Psalm 2 - The Conflict of the Kings

Talk about uh their royal theme, talking about the kingship of Jesus Christ.

And I want to invite you to a passage of scripture that does the same.

So let's take our Bibles and go over to Psalm 2.

Psalm 2.

If you have any familiarity at all with Shakespeare, you know that Shakespeare had quite a fascination with royalty.

Just a sampling of his plays that had a royal theme: Macbeth, of course, King Lear, Henry V, Henry the Fourth, part one and two, Henry VI, part one, two, and three, Richard II, Richard III, King John, and that's just a sampling.

Well, in Psalm 2, we're brought into a play which has been called the drama of the ages.

I call it uh tonight the conflict of the kings, the conflict of the kings.

It contains a drama declaring the events and forces that are in play in our world today and have been since the fall of man.

And I'd like to take you through five scenes as we work our way through this psalm that show the movement of this play of the conflict of the kings.

In the first scene, we see the rulers speak to one another.

The psalm begins very abruptly with a scene that's full of unrest and turmoil.

We're not told why, but the nations of the earth and their kings are pictured as raging against persons of authority.

Take a look at verse 2.

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers conspire together.

Why this convergence of kings?

Well, verse 3 tells us they've plotted to overthrow these people in authority.

Let us tear off their chains and throw their ropes off of us.

Now, who is the object of their hatred and their rebellion?

Well, verse 2 tells us, it leaves us with no doubt, that who they're rebelling against is the Lord and his anointed one, our Messiah.

Here in the first scene of this play, this conflict of kings, we hear little men speaking their little pieces and playing their little parts on the stage of humanity.

And as Shakespeare put it, poor players that strut and fret in their hour upon the stage.

No wonder Psalm two starts with these words why did the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

In the fourth century, fourth chapter of the book of Acts, the first persecution breaking out against the early church, we're told that the apostles and Peter and John had been threatened, warned not to speak about the name of Jesus.

And they returned back to the church and they talked about what they had been told.

And this is how the church responded to that.

In verse 24, when they heard this, they raised their voices together to God and said, Master, you're the one who made the heaven, the earth, and the sea, and everything in them.

And you said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our father David, your servant, Why to the Gentiles rage, and the peoples play futile things?

Quoting Psalm two.

For in fact, in this city both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel assembled together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

Scene one, rebellious kings, rebellion against the King of Kings.

Scene two, the psalmist speaks about the Lord in verses four and five, telling us that hate all they want to, plan all that they would like to do, fret and fuss all they would wish to do, they will never be able to rid themselves of God.

Their hostility is futile.

Why?

Well, verses four and five tell us God is sovereign.

God is sovereign.

He sits enthroned in heaven.

In other words, he transcends men who sit on earth in the dust of the ground.

He is far superior than humanity.

And what effect will all of this opposition against him do?

Well, God is going to go ahead and go forward with his divine purposes.

What little men down here are wanting to do against him in rebellion will never deter him, will never detour him, will never defer him at all.

And how does this scene of hostility affect him?

Is God stricken with fear, tremorous that his plans won't take place?

Does he fly into a panic, wondering if he has the strength to be able to meet this opposition?

Does he call an emergency cabinet of the heavenly court and say, What do we do?

The things that I've made are rebelling.

Take a look at verse four.

He who's enthroned in the heavens laughs.

Laughs.

God scoffs at puny humanity as we parade briefly across the stage of history, as we fume and fuss in our rebellion.

You see, God didn't wake up this morning and read something in the morning paper or offer that our favorite spot to go to in the web and be surprised about it all or worried about any of it.

But after he laughs, he speaks in verse 6.

I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.

Continue to go on and to talk about the implications of this opposition in light of Psalm 2.

In fact, in this city, as I read in verse 27, both Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel assembled against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

Now let me finish the verse, to do whatever your hand and your will have predestined to take place.

The opposition is actually in the hands of the king, doing exactly what he's determined to have happen.

The Lord has already done the very thing his enemies want to prevent, that he's made his anointed one king.

King.

Charles Spurgeon put it this way: While they're proposing, God is disposing the matter.

Yahweh's will is done, and while men fret and rave in vain, God's anointed is appointed and shall never be disappointed.

And that leads us to scene three in verses seven to nine, where the anointed one now speaks to his opposition.

At this juncture, he speaks himself.

And his words take us back to the moment when God decreed that he would reign, a time before the world existed, when the triune God had planned his divine purposes of redemption for sinners.

At that time, the second person of the Trinity agreed to take upon himself human flesh in the fullness of time, as Galatians 4 tells us.

And so in verse 7, we read these words I will declare the Lord's decree, he said to me, You are my son, today I have become your father.

Anticipating his mediatorial role and action as redeemer, the father anointed the second person of the Trinity to become king through the work of redemption, and no one would ever be able to change that divine purpose.

Again, the early church took up Psalm 2, this time in Acts chapter 13.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And though they found no grounds for death, they asked Pilate to have him killed.

And when they had carried out all that had been written about him, again, divine purpose and sovereignty, they took him down from the tree and put him in a tomb.

But God raised him from the dead, and he appeared for many days to those who came with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now witnesses to the people.

And we ourselves proclaim to you the good news of the promise that was made to our ancestors.

God has fulfilled all of this for us, their children, by raising up Jesus, as it is written in the second Psalm, You are my Son, today I have become your Father.

Listen as the anointed one continues to speak in verses eight and nine.

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, and the ends of the earth your possession.

The Father speaking to the Son about what God will yet do through his anointed one, that the nations would become the inheritance of the Son.

He would receive them.

How does he do that?

Well, listen again to the scriptures.

Jesus, we just finished looking at this in the Gospel of Matthew, standing before his disciples after the resurrection and before the ascension, said, All authority is given to be in heaven and in earth.

Go therefore and do what?

Make disciples of all nations.

He's claiming his inheritance through the expression of the gospel.

That he's making his enemies his people by forgiving their sins and receiving them into his family.

And that's why in Acts chapter 4, in the opposition that was coming upon them, in the recognition of Psalm chapter 2, the early church said, Now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness.

Acts 4 · chapter mention Psalms 2 · chapter mention

And when they had prayed, the place that they were assembled was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.

And with great power, the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

In light of the opposition of the church, they realized the sovereign rule of the Messiah King Jesus.

And instead of coming out with swords, they came out with gospel words to deliver the nations.

And that's why in a moment we'll sing, Jesus shall reign where eer the Son does his successive journeys run, his kingdom spread from shore to shore till moons shall wax and wane no more.

And that leads us to our final scene in verses 10 to 12, where the psalmist now steps in and talks to the rulers.

These rulers that first talked to one another about rebellion.

Now the psalmist says, in light of who God is, and in light of who the Messiah is, there's something you should do instead.

So now, kings, be wise.

Receive instruction, you judges of the earth.

Serve the Lord with reverential awe and rejoice with trembling.

Pay homage to the Son, or he will be angry and you will perish in your rebellion, for his anger may ignite at any moment.

And then he finishes with hope.

All who take refuge in him are happy.

It just makes sense, doesn't it?

If all of this hostility is futile and vain, the only reasonable thing for people to do is to throw down their arms and to submit to God.

Be wise, it says in verse 10.

Think this out.

Recognize the situation for what it is.

Are you really more powerful than God?

Do you really think you can win this battle?

Don't nurse any hope of succeeding against him.

Verse 11, serve the Lord with fear, worship the God, recognize his greatness, bow in awe before him, rejoice with trembling, submit to him, and in submitting find true happiness and joy.

Too often we think that serving God means, well, giving up our greatest joys.

But the psalmist here says we find our greatest joy in service.

Kiss the Son or do pay homage to the Son means to show him true affection, to cease hating God's king, and to start loving him.

What about those who refuse to listen to this?

The psalmist gives a stern, stern warning.

Pay homage to the Son, or he will be angry, and you will perish in your rebellion.

For his anger may ignite at any moment, and all who take refuge in him are happy.

These final words are sobering and yet also inviting, telling us that we're not going to win this battle.

We may stew and steam and fuss and foil in our hearts all day long, all our lives, but we will never win that battle in the conflict of the kings.

And the option is very clear.

Those who refuse to submit will one day be cut off, while they're, as an old translation puts it, walking in the way, as they're carrying out their lives filled with rebellion.

One day they will simply just be cut off.

And along with it will be all of their hatred and all of the venom that they have against God.

And he will step in and cut that down.

Philip Doddridge wrote a hymn, he often wrote hymns in conjunction with the sermons that he would preach.

And in one hit one hymn that he wrote, in light of a sermon that he preached about judgment, he wrote this How will my heart endure the terrors of that day when earth and heaven before his face, astonished, shrink away?

But ere or before that trumpet shakes the mansions of the dead, hark, listen, from the gospel's cheering sound, what joyful tidings spread.

You sinners, seek his grace, whose wrath you cannot bear.

Fly to the shelter of his cross and find salvation there.

And that's exactly how Psalm 2 ends.

It ends with those words.

And when we sing a friend of Philip Doddridge's hymn, Isaac Watts, and Jesus shall reign where'er the sun, he includes as one of the verses there, blessings abound where'er he reigns, the prisoners leap to lose their chains, the weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blessed, ending with what is given here in Psalm 2.

It started with men who wanted to tear off chains, thinking that they were bound by God.

And it ends with this image that in Jesus Christ we lose our chains because we're actually prisoners of our own sinfulness.

And in being loosed of those chains, we are forever, ever blessed.

So no wonder Isaac Watts finished with Let every creature rise and bring the highest honors to the king.

Angels descend with songs again, and earth repeat the loud Amen.

Amen.

Right, let's sing some more.