Psalm 2

Psalm 2.

Psalm 2.

Psalm 2.

We're taking a bit of a change in our sermon series.

We've finished the series on Philippians.

What an encouraging series that was to start the year off.

For the holidays though, for the rest of the year,

what we'll be doing is preaching on a small series of psalms.

And this particular holiday is obviously the Easter holidays.

So we're going to look at Messianic Psalms,

which is why we're starting with Psalm 2,

the first Messianic Psalm in the Psalter.

And so there'll be myself and Dave,

while David actually has some holiday during this period.

All right.

So as you've actually heard Psalm 2 read out,

and probably as you have it open in front of you,

you've probably realized that there's a little bit of a gear change

from the encouraging words of Philippians

to where we're going to now in Psalm 2.

Psalm 2 is quite confronting.

When you look at these two categories that Catherine used,

I think it's fair to say that if you look at the New Testament

or you look at the Bible as a whole,

you get to see them and how they interplay with each other.

But in Psalm 2, it's a little bit less clear.

It seems far more balanced,

more toward the thunderbolt kind of God

than the loving kind of God.

But what I'm hoping is that as we look through this psalm,

you'll actually get to see that love is very much in the picture

in what's going on here.

God's desire to show grace toward us is very much in the picture.

One of the other things that I hope you'll see

is that this psalm actually gives us a sense of

who we are and how we fit into the world.

I don't know if you've picked up on the Israel Folau comments

that he didn't tweet, did he?

He put them on his Instagram feed

and how the response to that has led to his...

Has he been sacked yet?

I'm not sure.

They want to sack him if they can actually get in touch with him.

So there's this reaction to what Israel Folau said

in expressing his faith

that has kind of shocked a lot of Christians.

I've noticed in my own Facebook feed

that folk have actually been responding to it

in a variety of different ways

and I guess one of the most common features of those responses

is a concern for where that leaves us as Christians.

Where does it leave us in our desire to express our faith,

in our desire to actually introduce other people to God?

What does it mean for us?

What is the future of Australia?

Where is this country going?

Well, this psalm tells us not just where our country is going

but it tells us the trajectory of the whole world, the universe.

It gives us a sense of the history of mankind

and where it's going under God's hands.

It gives us a sense of why people

are so strongly objecting to Israel Folau

and hearing only condemnation in his words

and it gives us, I hope, a sense of comfort

that God actually truly is in control.

So let's have a look at this passage then

and start to break it open.

We get verses 1 to 3,

we get to see the sense of rebellion

in the worldwide sense.

We read these words,

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 their cords from us.

You see here a picture of universal rebellion against God.

Now when I read this and when you read it

perhaps you read the nations and the peoples

as the whole world.

But when the Israelites read it and sang it

and meditated on it,

they read it as,

well, it's everyone who is not Israel.

They didn't read it as all of us,

they read it as,

they read it as from the perspective of us and them

and they are the nations,

they are the peoples.

And I've got to say that frankly

I'm inclined to want to read a psalm like this that way.

I'm inclined to want to read it as,

well, yeah, this applies to everyone else but me

or at least everyone else but me and you guys as well.

Yeah, we want to stay in fellowship.

So everyone else but us.

We're okay.

It's the world that's a mess.

And if they just turn to God like I have,

then everything would be fine.

So Israel,

they thought it was about everyone else

at the time that this psalm was written

and at the time when they were singing this

up until a certain point.

And they thought that the rest of the world

were the rebels who were actually deserving

of the kind of judgment that's described in this psalm.

But this psalm is sharp-edged

because those who anticipated this king,

this anointed one being in thrones and his rule,

those who anticipated this were the ones

who raged against him and ultimately killed him.

If you just take a note in your,

if you take notes in your bulletin or whatever,

take a note of Acts chapter 4 verses 25 to 28.

Acts 4:25–28

Because in those verses,

the disciples actually apply these verses

to the people who killed Jesus.

Now think of who they were.

They actually named them in this prayer

that they pray in Acts 4.

They named them Herod, Pilate,

and the peoples of Israel.

What the psalmist goes on to describe

is the shape and tone of the world we live in,

no exceptions.

What we need to do is to begin to hear these words

and ask, how?

How does it apply to me?

As I read or sing these words,

where am I positioned in this psalm?

Because this message is confronting.

They, that is the people of the world,

rage and plot.

Notice this is a heart attitude.

It starts with a heart attitude.

Raging and plotting isn't just something

that's an external thing.

It's actually something that comes from within us.

It's a passionate response.

Now maybe you're not thinking,

you're thinking that you're not passionate in that sense.

You're not a rager.

So you're wondering,

what does that actually look like?

Well, Bruce Waltke,

an Old Testament theologian,

summed it up really helpfully.

He describes it like this.

He says,

in the 21st century,

we want liberty without law,

freedom without form

and love without commitment.

Let me just flesh those out a little bit for you.

So liberty without law.

There's a growing perception

that limits remove liberty.

When someone writes a law

that restricts what I want to do,

well,

we feel like they're restricting my liberty.

It rises in us in thoughts like,

you don't have the right to tell me

what I can and can't do.

Funnily enough,

going down that path is anarchy,

where anarchy means without government.

So liberty without law

or freedom without form,

where freedom actually functions

on the level of personal identity

or expression.

Rather than coming up against rules,

we come up against perceptions.

I want to be free to be the version of myself

that I choose to be.

Freedom without reference to who or what I am.

And how much has that come out

in the way that laws are being shaped at the moment.

And any expectation that's contrary to my view

will be interpreted as an assault

to my personal freedom of choice

or expression.

And finally,

he said love without commitment.

You see,

I want to be unencumbered by demands.

Nobody should have a hold on me.

I should be free to move in and out of relationships

as I choose.

I don't want love to be unconditional.

I don't want to have to be giving

without guarantees that I'm going to receive.

I'm going to suggest to you that these three things

stand in direct opposition to God's character.

So this lifestyle actually requires life without God.

Our hearts turn from God.

And with our hearts go our minds.

This attitude of heart takes form in the mind

as they plot, set, take counsel.

We read in this section,

these first three verses.

What the psalmist describes here

is nothing other than rebellion.

Plotting to overthrow God.

Setting ourselves on God's throne

in place of the rightful king.

Taking counsel among ourselves.

Obviously rejecting God's counsel.

I don't naturally and easily move toward God

is what this psalm is saying.

Far from it.

Rebellion is in my blood.

Why?

Why though?

Notice this psalm starts with the question,

why?

As all this is being described,

the overarching question the psalmist asks is,

why?

Why do we rebel?

Well, the answer is in our perception,

the perception of the plotters.

They say in verse 3,

let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.

Now we understand the desire for freedom,

but to desire it in this way

means that they believe

that they're currently slaves.

They feel like they're in chains.

They perceive their state

as tied down in bondage.

They believe that God

is holding them back.

And their claim carries echoes

of Satan's lie in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Do you remember that?

In the midst of the world of evidence

of the goodness of God,

they choose to believe otherwise.

So Genesis 3 verse 1.

Genesis 3:1

Now the serpent was more crafty

than any other beast of the field

that the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman,

did God actually say

you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

Here's a law.

And the woman said to the serpent,

we may eat of the fruit

of the trees in the garden,

but God said,

you shall not eat of the fruit

of the tree that is

in the midst of the garden.

Neither shall you touch it

lest you die.

There's a perception of liberty

or lack of.

But the serpent said to the woman,

and here's the kicker,

the serpent said to the woman,

you will not surely die.

For God knows

that when you eat of it,

your eyes will be opened

and you will be like God,

knowing good and evil.

Why would they think

they're in bondage?

Because as long as God rules,

they believe there is no liberty,

no freedom.

In other words,

God is not good.

He's just our jailer.

The psalmist then goes on

to look at God's rule

and to reflect on that.

You see, humanity,

in his mind,

has actually picked a fight

with the biggest person

in the universe.

So what is going to happen next?

Well, in summary,

God will continue to reign

unchallenged and unimpeded.

In verses 4 to 6,

we discover this.

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.

Unchallenged,

God's rule.

God's rule persists unchallenged.

The psalmist explains,

God sits on a throne

far beyond our reach

to challenge.

So God looks on

from this position

and laughs

at their futile expressions

of defiance.

He holds them in derision.

Have you ever seen

this power difference

play out in your lives?

I know when I was a parent

with much younger children,

when they were very young,

we used to have play fights,

Friday night, fight night.

We'd have play fights

and they'd just pile on top of me,

drag me to the ground

and climb all over me

and jump up onto the lounge

and then jump off

of the lounge onto me.

And they'd just bounce off me.

And I only had to use one weapon

and that was,

the only weapon I was allowed to use

in the fight was tickling.

Now you might say

that's a pretty extreme weapon,

you know,

tickling is pretty bad

and maybe your sort of person

doesn't like that.

But that's all I was allowed to do

was tickle them

and that was enough

for me to defeat

those three kids

all in one go.

Let me tell you now,

I don't let them do this now.

But,

but I want to,

just want to point out

that we're not like that.

We're not like these children

that are going to grow up

and actually become

powerful enough

to resist anyone

and anything

that stands in our way.

We aren't growing

to a point

where we can challenge God

on any level.

There is no height

that we can launch ourselves from

that is above Him.

No weight

that we can bring to bear

that will move Him.

And no exercise of intellect

that will confound Him

in any way.

The only thing

that we've achieved

with our efforts

is to plunge the world

into turmoil.

and it's really interesting

that humanity

is so committed

to rebelling against God

that we blame

that turmoil

on Him too.

We've moved

from resting in paradise

to struggling for peace

and we still blame God.

But God's rule continues.

He rules unimpeded.

The psalmist makes this clear

by describing the effect

of God's rule

when he speaks

God exercises His wrath

and the response

humanity is terrified.

We have picked a fight

with the strongest person

in the universe

and he plans to fight back.

God's plan involves setting

or enthroning

the word setting

set there actually means enthrone.

the rightful king.

We're just pretenders

to the throne

when we try and claim it

for ourselves.

God's king

is able to take a seat

on the heavenly throne

far above any position

of authority

that we could claim.

And this is a terrifying event

because everyone

is a rebel.

And in the ancient Near East

there is only one outcome

for rebels.

That's death.

The nations of the time

reserved the worst form

of death

for rebels.

Methods that inflicted

the maximum pain

and humiliation.

Methods like crucifixion

were widely used

in the nations

around Israel.

I don't know if you know

of the story Spartacus.

That was 100 BC

where 6,000 rebel slaves

were crucified

on the Appian Way

on the way back into Rome,

one of the main roads

into Rome.

6,000 rebels

were crucified

one after the other.

And the enthronement

of this rightful king

would mean

that the rebellion

is over.

So punishment

of this kind of magnitude

is coming.

And this is what God,

this is what the psalmist

goes on to describe

as he lays out

God's plan

in verses 7 to 9.

We read the words,

Here he describes the king,

the enthronement of the king

and his complete victory.

Let's look at the king here.

The psalmist speaks in a way

that's actually reminiscent

of a coronation ceremony

of the time.

And it's also reminiscent

of God's promise to David

in 2 Samuel 7.

Again, something to note down

and have a look back at later.

But in that chapter

of 2 Samuel,

Yahweh promised

that a king of David's line

would be a son to him

and that that son

would rule forever.

Here, the Lord, Yahweh,

personally swears in

this new king.

You are my son.

Today, I have begotten you.

Although, I think it's in Acts 2

that this psalm is attributed

to David as having been

written by David.

David's obviously talking

about someone who isn't him.

He's actually referring

to the promise

that God made to him.

So he's not applying

this to himself.

He's not saying,

I am that king.

He's saying,

this king is coming.

The arrival of the eternal king.

It's past tense

to emphasize the certainty

of this king's arrival.

In the minds of the Israelites,

this was a king

who was very much expected

but hadn't arrived yet.

He was the one

that God's people

were waiting for

and they expected this king

to restore the fortunes

of Israel.

So it was an emphatic

declaration of kingship

with an emphatic expression

of victory involved too.

This was not just a king

but the king.

The king who would be universally

and emphatically victorious.

Not only would the king be eternal

but his rule would be universal.

The nations would become his right.

The world, his possession.

This ruler would be unimpeachable.

This would be no Donald Trump.

You could not resist

the rule of this king.

His rule would be bloody too.

And it's kind of uncomfortable

the way that he describes this.

But perhaps the worse your situation

and the more desperate you get,

the more willing you are

to hear the emphatic nature

of this victory.

The more willing you are perhaps

to accept a ruler

who will get the job done.

We have examples of that

in recent political history.

So for example,

the people of the Philippines

recently elected a president

to take on the drug gangs.

Zero tolerance.

The people were given the authority

to literally shoot on sight.

And they have.

They've killed 12,000 people

in the past two years.

The people of Brazil

have more recently done the same thing.

The country is struggling

under economic mismanagement,

under corruption.

And the violence is just rife

within the country.

Over 60,000 murders a year in Brazil.

So they elected an extremist.

A man who is allegedly

turning the country

into a police state

according to an interview

I heard on Radio National this week.

From a distance,

these kind of things

make us feel uncomfortable.

But when we read this psalm,

it almost sounds like,

is this where things are going?

Is this where this king

is going to go with things?

Because his rule is emphatic.

The psalmist's image

of the king's victory

over his opponents

is equally brutal.

The Lord says in verse 9,

You shall break them

with a rod of iron

and dash them in pieces

like a potter's vessel.

Not much lovey-dovey

in that, is there?

Break.

Smash.

If we open these words

up a little bit,

and you might see it

in some of your Bibles,

that word break

can actually be,

there's no vowels

in the Hebrew,

original Hebrew.

So you can actually

re-vocalize that word

to mean another word,

which is rule.

It may well be that

that's what's intended here.

And that's why your Bibles

may well actually

have a footnote here.

Where rule is actually

literally meaning shepherd.

And it fits with the imagery

that's actually being used

in this verse.

Because the rod of iron

is actually representative

of the shepherd's

weapon of defense.

The kings of the ancient

Near East carried a scepter

as a symbol of their

shepherding,

caring role

over their people.

They were to devote

themselves to defending

their sheep.

This imagery

that's being used here

is meant to be

defensive.

But does it make you

flinch that it's being

expressed in this kind

of way?

The psalmist writes

a song of introduction

to the book of songs

that encourages

God's people

to long

for this

kind of king.

They meditated

on these words

as they sang

the song.

And they hoped

for it to be fulfilled.

It almost makes you

wonder if religion

really is the cause

of all the violence

in the world

when you read

verses like this.

Until

you understand

who this king is

and how

this victory

was achieved.

then you realize

that this psalm

is grace filled.

It's offering

God's grace

to the world.

The psalmist

writes in verse 7

I will tell

of the decree

the Lord said

to me

you are my son

today

I have begotten

you.

This king

has come

and the New

Testament

writers

recognized him.

Again some

verses to take down

they're actually

up on the screen

as well for you

to take note

so you don't

have to just

get them down

as quickly as

you can.

They'll be there

for a few

moments.

In Hebrews 1.5

we discover

that this psalm

is about Jesus.

Jesus

is the son

who will rule

over everyone

and everything

higher than the

angels.

In Hebrews 5.5

this psalm

is about Jesus

as high priest.

He is appointed

to sacrifice

on behalf

of the people

to protect them

from their

greatest enemy

death.

death.

In Acts 4.25

the opposition

in this psalm

results in

Jesus' death.

The disciples

understood

as I already

said earlier

the disciples

understood

that the

plotting

against the

Lord

and his

anointed

was fulfilled

in Jesus'

execution.

How?

A traitor's

death.

A rebel's

death.

The death

that we

deserved.

And in

Acts 13.

33.

This psalm

is about

Jesus'

resurrection.

Today I

have begotten

you is

applied

directly

to Jesus'

resurrection.

And it's

like we

picked a

fight with

the strongest

person in

the universe.

The new

Avengers movie

is coming

out.

They're all

still part of

the universe.

We're talking

about the

creator of the

universe.

the strongest

person who

exists in

the universe.

We stole

from him

what was

most precious.

We humiliated

him publicly.

We committed

the most

blatant injustice

and rebellion.

And there

he is,

ready to

fall on us

with the

full weight

of his

anger.

And he

had all the

power necessary

and every

reason to

crush us.

And yet

that person

fought back

by taking

it out on

himself.

The king

ruled by

establishing

justice.

And King

Jesus ruled

by choosing

to have the

full weight

of this

justice

bear down

on him.

The justice

we deserved

fell on

him.

Grace

filled

response.

People do

blame religion

for the

problems of

the world.

But when

they blame

Christianity,

do they

really understand

what's at the

heart of it?

at the

heart of the

Christian faith

is Christ,

this king.

The one who

has every

right to

punish us

and yet

chooses to

bear the

punishment

himself,

should we

only trust

him?

We do

get

Christianity

wrong.

Even

Christians

get

Christianity

wrong.

But friends,

the solution

isn't less

Christianity.

The truth

is the

world needs

more of

it.

We need

this king

to reign

over us.

And so

the

psalmist

concludes

with

presenting

us

with

a

choice

in

verses

10-12.

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.

be wise,

be warned,

there is a

real choice

to be made

here.

Accept

this king

or accept

the judgment

he offered

to bear

on your

behalf.

The

psalmist

has a

perspective

of God

that I

think we

struggle to

maintain,

that there

is no

equality

with God

to be

offered

here.

God

is God.

God

is God

to be

to be

with fear

and rejoicing

with trembling

are clear

signs that

we really

do recognize

this king

for who

he is.

And

understanding

his anger

and his

right to

exercise

justice

are sure

signs that

we actually

recognize who

we are.

But

blessed

are all

who take

refuge in

him.

Blessed

are all

who take

refuge in

him.

Let me

finish by

saying that

this blessing

is not a

call to

religion.

It's a

call to

God.

Come to

the church

and hopefully

you'll find a

caring community.

You'll

discover a

principled and

appealing

lifestyle.

One that I

think actually

enriches life

for anybody.

But to

come for

those reasons

would be to

miss the

point.

The

psalmist

calls us to

kiss the

son.

It's a

sign of

covenant

commitment,

of

submission,

of

intimacy.

It's a

personal

relational

commitment to

this God,

this king,

this God,

king,

who personally

and relationally

and emphatically

broke into

history.

But this

choice in this

psalm is not

for a lifestyle,

that's religion.

And religion

is comfortable

nothingness

at best.

This choice

is for

God,

the God

who graciously

offers us

peace with

himself.

Friends,

don't settle

for comfortable.

Settle for

God,

for blessed

are all who

take refuge

in him.

Amen.