Psalm number two, why do the
nations or the heathen rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together against Jehovah and against his
anointed saying, Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast
away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens shall
laugh. Jehovah shall hold them in derision. Then he shall speak to them in
his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure, saying,
Yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. Now thus far, and I want you
to notice, this psalm has 12 verses and they naturally divide
themselves into four divisions of three verses each. In the first three verses, the
nations speak In the next three verses, verses four through six,
we found that Jehovah speaks. And now in verses seven through
nine, Christ speaks. I will declare the decree. Jehovah
has said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask
of me. And I will give you the nations
for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron, you shall dash them
in pieces like a potter's vessel. And now the ministers of Jesus
Christ speak. Now therefore be wise, O kings,
be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve Jehovah with
fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry.
And ye perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put
their trust in him. Well, let's expound these verses. We'll just look at them verse
by verse and word for word. Beginning with, why do the nations
rage. These nations are all nations,
no nation excepted. They rage. They are not merely
peeved, irate, angry, or mad. They are raging like the winds of a tornado like
the waves of a hurricane hitting the seashore, uncontrolled, in
a rage. Why do they rage? Why requires
an answer. We want to know why, for what
reason. Why is a fascinating word. I
recall when my son first learned it. He was a very wee lad. His mother was explaining something
to him and I could tell that he was not perceiving exactly
what she was saying. So I said, son, ask your mother
why? And Sandy said, do not teach
that word to him. Too late. He had already learned
the word why. Why? Well, that's the way it
is. Why? That's the way we do it. Why? Because I said so. Why? Why, why, why? Why do the nations rage? Sometimes
the word why indicates that there is no good reason for it. There's a man, he's got a bandage
on his nose. What happened? Rattlesnake bit
me. Now how did a rattlesnake bite
you? Well, I read in the Bible that they shall pick up snakes
and they'll not hurt them, so I picked up a rattlesnake and
it bit me on the nose. Almost died. And you have to
sit there and say, why? Which is a polite way of saying,
well, that was stupid. The nation's rage, why? That's kind of stupid. That's
kind of stupid when you consider the reason for their rage. And
the kings plot a vain thing. The kings and the people, pardon
me, the people plot. Here are the individuals of the
nation. We have nations and we have people.
Nations are comprised of people. Then the people plot the vain
thing. This word plot denotes that they are meeting clandestinely
behind closed doors and they're scheming. But it's a vain thing they scheme. It is doomed to failure before
it is enacted. Why do they do so? It's rather
stupid what they're doing. Why? Why would you do this? The
kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together. Well, these kings and rulers
cannot stand each other. They fight wars against each
other, but now they have one common enemy. And now they've
come together. clandestinely in their dark room,
making their plot against whom is it? Against Jehovah and his
anointed. Why? Jehovah, do you know who
he is? King of kings, Lord of lords,
God of gods, maker, creator of all things. You nations are You're not even
the dust on the balance. You're not even worth counting
when you're all put together. And you're going to be in a rage. You are enraged and outraged
against Jehovah. Why? That's rather stupid, is
it not? And against his anointed. Who
is his anointed? That's Jesus, the Christ. This
word anointed is in the Hebrew text, Messiah. into the Greek as Christ, or
into English as Christ, Messiah, Christ, it means anointed, the
anointed one. Whom and what is the anointed
one? He is an officer. This anointed
one has three offices. He's the mediator, and he has
three mediatorial offices, prophet, priest, and king. That's who
the anointed is. He's the only one that is between
us and God. The only one, the one mediator
between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. First, he's a prophet. As a prophet, he is God's spokesman
to the people. When God has something to say
to us, he does not come down to see us. He sends his minister
to speak. God speaks through his minister.
Elijah, Moses, and all the rest. God speaks through his prophet. God speaks through his preacher.
That prophet, that preacher is God's representative to the people. Now the people need a representative
to God because they sin. They need someone to intercede
for them, to make sacrifices for their sins. So the Lord said,
all right, I give you a priest. Moses will be your prophet. Aaron
will be your priest. When you have to make a sacrifice
to God under the law, you did not go into your yard, build
an altar, and do it. God would not accept it. It was
blasphemous to do so. You went to the priest, and the
priest would take your offering and put it before God, and it
received for you, and God would say, you're the one ordained
to do this. I accept the offering. Now we
need a king. God needs to rule over his people,
but God's not gonna rule over his church in the person of the
father, he sends the son. The son is the mediatorial king. I have set my king on my holy
hill of Zion, he's gonna say in a moment. When the prophet
was been in the office, they brought out the oil, the anointing
oil. It was a sacred recipe made for
it, could not be reproduced. They poured the oil on the head.
When the priest was anointed, they poured the oil on his head. It was a joyous occasion. When
the king was put in the office and put on the throne, he's anointed
with the oil. It is a joyous occasion when
that sacred oil is poured on the head, runs down the beard
and saturates the ground He's the anointed one, and Christ
is the anointed one. He is the anointed prophet, and
he is the anointed priest, and he is the anointed king. We have
no prophet now but Jesus Christ. God spoke in times past by the
prophets. He now spoke by Jesus Christ. We have no priest to offer sacrifices
for us because Jesus Christ has done it. He intercedes for us
right now at the Father's right hand. Who is our King? He's Christ, sitting on the throne
of God, enthroned there, and God has anointed him with the
oil of gladness more than his companions. The spirit of Jehovah
is upon me because he has anointed me to do all these things. You
know how that Jesus of Nazareth, Peter says, went about doing
good because God had anointed him. Well, the nations have risen
up against him. They are in rebellion against
Jehovah's prophet, against Jehovah's priest, and against Jehovah's
king. Why? Do you not understand the odds
of this? Do you not understand the futility
of this? What do they say? Let us break
their bonds in pieces. What are the bonds? God's law.
What is God's law? Summed up in two words. You shall
love Jehovah your God with all your heart and soul and mind
and strength. And second, you shall love your
neighbor as yourself. And in these two words, in these
two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets. Those two
things. You mean we are supposed to obey
Jehovah? Yeah, take that bond and throw
it away. And we are supposed to love our
neighbor as ourself? Yep, take that bond and throw
it away. We will not live according to
those. We just love our hatred and we love our isms and we love
our schisms and everything else. We love that more than we love
Jehovah. We are in rebellion. Hey Lord,
know this, we are now in rebellion against you. And they raised
their hand. And you have to ask, why? Does not make sense. All right,
so this is going on. They're down in their room and they're making their scheme and God is watching because they
have looked all around 360 degrees. They are now in private, but
they did not look up and he's looking down. Angels, come over
here. Come, come, look, look what they're
doing down there. What are they doing, Lord? They're
plotting against me. Note what the next verse says.
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. He does not even bother
to get up. All the nations are plotting
against him and he's sitting there looking. He does not even
bother to arise from his throne. Look what they're doing down
there. One angel says, Lord, they're plotting against you.
See, I see that. And another angel says, why? That's stupid, but they're doing
it. They're doing it. He who sits
in the heaven shall laugh. God smiles upon his children. God rejoices over his children. When God laughs, get scared. When God laughs, when does God
laugh? Proverbs 1 gives a very good
description of it. You can read it later. When God
laughs, it's not joyful. Something bad is about to happen.
He who sits in the heaven shall laugh, and Jehovah shall hold
them in derision. He's going to mock them. They
rebelled against him. He mocks them. He holds them
in derision. And then he shall speak to them
in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure, saying,
yet." See that word yet? Means nevertheless. Go ahead,
do your little plot. Scheme all you want to. Even
before you have finished your plot, I have already doomed it. It's doomed to failure. Nevertheless,
despite all you do, I, have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. That's his church. I've done
it. I've done it. He speaks to them
in his deep displeasure. In fact, what he says to them,
go ahead and do your scheme. Because whatever your scheme
is, I predestined it. I predestined it. Preacher, you
sure? Yeah, I read it in Acts chapter
four. You can read it later. In Acts
chapter four, when Peter and John are told to quit preaching
and they said, no, we won't stop. They came back and rejoiced at
being able to bear the persecution that the Lord had said. And then
they said, and they told the rest of the church, we remember,
we remember that it said, David said in the second Psalm, Why
do the heathen rage and the nations plot the bang bang? Do they not
know that they're doing whatever God predestined to be done? Do you realize that if the nations
had not rebelled against Jesus Christ, if they had not said, we will
not have this man to reign over us, If they had never crucified him
to the tree, he would not have been the king over Zion. That's
how he got there. It was all predestined. Everything
those people did to Jesus Christ was predestined of God, and it
was God's way of putting his son on his throne. You put him
on a tree, I'll put him on a throne. I will raise him from the dead
and enthrone him on my throne. I have set my king on my holy
hill of Zion. Son, you got something to say?
Yes, father, I do. And now Jesus Christ is gonna
speak. Verse seven, I will declare the decree. It is decreed. It is said of the decree of the
Medes and Persians. Once the king decreed, could
not come back. He could not change his mind.
He could not nullify the decree. Once it went forth, it had to
be done. They got that from Jehovah. When
he decrees, it will be done. It will be done. I will declare
the decree Jehovah said to me, you are my son. What does that
mean? You are my son. It means that Jesus Christ is
of the father's nature, like father, like son. He who is of the human nature,
when he begats one, does not begat one with the nature of
a bird or a beast or whatever, like father, like son. Jesus
Christ is God's only begotten son of the same nature as his
father. And Jesus says, furthermore,
not only am I your son, today I have begotten you. Now, what
day was that? He's the only begotten of the
father. By the way, he had no mother, but he is begotten of
the father. And I wouldn't tell you how if I knew, but I do not
know. But it is true, begotten of the
father. When? When did the father become the
father? Well, he's been the father from eternity. Oh, then he has
had a son from eternity. The day I have begotten you,
that is not 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. No, it is way beyond
that, back in old eternity. before the foundations of the
world, before there was time, before there was space, before
there was matter, before there was anything else, the father
begot a son in eternity by an eternal generation, meaning that
there was never a time when the father was not the father and
the son was not the son. Never a time when the father
did not have a son and the son did not have a father. He is
the father son by an eternal generation today. in eternity,
I have begotten you. Now ask of me, and I will give
you the nations for your inheritance. When a king says, ask of me,
you're gonna get what you ask for. The king says to Esther, the
queen, ask of me, he sees that something's wrong. And he says
to the one he loves, the queen, he says, ask of me, I'm the king.
I'll give you whatever you want up to half my kingdom. And the
father says to the son, ask of me and I'll give you whatever
you want, including my kingdom. Ask of me, that's all you have
to do. Son, you don't have to do anything else, just ask. You
just ask of me and I'll give you whatever you want. You want
the nations for your inheritance? They are yours. Every one of
them. Ask of me and I will give you
the nations for your inheritance. And I will give you the ends
of the earth for your possession. The earth is Jehovah's and the
fullness thereof. And Jehovah says, I gave it to
my son. He was successful as the mediator. He was the faithful prophet.
He was the faithful priest. He was the faithful king. I have
enthroned him on my throne and now the world belongs to him. Ask of me, they are yours. You
shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in
pieces like a potter's vessel. Have you ever gone into a store where they sell fine
china. And, you know, they have the
fine china out and perhaps some very fancy pottery. And there's
usually a sign somewhere close, you know, visible, maybe a few
of them around that says, nice to look at, nice to hold. Once
it's broken, then it's sold. And so, you know, listen, don't
take your children in there. Children have to touch, they
have to touch. If you have to, you know, be careful in a place like that.
You can go broke in just a few seconds. Here is Jesus Christ, and he
goes into the china shop of the world. like a bull in a china
shop, breaking everything. The rebels, remember, they have
rebelled. You wanna know what happens to
rebels? Jesus comes with a rod of iron
and he'll break them one by one. He will break them. Every one
of the nations. Nations come and nations go.
They rebel, he replaces them. Puts down one king and raises
up another. They all rebel, and one by one,
all the nations will fall to him, every one of them. You shall
dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now, the ministers of
Christ have something to say. I have something to say. Let
me speak to you now. You have heard what the nations
say. What have they said? Let us break
their bonds and throw their cords away from us. You've heard Jehovah
speak. What did he say? I have set my
king on my holy hill of Zion. You have heard the son speak.
What did he say? I will declare the decree. The nations are mine. And I will
break the rebels with a rod of iron. Now, I want to speak to
you. I want to exhort you. I would
even plead with you. I would beseech you. Here are
my words. Now therefore be wise, O kings. Show a little wisdom, folks.
Show a little wisdom. Why do the nations rage? It's
stupid. It is stupid. There is no credible
reason for it. Wise up. Let's be wise about
this. Have a little common sense. Against
whom is our rebellion? It's against the God of gods
and his anointed. Let's have a little wisdom. Be
wise, oh kings, be instructed. How can you be instructed? I'm
gonna try to instruct you. According to God's word, according
to God's word. Would you listen to me? Be instructed. You kings of the earth, serve
Jehovah with fear, not dread fear, reverence. That's what this word fear means,
it's reverence. We come before him in reverence. We are in all of his majesty. Lord, my rebellion is over. It was futile. Before it even
started, it was doomed to failure before it started. I will now
serve you and I will serve you with fear and reverence and all. I will be in all of your majesty
in whom and what you are. Serve Jehovah with fear and rejoice. With trembling. I rejoice with trembling because
I do not deserve it. I do not deserve this rejoicing
that I have. He gave it to me. He gave this
rebel the privilege to rejoice, and I'm going to rejoice with
trembling in the presence of the King of kings and the Lord
of lords and the God of gods. Kiss the sun. That's the next
word. Kiss the sun. What is a kiss? Different kinds of kisses. Do
not do the kiss of Judas to betray him. This kiss is the kiss of
worship and adoration. Elijah says to the Lord, says,
Lord, you realize what's going on? I'm the only one left. At one time, there were a few
thousand of us preachers here, prophets in Israel, and I'm the
only one left. And Jehovah says, oh, no, you're
not. I have reserved for myself 7,000 people who have not bowed
the knee to Baal, nor kissed his image. Now that's what idolaters
do. They take their image and they
kiss it. as though to say, I worship you
and I love you. They kiss their idols, they kiss
their images. Well, throw it away and kiss
Jehovah, kiss the son. Kiss the son. Kiss the son like
a Nile Doll orchard kisses his image with worship and adoration. And if you do that, then you
can kiss him with the kiss of affection. the kiss of a lover,
he'll become your lover. And like lovers kiss, he kisses. His wife says, let him kiss me
with the kisses of his mouth for his kisses are sweeter than
wine. He comes to her presence and
his wife says, I will kiss him. And she will kiss the son with
worship and affection and adoration. I kiss him lest he be angry. Because if you will not kiss
him, you make him angry. I can stand the anger of a lot
of people, but never this one. Never this one, lest he be angry. Because when he is angry, you
perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. I realize we're talking about
a subject that is probably taboo in most churches, but the wrath
of God. Huh. I will not hear much about that
in many places, will you? The wrath of God. God loves everybody,
won't hurt anybody. Not according to this. Kiss the
son lest he be angry and you perish in the way when his wrath
is kindled but a little. Can you imagine what it's going
to be like on the final day when he comes back and those who see
him coming say to the rocks and mountains, fall on us and hide
us from the wrath of the Lamb. The day of his coming has arrived
and we are not ready. Folks, be ready before that day
comes. Do not be unprepared in that
day. Kiss him now. Worship him now. Adore and love
him now before the day of his anger has come. Now read the
next words. Blessed are all those who put
their trust in him. What is it to put your trust
in him? It is to kiss him. You kiss the son by faith. When
you put your faith in him, you have kissed him, you have worshiped
him, you have adored him. Well, every one of us here today is either a rebel scheming against Jesus
Christ, or a worshiper of him. There's
no middle ground, no middle ground. You are either in a rage against
him and throwing his bonds away from
you, or you have come before him and kissed him with fear
and trembling. I know what I have done. I have
stacked up my arms I have surrendered. I've kissed the sun and God is
pleased. God is pleased. Do not walk out that door today
without kissing the sun. Do not walk out that door today
without trusting in Jesus Christ. Do not remain in the nations
that will know his wrath in a short time. May the Lord bless you.