Alright, go with me if you would
back to Psalm chapter 2. Psalm chapter 2, I know that
we started the story of Samson last Wednesday night. I would like to continue that
and if the Lord is willing, maybe we'll do it Sunday. If the Lord
is willing. But I felt led to look at Psalm
2 for tonight's message. And the reason is because of
the first three words in verse 12. Kiss the Son. Kiss the Son. That's the commandment
of God to us. Kiss the Son. That is our warning
and that is our reward. That's our warning and that's
our reward. We'd better and we get to. Kiss the sun. This chapter declares man's ignorance,
man's rebellion, wickedness and inability. This chapter declares
God's sovereignty, absolute sovereignty. It declares Him on His throne. It declares what He is going
to do with all of those who are left in their sin. And it declares what he's going
to do with all those who have been given as an inheritance
to Christ. All those who belong to Christ.
And at the end of the chapter, three things are commanded. These
three things describe all they that put their trust in him,
all those who trust Christ and belong to Christ, all those who
have been given to Christ and made to trust him. They do these
three things. Verse 11, number one, they serve
the Lord with fear. Number two, they rejoice with
trembling. And number three, they kiss the
sun. They kiss the sun. Now let's
look for a moment at man's ignorance and man's rebellion and man's
weakness. Verse 1 says, Why do the heathen rage? And
the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
His Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and
cast away their cords from us." What those three verses are asking
is, why is man so ignorant? and rebellious and weak. Why is man that way? Verse 1
says, He is imagining a vain thing, an empty thing. He's imagining
an empty thing. Man at his best state is altogether
vanity. Empty. Man at his best state. Every man and every woman at
his or her best state is nothing but emptiness. He imagines that he can do something
that he cannot do. He takes counsel against the
Lord and against His Anointed which is Christ. He takes counsel. This is what man does. He takes
counsel Man wants to get a big counsel together and we're all
going to talk about it. We're going to talk about these
things of God. He takes counsel against the
Lord and against His Christ, His Anointed. He takes counsel
against His Word. Why would man be so silly and
so ignorant and so rebellious as to take counsel against His
Word? Why would man do that? Why do the heathen rage? What
is wrong with us? What's wrong with man? Man takes
counsel against His Word, He takes counsel against His will, and He takes counsel against
His way, saying, I don't want Your way. Why does man do that? Why does the flesh do that? Man
says, I want to break the bands of Your way. I want to cast away
the cords of your way. Man very ignorantly and rebelliously
says, I will not have salvation your way. I just won't do it. I will not have eternal life
your way. Ultimately, what the flesh of
man says is, I will not have Him reign over me. That's what
it comes down to. That very rebellion is the reason
man is in the condition he's in. That's the very reason. The reason that Adam and Eve
took and ate of that fruit, they did it for one reason. They said,
I will not have that man reign over me. The adversary came to
Eve and said, well all you got to do is eat that fruit and you'll
be just like him. You'll be equal with him. She
said, yeah, I'll take that. I will not have that man reign
over me. That rebellion and that wickedness
continued all the way to the cross. It continued in the heart
of all sinful flesh all the way to the cross. Turn with me over
to Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4, Peter and John
were brought before a council and they were threatened for
preaching the gospel. They were constantly being brought
before councils and constantly being threatened for preaching
the gospel and they kept on preaching the gospel. And it says in verse 23, Being
let go, they were let go from this counsel and this threatening. Being let go, they went to their
own company. They had a group of believers
who were gathered. They went to their own company
and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto
them. And when they heard that, They
lifted up their voice to God with one accord, this whole company
of believers. They heard what all was said
and what all was done and they all prayed to God. They all cried
out to God. They lifted up their voice to
God with one accord and said, Lord, Thou art God, which has
made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is. who by the mouth of thy servant
David hast said, this is Psalm 2, Why did the heathen rage,
and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood
up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against His Christ. For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, Both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together.
They were all gathered together. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles,
and Israel. Now watch verse 28. For to do
whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. You know what that means? That
means all of their raging rebellion, all of their wickedness in everything
they were doing was only accomplishing what the one who is sitting on
the throne had before purposed to be accomplished. That's all
they were doing. Boy, they were having a heyday.
They were loving what they were doing. They grabbed the one they
hated. Tried Him. Accused Him. Convicted Him. Sentenced Him. Punished Him.
Crucified Him. Laid Him in that tomb. Well,
they won, didn't they? They won. They were only doing
what God, from the beginning, purposed to be done. They hung
Christ on that cross, meaning it for evil. And this is still
how it is for God's people today. God is still seated on His throne.
They hung Christ on that cross, meaning it for evil, but God
meant it for good. God meant it for the good of
His people. God used their ignorant rebellion
to be the means of bringing good news to His people. That was
the means. It's still this way today. What
man does in his rebellion against Christ and against the cause
of Christ only accomplishes the purpose of Christ. Don't you
love that? Whatever man does against The
cause of Christ only furthers the cause of Christ. That is
just, I rejoice over that. He is reigning over it all. He's reigning over it all. Man
is on this earth and he thinks he's something when he's nothing.
Oh, he's so nothing. Well, back in our text, verse
4, back in Psalm 2, it says, He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision. He is seated on His throne. David,
where is your God? He is sitting in the heavens.
He is doing whatever He pleases with whomever He pleases. And
man down here thinks he is going to rage against Christ and against
the people of Christ. He that sitteth in the heavens
shall laugh The Lord shall have them in derision." That means
mockery. He is going to make a mockery
of them. All of their rage, it will not stand. Verse 5, "...then
shall He speak unto them in His wrath and vex them in His sore
displeasure." Those who leave this world without Christ, They're to be pitied. They're
to be pitied. They're in their rage. Those who leave this world without
Christ, those who die in their own sin, Christ took the sin
of His people from them. Those who leave this world still
holding it, still in it, they're to be pitied. One thing that we all have to
admit, but for the grace of God, there go you and I. There to
be pitied. We are all from the same lump.
We all come from the same lump. In the flesh, we all had that
conversation, whether we realize it or not. We might have been
fine Christian people, like the world says, but whether we realize
it or not, we all had that conversation. We were all children of wrath,
even at others. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love, wherewith He loved us, quickened us together
with Christ. quickened us, joined us together
with the very God who we shook our fist at. And that's the only difference
in a sinner who is redeemed to life or condemned to death. That is the only difference. That's the only difference. Whether
or not that sinner has been quickened together with Christ, that's
the only difference. Whether God the Father gave the
sinner and all of his sin to Christ His Son. And whether Christ
His Son broke the sinner and dashed all of His sin to pieces. And that's what He did on the
cross. He broke the sinner. He became us and then broke the
sinner. And He dashed all our sin to
pieces in the sacrifice of Himself. It all comes down to whether
or not Christ suffered in our place. Where is room for boasting? Where is room for boasting? All
we have is the blood He shed. That's all we have. Now the first
five verses in this chapter declare nothing but horrible news concerning
man's wretched condition, man's absolute wretched condition.
But in verse 6, God declares good news for wretched man. He said in verse 6, yet. Everything that can be said about
man in all those verses, this is what man's doing. He said
but, yet. Have I set my King upon my holy
hill of Zion? I love how this is one of my
favorite lines in the scripture. When the Queen of Sheba came
to see Solomon and she saw him in all of his glory and in all
of his greatness, this is what she said. She said, Blessed be
the LORD thy God, which delighteth in thee, to set thee on the throne
of Israel. She said, Because the LORD loved
Israel forever, He made you to be their king. Because He loved
Israel. He gave them a gracious king
and a merciful king. Because He loved them, He made
you their king. The Apostle John in the book
of Revelation, he saw Christ in all of His majesty, all of
His glory. He said His hair looked like
this, and His eyes looked like this, and His garments looked
like this, and His feet looked like they burned in a furnace.
And he saw Christ. As soon as he saw Him in all
His glory, he said, I fell at my feet as a dead man. Let me fix that. He said, I fell
at His feet as a dead man. And the Lord laid His right hand
upon him and said, Fear not. I'm the one seated on the throne. I'm the Alpha and Omega. If someone
else was Alpha and Omega, there'd be no hope for you. But I'm the
one who holds the keys of hell and death. Fear not. What he was saying was, John,
there's mercy to be had. There's mercy to be had. Verse
7, the Lord Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, I
will declare the decree. I'm going to declare the Gospel. and I shall give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for thy possession." The father said to the son, if you ask of
me, if you want them, if you want them, if you desire to have
them over anything else that there is to be had, I'll give
you the worst of the worst. If you want them, I'll give you
the absolute worst of the worst. I'll give you the heathen of
the outcast. If you ask of me, I'll give you
the vilest offenders for your inheritance. I mean the ones
from the uttermost parts of the earth. One man coined it, the
gutter most parts of the earth. If you want them, you can have
them. Christ said, I'll take them. Verse 9, I'll break them. I'll dash them into pieces like
a potter's vessel. And I'll make a new creation
out of them. I'll wash them. I'll cleanse them in my blood.
I'll make it so that we can forgive them and accept them back to
ourselves. That's what Christ did for us
in spite of us. That's what He did. It is true
that those who He did not die for, those who leave this world
in their rebellion against Him, He is going to break them with
a rod of iron. He is going to dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel. All who are not caused to fall
on the chief cornerstone, the chief cornerstone is going to
fall on them and He is going to ground them to powder. But
all who do fall, All who are made to fall. Oh,
how glorious it is when God breaks a sinner. Brings a sinner down
and causes that sinner to fall. Because all who are made to fall
are going to lovingly be broken. They are going to be broken to
Him. And for all who are broken, verse
10 says, Be wise now therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye
judges of the earth. Hear the instruction and the
commandment of the Lord. He said three things. Verse 11,
Serve the Lord with fear. Rejoice with trembling. And kiss the Son. lest he be
angry, and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled
but a little. Blessed are all they that put
their trust in him." I want to do that. I want to do that. I want to serve the Lord with
fear. I want to rejoice with trembling. And I want to kiss the Son. I
want to put my trust in Him. And I know that you do too. But
do you know that we cannot do that unless He breaks us and
brings us to Himself? If we do these things, it is
Him doing them in us and for us. If we serve Him with fear,
He is the one who put that fear in us. If we rejoice with trembling,
He's the one who put the joy in us. Outside of His work, no
sinner rejoices in the Lord. And if we do kiss the Son, He's
the one who pulled His clothes. He kissed us first. But I do
want to do that, and I know you do too. And there's a story in
the Scripture that perfectly illustrates what it is for a
mercy-begging sinner to do that. I want to do that. I want to
serve the Lord with fear, I want to rejoice with trembling and
I want to kiss the sun. I believe this story describes
the heart and the desire of every redeemed sinner. I believe it
does. And I pray that in hearing this
story right now, It'll cause all of us to, in the heart, do
this very thing. I pray in the heart. I hope and
pray to God that we are all about to serve the Lord with fear,
rejoice with trembling, and kiss the sun. Right here. Alright,
we're going to close the message with this story. Turn with me
to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7, verse 36, it says, And one of the Pharisees
desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's
house and sat down to meet. And behold, a woman in the city,
which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat
at meet in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
and stood at his feet behind him, weeping, and began to wash
his feet with tears. and did wipe them with the hairs
of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
Now when the Pharisee, which had bidden him, saw it, he spake
within himself, in his own mind, not out loud, saying, This man,
talking about Christ, if he were a prophet, would have known who
and what manner of woman this is that touched him, for she
is a sinner. And Jesus answering, answering
his thoughts, said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say
unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.
There was a certain creditor which had two debtors. The one
owed 500 pence and the other 50. And when they had nothing
to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which
of them will love him most?" Simon answered and said, I suppose
that he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast
rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and
said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house,
thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my
feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou
gavest me no kiss, but this woman since the time I came in hath
not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not
anoint, But this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore
I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many." Yeah, she's a sinner. Her sins, which are many, are
forgiven. For she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little. And he said unto her, thy sins
are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with
him began to say within themselves, who is this that forgiveth sins
also? And he said to the woman, thy
faith hath saved thee. Go in peace. Faith was not of
that woman. That was a gift of God to her. When He said, Thy faith has saved
thee, what He was saying was, God has caused you to put your
trust in Me. And because of that, you're a
blessed woman. God has done something for you,
and as a result, you're a blessed woman. When we serve the Lord
with fear, When we rejoice with trembling and when we truly kiss
the Son, all of that happens at His feet. All of it. All of it. Oh, to be drawn to
the feet of Christ. That's our warning and that's
our reward. Kiss the Son. Bow down and kiss
the Son of God. Alright, let's all stand together.