I'm going to turn in your Bibles to Psalm chapter 2 or Psalm 2. That's where we'll be this morning.
And I bring you greetings from Middleton Baptist Church. So they say hello.
Please turn with me to Psalm 2 and follow along with me as I read.
Psalm 2.
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 the 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.
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 with you and you perish in the way.
For his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Let's pray for a moment.
The words of the psalmist.
Deal bountifully with your servant that I may live and keep your word.
Father, we pray that by your spirit you would deal bountifully with us from your word this morning.
That we may live according to your word.
And that we would keep it, Lord, with our whole hearts.
We pray that you would glorify yourself and help us.
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
What do you think is wrong with the world today?
What's wrong with the world?
Maybe you think there's nothing wrong with the world.
Maybe you think that things are more or less as they ought to be.
But I think if that's how you view the world, you'd probably be in the minority.
I think most of us would agree that the world is not how it ought to be.
The world ought to be different.
It ought to be fair.
It ought to be safe and good for everyone.
But that's clearly not how it is.
Instead, we live in a world with war and injustice and oppression.
Now, it's one thing to notice it, but it's worth asking, why is the world like this?
Why is it not as it ought to be?
The way that we all instinctively hope that it should be?
The answer to this question, I believe, is in this psalm that we are reading and looking at this morning.
Because Psalm 2 presents us with a picture of our world and the fundamental problem of it.
It gives us a God's eye perspective on human history, stretching back in time and around the world.
And I want to start by telling you right up front what this psalm is about.
Psalm 2 is about the Lord and his anointed king and the rebellion of the world against them both.
So there's the Lord, God himself, and his anointed king on earth,
and the nations, the world, who are in rebellion against them both.
This psalm is not just about King David, who is the king that is immediately implied here.
It also points forward to Christ himself, who is the anointed king,
and who is the king of kings, who came to this world that was so opposed to him.
Never forget that when Jesus came to this world that he created, we killed him.
You'll notice that David is not mentioned in this psalm.
However, if you turn to Acts 4, you don't have to do that now,
but if you look in Acts 4, when the disciples are quoting this psalm,
they say, they refer to it as a psalm of David.
And so we know from that that this is a psalm that David penned,
and it's in relation to him.
Now, in terms of its structure, it falls into four even sections.
Verses 1 to 3, the futile rebellion of the nations.
Verses 4 to 6, the confident response of the Lord.
Verses 7 to 9, the sure success of the Son.
And finally, verses 10 to 12, the right response of the nations.
So we'll just look at those sections as they progress one to another.
The futile rebellion of the nations to begin with in verses 1 to 3.
The psalm begins by describing a global conflict.
On the one side, you have the nations and the peoples of the earth
as represented by their kings and their rulers.
And on the other side, you have the Lord himself, Yahweh,
the God of the Bible and his anointed one, his anointed king.
And we are told that these earthly rulers are plotting and raging against the Lord
and against his king.
Actively and angrily setting themselves against him.
Literally taking their stand against him.
And they're even united in this.
It says that they take counsel together against the Lord.
You know, you've heard that phrase, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
And so these kings and rulers who might otherwise be warring with themselves
are united in their opposition of the Lord and against his king.
And this raises the question, why are the nations so set against the Lord and his anointed one?
Verse 3, they say it in their own words.
Look at what it says.
Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.
And this language of bonds and cords is the language of authority.
That is God's authority over them.
So the reason the nations are in rebellion against the Lord and his king
is because they want to be free from him.
From his authority and from his control.
In other words, the picture laid out before us here is of the world, our world, in rebellion against God.
They want to be free from him.
The clear teaching of the Bible, as uncomfortable as it is for us to face,
is that apart from the transforming power of Jesus,
each of us live in rebellion against God.
So what we see here in Psalm 2 on a global scale,
we find to be true on an individual scale.
This is our default setting, to be free from God.
Now you might say, hang on a minute, there's lots of religion in the world.
Lots of people want God in their lives.
And that's true.
There's a lot of religion in the world, isn't there?
But that's not what this psalm is speaking about.
The psalm is not speaking about God in a general dictionary definition, vague sense.
It's speaking about the Lord.
That is Yahweh, the Lord of the Bible, the God of Israel,
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
That's what's going on here.
It's this Lord, this God that people are in rebellion against.
They'd rather be free from him, to get out from under his authority.
And his rule.
The prophet Isaiah put it up this way.
Or sorry, put it this way, or summed it up this way.
All we like sheep have gone astray.
And each of us has turned to his own way.
We'd rather do our own thing.
We're not naturally inclined towards the Lord.
In fact, if you look back at Psalm 1,
and the first verse of Psalm 1,
or Psalm 1 in general,
it speaks about the blessed man who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.
That word meditate just means to think continually upon.
And the word meditate, or to think upon, in Psalm 1,
is the same word for plot in Psalm 2.
So instead of thinking about what God says,
and thinking it over and meditating upon that,
the people are in fact meditating and thinking over how they can be free from God.
And that's no coincidence that those words contrast in that way.
Maybe you're here this morning, you're not a Christian,
and you're looking around and thinking,
these people are very religious.
This must just do something for them.
It's kind of like a religious hobby.
They must be wired this way naturally.
Well, I can tell you, none of us are wired this way laterally.
Because look at what this is telling us.
That we don't naturally seek God.
In fact, we naturally want to be free from Him.
Because of sin.
We're not wired towards God,
but rather against Him and against His anointed.
What about you this morning?
Where do you stand in relation to the Lord?
Do you meditate on His word,
or would you rather cast it aside and be free from it?
You see, this psalm draws a big, thick line right down the middle.
And says there's the Lord on the one side,
and His anointed King.
And on the other, there is those who are in rebellion against them.
And did you notice that this is a doomed rebellion, ultimately?
Because it starts off, this psalm, with a rhetorical question.
Look at verse 1 again.
Why do the nations rage?
It doesn't just say, the nations rage.
It acts. Why?
Why do the nations rage?
This rebellion is a lost cause.
It's a dead end.
It's a doomed enterprise.
And verses 4 to 6 tell us,
when we look at the Lord's confident response to them.
Look again at what He says, verse 4.
He who sits in the heavens laughs.
He 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.
God's response to the rebellion of the world
is laughter.
And this is not a warm-hearted chuckling.
This is mocking laughter.
It's not something you'd expect to read about God, is it?
But when God looks at those who are in rebellion against Him,
He is not afraid.
He's not in a state of panic.
His response is to laugh with confidence.
Why can the Lord laugh like this?
Well, look at where He is.
Verse 4, look at where He is.
He sits in the heavens on His throne,
the position of ultimate authority.
Psalm 109, 103, verse 19,
says the Lord has established His throne in the heavens,
and His kingdom rules over all.
Psalm 29, 10,
the Lord sits enthroned as King forever.
The Lord God is the King of the universe.
And look at what He says in verse 5.
He says,
Then I will speak to them,
He will speak to them in His wrath,
and terrify them in His fury.
As for me,
I have set my King on Zion,
my holy hill.
So not only is God the King of the universe,
but He has seated in this heavenly throne,
but He has set His King,
His earthly King,
in Zion,
that is,
in Jerusalem,
which is a city on a hill.
This is how God terrifies the nations,
is by appointing a King,
who will not be conquered.
And this King,
as we noted earlier,
is King David,
but it's also the Kings that came after David,
and from David's line.
You see,
God didn't just make David the King,
He also made a covenant with him,
a promise,
a binding agreement,
to establish His kingdom forever.
And we find that,
and read about that,
in 2 Samuel chapter 7.
I'd actually like you to turn back,
to 2 Samuel chapter 7,
and read that with me.
So 2 Samuel chapter 7.
I will begin in verses 12 to 16.
This is God's covenant with David.
The Lord said to David,
2 Samuel 7 verses 12 onwards,
3 Samuel 8,
When your days are fulfilled,
and you lie down with your fathers,
I will raise up your offspring after you,
who shall come from your body,
and I will establish His kingdom.
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.
When He commits iniquity,
I will discipline Him with the rod of men,
with the stripes of the sons of men,
but my steadfast love will not depart from Him.
And as I took it from Saul,
whom I put away before you,
and your house and your kingdom
shall be made sure forever before me,
your throne shall be established forever.
So the Lord promised David
that His son,
that is, not just the first son He had,
but all those who came after Him,
there would always be a line of David
that would sit upon the throne,
that His house, His kingdom,
would be established forever.
So when we flip back to Psalm 2 now,
with this in mind,
we see that this psalm goes beyond just David himself
into the future.
We see in verses 7 to 9
the sure success of this son,
this son that was mentioned
in that covenant with David.
Again, this is David speaking directly now.
He says,
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.
David's confidence, excuse me,
is rooted in what the Lord told him.
You are my son.
Today I have begotten you.
This is a reference, I think,
back to that covenant
that the Lord made with David.
I will be to him a father.
He shall be to me a son.
That's what David has in mind here in verse 7.
He knows that even though the nations of the world
are set against him,
that the Lord will be faithful to his covenant.
This is David's confidence,
what the Lord said.
Now, our circumstances this morning
are not at all like David's.
You're not the king of Israel.
You don't have nations coming to try and destroy you.
But the cause for our confidence
is still fundamentally the same.
That the Lord is true to his word.
He is faithful to his covenant with us in Jesus
and he will never leave us
nor forsake us.
Maybe you came to church this morning
feeling very weak
and at a very low ebb.
Let me encourage you from this psalm this morning
to let your confidence be in what the Lord has said.
As Christians, our confidence, our strength
is not found in ourselves, is it?
It's found in who God is
and what he has said.
The idea that the word or the phrase
a strong Christian
is in one sense almost like a paradox.
We become strong through the strength
of who God is.
It's not that we find in ourselves
some sort of like extra set of batteries for life
but rather that we depend
on who God is and what he says
and bank
on his promises coming to fulfillment.
In verse 8,
ask of me, the Lord says,
and I will make the nations your heritage,
the end of the earth,
the ends of the earth your possession.
the total expansion of this kingdom
that he has given to David.
So in the end,
the kingdom that God promised to David
will not just be in Jerusalem,
in Zion, in the Holy Hill,
but it will spread from there
to the ends of the earth.
Finally, in verses 10 to 12,
the focus turns back
to the right response of the nations.
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 with you
and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
This is David's advice
to his enemies,
to the nations who rebel.
They ought to serve the Lord with fear
and rejoice with trembling.
In other words,
they ought to turn from their rebellion
and submit to God
and to his king.
Otherwise, they will perish.
But the psalm ends with a promise
to the nations.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him,
that is, in the Son.
The Lord is merciful towards his enemies.
He holds out this promise to them,
a promise to bless.
You notice that Psalm 1,
I think Psalm 1 and Psalm 2
come together sort of as a pair
to introduce the whole of the Psalms.
The very beginning of Psalm 1 says what?
Blessed is the man
who does not live in the way of sinners,
essentially,
but who meditates on the law of the Lord.
And then Psalm 2 ends
with that same phrase.
Blessed is the one
who takes refuge in the Son.
So from reading Psalm 2 and Psalm 1,
we see we are blessed
to take refuge in the Son
and to abide in God's Word.
See, Psalm 2 is ultimately about Jesus.
It finds its fullest expression
in the life, death,
and resurrection of Jesus.
Just think of everything
the Lord promised to David.
I will raise up a son after you.
You will always have someone on the throne,
someone who will rule.
I will be to him a father.
He shall be to me a son.
And he will reign forever,
a kingdom that will never end
to the ends of the earth.
And that sounds amazing.
What happened after David died?
Solomon.
And that started off very well
and then went downhill very fast.
Because Solomon,
after all the blessings
the Lord had given him,
wandered away from the Lord
into worshipping false gods.
And then after Solomon,
his son,
Rehoboam,
who provoked the people
and was harsh towards them
and was such a bad leader
that he actually instigated
a civil rebellion
that most of the people just said,
if that's who you are,
we want nothing to do with you.
And there was a split
in the kingdom.
So far it doesn't look very good,
does it.
It's supposed to be
a kingdom forever,
a king in the line of David,
and things are just falling apart
with each consecutive generation.
And things after Rehoboam
go downwards
year after year,
generation after generation.
And things are so bad
that in the end
the Lord sends
the enemies of God's people,
these nations
that are spoken of in Psalm 2,
to invade the people
and take them off into exile.
And so you think,
this is the exact opposite
of Psalm 2 happening.
It's all devolving.
The nations are conquering us.
Can you imagine being
a Jew in exile
and reading Psalm 2?
You'd be thinking like,
where is this going to happen?
We're supposed to have
a conquering king,
a kingdom that will never end.
The nations are warned.
And here we are,
in the middle of nowhere,
ripped out of our land
with no king
and no kingdom to speak of.
Eventually,
they were allowed
to go back
to the promised land.
And when they went back,
they rebuilt the temple
and the people
who remembered
the original temple
cried because it was
such a poor shadow
of what it was before.
In other words,
they were back home,
but they weren't back
to the glory days.
Until you turn
to the first page
of the New Testament
and Matthew writes
in his first sentence
of his Gospel,
the book of the genealogy
of Jesus Christ,
the son of David.
In other words,
this is him.
This is the one
spoken of
in the Davidic covenant.
And then Matthew
spells out
his genealogy
to show that Jesus
literally descended
from David.
When Jesus began
his public ministry,
Matthew chapter 4,
he said,
Repent,
for the kingdom
of heaven
is at hand.
Unmistakable
kingship language.
And where is he
when he started?
He was in the land
of David.
When people saw
Jesus healed,
they were amazed
and said,
Can this be
the son of David?
And when Jesus
entered into Jerusalem
and ascended
to Mount Zion,
when he entered
into the gates,
the crowds
that went before him
and followed him
were shouting,
Hosanna
to the son of David.
Blessed is the one
who comes
in the name
of the Lord.
You see,
they were expecting
a conquering king
on their terms.
One who would
destroy the Romans
and just bring them
back to the glory days.
But their expectations
were skewed.
When Jesus
conquered by suffering,
above him
they hung
this inscription,
This is the king
of the Jews.
Jesus,
God's
anointed king,
died on the cross
at the hands
of the nations
for the nations.
And when he rose
from the grave,
he commanded
his disciples
to go out
into the nations
so that the message
of forgiveness
would go
and spread
from Jerusalem
to the ends
of the earth.
We see that
Psalm 2
is ultimately
about Jesus.
And that just
as sure
as God
kept his promise
to keep that
line of David
going until Christ,
the king of kings,
arrived,
so too will he
keep his promise
that the kingdom
of God
will spread
to the ends
of the earth.
So when we send,
when you as a church
and we also
send out Amy
to Sheffield
and support missionaries
and send money
and pray,
we are participating
in God's fulfilling
of his own word
that he will give
to his anointed king
the ends of the earth.
You know,
I was thinking,
if you're David
and you have the whole
of the world
stacked against you,
numerically,
you are outgunned.
And at times
as Christians
we look out
and go,
there's just so much
rebellion,
so few people
who follow the Lord
and you feel
outgunned.
You ever feel like that?
Outgunned as a Christian?
Outnumbered?
But look at the confidence
in this psalm
that David has
in God's word
that he will bring
his word to pass.
He is the son of David
who will inherit
the nations
as his rightful possession.
Where do you stand
with the Lord
and his anointed king
this morning?
Are you in rebellion
against him?
Are we to receive him
warmly
and take refuge in him?
Remember these words
of promise
as we end.
Blessed are all those
who take refuge
in him.
Let's pray.
Father,
we thank you
for Christ the King
and Lord
that you will fulfill
all your promises
that you made
to your servant David.
that you will extend
the kingdom
to the ends
of the earth, Lord
and that you will
put an end
to the rebellion
of this world
against you.
Lord,
we thank you
that instead of
only holding out
judgment
to a rebellious world,
Lord,
that you hold out
this offer of rebellion
or this offer of peace
and of forgiveness
and blessedness
through your son Jesus.
We thank you
for Jesus our Savior
and as we sing now
of his kingship,
we pray
that you would receive
worship from our hearts
and we praise you
in his name.
Amen.
We're going to close
by standing
or we're going to stand now
and sing
King of Kings.