The Lord Jesus Christ declared
in John chapter 17 verse 3, this is life eternal that they might
know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath
sent. He says that salvation, spiritual
life, is to know the true God and the true Christ. And someone
may ask this question, well, preacher, doesn't everyone worship
and believe the same God? Don't all Christians believe
the same Christ? No, because the scriptures talks
about a God, some who have a God of their imagination, or that
is, those who have a God they think is God, what they think
about God. And Paul, plainly talks about
some who preach and believe another Jesus. Well, David, King David,
who wrote the Psalms, whom God calls a man after his own heart. David, a man who knew God, who
knew Christ, describes God and describes his Christ here in
Psalm chapter 2. So if you have a Bible, I want
you to look at Psalm 2 with me. Or if you do not, just follow
along or listen as I go through this psalm with you. I think
you will find a very different description of God and of Jesus
Christ than we are hearing today. Verse 1 reads this way. In Psalm
2, verse 1, it reads, Why do the heathen rage, and the people
imagine a vain thing. The heathen and the people it
speaks of. Why? Well, the heathen in the
scriptures generally refers to non-Jews or Gentiles, anyone
who was not a Jew. And the people, whenever he speaks
of the people, he's speaking of those who claim to be God's
people. the Jews or now it would be those
who claim to be Christian or God's children. All right. He
asked this question. Why? Why do the heathen rage
or the word is tumultuously assemble or meet in a wild and crazy assembly? And that's I have to ask the
same question. Why all the wild and crazy goings-on
and jumping and shouting and waving of hands and hollering
and so forth? Now, I'm not talking about a
ball game. I'm talking about those who claim to be worshipping
God. I have to ask why do the heathen
do this? Why do the people, he goes on
to ask, why do the people imagine a vain thing? Why do those who
are supposed to be God's people or God's children, worshipers
of God, believers in God, why do they talk about God as they
do? Why do they say things or imagine
that God tries and fails, that God wants to and can't have his
way? Why, that's no God at all. That's
a God of man's imagination. Why do they imagine a vain thing
such as the love of God that fails men, that God loves everyone,
yet they might go to hell and perish someday anyway, when the
Scripture says love never fails? Why do they imagine such a vain
thing, such a vain salvation? Why do men imagine that God whose
mercy, the Scripture says, endures forever, why do they say that
He has mercy today and it will end tomorrow. Why? Why? Why? I have to ask the same
question. Why do the heathen rage and the
people imagine such a vain notion? Well, look at verse 2. He goes
on to say, "...the kings of the earth, they have set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against
his anointed." Why? He keeps asking, is everyone
against the Lord being Lord? Why is everyone so upset and
refuses to acknowledge God as being God, or Christ as being
Christ, sovereign and just? Why do men argue and complain
about God doing as He will with His own? Why? We insist upon that for ourselves,
and we're but men. We wouldn't dare let anyone tell
us to do what they would have us to do with our own. And that's
what God says. He says, cannot I do with my
own as I will? Yet people gather together against
the sovereign Christ and his anointed, it says here. And that
represents the true church. It says they gather together
against the Lord, the sovereign God, sovereign Christ, and against
His anointed, or against those who believe the true God. Why,
everyone gangs up on a man or a woman who believes and declares
the sovereign electing God of the Bible, the sovereign successful
Christ. Why? Why is that? Well, read
on. In verse 3 it says, this is what
men say. Let us break their bands asunder
and cast away their cords from us. We won't have this holy,
sovereign God in Christ to reign over us. Why, we want Jesus where
we want Him. We want Him in our hands. And
they say, let's break up these little bands of people who declare
this sovereign grace. Well, look at verse 4. Here is
God's response to what men are saying and doing. Here is God's
response. Look at verse 4 in Psalm 2. It
says, He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Have you ever read such a thing?
Have you ever read or heard of God laughing at people? Usually preachers tell us that
God is sad, that God is so sad because men won't let Him save
them. Usually we hear of a Jesus who
is weeping over us. But the Scripture says God laughs
at the foolishness of men. He laughs. Now I ask you, I ask
you, wouldn't you laugh, suppose you were walking through your
yard one day, and there was an anthill full of ants. And those ants in your yard began
to taunt you, or began to say things like this, Why, you can't
do what you will in your yard or with your house. Why, we're
not going to let you do that. Why, we've decided to do this,
or we've decided to do that. I ask you, Wouldn't you laugh
at those pitiful creatures, huh? Have you never read in Proverbs
1, which speaks of God laughing at men and women in the judgment,
having them in derision or deriding them? To deride someone is really
to make fun of them, is it not? Well, men make fun of God today.
They mock God today when they say that He cannot do what He
will, that men can refuse to let Him do something. And it
says that God will have them in derision, as if He will say,
Now what was it that I could not do? When men stand before
Him in the judgment, it's as if He will say, Now what is it
that I could not do, that you would not let me do? Scripture
says God will laugh. God has them in derision. Look
at verse five. It says, Then shall he speak,
then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in
his sore displeasure. The first chapter of Hebrews
tells how that God used to speak to man through the prophets.
God spoke out loud to the prophets who in turn spoke to man. And then it says, in the last
days he has spoken through his son. When God was manifest in
the flesh and walked this planet, he spoke. And God spoke from
heaven out loud only twice when Christ was on this earth. Out
loud. And he has not spoken aloud since then. But this psalm says
that he shall speak again in the end. In the last days he
shall speak again. Well, what will he say? What
will God say after so many years of silence? Well, it's written
here, and it is the same thing that he said before when his
son was on this planet. He said the exact same thing.
He will say the exact same thing as he said before. Read it with
me. Verse 6 and 7 reads this way. This is what God shall speak
in his wrath, and this is what will vex men in God's sore displeasure
with them. Verse 6 reads this way. Yet,
or that is, in spite of what men say or think they can do,
or what God cannot do, they think, Yet have I set my King upon my
holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree." God
is speaking now, and He says, I will declare the decree. The
Lord has said unto me, Thou art my Son. This day have I begotten
thee. God will say again what He said
out loud when Christ was on this earth. This is my Son. This is your King. This is your Lord. No, it's not because you make
Him so. It's not because you let Him
be so. No, God hath made Him Lord. God made Him Lord before the
world began. Before the stars were in space,
God declared His Son eternally to be Lord, and He always has
been and always will be Lord. That He is sovereign, reigning
ruler and controller of all things. Read on. And this is what God
shall say in His wrath and displeasure with men. He says in verse 8,
now He is speaking to His Son, Ask of Me, and I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance. and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession." In other words, God has said that
all things are given into his Son's hand to do with as he pleases. And the Scripture says in the
end that Christ will come in judgment, and verse 9 reads this
way, "...he shall break them with a rod of iron, and shall
dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." That's quite a different
Jesus than men speak of today, isn't it? Quite a different picture
than most are describing. Listen to Christ describing himself
in Matthew 21. He is that stone or that rock
of ages. In Matthew 21, he says it in
verse 42. He's speaking to some people here, and he says, did
you never read in the Scriptures the stone which the builders
rejected, the same as become the head of the corner? And he
goes on down to say in verse 44, Well, whosoever shall fall
on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it, or that
rock shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And so the psalmist
warns us back in Psalm 2, verse 10, says, No, you be wise now,
therefore, you kings. Be instructed, you judges. Verse
11, Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. If
there are any preachers listening to me right now, be instructed.
We don't go to men declaring first God's love. No, no, no,
no. None of the prophets or apostles did that. We go declaring a holy,
sovereign, just God who's a consuming fire, who's angry with the wicked
every day, who hates sin, who will punish sin. And for all who fear this God,
who ask for mercy, then we tell them of God's love. Then we tell
them of the provision of his mercy and grace in Christ. You
see, men and women are laughing at the God that preachers are
declaring today. Fear and trembling. That should
be the reaction of men when they hear of the God of the Bible.
It was at Pentecost. And so he says in closing, verse
12, kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish from the way.
And we kiss his feet, not his cheek like Judas did, but kiss
his feet like Mary. Blessed are all they that put
their trust in him, the true and living God, those who fear
and bow and worship the true and living God in Christ, and
know Him, then mercy and grace comes to them. Until next Sunday, may the Lord
bless this to your understanding.