You can Open your Bibles back to Psalm
chapter 2, the second Psalm. I asked James to read that particular
portion of Scripture. Acts chapter 4, that portion
there, because that scripture shows us that this psalm is about
Christ. Old Jewish writers understood
it this way. Now, they didn't understand it
to be true of Jesus Christ. But remember, Christ and Messiah,
it's the same word, just different languages, has the same meaning.
And they applied it to Messiah. But one Jewish writer, and I
don't know how long ago it was, but it was maybe as far back
as the first century, In making his comment on Psalm 2, he said,
the old teachers ascribed this to Messiah the Prince. But because
of the Christians, we'll just say it applies to David. In other
words, Christians already knew that the Lord Jesus is who this
psalm is about, and they were declaring that. And so the Jewish
writers would no longer say this is about Messiah because they
thought that would add fuel to the Christian fire. But we don't have to strain at
all to know this is about Christ. The New Testament tells us about
Christ. But then we've learned, have
we not, that all the scriptures are about Christ one way or another. They are all designed to reveal
Him, all are designed to point us to Him, one way or another. And therefore, any understanding
of Scripture that we may have that does not accomplish those
things, reveal Christ, point Him out, turn our hearts toward
Him. Any Scripture or any understanding
of the Scripture that does not accomplish that is a deficient
understanding. Now, in applying this to Christ,
in applying this psalm to Christ, specifically to our Lord Jesus,
we learn that first and foremost, first and foremost, from the
perspective of God Himself, our Lord Jesus is King. King. Now, wherever free willism is
dominant as the religion. And I realize probably not many,
if any of you, were raised in that system. Bonnie and I were. We were raised in it. Wherever
freewillism dominates, the primary office, if that's the right word
to use, office of Christ, is that of Savior. In my youth, I often heard of a Jesus who
wanted to be my Savior. And the most important thing
for me to do was to allow Him to be that. Now did you hear
that? Allow Him. You know something? You don't allow kings to do anything.
If you went up to a real bona fide king and said, I give you
my permission, he'd say, what? What do you mean? You don't have
the right to give me permission because you don't have the right
to deny me permission. But that's what they told you.
God wants to save you. He's done all He can to save
you. Christ wants to be your Savior
if you'll just let Him. And then, free will doctrine
follows with this. Now, that Jesus has saved you,
now that you've let him save you, you should let him be Lord
of your life. Once again, when do kings and
lords require permission from the people over whom they rule?
Now, understand, You know, our government, our form of government
is based on the idea that no one should be in government,
in positions of authority in government, without the consent
of the governed. And I think that's a good thing.
I don't want people with significant power that I did not at least
have a voice. in who that would be. That's
why we don't have kings, at least not in name. We don't call them
kings. The Constitution as it was written,
you know, I suppose it's as good a form of government as has been
written by men, but one thing that it proves is no matter what
form of government you write down, men who are thirsty for
power find a way around the restrictions of power, or restrictions on their power.
But that's one reason we don't want kings with full autocratic
authority, because they will not rule wisely. But they would say, make Jesus
Lord, let Jesus be Lord of your life. So in that free will system in
which I was raised, Jesus can be neither Savior nor Lord unless
you let Him. And anyone, now think on this
and see if it doesn't ring true with you, anyone who requires
your permission for salvation or authority, is not able either to save or
to rule. I always thought it was funny. They'd say to me, you know, that,
oh, God didn't choose a people, you know, because that would
be unfair. Or God doesn't, you know, the
doctrine of irresistible grace. Oh, no, God doesn't work like
that. I heard the daughter of probably the most famous evangelist
of the last century. And she said, oh, God's a gentleman.
He won't force you to do anything. I missed that verse where it
said, God is a gentleman. God is God. That's what He is. God is God. He doesn't ever require
our permission or our cooperation to perform His will. If He did require it, None of
us would ever be saved, because none of us would ever consent. But God always sets forth his
Son as King. In verses 6 through 9 that we
read, this is God speaking in verse 6, I have installed my
King on Zion, my holy hill. Then we have our Lord speaking,
verse 7, I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to
me, you are my son. Today I've become your father.
Now, I don't understand why our translation went this way. Other
translations also go this way. Strictly speaking, it's today
I have begotten you. And it's the same in the New
Testament places. There's a couple of places where
that verse is quoted in the New Testament. And both of them say,
today I have begotten you. And I know that the result of
it is that God is his father. But seeing that this applied
first to David, David wrote this about his own kingship, but then
with a prophetic eye towards the Lord Jesus Christ. God did
not beget David the way Jesus Christ is the only begotten son
of God. So this is just a way where it
says, you are my son today, have I begotten you, is just a way
that God used to express his assigning of David the role of
king. And with regard to Christ, His
declaration that Jesus Christ is King. That's what he's talking
about. And on the day of Pentecost,
what was the essential declaration of the Gospel? Be it known unto
the whole house of Israel that this Jesus, whom you crucified,
God has made to be Lord and Christ. He did not stand up before that
crowd and say, now Jesus came and you all put Him to death,
but that was His way of paying our sins and He paid all the
sins of everybody here, you know, and all your sins are gone. And
He so wants to save you if you'll just let Him. He looked those
rebels square in the eye. These people, who were standing
there in the temple when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost.
They were part of those nations that conspire and peoples that
plot in vain. They were those kings that take
their stand against God's anointed. And he looked them square in
the eye and said, understand this, the one you crucified,
God. has seated him in his right hand,
made him king, made him Lord. He's the Messiah, ruler of everything. Now they didn't take that as
good news. It was good news, but they didn't take it as good
news. And I can understand why. If
indeed God has made him king, and they have his blood on their
hands, And what did they respond? Brethren, what shall we do? And
I really don't think that that was a question that they thought
there was an answer for. I think that Peter's declaration,
empowered by the Holy Spirit so that it pricked their conscience,
And they knew the truth of it, and they felt the guilt of their
rebellion. I think that they were essentially saying, what
in the world are we going to do? They were in despair. Then Peter
said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission
of sins. Now, that turned that frightening testimony into good
news. Why? Well, the promise that through
repentance, and repentance involves faith, sins are forgiven. That is good news only because
the one who authorized that is the king. When he said repent, that wasn't
Peter's idea. He was there with a message from
the King He had just declared. You see, a good word is worthless
unless it comes from someone who has the authority to say
it and the power to bring it to pass. Now, there's no sense
at all in us looking to a Savior who's waiting on us Because if
we can stop him from saving us, who's to say someone else can't
stop him? I remember a story I was told
about, Henry told it a couple of times while we were going
to church there at 13th Street, and about a fellow that would,
and this is one or two hundred years ago, but there was a revival
preacher that would come through his town every year. And this, as was common back
then, whoever was, you know, going to preach the revivalist
or evangelist, whatever they call him, during the day he would
go about the people in the town and visit them and invite them.
And this went on year after year after year. And every year he'd
visit this man and plead with him to come to the meetings.
Tell him, you know, give him his version of the gospel. and
invite him to come to the meetings and try to get him to come. Well,
many, many years went by and finally the preacher was coming
for his last visit to that town. And so he went and visited this
man that he had visited every year for all those years and
told him, he said, this is my last time. I won't get too old,
can't come back next year. So please come." The man said,
not interested. He said, well, don't you realize?
that if you don't accept Jesus as your Savior, that when you
die, He's going to send you to hell? And that man looked at
him and said, for these past years, every year you've told
me that God was doing everything He could to save me, and I wouldn't
let Him. So I figure when He tries to
damn me, I won't let Him do that either. If you can stop Him from saving
you, you can stop Him from damning you. Jesus Christ is the King. Not
a welcome mat. He's not one that people walk
on. Rather, as we saw last week,
the Lord said to him, sit at my right hand till I make all
your enemies a footstool for you. Your feet will be on them. Their feet aren't going to be
on you. He always set forth His Son as the King. The Lord humbled
Himself, made Himself of no reputation for a time to accomplish a purpose. But even as He submitted Himself
to death, even the death of the cross, He was still operating
as the King. Now no human eye could detect
that except one, that thief on the cross. He could see that.
And if there ever was a miracle, that was it. To look at a man
who is beaten beyond recognition, hanging on a tree, and you're
hanging on a tree too, and you know what that means. Your life's
going to be over shortly. To look at such a one as that
and say, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Now,
nobody comes into a kingdom unless he's a king. All through our Lord's life,
He was still the king. When Peter said, He's made Him
Lord in Christ, it's just simply God has made public declaration
of it. He's always been that. Who else but a king could look
at that thief and say, Today, you'll be with me in paradise. The Lord, even at that point,
had kingly authority to grant entry into the paradise of his
father's house. He's the king, always has been,
always will be. In Romans chapter 10, Paul did
not say that if you will confess with your mouth, Jesus is my
savior, you will be saved. He said if you will confess with
your mouth, Jesus is Lord. Now, that was in a specific context. It's in the book of Romans, and
in Rome, Top dog was Caesar. And many of those Caesars fancied
themselves to be gods. And they loved so much the honor
and glory that would go with it, they required that every
citizen on an annual basis go to the shrine of Caesar and say,
Caesar is Lord. And, you know, Rome wasn't upset
by the Christians, really, until then, because they wouldn't say
that. They would say, Jesus is Lord.
You know, it's all right, you know, Nero, you can be Caesar
if you want to. You know, God put you there,
fine. You aren't Lord. That place belongs to Jesus. Brother Mahan used to say, God
will always meet you at your point of rebellion. And for those
Caesars and all the others in power, this was their point of
rebellion. They wanted to be the ones in
charge. They couldn't stand it that the Gospel declares that
Jesus Christ is in charge. And I ask you, what do you think
of that? What do you think of the fact that right now, not
later, not after some supposed millennium or just before a millennium
or anything, right now Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven
and earth. He's doing everything He wants
to do. He's causing everybody else to
do exactly as His Father has decreed they would do, all to
bring about the salvation of God's chosen ones. He's in charge. You know, James said, don't say
tomorrow I'm going to do such and such. Say, God willing, tomorrow
I'll do such and such. All men want to think that they
are the masters of their fate and the captains of their soul. Jesus Christ is. He's the Lord. A man's reaction to this is given in the first few verses,
and in this psalm, we find four people or groups making their
declaration. What is natural man's response
to Jesus is Lord. The nations conspire, the peoples
plot, the kings of the earth take their stand against Jesus
Christ. Now they have various ways of
doing it, but any person left to themselves will be right in
that group. It says conspire, but it doesn't
even have to be a conscious conspiracy. They don't really even have to
get together and say, let's stand together against Christ. In every
one of them, there's already the natural principle of resistance
to Christ, particularly in his office as the king. That's what
they don't like. We'll not have this man to rule
over us. And so, without even having to
get together, they come up with a plan. They are all in opposition
to Him. And those in power, those of
the earth who gain earthly power, they are especially, generally
speaking, especially in rebellion against Christ. Why? Well, His
absolute Lordship puts a limit on theirs. They don't like that,
not at all. And here's how all of them express
their rebellion. The nations, the peoples, the
kings and rulers, they also all say, let us break their chains
and throw off their fetters. Now here's something to note. You notice there it doesn't say,
let us break his chains. Let us throw off his fetters.
It's plural. Let's break off their chains,
their fetters. Why? Well, they took the stand
against the Lord Jehovah and his anointed one. You see, our Lord Jesus, even considering
him only as a man, I realize he's God, manifest as a man,
but as our Messiah, as the King,
as our mediator. He's the man, Christ Jesus. He
is God's anointed one, anointed to the office of King. You can't be for God and against
his anointed one. You cannot be against God, I
mean for God, and against Messiah, against Christ. Folks who lived across from my
parents, this is back in the late 70s, early 80s. And they were charismatic Catholics. At that point, I didn't even
know there was such a thing. They're charismatic Catholics.
And they were talking about, you know, their efforts at spreading
the gospel. And I made the remark, you know,
that apart from believing in, trusting in Christ, in Christ
alone, there is no salvation. And, you know, the subject of
the Jews had come up, and she said, but the Jews, they love the Father.
I said, no, they don't. No, they don't. He that honors
the Father will honor the Son. It's just true. And I'm not saying that because
I think the Jews are worse than us. I feel I always have to put
this disclaimer in there. I'm not talking down about them. The only reason that we're of
the contrary opinion, that we side with God and Christ together,
well, the only reason we do that is because of grace. But the
fact remains, you cannot be for the Father if you're not for
the Son. And you can't be for the Son
if you're not for the Father. For lack of a better way to put
it, they come as a set. It's the only way. Let us break their chains, they
say, and throw off their fetters. You know the Government of our Lord Jesus
Christ feels like chains and handcuffs and leg irons to the
unbelieving world. You know what the government
of God and His Christ feels like to the believer? Freedom. Freedom. Yes, the world is shackled. Yes, the world is chained. They
just don't understand where the chains are coming from. They're
in bondage to their nature. They're in bondage to their own
corruption. They're in bondage to what the
New Testament calls the God of this age. They're in bondage
to Satan. They're in bondage to death. They're in bondage
to law. And they're in bondage to God
because of their rebellion. They're in chains because they
rebel against the one who's in charge, and yet the one who's
in charge has never written a law. Never has he written a law that
was harmful to human beings. Never has he put out a restriction
that kept humans from being able to access something good for
them. Never. Now, we probably think he has
in our sinful state because what did Eve say? I mean, what were
her thoughts after the devil had given his little speech?
He said, and Eve looked at the tree and saw that it was good
for food. My friend, it was not good for
food. It looked like good food. There's
no question about that. But she had a word from God.
It's not good for food. Don't eat it. And when she ate
it, it killed her, so to speak. She found out it wasn't good
for food. Kids, you know, they don't like
the rules their parents make. And not all the rules that we
parents make turn out to be good in the end. We do our best not
to bring them any harm. But understand you young kids,
your parents love you and they're not going to put a restriction
on you unless they think it's for your good not to do something. I mean, you know, if your parent
says, don't stick that knife in that electric socket, that's
not because they don't want you to have the fun of sticking a
knife in an electric socket, it's because they don't want
to come in and find you dead on the floor because you stuck
a knife in the electric socket. So those are not chains, those
are not fetters, those are rules promoting life. Everything God
has ever commanded man to do promotes life. But man says,
oh, I'll tell you what it is to live. Man thinks freedom is to run
wild. And for the thousands of years
of human history, it has been proven when men run contrary
to what God has said to do, It doesn't bring them greater freedom,
it brings them into greater bondage. We want to do what we want to
do. And we don't want anybody telling us, not even God, that
we may not do it. How does man show this rebellion?
He shows it by everything he does. Even, now you think on
this one a minute, because you know when we, if we turn on the
TV and we see the news about all the debauchery that people
are promoting as good and valuable, it doesn't take anything other
than common sense to know that's wrong. But you know another way
that people shake their fist in God's face. They claim to be obeying his
law. They claim to be upholding it by their own efforts. They say, I thank you, God, I'm
not like other men. And they have taken the very
rules that he wrote, adjusted them to their own abilities,
and justified themselves and in so doing they have thrown
off or tried to throw off his chains, his shackles. Someone once was trying to convince
me that the law of Sinai was binding on believers because
Paul said by faith we uphold this law. And I responded, Paul meant that only we who abandon
hope in the law and flee to Christ for refuge, we're the only ones
upholding God's law, because we're the only ones saying God's
law is too strict for someone like me. It's too high a bar. I can't meet it. Those who are
trying to gain God's favor through their obedience to the law, and
that applies to any law that God has given, but generally
speaking, the law as described on Mount Sinai is the one being
referred to because that's the most notable example of divine
law. But everyone who's trying to
get in favor with God by trying to obey that law, They are insulting
God. They aren't upholding His law.
They're bringing it down. They're saying, OK, here's the
law. I'm going to bring it down to something that I can meet,
something I can do. No, by faith. by laying hold of Christ
and Him alone and turning away from gaining blessing by the
law. Only by that do we uphold the law. Christ's Word. Oh, excuse me. God's response to
man's rebellion. And I love this. Verse 4, the
one enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. It is distressing to see the
rebellion against God. But you want to know who's not
worried about it? God. Someone once said, there never
has been an emergency session of the Trinity. Never has been,
you know. God, the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit look and say, oh no, it's not working.
We've got to get together, we've got to come away. Never. And the atheists claim they don't
believe in God because God, but what it comes down to is God
is not what they think He should be. And I can understand that
because everybody is out there saying, you know, I say everybody,
nearly everyone, even in Christendom, is saying that God is all-powerful
and He's all-good. God is all-powerful and He's
all-righteous, but He is good to them that fears Him. How can
you say God is all good if bad things happen? No, I don't say
that God is all good. God is not designed to do good
for everybody. He is determined to do good for
His people. And that's exactly the way things are working out.
But God, He laughs. I remember my mother babysat
the boy from across the street. He's five years younger than
me. And once he started school, he would come over just a little
bit before we had to leave to catch the bus. And then there
was a couple hours between the time he'd get home and then his
mom would get home. And so he was first grade and
I was sixth grade. Well, as you can imagine, there's
gonna be a little bit of conflict in the house. I mean, up to then,
I'd been the only boy in the house, you know, and here's this
kid in here, and one time, we were fussing at each other or
after each other for something. And he looked at me and he said,
Daddy, just to give you an idea, in the sixth grade, I weighed
65 pounds. Now, unless I was only two feet
tall, that word wouldn't apply. And I looked at him, and I just
laughed. I mean, come on. If you're going
to insult me, at least come up with something that might apply.
And our Lord, He looks down, so to speak, and He sees all
the people up in arms against Him, and He sees the kings shaking
their fists in His face, and He doesn't go, He laughs. Who do you think you are? He rebukes them in his anger
and he terrifies them in his wrath, saying, and I like this, he didn't say, I'm gonna send
you to hell. Here's how God terrifies the
world. I have installed my king on my
holy hill. That's why it's so silly to say,
make God Lord. God beat you to it. God installed
His King. And nobody can uninstall Him.
What does Christ say? I will proclaim the decree of
the Lord. He said to me, you are My Son.
Today I have become your Father. Today I have begotten you. Ask
of Me and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends
of the earth your possession. You will rule them. This is serious
authority. You will rule them with an iron
scepter. And that day, actually when this
was written, the Jews were barely, as I understand it, barely coming
into the Iron Age. Up until then, you know, bronze,
brass, that was the best they had. Iron was just coming into
its own and for them to talk about an iron scepter, that was
something. iron scepter, you will dash them to pieces like
pottery. You know, a piece of pottery,
it can be really strong. You could take a piece of pottery,
probably, and stand on it and it wouldn't break. Because pottery
is pretty strong. It's made of good clay and thick
enough. But you know something, if you drop it on something hard,
It'll just bust into little shards. It can't take that shock. So
I said, you'll dash them to pieces. And as we look at all the enemies
of the Lord in this world, and they may seem frightening, and
I'm not saying they can't bring unpleasant situations into our
lives. I'm not saying that there isn't,
you know, reason, like, like, lot to be vexed But we don't
ever have to be afraid of them. We don't. Because the Lord is ruling them
with an iron and unyielding scepter, sovereignty. As much as they
are motivated by their hatred of Him, they are doing exactly
what our Lord sent them to do. In their rebellion against his
way, they are fulfilling his will. You can think of that for
a minute. And when he's done with them,
what will he do? Just a big piece of pottery,
throw it on some concrete. You go to a cemetery and you
can tell the difference between the rich and the poor that are
buried there, so long as you stand on the top side of the
grass. You go underneath, same for everybody, isn't it? Imagine the most powerful man
in the world or woman, whoever's the most powerful person, full
of evil. In our day, you know, the paradigm
is Hitler. Bonnie and I watched a series
of World War II here recently, colorized film from that time. It was very interesting to watch.
And you can imagine what it looked like. I mean, that man, he was
insanely evil. And he became very powerful because
he built up the German people and their military and began
to expand. And the Allies very nearly waited
too long to do something about it. In World War II, from a human
perspective, the outcome was not always guaranteed, a victorious
outcome. But look what happened. He spread the empire and had
almost all of Europe, part of Africa. He was making his way
into Russia. And he ends up huddled in a bunker
and shoots himself in the head. God raised up Hitler for his
purposes. You say, what worries, I don't
know. He accomplished what God sent him to do and then God tossed
him to the ground and busted him to pieces like so much worthless
pottery. And brethren, the only reason
you and I won't end up as worthless shards of pottery is that God
chose us and changed us Change our heart and attitude
towards God and Christ. Alright, the last few verses
are the exhortation of the church. Therefore, you kings, be wise.
Be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear
and rejoice with trembling. How do you serve the Lord with
fear? We understand that means reverence. But first, it's to rejoice. Rejoice
about what? That God has made this Jesus
whom you crucified to be Lord in Christ. Oh, that does rejoice
my heart to know that. Does it yours? Do you not hear
that word say, I am so glad that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven,
earth, and hell. It's all in his hands. Rejoice with trembling. Why would you tremble as you
rejoice? In our present state, we might
tremble as we realize that God could have left us in
our rebellious state and dashed us to pieces like so much worthless
pottery. I rejoice that Jesus Christ is
Lord, but God hold me back from ever saying like that Pharisee
did, I thank you God I'm not like other men. And thinking
that God is somehow pleased with me because of what I've done. And we tremble because even as
we rejoice in Him being King, we recognize that still in our
natural selves, as Paul said, in us, that is in our flesh,
there's nothing good. I not only entered the kingdom
of God by grace, I stay in it by grace. My sins were forgiven long ago
by grace. They're still forgiven. Why?
Grace. We never stand on any other ground
than grace. Then he says, kiss the son lest
he be angry and you be destroyed in your way. Kiss the son, that
was the way they greeted people with welcome. You know, that
cheek to cheek kind of kissing. And if someone, if the king showed
up at your place and you did not give him a kiss of welcome,
That was quite the affront to the king. So it says, kiss the
son. He came into his own and his
own did not receive him, did not welcome him, did not kiss
him. But to them who did receive him,
who did kiss the son, to them he gave the right to become children
of God. And the last line, he's the king,
blessed are all who take refuge in him. You see, we need to take
refuge in the king because the king is the one with whom we
have a problem. We need the king to save us from
the king. A preacher of our day put it
this way, God saved you from himself, for
himself, by himself. But the key point is God saves
us from himself. The devil's not our problem,
God is. People say, oh, the devil is
going to take you to hell. He isn't going to take anybody to hell.
He doesn't have the authority to do that. The Lord said, don't fear Him
who can kill the body and do more. Fear the One who can kill
the body and then send the soul to hell. That's the One you need
to fear. That's the One you need salvation
from. And the only One who can save you from the King is the
King. Blessed are those