I'd like to direct your attention
to the book of Psalm chapter 2. The title of my message this
morning may seem a little strange to you. I've entitled it, Getting
Rid of God. That's exactly, sad to say, but
that's exactly what modern day religion is attempting to do,
trying to get rid of God. They're attempting to get rid
of the God of this book, the God of the scriptures. And really,
this is nothing new. It's been going on even before
the foundation of the world and still going on today. Satan,
who is subtly working through men and women, religion, and
the world, attempting to wipe out God's name and all thought
of him. Satan did so before the world
was created. Our first parents, Adam and Eve,
did so in the garden. The kings of the earth and the
rulers of the nations are still taking counsel together against
the Lord and against his Christ. Psalm 2 is referred to as a messianic
psalm. It speaks of the reign of the
Lord's anointed and it tells us something about ourselves
by nature. And it declares the lordship
and the kingship of Christ. Why is this world trying to erase
God? You ever thought about that?
Why are they attempting to get rid of Him? That's the questions
that are asked here in verse one. Look at it with me. Why
do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Now who's
this speaking of? The word heathen here refers
to unbelievers. Those who are without Christ,
without God, and without hope in this world. Why are these
who don't believe raging so? Have you ever thought about it?
Why are they imagining such foolish and vain things? That word rage
is a strong word. It means uncontrollable anger. It means a furious and violent
action against. It refers to hostility with great
force and intensity. Angry, out of control, uncontrollable
anger. And what is it that makes these
heathen rage so? Answer? They will not have this
sovereign God to rule over them. Won't have it. That word imagine
here means much more than just a passing thought or meditation
on something. It means to murmur and to roar. It means to utter. It's not just
a quiet meditation. It's to murmur and complain against
God with great hostility. The Apostle Paul told us that
the carnal mind, the fleshly mind is enmity against God. And that word enmity means hostile. Men by nature are hostile to
God. Why do they rage and murmur and
roar against the supremacy of God? Have you ever thought about
it? They want to be their own God. They want to get rid of
the real God and they want to be their own God. That was the
motivation of Satan. God tells us so. He said, for
thou has said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God. Satan said, I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds. I'll be like the most
high God. But there can only be one God.
There can only be one sovereign. There can only be one king. There
can only be one who rules and reigns. Satan desired to get
rid of God. That was the desire of Adam and
Eve, his wife. The serpent said, for God doth
know that in the day you eat thereof, speaking of the tree
that God had forbid them not to partake of, he said that God
knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes will
be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And the scripture says, when the woman saw that the tree was
good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree
to be desired to make one wise, to make one like God. She took
of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave it also unto her
husband with her and he did eat. Now, why did they eat of the
tree when God had strongly forbidden and warned them of the consequences?
They wanted to be rid of God. Why was Herod the king so troubled
when he heard from the wise men of Christ being born king of
the Jews? Why did he slay all the children
that were in Bethlehem and the coast thereof? He wanted to get
rid of God. Look at verse 2 here in Psalm
2. The kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord. Who's this
counsel? Who have they set themselves
against? Against the Lord and against His anointed. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. Saying, let us break their bands
asunder and cast away their cords from us. Why did Herod, the king
of Judea, oppose the Messiah? Why did Pontius Pilate, the governor
of Judea, condemn Christ to death? What did Christ ever do to deserve
such hostility? We know the scriptures clear
that they hated him without a cause. There was no reason that they
should hate the Lord Jesus. Why do all the kings and the
rulers of the earth ever since then oppose the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ? They want to rid themselves of
God. They want to do away with the one with whom they had to
do. Why? Because they want to be rid of
Him because He is the one with whom they have to do. They will
not have God and His Son to rule over them. They do not want to
be answerable to any other than themselves. Kings and rulers
take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed,
who is Christ. And Herod and Pontius Pilate
and the Gentiles and even the Jews, according to Acts chapter
4 verse 27, were gathered together. Those who normally couldn't stand
one another. Herod and Pontius Pilate hated
one another. But yet they became friends when
God and his son were concerned. But the scriptures declare that
it was God who ultimately gathered them together. For to do whatever
God's hand and God's counsel determined before. That means
predestinated and ordained to be done. What did they do? They
crucified the Lord of glory. Why did they crucify? They wanted
to be rid of God. Peter told them in Acts chapter
223, Him, Christ, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain. They couldn't blame their evil
upon God. They, with their own wicked hands,
took and crucified the Lord of glory, but it was according to
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. And they thought they
had gotten rid of God, but God raised Him up. and having loosed
the pains of death because it's not possible that he should be
holding of it. You can't kill God nor get rid
of him. It's a vain thing to imagine
such. All they set themselves together.
They took counsel together. It's still going on today, but
it's nothing more than just a futile attempt and it's not possible
to get rid of God. But men and women today still
try. They futilely endeavor to do
so. They attempt to do what Satan
couldn't do, what Adam and his wife couldn't do, what Pontius
Pilate nor Herod could do, what the Gentiles couldn't do, what
the Jews couldn't do. And how does religion try to
get rid of God? By creating themselves their
own God. By creating a God of their own
imagination. I cannot tell you And I don't
say this honestly with any arrogance or pride, it's heartbreaking.
But I hear men and women talk about their God, describe their
God. And as they're describing Him, I think to myself, that
in no way resembles my God. That in no way resembles my Savior. They say, let go and let God
have His way. They say, give Jesus your heart. Let him save you. I'm thinking,
that's not my God. No, sir. Jesus has a wonderful
plan for your life. Oh, my God is a God of purpose.
He does what he wills in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say
unto him, what doest thou? They make themselves God by imagining
God to be subject to their way, to their will, to their work,
to their worth. Their God has no hands but their
hands. Their God has no voice but their
voice. He has no power but the power
that they give Him. And He's no God at all. The fool
has said in his heart, there is no God. And if you look that
passage up in the scriptures, you'll see that those words,
there is, is added. So the verse actually reads,
the fool has said in his heart, no God, no God, no God for me,
no God for me. And it goes on to say, corrupt
they are, and they've done abominable iniquity. There is none that
doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon
the children of men to see if there were any that did understand,
that did seek God. What did he find? Every one of
them has gone back. That means that they've turned
to their own way. The Hebrew words gone back means
they've apostatized. They've renounced God. They've
abandoned all reason of submission to him. They've altogether become
filthy, the scripture says. They are corrupt and they've
corrupted themselves. Nobody did this to them. They
did it to themselves. And friends, you can't fight
against God. You can't win fighting against
God. What do these God haters say? Well, verse three, we read
it. Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords
from us. What are these bands? Well, they're
God's rules and they're God's laws. Men by nature will not
be subject to the rules and the laws of God. They don't want
to be under the government of God. They hate his rules, they
despise his laws. These God haters cast away their
cords from God. What are these cords? The values
and the principles of godliness and holiness. They won't receive
Christ who is the holiness and the righteousness of God. They
go about to establish their own righteousness, but they haven't
submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Therefore,
scripture says, ignorant of God's righteousness. Why do they do
this? There's no just cause for opposing
so just, so good, so holy, so gracious a governing as God's. They can hope for no success
in opposing as powerful a kingdom as God has. It's a vain thing. It's a vain thing. Man in his
best state is what? Altogether vanity. Men have no
problems with God ruling in heaven. Let God stay in heaven and let
him rule there. But he's not welcome in our homes,
and he's not welcome in our schools, and he's not welcome in our businesses,
and he's not welcome in our government. And men say God can be the giver
and God can be the forgiver, but He cannot rule our hearts.
Men say God can send the rain and the sunshine, He can cause
our crops to grow, but He cannot be the one who gives the increase
in our hearts and in our souls. We reserve that right to ourselves.
Oh, do you see what I'm getting at here, friends? Christ can
be Savior, but He cannot be Lord. We've reserved that right for
ourselves. Christ can be our healer, he can be our savior,
but he cannot be our king. Pilate said, behold your king,
and you remember what the people said? They said, we have no king
but Caesar. Men don't mind Elvis being the
king of rock and roll, but they won't have God to be king over
them. God who does according to his will in the army of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth. The God who is in
heaven doing whatsoever he pleases. The God who reveals himself in
the person of his son. The God who is holy and just
and will by no means clear the guilty. The God who has devised
a way to be just and still justify the ungodly. This is the God
that natural man desires to destroy. The God that sent his son to
redeem a people by a work of righteousness that no man could
provide for himself. The God who works all things
after the counsel of his own will. The God who provided for
himself and provided himself as the sacrifice is the God with
whom they are intent on destroying the vain thing. The God who will have mercy on
whom he'll have mercy. The God who hardens whom he wills.
The God who is righteous and holy and must punish sin. The
God who conforms his people to the very image of Christ his
Son. The God of purpose and the God
of glory is the God that the unbelieving desire to be rid
of. How does this affect God? Look
at verse four. He that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Our God is not moved. The creator is not affected by
the mere efforts of the creature. The Lord is in His holy temple.
The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold the children
of man. The Lord is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him. And did you notice
God's posture in this conspiracy? He's sitting in the heavens.
He sits on a sovereign throne. Have you ever seen folks that
are upset, worried, fretting about something? They pace, pace
their up, walk around, pace like a tiger in a cage. They can't
sit still. How is God affected by all this? He's sitting in the heavens.
You mean He's not pacing the portals of heaven, pleading and
begging for men to change their minds about Him? Do you mean
that He's not softly and tenderly calling for all the world to
love Him back? Oh, I love you, won't you love
me back? Won't somebody please love me? You mean that God's
not wringing His hands, wishing and hoping that someone would
believe Him, that someone would trust Him? That's exactly what
I mean. God is sitting. And God is laughing
at the futile attempts of man to destroy him. God laughs at
the vain imaginations of the people. God is laughing at the
opposition of the kings of the earth. God is laughing at the
mad counsel of the rulers that are against him and his Messiah.
And God is laughing at their efforts to get rid of him. God's
not threatened by anyone or anything. Men are but grasshoppers to God. God says, I will also laugh at
your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh.
God who dwells in the heavens sits there enthroned, and he
sits there quiet, serene, and undisturbed. He shall have them
in derision. And that's just simply another
way of saying that they'll be laughed to scorn, not only by
God, but in the end, they'll be the laughing stock of all
the world. Yet, in their attempt to get
rid of the true God of Scripture, they continue to claim their
free will. They continue to imagine God to be altogether one like
unto themselves. Look at verse five. But then,
then, then shall he, the Lord Jehovah, speak unto them in his
wrath. And vex, and that word means
trouble, trouble them in his sore displeasure. In God's good
time, in the fullness of time, Those that endeavor to rid themselves
of God will find that they've accomplished in eternity what
they have sought in time. They'll find themselves forever
without God. And all God has to do is to speak
to them in His wrath. Did you notice that? It's no
effort for God. Just a word from God can trouble
man for eternity in hell with his sore displeasure when his
sore displeasure is manifested. These folks are lying on God.
Isn't there something we can do? Well, we can expose them
by telling the truth. That's what I'm attempting to
do this morning. Vengeance is the Lord's. In our
Lord's day, the Pharisees denied the Lord Jesus, and they worked
people up into a frenzy to stone him. They didn't desire to get
rid of him because of his good works. They desired to kill him
because of who he claimed to be. He claimed to be God, and
they said, no, that's Joseph's son. And what did the Lord do? He said, leave them alone. Just
leave them alone. They be blind leaders of the
blind. If the blind lead the blind,
both shall fall into a ditch. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath. Don't rush to take matters into
your own hands. It's written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
And those are such solemn words to those who endeavor to rid
themselves of God. Look at verse six. Yet, yet. Yet have I said, anointed my
king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree the
Lord has said unto me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. Now listen to me carefully as
I wrap this up, the very God that the men and women of this
world hate and desire to rid themselves of is the very God
that believers love and desire to be forever with. This is the
only God that's worthy of man's worship, the God of this mouth. The very God that the kings of
the earth set themselves against and the rulers take counsel against
is the very God that the child of God submits to. The very God
that men try to erase in their preaching is the very God that
we declare and proclaim as the God of heaven and earth, powerful
and sovereign, the only one who saves sinners to the uttermost.
The very Christ that men and women took with their wicked
hands and crucified and slayed is the very Christ that the elect
of God put all their trust in. The very God that men want to
be rid of is the very God that will in the end be rid of them. Look at verse 9. Thou shalt break
them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel. What is our message to the lost?
What is our message to the king and rulers of the earth? What
is our warning to those who want to be rid of the only true and
living God? Verse 10, be wise now therefore. I don't know about you, but sometimes
I want to just take folks and shake them and say, wake up,
read your Bible, sit under the gospel preaching, Find out who
God really is. Find out who and what you are.
Find out who Christ is. Oh my, all you kings, be instructed. You judges of the earth. Verse
11, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Now
there's a word that men and women don't know much about, and that's
the word fear. You don't hear that word much
in preaching because most who preach know nothing about it.
God says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, doesn't
it? And the knowledge of the holy is understanding. In Psalm
130 verse 4, I won't turn you there, the psalmist wrote, if
thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, who shall stand? but there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared. God describes these people who
desire to be rid of him as being people that had no fear of God
before their eyes. But our text says, serve the
Lord with fear. And men will tell you that you're
not to fear God. Well, you're not to fear God.
God loves everybody. God wants everybody to be saved.
Don't fear God, you just love him, but I'm not talking about
a slavish fear here, but I'm talking about a reverential respect
of the sovereign God in whose hands we are in. Preachers have
been lying on God and they still are. They don't know him, for
if they did know, they would stop raging and imagining vain
things. They've set themselves against
one who cannot be altered, one whose purpose cannot be hindered. He does what He wills. He works
all things after the counsel of His own will. He's in the
heavens. He's done whatsoever He's pleased. He works all things together
for the good of them that love Him, who be called according
to His purpose. That's God. That's the true God. Who would want to be rid of Him?
Well, what are we to do? Verse 11, serve the Lord with
fear and rejoice with what? With trembling. Where's the fear
of God today? Everybody loves Jesus and Jesus
loves everybody. That's not what the Bible teaches.
Now, are we gonna believe the Bible or are we gonna believe
man? So what is the gospel in all of this preacher? Look at
verse 12. Kiss the son. lest he be angry
and you perish from the way. When his wrath is kindled but
a little, blessed are they that put their trust in him. Fall
down before him. Kiss the son. Judas kissed him
on the cheek and called him friend and he betrayed him. But the
scripture tells of a wretched sinner who came into his presence,
and she fell at his feet, and she washed him with her tears,
and she dried him with her hair. And the scripture says she kissed
his feet and anointed them with ointment. You see, friends, that's
where a sinner, a true sinner, a sinner deserving of hell and
knows that that's where they find mercy, at his feet. at his
feet. Oh, he was once a demoniac called
Legion. He cut himself. He lived among
the tombs. He was crazy. Now he's sitting
in his right mind at Jesus' feet. Oh, Martha, she was cumbered
about with much serving. Do you ever see yourself in Martha?
I do. Cumbered about serving. Got to
do this. Got to do that. But Mary sat
at Jesus' feet. She had that one thing needful.
Scripture says that good part. Oh, don't you see that Christ
is the good part. Oh, she had the good part that
could never, ever be taken away from her. Have you found it? Has it found you? The Syrophoenician
woman, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, help me. You see,
that's where help is to be found. At His feet, at Christ's feet.
Oh, there's mercy with the Lord. He's plenteous in mercy. Seek
the Lord while He may be found. Kiss the Son. Kiss the Son lest
He, God, be angry. You're going to have to kiss
the Son. You're going to have to bow to
Him. You're going to have to kiss His feet. You're going to have
to become a mercy beggar. He's never, ever turned away. A beggar begging for mercy. Never. I'm a mercy beggar. Kiss the son, lest he be angry
and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are they that put their trust in him. Do you see the
seriousness of this? Do you see the urgency? If you
don't kiss the Son, He will be angry. If you don't kiss the
Son, His wrath will be kindled against you. That word kindled
means roused, awakened, and provoked. I don't want His wrath to be
roused, awakened, and provoked against me. Do you? But if you
bow at His feet and kiss Him, submitting yourself to Him alone,
putting your trust in Him alone, it tells us here very plainly
and simply, you shall be blessed. Now do we believe God's Word?
Blessed are they that put their trust in Him. Not in a church,
not in a preacher, not in a priest, not in doctrine, even the doctrines
of grace. Oh, I love the doctrines of grace,
but my hope of salvation is in a person. How about yours? I
love the doctrine of election, but I love the Lord Jesus Christ
more. Put your trust in him. Blessed are they that put their
trust in him. Oh, may God be pleased to make
it so.