The Power of Your Influence

Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of

Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.

I hope the following message challenges, encourages, and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

All right, let's get into the word this morning.

If you would turn with me to Psalm Chapter 2, we are in a

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

miniseries, I guess you could call it.

We're looking at Psalm Chapter 2, and I want to look at Psalm

Psalms 2 · chapter mention Psalms 2 · chapter mention

Chapter 2 and Psalm 149 this morning.

I want to tie those two together, and I also want to tie

in what we've been talking about on Wednesday night.

So on Wednesday nights, we've been doing a series that we're

wrapping up this Wednesday on authority, the biblical concept

of authority. Authority is different than

power. Power is a force from heaven

that comes upon us to do with God what we can't do without

him. Authority is the authorization

from the author to execute his will and to put our stamp on

things. It's really a governing word,

and God gives us authority, and so we need to understand that.

So we've been. I'm going to just read through

some things, otherwise I'll talk too much.

I know that's shocking to pastor.

You could. Yeah.

OK, we no one acted surprised. We have been talking about

authority. I want to give a quick over.

So God as creator or the author of all things hold all

authority. He controls the narrative, so

he's writing the story. He's the author.

He does he How he does so, however, is crucial to the rest

of your theology. If you get this wrong, it has a

cascading effect which shapes the rest of your theology, and

in so doing it will relegate you to passivity if you don't

understand how God governs. So God governs through delegates

He authorizes. And so as the source of all

authority, the author in turn authorizes others within his

created order with authority, responsibility for which he

empowers us. And so he does that with human

beings and he does that with angelic beings.

And we need to understand that because if we don't, there are

theologies that undermine and will literally create passivity

in the human heart because we think that God is up there doing

everything and acting upon us rather than saying, hey, I want

you to do something. And in other words, while most

of us are down here wringing our hands saying, God, look at the

situation. Would you do something?

Why don't you move? God looks at us and says, why

don't you do something? I've invited you to invite me.

It's called prayer. And so we need to engage and

there's there's action that we need to we need to participate

in. And so God delegates authority

to us. And that brings us to the whole

concept. We've talked about it last week,

touched on it, the concept of the Divine Council.

Now Psalm 2, what we're going to look at has it's got several

themes that carry throughout Scripture, themes that are very

important to your and I's role. And so it's Psalm Chapter 2.

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

It's got there's a number of points that it hits that we're

going to just touch on this morning that are overarching

themes that kind of spread throughout Scripture.

And one of them is the divine council.

Now, if you've ever studied the divine council, I don't know

about you, but when I read, when I first began to study about

this, I thought, this cannot be right.

I wasn't taught this in Bible school.

And if you don't have that reaction from time to time in

reading your Bible, you're probably not reading your Bible.

Seriously, You ever been reading and all of a sudden you realize,

I don't know what I read because I was thinking about something

else Good. I'm not the only one.

A lot of times we can just read over the Bible because we

already know what we believe. We already have this

presupposition that we bring to the word, and so we just gloss

over things and we miss things. That's, that's one of the

benefits, by the way, of reading other translations because it

kind of jars you and causes you to look at things from a little

different angle. And so you'll end up seeing

things you don't see or sometimes listening to the Bible

on, on, you know, on audible or something like that, listening

to the word because you'll catch things you wouldn't catch

before, because our tendency is to superimpose what we already

believe and miss what the word is really saying.

And so one of the things we need to do is we need to learn to

slow ourselves down in the study of the word in the reading of

the word. And as we slow down, we'll

discover things in like, whoa, I never saw that.

Can that really be? I have found myself disagreeing

with the word of God on many occasions.

Now I'm I may not be the brightest bulb in the room, but

I do know this that when I disagree with the word of the

God, God, the problems on my end.

And so I need to re look at that say God, what is this?

I've never seen this before. And that is a healthy thing for

us to be kind of hitting those snags in our Bible reading and

seeing things that we've never seen before and thinking

through. And the divine council is one of

those. And so real quick here, the

divine council, I'm just going to give you a little overview.

The Old Testament reveals a council of decision makers,

those beings with whom God willingly shares the

responsibility of governing His creation.

The book of Daniel gives us an interesting insight into the

happenings of the divine counsel in regards to an earthly king,

the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar.

So why don't you turn with me to Daniel chapter 4?

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

Very quickly we're going to look at that passage.

But the divine counsel is something that shows up in

numerous passages. Daniel 4 gives us a behind the

scenes happening and so the idea is that there is this, this

ruling body, this council, COUNCIL, this, this decision

making body that and and just just let me pause there.

God doesn't need any help making decisions.

He's pretty smart, he knows everything.

He's all powerful. God didn't make us because he

was lonely. I've heard people say it.

Well, God made us because he was lonely.

No, he wasn't lonely. He is self-sufficient.

He is perfectly, he perfectly has everything that he will need

for his existence. However, he is so relational and

so benevolent and giving that it emanates from him.

And he had one son. He wanted many sons.

He wanted a big family. He wants, he wants to share his

creation. He wants to share his rule with

his people. And so he created us.

And so God doesn't need a divine counsel, but he created one.

That's his business. That's above my pay grade.

Why he did it, I don't know. I know he doesn't need it, but

he did it. He doesn't need you and I, but

he created us and I'm glad he did.

I kind of like life. I like, I like this better than

the alternative of not existing. And so God created these things

because of his nature. So Daniel chapter 4, we're going

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

to look at this real quick. Look at verse one, but king,

King Nebuchadnezzar, Well, jump to I'm sorry, this is let's

let's look at verse jump to verse 4.

So in this passage King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.

Listen to he introduces it here in verse 4I.

Nebuchadnezzar was at ease in my house and prospering in my

palace. I saw a dream that made me

afraid as I laid in my bed in the fancies and visions of my

head. I like that the fancies and

visions of my head alarmed me. So I made a decree that all the

wise men of Babylon should be brought before me, that they

should make known to me the interpretation of the dream.

And so he says, I was at ease and prospering.

Sometimes we get so at ease God will interrupt our ease to kind

of jar us awake and bring some correction.

And that's what he was doing with the Nebuchadnezzar.

And in this dream, if you read on, I'm just do a quick

overview, He saw this large tree with roots that went down deep

into the earth. And then the tree, the branches

spanned and over the earth and the birds of the air found

shelter in his branches, and people came to live underneath

it. And it was this glorious tree.

And then he says this in his dream.

He says, Look at verse 13. I saw in the visions of my head

as I lay in bed, and behold, A watcher, a holy one, came down

from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said,

thus chop down the tree and lop off its branches, branches,

strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.

Let the beast flee from under it, and the birds from its

branches. And so there's this, it says

that a watcher came and look at verse 17.

This is so this sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the

decision by the word of the holy ones.

Now what is going on there? That's a weird verse.

And so he calls his wise men his, his, the the all his, his

wise guys, his wise men. He brings them to say, hey, I

had this dream. You need to tell me what it is.

I'm very troubled by it. And Daniel being a man of God,

comes and he says to Daniel, I know and see his theology wasn't

all that correct. But he said, I know that the

spirit of the gods live within you, Daniel, tell me what my

dream meant. And Daniel tells him, Daniel

being a wise man, understood this guy held within his hand

the power of life and death over Daniel's life.

So he says, O king, live forever.

I wish this was about your enemies, but it's not.

You're in trouble because you are that large tree.

And the Lord has decreed that for seven seasons you would be

removed essentially. And then and, and so he it, then

it speeds forward. And one year later, Nebby is on

his porch looking out over his palace.

And he says, oh, is this not great Babylon that I've made for

my glory? And an audible voice from heaven

says, you be in trouble, boy. That's a paraphrase.

And he was literally sent out to pasture for seven years.

He wandered his hair grew out, he lost his mind and he became

like a brute beast. He's out eating grass and he's,

he's like a, like a beast of burden out there.

And they remove him from rulership.

But they he's just kind of alive out there in the yard somewhere.

And then after seven years, he comes to his senses, just like

Daniel told him would happen from the dream.

And he praises the living God, the the most high God, and he's

restored to rulership. It's a crazy story.

But my point is this, that number one, God was

orchestrating global affairs. He removed a king for a season

because he got too big for his britches.

It's not what the Hebrew says, but that's what that's what I'm

saying. He got too big for his britches

and God said, I'm going to remove you for a season and he

puts them back in. But whereas in the dream it

said, this is verse 17, the sentence is by decree of the

watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones.

This is this is a divine council scene where these beings are

intervening in global affairs. But look at this, look at verse

24. This interpretation, O king, it

is the decree of the Most High. So it begs the question, which

one's right? Is it the decree of the

watchers, these angelic beings? Or is this the decree of the

Most High God himself? And the answer is uh huh,

because this is a decision of the Divine Council that God is

ruling over global affairs. We see this in Psalm 82.

We've talked about this before, but if you look in Psalm 82, it

literally talks about the divine council.

In Psalm 89 does as well. But in Psalm 82, it says God

took his seat in the divine council among the gods.

He, he, he ruled, he, he, he sat in judgement.

And then he begins to rebuke these members of the Divine

Council. Now, what's important for you

and I this morning is that there is a ruling body called the

Divine Council that makes decisions over governing affairs

on the earth and #2 that they are imperfect, just like you and

I, and that God delegates authority.

And then he calls them into account for what they have done.

And we see this throughout the Old Testament.

It comes up as a theme again and again.

Why is that important to you and I?

Because it has everything to do with how God governs His

creation. And if we don't understand that,

if if our theology says that God is up there micromanaging every

minutiae of life and every decision made and everything

that happens was declared by God and sovereignly chosen by Him,

then all that we have to do is simply sit back and yield to

what God is doing in the earth. But I'm telling you what it will

do is it'll create a passivity in you that will cause you to

not do what God's called you to do.

So that's, that's the divine counsel.

So here is the astounding conclusion of the New Testament

that the New Testament seems to assert.

And this is where we tie in with the New Testament.

So we have this divine council that we have glimpses of in the

Old Testament. And now in the New Testament we

have introduced to us this new decision making body.

And it's called the ecclesia. It's what we nebulously

translate church, which by the way is a poor translation.

And there's reason that the English translators chose that

word because it was going to cause political problems, but it

doesn't mean the gathering of believers.

An ekklesia was a very clear a word that was already clearly

defined within the hearers of Jesus when he said I will build

my ekklesia and the gates of hell shall not prevail against

it. The ekklesia was raised up to

contend against Hell's purposes in the earth.

The gates of hell shall not contend against, shall not

prevail against it. And ekklesia was a ruling body.

It was a group that were called together.

They were called out to legislate affairs.

The Greeks had it and the Romans had it.

And Jesus speaking in that culture borrowed that non

religious term and said that's what I'm building.

I am building an ekklesia and the gates of hell shall not

prevail against it. It was a legislative body that

would that would govern affairs within the Grecian and Roman

world. Matter of fact, there's there's

literature that reads in the Roman world.

If two or three are gathered together.

There you have the ecclesia. Does that sound familiar?

That's not that what I just quoted you was from Roman

secular literature. And so we need to understand

when Jesus says this, it had a meaning already in the minds of

the hearers and we lose things when we don't realize that and

we just adopt it and saying this is what this is about all.

I will build a group of people that will sit on cushioned

chairs and air conditioning and hear a guy talk for an hour a

week. That's not what Jesus was

building. He was building a legislative

body that would enforce his will in the earth.

And so that's what I want to show you this morning.

So let's look at Psalm chapter 2.

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

We're going to read through this Psalm chapter 2 again, it's got

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

it's, it's, it's a, it's full of themes throughout Scripture and

it's really 12 verses, 4 sets of three verses.

So we're going to read through it and I want to unpack this for

you. So the first 3 verses, and we

need to understand this was a, an encounter that King David

had, OK, like we talked about this last week, if you want to

know what it says to us, you have to 1st know what it said to

the person that originally received it.

And this was an encounter that King David, who the Bible also

tells us was a prophet. He was a prophet king and he

also functioned as a priest, by the way.

He was a type of G, you know, he was a foreshadowing of the

office that Jesus would function in.

And so David was a prophet and we talked about this last week.

But if you look at, I want to say it's Jeremiah 22.

It God is rebuking the false prophets and this was the charge

he brings against them. He said you have not stood in

the counsel of the Lord and it's not COUNSEL, it's COUNCIL

because in the Jewish mindset, in the Jewish religion, what

qualified you to be a prophet in the Old Testament was to stand

in the counsel of the Lord. That's why Isaiah, Isaiah's

inauguration is initiation into the prophetic office was he went

up and stood before the Lord and he saw the Lord and his train

filled the temple and he was made Privy to the goings on in

this divine council scene. And the Lord says, who shall we

send? Who will go for us?

And Isaiah had the gumption to speak up and say, pick me, I'll

go. And the Angel came and burned

his lips because he said, I'm a person of unclean lips among a

I'm a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips.

And he was inaugurated or initiated into prophetic office

by that scene. And so David also goes up into

an encounter. There are things that David

shares here that he would not know, he would not be Privy to

outside of divine revelation. He was brought into an encounter

with God, and that's what this is.

And if we don't understand that, this passage will lose its

weight. And it's nice poetry.

Oh, that's cute. And we'll move on.

But literally what happens is David has an encounter in the

throne room of God and he hears things and God says things to

him and gives him marching orders.

And David literally says in here, he says, I'm going to tell

you what he said. Now, if that doesn't make you

kind of scoot on the edge of your seat and lean in and say,

what do you say? What do you say?

Then I want to pray for you after service.

This, this should stir our hunger because David is there.

These, these tracks that David's leaving are little Rd. maps for

you and I so that we know what we're called to and how we can

function. I don't know about you, but I'm

not, I'm not content to just let David have those kinds of

encounters. Man.

If there's a crack in the door, I want in.

I want in on this. And so David tells us what

happened. So this is what it says.

So verses one through 3, why do the nation's rage in the

people's 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. There as in plural, who's the

anointed 1 and the God of heaven.

And the anointed one was actually David.

No, we talked about this last week.

But this is vitally important because we tend to read this

solely as talking about Jesus. But it's not just talking about

Jesus. Yes, it's a messianic Psalm

pointing, pointing forward into the into the future of what God

would say over the Son Jesus. But first and foremost, it's

David having an encounter and God saying, you are my son

today. I have begotten you and that

word I told you. There's themes throughout this

passage that are very important that are all through Scripture.

Sonship is one of them. And so God is calling David into

something very specific with these words, sonship and all

that that entails. We'll get to that in a minute.

And it's also foreshadowing the Son Jesus.

Today you have become my son, and he's God's going to give his

son the Son Jesus, who is also the Son of David.

The son, the nations as an inheritance.

But here's the thing, what the New Testament does is it cracks

the door open and what we know as the divine council in the Old

Testament, that decision making body now in the New Testament

begins to talk about this decision making body called the

ecclesia of God, made-up of sons.

And what we need to understand is sonship in both Old and New

Testament has royal connotations because of whose son we are.

So we'll, we'll get into that in a moment.

So he says, so date the first 3 verses.

David's now gone. He's in this divine council

scene and he looks down on the kings of the earth coming

against Israel and God's purposes.

And David is incredulous. He's like, you got to be

kidding. They're down there.

We're not going to take this anymore, you know, shaking their

little fists and he's like, you got to be kidding this.

Why do the nation's rage? Why do the people's plot in

vain? And God's response is the same.

The next three verses are God's response.

So David looks at the kings, says to them, he's saying this

is crazy. Why would they do this?

Then he looks at God and he says, he who sits in the heavens

laughs. When you are going to war as a

human king against people who want your life, it's really good

to get God's perspective on them and your situation.

And what does God do? He has a good belly laugh.

He who sits in the heavens laughs.

And then he holds him in derision.

The word derision means to mock. And God holds him there, makes

fun of him, and won't let him out of the room, which of which

there are made a mockery. And then he will speak to them

in his wrath and terrify them in his theory, saying, As for me, I

have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.

And so literally what what God is saying is he's saying, hey,

kings down there, you guys throwing your hissy fit down

here, You global rulers, Putin, Zelensky, Trump, every other

ruler. As for me, I've already set my

king on Zion, my holy hill. You can throw your hissy fit,

but I've already decided who's going to rule this thing.

And so God is juxtaposing him over against all the rulers of

the earth. Now make no mistake about it,

God installs rulers. Daniel chapter 2 is very clear.

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

God promotes kings and he removes them.

He did it with Nebby, Nebuchadnezzar, most powerful

man on earth. How God's going to deal with

them? There was no military might big

enough to deal with Nebuchadnezzar.

So God said I'll do it make you out of your mind for a little

bit. He's over there eating grass.

OK, now let's get let's you helps think you've learned your

lesson and then reinstalls him. And so God is saying I've

already chosen who will rule from Zion, my holy hill.

Now here's another theme that's all throughout Scripture, this

concept of Zion or God's holy hill.

Zion becomes synonymous with the government of God and Hebrews

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12, it juxtaposes it over against Mount Sinai.

Mount Sinai represents the old covenant, Mount Zion, the new

covenant, Mount Sinai. He said we have not come to

Mount Zion this is or Mount Sinai this is Hebrews 12 to a

mountain trembling and it peels of Thunder and lightning and we

can't approach. He said, but we have come to

Mount Zion and he shows this as the the government of God, the

mountain of God. And Mount Zion originally

referred to Jerusalem. David chose Mount Zion to rule

from. And that that's a whole nother

theme that is fascinating. But what?

So when David kills Goliath, he chops the giant's head off with

his own sword, which will preach for another day.

He grabs that head, throws it over his shoulder, you know, big

old head, grabs it by the beard or by the hair, and it's bloody

dripping down his back, and he's just walking.

And David's not content to just leave it lie there.

He carries it all the way to a place called Jebus, a city out

of which the Jebusites ruled. And then he puts the head there.

It's like a weird thing to do, but I am convinced the reason he

did that is he was sending a message.

Hey guys, when I sit on the throne, I'm coming for you next.

This will be the place that I take.

I am going to rule from this because Jabis would become

Jerusalem. It was the city on it was Zion.

In fact, I'm convinced the reason David wanted to rule from

Zion is because David had read the scrolls and he had read in

the book of Genesis where there's this guy, this weird

dude called a priest of the Most High God and the king of Salem,

which would eventually become Jerusalem and in between would

be called Jabus. And this guy sat on a throne and

his name was Melchizedek. And David looked at this guy and

said this guy is a priest of the Most High God, but he's not a

Levitical priest. He's not from the tribe of Levi.

And so if he could get in through a back door, then

there's one open for me. I can get in.

I'm not, I'm not kept out because of the wrong lineage.

I, there's another way in. And David looked at, at

Melchizedek and said, he rules from that throne.

And that's where I want to rule from.

And this is so significant that, you know, in the New Testament,

it tells us that Jesus rules from the throne of David.

I told the first service, if I wasn't wearing a mic, that'd be

a mic drop moment. Seriously, that that's a

profound thing that David, that God was so affectionate and and

knit to this man, that there's something that David established

in the Spirit, that Jesus actually rules from the throne

of David. He rules from the spiritual seat

of authority that David established that that's what

Jesus sits on and rules the universe and he'll rule from

there and from eternity. It's an amazing thing.

And so Mount Zion signifies the government of God.

And so when God says I have set my king on Mount Zion, yes, it

was talking to David and David, you're going to rule from

Jerusalem and all that, that, yes, that means that.

But there's a wider meaning that God is going to rule from the

spiritual Mount Zion of Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

And so David understands this and God is declaring this to the

kings of the earth. Now look at the next three

verses. Now David says this, I will tell

of the decree. This is where he says, guys,

listen, God spoke to me and I'm going to tell you what he said.

This is what he's saying. He said, 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 nation's your heritage, the ends of the

earth, your possession. You shall break them with a rod

of iron and dash them like pieces, dash them in pieces like

a Potter's vessel. Now there's a whole lot involved

that we don't even have time to get into the reinheritance of

the nation's and all that does have to do with the divine

council. We don't have to get get it time

to get into that, but this whole thing on Sonship is very, very

important. He says today he said I will,

I'll tell you the degree and David's saying this is what the

Lord said to me personally, OK, that that's what he's saying.

The Lord said to me, David, you are my son today.

I have begotten you. And so this idea of sonship, we

touched on this last week, but I just wanted, I want us to get

make sure we get this. So in Roman culture, sonship was

a status, a standing into which biological male offspring were

initiated once maturity had been exemplified.

In other words, it wasn't a a non biological child being

brought into the family, it was a biological child that was

initiated into maturity and therefore authority.

That's the idea. Once initiated, their standing

in the family fundamentally changed, especially in relation

to those outside the family. He then became a legal

representative authorized to do business on behalf of and of the

father and the family. That's the idea of Roman

sonship. Jewish sonship had an another

element to it. So until adoption, an initiation

into sonship that this is still Roman adoption.

The male offspring was considered a Tecnon or what we

call a born one that a child of God.

That's the word we translate child of God.

He was a Tecnon. A born 1A child was understood

to share the nature of the father, but a son shared the

character. Being born into a family granted

the potential of sonship, but submission to the discipline of

a what? What Paul calls in the King

James Version, a schoolmaster. The Greek word is pedagogue,

grant submission to the discipline of a pedagogue or a

male nanny granted character, ultimately qualifying the son to

exercise authority over his former pedagogue doing business

in the family name. So that was the idea and the New

Testament, when it talks about his sonship and it's talking

about this maturity thing, this process.

In the Old Testament, sonship in relation to God communicated

governmental authority. This is very, very important.

When we talk about someone being a son of God in the Old

Testament, it was talking about governmental authority.

Adam, or although a strange sounding idea, it is nonetheless

accurate. Furthermore, this was an idea

shared with the entire Fertile Crescent world.

A son of God was most often a designation given to a king.

Kings were viewed as the son of and even the embodiment of a God

that they served. So many of you know that the

Pharaohs Pharaoh was known as the son of RA.

Caesar was actually worshipped eventually as a God.

At first he was that he was the living representative on earth

of the God, and then he became deity himself.

And so it was the living embodiment that was the idea in

the ancient world, because they understood that there was a God

that ruled over the affairs of men and that it was the God.

It was God himself who would elevate kings and remove them.

Now they had different views of different gods.

Matter of fact, the Romans had this pantheon of gods, which was

actually a misinterpretation of the divine council, which is for

another day. But it was a twisting of the

mythology. It was a mythologizing of the

biblical view of the divine council.

And so the Jewish people, however, had a more developed

idea of sonship as reflected in the Old Testament.

So now listen, there's a progress here.

Adam was referred to as God's son because he was the original

ruler of the world. God gave him dominion.

He said be fruitful, multiply and take dominion.

He was the son of God. But Adam sinned and abdicated

his authority. Psalm chapter 8 God put

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

everything under man's feet. Hebrews 2 quotes that but adds

yet at present we don't see everything subject to him.

Why? Because man abdicated that

through sin. Then Israel as a nation carried

the title Exodus 422 through 23. Hosea 11/1 talks about Israel as

a nation being godson. Why?

Because they were his representative before all the

nations of the earth to be an example of what it's like to be

in relationship to God. So he would Israel as a

corporate people, as a nation. God spoke of them.

This is my son, Israel. And they were to be the one

through which God would reach the royal, because in the

Kingdom of God, it's a monarchy. It's always ruled by royal

family. So God rules through his sons

and daughters. And so Israel was an example

now, then, then our son of God, then later on, David as king was

referred to God's son. That's what we're talking about

this morning. And then the Son, the Messiah,

Jesus, of course, tied all of these together in that he was

the last Adam. He was the true Israel of God.

Matter of fact, the verse in Hosea that calls Israel his son

is quoted about Jesus in the book of Matthew.

So Jesus is the embodiment of Israel.

He's the true Israel. And to be grafted into God, to

be the true people of God, you've got to be grafted into

Christ. And he was also the son of

David. So Jesus takes all these titles,

this idea, and he sums it up in him.

Now, what does all that have to do?

That's a nice little theology history lesson, Pastor.

Well, here's the thing, that in Christ you and I are invited

into sonship. And we need to understand what

that means, that our invitation into sonship is a governmental

role, that you and I carry authority for affairs in the

earth. And again, while we're saying

God, why don't you do something, He's looking at us.

Say, why don't you do something? I've granted you authority.

Invite my intervention, ask of me and I will give you the

nation's as your inheritance. And so this sonship is a very

important thing that if we just gloss over, we can miss so much.

So David says what God told him. I will tell you of the decree.

You are my son today I've begotten you.

The word begotten means that God takes responsibility to bring

him to a sonship and he does the same with you and I.

The day you were born again, God took responsibility to grow you

up. Now you can fight the process or

you can cooperate. I would recommend the latter.

It's miserable to fight God. Matter of fact, if you fight God

and when you were in trouble, you always want to lose when

you're fighting God because if you lose, you win, and if you

win, you lose. OK, OK, Verse 8, ask me and I'll

give you the nation's, your inheritance, the ends of the

earth's, your possession. And then he says you shall break

them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a Potter's

vessel. We'll come back to that.

And then David, he said earlier in verse 7, I will tell of the

decree. Here's the decree versus the

last three verses. Now therefore, O kings, be wise,

be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear,

and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry,

and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

So David hears the Lord, he hears the word of the Lord

towards these kings and David. I wouldn't be surprised if David

yelled this dry riding off in the battle, you know, what was

it he says now? Therefore, O kings, be wise, be

warned, O rulers of the earth. I believe he was screaming these

3 verses going into battle because what he's doing is he's

declaring A decree from heaven. He's imposing God's will as the

sun, as the one who's seated on Mount Zion, as a picture for you

and I. What we're to do, we're to carry

that authority. Now turn with me to Psalm 149.

Let's look at this real quick. We'll close with this passage,

Psalm 149. So we've looked at the second

chapter of Psalms, and now this is the second to the last

chapter of the Psalms. Listen to what it says.

Sing the Lord a new song, His praise, in the assembly of the

godly. That word assembly is very

similar to what we translate in the New Testament as ecclesia.

Let Israel be glad in his Maker. Let the children of Zion rejoice

in their king. Let them praise His name with

dancing, making melody with him, and tambourine and lyre.

For the Lord takes pleasure in His people.

He adorns the humble with salvation.

Let the godly exalt in the glory, and let them sing for joy

on their beds. Now listen to verse 6.

Let the high praise of God be in their throats.

I love that and a two edged sword in their hands.

Another theme we see throughout scripture is this idea of the

word of the Lord as A2 edged sword.

We see in the Book of Revelation early on Jesus has a double

edged sword coming out his mouth and it signifies the word of the

Lord that God rules through his word.

He releases his word and it it mows down, it levels the enemy.

We see in Hebrews chapter 5, the word of God is sharper than any

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

2 edged sword. So when it says that we, it's

talking about, we have praise in our mouth and then we have the

word of the Lord in our hand and we're going into battle with

that. That like David, we need to hear

the decrees of the Lord and then release the decrees of the Lord

and the earth. Why?

What's the purpose of this verse 7?

And it's interesting. Verses 7 and 8 follow the same

outline as chapter 2 of Psalms. He says to execute vengeance on

the nation's punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings

with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.

Chapter 2 talks about kings, peoples, nations, peoples,

kings, and then nobles. The only word that is different

in the last chapter or second to last chapter over the 2nd

chapter is the word nobles. But they have the same meaning.

It means somebody that carries weight.

They may not have a governmental position, but they have

influence in the earth. And the Lord saying that as we

worship him, we come in. There's a place in corporate

worship that we reach a platform of authority and we release the

word of the Lord and it literally binds kings with

fetters. How many of you have read the

book Reese Hall, Intercessor, raise your hand.

How many of you have never read it?

You need to listen. Seriously.

This book is a case study for this hour of human history.

It is a vitally important book. Reese Hall was a Welsh coal

miner that got saved during the Welsh revival.

And God began to deal with him, to prepare him literally to be a

weapon during World War 2. And so it's a fascinating book.

You'll read it and wonder if you're saved because this guy

walked with the Lord. But it's really, it's really a

good book. And So what we find is that God,

you know, prepared him so that when Hitler came on the scene,

Reese Hall began to pray against the rising power in the earth.

Matter of fact, a lot of people don't know Reese Hall wrote a

book about I think it was called the Rising Powers or something

like that. And he declared, he prophesied

that Hitler would not come to power, wrote a book on it and

was wrong because he understood the danger that Hitler would be

to the purposes of God in human history.

So he started a Bible school and they became this prayer meeting

that literally play prayed. The Allied forces through World

War 2, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Britain, said

of Reese all he said when Reese and his team pray, we win

battles. The global powers understood

what he carried. Now when Hitler, if you know,

Hitler took, he was, he went into the Rhineland and went into

Czechoslovakia and Britain stood, it was, you know, they

were trying to keep him from going forward.

So Chamberlain was the Prime Minister.

This is before Winston Churchill and Chamberlain met with Adolf

Hitler. And people look at that as a

hinge moment in which everything started going in the wrong

direction. In Chamberlain, his name is

synonymous with accommodation of evil and a spineless person and

all that and and all that. He would have stood up.

However, what a lot of people don't realize is that Hitler was

very frustrated with his meeting, that when he met with

Chamberlain, because he told Chamberlain, he said, I don't

know why I'm giving you what you want.

He was kind of puzzled about it. And his advisor said later he

was very angry and he told them, he said, this is the first time

I've ever disobeyed the voice because there was this voice he

would listen to and it would often be contrary to his

military advisors. And they were in awe that as he

would, he would say, no, I know that your military, you know,

you're brilliant military analysts, but we're going to do

such and such. And then when they do it, they

would win these battles. And they were in awe of Hitler.

But for the first time, he disobeyed that internal voice.

And what it did is military analysts will look at that to

this day. And they say that it gave

Britain time to prepare for war. Had he obeyed the voice, that

demonic voice that was manipulating him, that he could

have marched right into Britain. But Britain had time to prepare

for war. So in Psalm chapter 2 says you

Psalms 2 · chapter mention

shall be a rod of iron that shall break them as pottery.

That's a vivid picture. The rod of iron is that

unbending rod. It's strong and pottery is

brittle. And what he's saying is that I

will use you. I'll put iron in your backbone

and I will strike the, the, the, the brittle will of these kings

that stand against me and you'll shatter them.

And that's exactly what happened with Adolf Hitler.

For a moment he gave in. He, he couldn't even understand

why he was frustrated with himself.

But got what happened is God made room so that eventually

Hitler would be defeated. And it began there because it

gave Britain time to gear up for war.

Listen, you and I are part where sons of God.

We've been given a royal position.

We talked about this last week and the old covenant.

The sons of God were primarily the the most of the time where

that phrase shows up, it's talking about angels.

Yet it mentions Israel as a son of God and Adam and how Adam

abdicated and then David is declared a son.

But it's a rare thing to be used of a person.

It's more the Angel angelic and the men are servants.

In the New Testament, the men become the sons and the angels

the servants. There's a shift because you and

I have been brought into this elevated position.

We are to rule and reign with Him and not in the sweet by and

by, but in the nasty now and now that we are to bend the will of

rulers in intercession. We are to be the iron rod in

God's hand. And if we don't understand this,

we end up abdicating our role. We're not.

We don't allow the Lord to use this because we think, well, it

doesn't really matter who am I? And I'm here to tell you, you

are a son or a daughter of God and God wants to grip you

tightly and he wants to bring you into those conners

encounters where you here the decrees and you release them and

God will bend the will of world rulers.

The reason I brought up this book about Reese Hall is we are

living in an hour very similar that things are shifting

globally and the church needs to be the one to be inserted and

shepherd this thing through an intercession.

But if we don't understand the tremendous authority that God

has extended to us, then we sit idly by wondering why God

doesn't do anything, while heaven looks down at us and

wonders the same. So God has called you to inherit

nations. He wants you to bend the will of

Xi Jinping. He wants you to bend the will of

the Brazilian President of Putin and Zelensky and Donald Trump

and everyone else because he said his king on Zion, his holy

hill, he's already chosen, chosen the the ruler of the

world. And you and I are to get in his

presence, hear what he's saying, and begin to declare that in

prayer and not take no for an answer and bend human will.

And in the out and in times of upheaval, God always has had his

people. And I'm just telling you that

I've had this word again and again from people coming through

here. God has called heartland to this

to declare the word of the Lord. We're to dig in, in prayer.

It's not an arrogant thing. It's arrogant to leave that spot

empty because it's God's assignment.

It's arrogant for us to say, well, who am I?

Who are you to question the word of the Lord?

Who are you to question what God says about you?

You need to step into this role or to exercise God's will.

Thanks for listening to our podcast.

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