do we respond? Well, the last three verses of Psalm 2 leave us no doubt. Point four, response. Sorry, verse 10. Now, therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers 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. For His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.
So God calls for a response. The response includes five commands and a promise. First, be wise. Verse 10, think of the opportunity. You know, God is not required to give us opportunity, but He does. He does until the great and terrible day of the Lord. And until that day, there is opportunity. Michael Reeves says that God meets our greatest need, which is to be forgiven of our sin.
And He offers the greatest blessing, which is to be adopted as his children, to be adopted as his children. The world has been promised the Messiah, plan accordingly by being wise. Second, be warned, verse 10. Think of the consequences. It's foolish to ignore God's stirring in your heart. Don't treat this apathetically. Just as God is not required to offer us opportunity, Neither does he have to give us a warning, but he does.
Though it seems the kings of the world hold all the cards, it's a lie. Don't be drawn to their ways. The greater power of the Messiah will cause all to bow before him, some in judgment, some as his followers. The world has been promised to the Messiah, plan accordingly by heeding his warning. Thirdly, serve the Lord with fear, verse 11.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, Proverbs 4, 7. The fear of the Lord is reverent fear, knowing that we're sinful people before a holy God. In our natural state, we all desire to throw off the shackles of God's authority in our lives. It's called sin. those who justify sin or dismiss it or blame shift, that is they blame others for their sin, is to have a low understanding of sin. And to have a low understanding of sin is to have no fear of the Lord.
To dismiss your sin as small or unimportant only adds to your sin. Comparing your sin to others favorably, oh, I'm not as bad as that person, Only adds to your sin. All sin is a horrible affront to God's holiness. So own up to your sin through confession and repentance. Live a repenting life. The world has been promised to the Messiah, plan accordingly by serving the Lord with reverent fear.
Fourth, rejoice with trembling. It sounds a bit like an oxy war, you know, but salvation makes me do both. I rejoice to stand before God with Jesus, claiming me as his own, forgiven and justified, but I tremble, I tremble, knowing what would have happened without his redeeming love. Oh, brothers and sisters, the trajectory of my life was not towards God.
So I rejoice. and I tremble it's so easy so easy to think that I would be facing God on my own without Christ claiming me as his child so I rejoice in my salvation I tremble when I think of the judgment without the protection of Christ's sacrifice on the cross the world has been promised to the Messiah so plan accordingly rejoice with trembling Fifth, kiss the son, verse 12, which means pay him homage, bend the knee, commit your life to his rule.
Listen, I know there's some here who don't know the Lord yet, and we're so glad you're here. You've come to the right place. But one of the most important things you can do is acknowledge your need for God's authority in your life. he's not going to be shocked by that. He knows you need his lordship in your life better than you do. There are some here who pretend to be Christians. Don't perish on the way, as it says in verse 12.
And for all of us, reject half-hearted discipleship. Jesus spits the lukewarm out of his mouth, according to the book of Revelation. Live full on for Christ. by the way just by the way verse 12 the anger here is not a contradiction to the promise that God is slow to anger he is slow to anger but when he finds us finally unrepentant finally rejecting his offer of refuge as anger flares his wrath is great but look right now if you can hear this, the offer is of refuge. It stands for all who hear my voice. The world has been promised to the Messiah, plan accordingly, commit your life to his rule. And finally, there's this promise to be blessed in verse 12. The offer here is to be blessed by taking refuge in him. We saw last week as we looked at Psalm 1 that the only truly blessed man, the only one who
has walked his entire life as a blessed one, was Jesus. Verse 12 says we are blessed to be found in him. That's the dominant theme in the New Testament where the phrase in Christ or in him was found by my count 240 times. Here's one. Philippians 3.9 Paul is speaking telling of his great desire to be found in him.
Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which is through faith in Christ. When we do that when we place our faith and trust in Christ, we become his child and under his protection. That's our refuge. The campus newspaper at the university I attended had an ad section. It was actually printed on real paper. Each week, a fundamentalist Pentecostal house church in town placed an ad in that section of the paper, each week titled, Why do the heathen rage?
I think it was their stab at evangelism. I didn't know my Bible very well, but I was pretty sure the quote was from the Bible, or maybe Shakespeare. It sounded biblical in a King James sort of way. And I wondered what it meant. Underneath the heading would be some random religious thoughts that were unrelated to Raging Heathen, as far as I could tell. It took a while for me to realize that heathen was an old English word for nation.
And later I discovered that the ad's heading was the first verse of Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage? They rage because of sin as old as Adam and Eve. They want to be God. They want to replace God. But it's foolishness. God, the ruler of the universe, is going to establish his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven one day through his son Jesus. He's going to do it in his own time, often in ways that are completely unexpected.
He will give his son to the world and the world won't see it. They will take the son of God and treat him shamefully and kill him. but that sinless son will rise from the grave and will be exalted at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and then God will give him the world. And though God would be in his full right to bring full and immediate judgment on the world out of his great love, he makes an offer of refuge.
Come to me, come to me. Kiss the son. Bend the knee. Avoid the wrath to come. Be forgiven. Be my child. Be blessed by finding your refuge in me. And know this. You will rejoice with trembling when you see the great and terrible day of the Lord for all those who are found in Christ. Because you've been spared. You've been blessed.
Listen, listen, you should know that the world has been promised to the Messiah. Plan accordingly. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Lord, you set your Holy One Jesus on the holy hill and you gave the world to Jesus.
We thank you for his rule and reign. Help us to plan accordingly. We pray that you would make us wise. We pray that we would take your warning and rejoice with trembling, serve you with fear, and follow you as Lord all the days of our lives. We long to be found blessed by being found in you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.