PSALM TWO – JOURNEY THROUGH THE PSALMS
Isn’t it ironic when you think about God as our creator, and then us as human
beings raging against God? And why do we rage against God? Is it because He
encroaches on our freedoms? Do we feel these moral trappings? Is it because life throws
us unexpected curve balls that create a sense of depression and confusion and misery in
our lives? Is it because we want to go our own direction and we feel His tug leading us in
a way that we don’t want to go? And so internally we rage against God.
Why do we rage against God? Is it because we want our own dreams, our own
relationships? Is it because we want to go with our own desires and we don’t want to fall
in line with the word of God? So deep down we rage against God or we seek to make
God more customizable in order to fit our own palates, in order to fit our own desires, in
order to fit our own fancies. We seek to make God into our own image, a God that would
approve all of these relationships that we want, and these desires that we want, and these
things that we want. And there we go about customizing God, like visiting some store in
the mall where you build your own bear. We build our own God. We customize Him so
that He fits our own liking.
And when He doesn’t fit our own likings, and we don’t like the way He is, we
rage against Him. And this raging against God is nothing new. Ever since our story
began, we have struggled with rage. And every one of us, given the right set of
circumstances, can feel hot toward God. We can get intense toward Him. Whether it is
spoken or unspoken, we can experience this: ‘I’m not sure I agree with you on this
principle here, God.’
I invite you if you will to turn to Psalm Two as we will learn about this rage
against God, and about these surrounding nations that rage against God. As we continue
through our series, Journey through the Psalms, we are going to come to Psalm Two
today. And I shared last week in the first service that Psalms is not the longest book. I
know that a note went out on that, and it said, ‘Join us this week for our series in the
Psalms, the longest book.’ And it is actually not the longest book. It has the most
amount of chapters in the Scriptures, but Jeremiah on a word count would have more
words, Genesis would be next, and then Psalms would be third with the most amount of
words. But when it comes to books that New Testament writers quoted more than any
other book, Psalms and Isaiah are right up there.
And Psalm Two is a heavily quoted book in the New Testament. Eighteen times
the New Testament will quote Psalm Two. And according to much Rabbinic tradition,
they would take Psalm One and Two and combine these two as one, as a sort of preface
to the entirety of Psalms. But Psalm One and Psalm Two aren’t to be seen as one Psalm
but rather as two. And we can know that because in Acts Chapter 13 and verse 33, Psalm
Two is referred to as the second Psalm. And so there are two Psalms. Psalm One has to
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do with the individual, the righteous versus the unrighteous, whereas Psalm Two is
dealing more corporately with these nations that rage against God.
And I shared last week with you that the Psalms have different genres within
them. You have different types of Psalms so to speak. That would be a better way to
word that. You have confessional Psalms. You have praise Psalms. You have
thanksgiving Psalms. You have prophetic Psalms. And then you have royal Psalms or
Messianic Psalms.
And that is what Psalms Two is, it is a royal Psalm. It is a Messianic Psalm. It is
a Psalm of coronation and it is about a king. And it is not easy reading. You could read
this passage and scratch your head a little bit. In fact the Jewish person that would read it
would read it thorough a different lens and understanding than you would, because we
have the favor of the New Testament that crystalizes what is going on here. And what
happens with this Psalms, and with the prophets in the Old Testament, is it surfaces and
bubbles up a vision of the coming Messiah. It is kind of like taking some water and then
putting it on the stove and turning it on high until it boils and it begins to bubble up. And
if you don’t pay attention to it, it is going to be bubbling over before you know it. It is
going to get real hot. And by the time of the New Testament, it is oozing with clarity,
this vision of who the Messiah is as God becomes flesh in the person of Jesus.
But in Psalm Two it is sort of just a bubble. And then the different prophets make
more bubbles, and it starts getting clearer for us. It is bubbling up and eventually it is a
nice clear vision of who this Messiah is. So with the prophets and with the Psalms, they
are looking for this Messiah to come. And ultimately the Messiah does come, Jesus
Christ, and we learn about who He is as He reveals Himself. And then the apostles tell us
more about who this Messiah is. And the apostles go and extract certain Old Testament
verses like Psalm Two, Psalm Twenty-two, or Psalm One Ten. Or they go into different
prophet Scriptures and they pull verses out of Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel and then they
put them in the New Testament. And it becomes very, very clear for us that Jesus is the
fulfilment of that Old Testament prophecy.
Psalm One is no problem. It is Bible Reading 101. It is not hard preaching and it
is not hard reading. But when you get to Psalm Two it is more difficult. So it is kind of
like some nights when my wife is cooking dinner. And she may just go with something
really simple, like something that is a quick easy dinner. Like she will just grab a piece
of fish, and some vegetables, and present it, and boom it is easy. But then there are these
other meals that she can prepare, or you could prepare as moms, that are highly complex.
And there is a lot that goes into that preparation of a meal. And you could eat it and not
understand what all is involved in pulling that kind of meal off. And that is what it is like
for preaching Psalm Two, for those of us in the ministry.
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You give Psalm One to the new preacher. But Psalm Two takes a lot of time in
preaching and learning how to study the Bible, because there is so much going on in it.
And you don’t just give someone who is going to facilitate a small group Psalm Two,
because there is an art to it. It is like developing a fine meal. And so I want to encourage
you to think with me today. We could get into some terrain that might feel a little bit
confusing so this passage created angst for me in my studies.
So on what level should I teach it? I mean when you read it once you could read
it from a Jewish perspective and you see King David there, so okay this is talking about
the earthly King David and maybe his successors. And then it is talking about the
surrounding nations. Yet when you go to the New Testament something else is going on.
The New Testament authors see the Messiah, Jesus, in it. They see Jesus in this text.
Then do you read it that way? So you can read it and you can see an earthly king in the
surrounding nations, no problem.
But then you can read it and see Jesus, no problem. But when you read it from an
earthly perspective and see an earthly king, what you realize is the vision is a little bit too
grand for merely an earthly king. So then when you read it again with the help of the
eighteen quotes that you have in the New Testament, and you do all your study around
that. And then you start seeing this grand Messianic vision crystalize before you of who
Jesus is. So what do you do? You have this near vision of the king, this near
understanding, and then you have this future understanding of the Messiah to come. And
from our perspective the Messiah that has already come.
So you have this already in this not yet going on according to the writer of that
time. And now when we read it, it is the already and the already. The king that was
reigning then and it was the Messiah that already came. And so you have this highly
textured Psalm before us that we are going to look at today. And I have to decide how to
preach it. Do I look at the earthly king or do I look at the Heavenly king? Do I focus on
King David and his successors or do I focus on King Jesus? Yes! We are going to look
at both. And we see how this comes together in order to help us have a fuller
understanding of just who our Messiah is.
Now, this particular Psalm has no superscription at the beginning, above it. And
that is to say, when you read the Psalms it will often reveal who the author is. It will tell
you that it was Asaph, or the sons of Korah, or that it was David. Here it doesn’t say
who the author is. And so you scratch your head a little bit. But then with a little bit of
digging you end up in Acts Chapter 4 and verse 25, and we see that the author is named
as David. So because we believe in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, we
will take that word in Acts Chapter 4 and verse 25 that this has Davidic authorship. And
I shared with you last week the Psalms were composed by different authors over a
thousand year period.
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In fact this Psalm, namely Psalm Two, is a Psalm that you will recognize after we
go through it if you are familiar with Handel’s Messiah. According to one commentary,
James Waltner, says this: “Who can forget the thundering bass solo of the Messiah,
‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together?’ Handel’s oratorio then follows with
the chorus, ‘Let us break their bonds asunder.’ And the tender solo, ‘Thou shalt dash
them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” And those are all phrases we are going to see in
Psalm Two today. “After these songs comes the magnificent ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.’ The
Messianic character of Psalm Two is well established.”
So Handel’s Messiah, that powerful, God exalting composition, is extracted from
these great words right here in Psalm Two, this Messianic royal Psalm. So it is a royal
Psalm. It is kingly. It is Messianic. It is a coronation song, that is to say, that this would
have been a Psalm for David and his successors. No doubt this Psalm would have been
read during their coronation as king.
And so now I am ready to go into Psalm Two with you, but let me share with you
that this is one of these Psalms that nicely outlines itself. It is twelve verses, it has four
stanzas, with three verses per stanza. Twelve verses that are structured with four stanzas
of three verses each. And therefore it opens up a nice outline for us to get into as we
teach this. As we delve into this text, let me share with you that we will be seeing the
near David and the coming David, or the already David and the coming David, the David
and the greater David. And Jesus is the greater David.
In II Samuel Chapter 7 you have what is known as the Davidic Covenant. And
David is promised that there will always be a son on the throne. Well, ultimately Jesus
fulfils the Davidic Covenant. And if you want to understand Scriptures, remember last
week we talked about meditation, and I said it meant to muse, to think. We live in a
culture that doesn’t want to think; they want to be amused. And much of our
entertainment today is around amusement and not thinking.
And when you think about the Renaissance Period, there was much musing. Or in
the Age of Enlightenment there was much musing, much thinking. You had people who
loved the arts. They loved culture. They loved the classics. They loved to think. But
today, we don’t like to think. So when we start talking about covenants and stuff, we are
like falling to sleep. We are not feeling amused. But we are not going to understand and
appreciate God’s word without an understanding of the way these covenants worked
together. In particular, the Davidic Covenant is where Jesus Christ ultimately fulfils it as
God’s royal son.
Now look with me if you will as I draw out our first point of observation. And
that is the ungodly rage against God’s reign. In Psalm Two the question is asked, “Why
do the nations rage and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves,
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and the rulers take council together against the Lord, and against His anointed,
saying, Let us burst their bonds apart, and cast away their cords from us.” Let’s pause
for a few observations. Remember as we are reading this from an earthly perspective and
at the time of this composition of this Psalm, you would have surrounding nations raging
against the king of Israel, and everything that he represents. That king of Israel, David,
as well as his subsequent kings, was God’s vice-regent. And to reject David would be to
reject God. God is the one who was working through David. God is the one who would
work through kings. And the king in that time, in that monarchy, was to institute God’s
values, God’s ways and God’s laws. And the surrounding nations raged against God’s
ways, and they raged against this king.
But on a heightened level, on a fulfilment level, when King Jesus comes, dies on a
cross for our sins, rises from the dead, apostles are being persecuted. When you flip over
to Acts Chapter 4, you can see this particular passage from Psalm Two being brought
back out. It tells us in verses 23 down to about 29, and I won’t read all of that, but it says
in verse 23, “When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the
chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their
voices together to God, and said, Sovereign Lord who made the heaven and the earth
and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David your
servant, and by the Holy Spirit has said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people
imagine vain things?”
Now what has been happening here is the apostles are getting persecuted, people
are raging against the gospel and they are raging against the message of the true king, the
Messiah Jesus. And what do they do? They pull out Psalm Two. “Why do (the Gentiles)
the nations rage, and the people plot in vain. The kings of the earth set themselves and
the rulers who were gathered together against the Lord, and against His anointed.”
So you see on an earthly level, King David’s level, what is going on is they
understood that there was struggle from the surrounding nations. They were rejecting
God’s ways. But then when Jesus comes, on a greater level, the nations rage against
Jesus, against what He stands for, against the gospel, against the message. And we can
experience this same type of rage even in our culture if you try to go forth with the
gospel. You can experience that sort of angst against God, that fury against the gospel.
We can see that still being in action today.
Now back at Psalm Two, it says, “Why do the nations rage and the people plot in
vain?” It is vain to rage against God. It is foolish to rage against Him. And it says that
they kind of council together against the Lord and against His anointed. So it is against
God and it is against His anointed. In the context there, the anointed was the king, the
earthly king. But then in the future, it also refers in a greater way to the greater king, to
Jesus.
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Now the word ‘anointed’ is the Hebrew word Messiah, but in the Greek it is the
word for christos which means anointed as well. And so the christos, the Christ, is the
Messiah or the anointed, the Psalm Two fulfilment. And so this is what we can see
taking place at this stage We have this composer David who is the king and who has
these surrounding nations. And the subsequent kings would obviously experience the
same thing, but ultimately in Jesus this would be fulfilled. And we know that because of
the way the New Testament authors utilized Psalm Two.
Now why in the world do the nations rage? That is the question. And it says in
verse 3, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” We want
to be our own gods. We want to give into our own vices. We don’t want God directing
us. We don’t want God telling us how we are to manage our relationships, how we are to
live our lives, or how we are to make decisions in life. We want to be our own ultimate.
And here in this particular verse, what happens is if you cast off this restraint, if you cast
off God, then you will become a slave to sin. So di you want to be a slave of yourself
and sin and your desires, or do you want to serve God, love God and follow the Lord?
And we all have a choice. Are we like those surrounding nations? Do we rage
against God? Do we rage against His ways? Do we mandate our own ways? Do we
love God? Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” That should
be what we desire more than anything else. Not caving into your own desires, not
seeking to please yourselves, not seeking to bend God’s principles to fit your contest, but
wanting to adjust your life to the word of God, and to not rage against the Scriptures.
C. H. Spurgeon said, “Let us be free to commit all manner of abominations. Let
us be our own gods. Let us rid ourselves of all restraint.” That is how he paraphrased
verse 3 of Psalm Two. See, sin wants to reign as king over your life. It wants to enslave
you. So is God cramping your style? Do you have a God cramp this morning? Do you
feel an encroaching in upon your space where you want to do what it says in verse 3,
where you want to burst the bonds apart, where you want to cast away God’s cords from
you? Where you don’t want any cords, where you don’t want any connection to God,
where you want to be free from Him to live the way that you want.
And then this rage leads to such foolish behaviour. And it leads to foolish
statements and saying dumb things. The other day my wife and I were going over to my
in-laws and we decided to let Haley drive. Haley turned 16 back in March and she has
been a little bit reticent to drive. And I told her she needs to get her hours in so we have
been working on that this summer. We want to get her ready to drive to school come
August. So we let her drive to my in-laws, we hung out for a few hours, and when we
were leaving it was dark out so I think she was hoping I would do the driving. And I told
her no, she needed to drive.
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And then we needed to get some gas, and I told her she needed to learn how to get
gas. We made our way to the gas station and about a mile before we got there, Haley
turned on her turn signal. Then she slowly pulled into the gas station area and she is
feeling a little nervous and panicky. And I think she just pretty much decided to stop the
car in the middle of the road. And there was a motorcycle behind us and he began to get
irate and he starts flipping my daughter off. And I thought, ‘What is up with this? This
guy is flipping my daughter off.’ And she is just trying to learn to drive.
So I couldn’t resist myself, the Type A in me, and I felt like I needed to be the
defender of my daughter. So I rolled my window down and I said, ‘Hey bro, she is
learning to drive. Show some grace.’ And he kind of mouths off a little bit, so I said,
‘Seriously, she is just learning to drive. She didn’t mean to get in your way.’ So he goes
inside and Haley is still stuck in the middle of the driveway, like she is paralyzed.
Heather is in the back seat saying, ‘Honey, I think you need to help her out here.’ And I
said, ‘No, she has to figure this out.’ And we are having a little bit of a debate about how
this is going to work.
And all of a sudden this guy walks back out of the store and starts coming toward
our car. And Haley starts to panic. I told her, ‘Hey, it’s fine.’ But my insides were
hoping he was coming to repent. He comes up to the car and he says, ‘Hey, I am really
sorry about that.’ He was having trouble putting his words together so I am thinking he
is inebriated or something. But he apologizes, and he was very gracious about it. And I
said, ‘No problem, bro, it’s cool. We’re all good here. I just wanted to make sure that
you knew that she was just learning to drive.’
So we went from being flipped off to an apology. He walks off and Haley is still
kind of stuck. So I am trying to deal with this and helping her learn to park. And about
two hours later we made it to the pump and we were able to fill the car up and leave.
And I told Haley that I was glad she got to see a little bit of the rage, because that is what
people do, they act foolish out on the road sometimes. They lose their minds and they get
enraged.
And it’s the same way when we don’t like the way God is, and we don’t like His
rules. And it is when God stops something from happening in our lives, or when God
seems to be preventing something from happening, or when God gets in our space that
we rage. We have foolish behaviour. We act in ways that are absurd.
So sin is after you. It wants to suck you in, pull you in, like standing in
quicksand. And now here is an interesting contrast. At the beginning of Psalm One, the
righteous man is delighting in the word of God. But at the beginning of Psalm Two, the
nations are raging against God. Who are you more like? The righteous man at the
beginning of Psalm One that delights in the word of God, or would you represent these
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heathen Gentile nations that rage against God? We all have a choice. Is sin going to be
our master or is our Saviour going to be our master? And the ungodly rage against God’s
reign.
Secondly, do you know what else the ungodly do? They foolishly seek to trump
God’s ultimate plans. Look with me in verse 4. “He who sits in the heavens laughs.”
This is a great verse because it is the only place in the Scriptures where it says God
laughs. That is anthropomorphic language. It is metaphorical language. And you are
probably wondering what is anthropomorphic language. Anthropomorphic language is
language that uses human descriptions of God so that humans can understand God.
Anthropomorphic language uses human descriptions of God so that we can understand
Him. So when it says God laughs, God doesn’t literally laugh. God is a Spirit. It is not
like He is up in Heaven and you would hear a voice laughing. God is Spirit.
But the Bible uses anthropomorphic language like God stretched out His hand to
heal. It doesn’t mean that He literally stretched out His physical hand to heal; God is
Spirit. God is all powerful. He stretches out His hand to heal is anthropomorphic
language. It is human language used to describe God so that we can understand Him.
That is what is going on here in verse 4. God looks down at these nations like when they
are trying to build the tower of Babel up to heaven. And it is absurd to God. Even the
statement ‘that God looks down,’ is anthropomorphic language. What we mean is that
God just knows. So God ‘looks down’ and He sees these nations shaking their fists,
enraged at Him, and it says that God laughs.
This reminds me of a little Chihuahua dog. And I’m sorry if you are a Chihuahua
dog fan. Look, I like my dog and I don’t like yours. I have a lot of favouritism with
dogs. I like one dog - Esther. I guess I am just not a big dog fan but I love the English
Bulldog because they are lazy, low key and don’t have a lot of demands. I had a Golden
Retriever once and it always wanted me to touch it. It drove me crazy. A Golden
Retriever has the love language of touch, and I don’t have that love language. So I felt
like I just needed some space, I didn’t always want to be rubbing it. Esther, my English
Bulldog and I have something going on. We like to be in each other’s presence, and
every now and then I can give her a courtesy rub until she is tanked. Every now and then
she will come up to me give me a look and we are good.
But these little Chihuahuas drive me nuts. Like have you ever had one of them
bark at you? We used to have this one that lived next door to us and I couldn’t even go
out in my yard because it would just yap at me constantly. And I went to dark spots in
my heart about this dog. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever gone dark in your heart
about a barking dog next door? And I would fantasize and just picture blowing him
away. I would walk along the fence line sometimes and this dog thought it could take me
out. It acted all tough just yapping at me. And this thing probably weighed a pound and
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a half. But it was like he was saying to me, ‘Who do you think you are,’ and I would
think about giving it a kick. But I never laid a hand on it. And we are just having fun
here so don’t send me an email going, ‘Dear Bobby, I was offended when you talked
about the canine breed in such a fashion.’ And let’s just not get into the subject of ‘all
dogs go to Heaven.’ (Laughter).
But I just think the nations raging as mentioned in Psalm Two are just like little
Chihuahuas yapping and raging against God. And it just looks absurd to God, and He
laughs. And it goes on to say in verse 4, “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord
holds them in derision.” Like, it is absurd and He mocks at that. Verse 5, “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.” So God has set His king up. In other words, you can
seek to rage all you want against God’s king and His kingdom. But you won’t ultimately
be triumphant.
Yes, they might experience some times of captivity like when Nebuchadnezzar
would capture them in 586 BC, or in 722 BC when the Assyrians would take them
captive. But ultimately these pagan nations, these Gentile nations, they could rage
against the fulfilment of this passage, the Messiah, the king, but God will reign in the
end. God will have His way. God will rule and reign. There might be momentary lapses
where they go into captivity, but ultimately the only ones to go into final captivity are
those who rage against God without recognizing His greatness, His wonder and His
majesty. So He has already set His king up, the king that is his vice-regent, but
ultimately it is going to be fulfilled in Jesus. So the ungodly foolishly seek to trump
God’s ultimate plans.
Third, the ungodly attempt to trump God’s plan will end in futility. Look with me
in verse 7, “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.” Now there is the immediate, “You are my son.” And we see in
II Samuel Chapter 7 in the Davidic Covenant where God is speaking about Solomon in
His words to David: “He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the
throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.”
So the king serves as a son figure to the father as he reigns on earth. This king
kind of had this son/father relationship; that is the Heavenly father would treat the king in
a fatherly way, like a son. So when we look in Psalms Two and we read in verse 7, “I
will tell of the decree, the Lord said to me, You are my Son; today I have begotten you,”
you have this idea where there is a coronation ceremony going on and he is being
crowned as king and he will be treated as a son by the Heavenly father. But then in the
future, which is our past now, when Jesus the Messiah came, we see this different
language in different parts of the gospel.
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For instance, in the gospel of Mark at Jesus’ baptism, it says, “A voice came from
Heaven, You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” Or after Jesus’
resurrection the author of Hebrews writes in Chapter 1 and verse 5, “For to which of the
angels did God ever say, You are my Son, today I have begotten you?” And that is also
repeated again in Hebrews Chapter 5 as well. And so as you see this language in the
New Testament, they are using language from Psalm Two.
Now I have to establish something here that may make your head hurt a little bit.
And it is the word ‘begotten.’ We have to be careful with this word begotten. If we are
not careful, this is where cults misconstrue. They take the word begotten that they see in
Hebrews Chapter 1 and verse 5, or in Psalm Two, or in the gospels where Jesus is at His
baptism. And it says, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” They take that
word for begotten, gennao, which means ‘to bring forth.’ And what they do is they
impose that as well on a verse like John Chapter 3 and verse 16. And then you end up
with heresy, because there are two different Greek words that are used of begotten.
There is the word gennao, and the word monogenes. Monogenes is used in John Chapter
3 and verse 16. Gennao is being used here.
Well, what is the difference? Jesus’ resurrection establishes Him as the reigning
king. The verse, “For to which of the angels did God ever say, You are my Son, today I
have begotten you?” He is the resurrected one. He is now established. The prophecy
has been fulfilled. He is the ultimate king of Psalm Two, the reigning king. His
resurrection validates that. He is the Heavenly king as well as He is the king of this earth.
He rules, He reigns.
But in John Chapter 3 and verse 16 the most popular verse that people would
know says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son.” And this
is the word monogenes. And this is a word that is not showing that God brought Jesus
forth, that He was a created being. See in Hebrews Chapter 1 and verse 5, begotten, He
was brought forth from the grave. It is establishing His resurrection, He was brought
forth, He was affirmed in His kingship. He was brought forth from the place of the dead.
And in John Chapter 3 and verse 16, monogenes is used in this sense, whereas a father
who gives birth to a child, that child has the same nature of his father. So when it says,
“He gave His only begotten son,” the one who is of the same essence, the same nature of
the father, God gave that. God gave of Himself in giving His Son to the world.
Now C.S. Lewis in his book, ‘Mere Christianity,’ helps elucidate for us the word
‘begotten’ as it is used as monogenes. He says, “When you beget, you beget something of
the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers,
and a bird begets eggs, which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make
something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam,
and a man makes a wireless set or makes something more like himself than a wireless set,
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say a statue. If he is a clever enough carver, he may make a statue which is very like man
indeed. But of course it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It can’t breathe or
think; it is not alive. Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God just
as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God, just as what man makes is not
man. That is why men are not sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like
God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues,
or pictures of God.”
So “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son,” is not
saying that He produced, made or created Jesus. Jesus is God. He has eternally existed
as God. But He took on in time human nature. Now that we have clarified that for you,
we know that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with the power of His resurrection.
In fact in Romans Chapter 1 and verses 1 through 4, we will see this. “Paul, a servant of
Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Which He
promised beforehand through His prophets and the Holy Scriptures, concerning His
Son, who was descended from David, according to the flesh and was declared to be the
Son of God.” When did all of that happen? “In power, according to the spirit of
holiness, by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Now read with me back in Psalm Two and verse 9. It says of these surrounding
nations, those who rage against God, “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash
them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” In other words when they come against the
Messiah, God will be their defender, and ultimately when the nations rage against God’s
ways, Christ will triumph. And when you look into the New Testament, we see that the
New Testament helps us to interpret this language.
In Revelation Chapter 12 and verse 5 it says, speaking of the Virgin who gave
birth to the male child which would be Christ, “She gave birth to a male child, one who
is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” Notice that Psalm Two verse 9 language.
“But her child was caught up to God and to His throne.” So ultimately in Christ’s
second coming He will rule, He will reign, and all of those who have come against God
will see in the end that Jesus Christ reigns and rules as the Messiah.
Now James Waltner in his Psalms commentary brings out a very important point
for me to share. “The later identification of this Psalm, Psalm Two, with Jesus as the
Messiah, the extensive quoting of this Psalm in the New Testament and its striking
message for today, all suggest that the Psalms writers often wrote more than they knew.
That is the remarkable timelessness of these ancient writings.”
More was going on in Psalm Two than the Psalmist could ever possibly imagine.
And when Jesus Christ came and He spent time educating His disciples, His disciples
would learn from Jesus the Scriptures that spoke of Him. And He would teach His
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disciples where these Scriptures spoke of Him, and then the disciples would show us
what they learned from the Messiah Jesus by showing us Jesus in the Old Testament.
Fourth and finally, a submissive spirit then trumps a rebellious and callous spirit.
Don’t rage against God, rest in Him. Let me share with you quickly, as we wrap up, five
qualities of a submissive spirit. First, a submissive spirit wisely heeds God’s warnings.
Look with me in verse 10. “Now therefore O kings, be wise; be warned O rulers of the
earth.”
I love how gracious God is when these kings, these rulers, are raging against
Him, and yet here is an invitation for them to be wise, to be warned. If you want to kick
out God from your life, if you want to remove Him from your life, you are going to end
up in consequences. Yet God in His mercy, God in His grace, gives a warning here.
‘Hey, don’t rage. Don’t do that. You are going to destroy yourselves.’ And wise people
listen to advice. They heed warnings and that is what a submissive spirit does. Do you
heed God’s word or do you try to bend it your way? You will regret it in time. You
might even feel like you are enjoying a little bit of rebellion, but you will regret it in time.
It will just be a matter of time before your decisions catch up with you.
Secondly, a submissive spirit serves the Lord with fear. Verse 11, “Serve the
Lord with fear.” It is a healthy respect. It is being overwhelmed with how great He is.
It is this ability to look at Him and know that His ways are best. It is to respect His ways
above your ways.
Third, a submissive spirit couples rejoicing with trembling. See some people
want to rejoice in the Lord without trembling before Him. Whereas others just tremble
before Him and they don’t know how to rejoice in Him. Look at the second half of verse
11. “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” Don’t ever lose sight of
respecting God in the midst of your joy. C. H. Spurgeon said it like this: “Fear without
joy is torment. And joy without holy fear would be presumption.” That is what we see in
the church today. We see a lot of joy without holy fear. There is no reverence and no
awe.
Fourth, a submissive spirit honors the Lord rather than raging against Him.
Verse 12, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way, for His wrath is
quickly kindled.” “Kiss the Son.” How can we be commanded to kiss the Son? Well,
Judas took this commandment with the kiss of betrayal. I am not talking about a kiss of
betrayal though, but rather a kiss of honor. It was a way to pay homage to a king to
maybe come up and give a kiss to them on the cheek. It was a way to show honor. So
what we are learning here in the Scriptures then is not to rage against God, but to honor
Him as king over your life. Have you honoured Jesus Christ as king over your life? Or
are you raging against Him.
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And then fifth and finally, a submissive spirit ultimately finds refuge in God and
experiences blessings. Notice the end of verse 12, “Blessed are all who take refuge in
Him.” Contrary to the nations that rage in verse 1, here are blessings for those who take
refuge in Him. See the nations rage because they bought the lie that getting away from
God is the way of blessing, the way of happiness, the way of fulfilment. Yet we learn at
the end of this Psalm that true joy, true blessing comes in honouring and paying homage,
in fearing and in respecting the king and following in His ways.
If you want your life to be ultimately blessed, find your refuge in God. Don’t try
to escape from Him. And if you are kind of bending some of God’s principles in the
name of your emotions, will you honor the Lord? Do we really believe God or when we
get tested in certain ways do we decide to bend the Scriptures a little bit because this is
what we want? Maybe it is a relationship, or a certain job, or just wanting to go in a
certain direction. And so all of a sudden we can just fine tune God’s Scriptures. And we
have to fine tune it and self-deceive ourselves to make us think that God is in this because
otherwise if we just accept the clear truth and are honest with ourselves we will see that
we are raging against Him. ‘How dare God not let me have what I want.’
God is the rightful king. Jesus fulfils the Davidic Covenant and He is the Messiah
who came to die on a cross, be raised from the dead and is seated on His Heavenly
throne. “And whosoever will believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your word. Use it to help us to not rage against you. Lord, I
am convinced that there is a whole host of Christians that will rage against you, or they
will adjust the Scriptures so that they don’t have to rage against you. They will deceive
themselves feeling like they are okay living a certain way. I beg you, God, to protect us
from bending your word to fit our circumstances, and to not impose upon you, God, what
it is that we think that you desire. But rather help us to shift in our own desires. We see
that our culture is collapsing morally. We see so much moral compromise taking place
and the bending of the word of God in churches all over the place. Help us, Lord, to
honor you.
And if anyone does not know you as their personal Savior, may they in the
quietness of their hearts say: Jesus, be my Lord, be my Savior. Forgive me of my sins.
Jesus, I believe in you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
The preceding transcript was completed using raw audio recordings. As much as possible, it includes
the actual words of the message with minor grammatical changes and editorial clarifications to provide context.
Hebrew and Greek words are spelled using Google Translator and the actual spelling may be different in some
cases.
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