And in the 2nd Psalm, verses
1 through 6, why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a
vain thing? The kings of the earth have 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. He that sitteth
in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them
in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have
I set my king upon my holy hill Zion." Now, in Acts chapter 4,
There is a reference to this, verse 23 through verse 28 of
Acts chapter 4. Peter and John had been arrested,
verse 23, and being let go, they went to their own company and
reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. When they heard that, they lifted
up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, Thou art
God, which hath made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that
in them is. Who by the mouth of Thy servant
David hath said, Why do 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,
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done." Now, I'd like to name my sermon this morning,
The Conspiracy against Jesus or the unholy alliance against
our Lord Jesus Christ. Before we consider this conspiracy,
those who join together in confederate to bring to pass the death of
our Lord and to seek to overthrow Christ and as well the gospel,
let us lay a foundation deep and wide by noticing a special
and particular peculiarity about the book of Acts. We know that
it contains an account of the spread of the gospel under the
ministry of the Apostles, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then to the
uttermost parts of the earth. We also know from reading and
studying in the book of Acts what a strong opposition did
arise against the gospel in practically every place where it was preached. Yes, there were many that believed
the Lord's testimony. There were many that believed
the word of the Lord and the gospel. And Christian churches
were established in this place and that. Still, there was much
opposition against the gospel of our Lord and those that preached
it. opposition and resistance to
the testimony of Christ. Most of it came from what we
would call the established religion, old Judaism. And early on, much
of it came from an arrogant, bigoted, self-righteous little
Jew by the name of Saul of Tarsha. And then God called Saul by his
mighty and wondrous grace And the Jews then mightily began
to persecute the servant of the Lord. There was a wide effect
noted in the book of Acts. Christ being gone, Christ having
been put to death and put out in the grave, there was now a
very strong movement to stamp out altogether this new way. or this new Christian religion
and the gospel way of worship. The gospel that was believed
by the servant of the Lord, but those who opposed Him made a
great effort to stamp out the gospel and the worship of Christ
and the way of the cross. By their hatred of all things
Christian, they oppose the gospel of our Lord, even in Acts 4.
just prior to the text that we read this morning. In verse 18,
Peter and John are released, but they are commanded not to
speak any more in the name of Jesus. Verse 21, they were threatened
and said, don't preach any more in the name of Jesus Christ.
And when the Jews had secured the death of the Lord, thinking
that they had put an end to what they considered and assault on
Moses and upon Judaism, and yet fire sprung up, as it were, here
and there, in that place and that. But I run ahead on my subject. So let's go back to that special
peculiarity that can be noted in the book of Acts, which is
this. The many references to Old Testament
prophecies that are recorded in the book of Acts, prophecies
which they tied to the Lord Jesus Christ for the sake of convincing
the Jews that Jesus of Nazareth, the one crucified in Jerusalem,
was the Messiah promised and prophesied in the prophecy, that
prophecy after prophecy had been fulfilled in what God did by
him and what Christ did and suffered. Of course, the same is true of
the Lord in person from His birth to His resurrection. And the
Gospels point out the many prophecies that were fulfilled in the life
of our Lord. And this is of the utmost importance
for this reason. Only He who is the fulfillment
of the prophecy is worthy to be called the Messiah. Only He,
in whom all the prophecies are met together, is worthy of being
noted as the Messiah. God hath made them to light upon
Him, that is the prophecy, to such a degree that His disciples
early on could say, as in John chapter 1 and verse 45, We have
found Him of whom Moses And the prophets did write. Yes, the
one that Moses wrote about. The one the prophets did write
up in their prophecy. The one they said was to come
into the world. And so the apostles there, in
the book of Acts, using the prophecy which they contended proved the
Messiahship of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there is no way that
one could prove himself or claim himself to be the Messiah unless
the prophecies are met in him and answered in him. And then
there is no denying it, that all the prophecies are met and
fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. I found a statement very helpful
from F. F. Bruce's commentary on the
book of Acts regarding the use of the messianic prophecies in
the apostolic preaching, which were clearly fulfilled in the
Lord Jesus and no other. Bruce put it this way, I quote,
it had great evidential value, was a prominent feature of the
primitive Christian publicity and apologetic, unquote. The word apologetic here, of
course, meaning a defense of Christianity and of the Gospel. We see the Apostle Peter is given
a certain spirit of discernment in the book of Acts concerning
the prophecy and their fulfillment. The Spirit of God had come and
taken control of Peter that he might take up the work that the
Lord had ordained for him. And both before and after the
Day of Pentecost, His discernment is much sharpened after the resurrection
and the ascension of the Lord and the pouring out of the Spirit
on the day of Pentecost. Now there are two examples of
this that I would like to mention in the early part of the book
of Acts. The first one is in chapter 1
and verse 15 through verse 20. Peter, noticing all that had
transpired, the death of Judas and such like, Peter reminds
the disciples that the defection of Judas was a fulfillment of
a passage of Scripture from the Psalms. Chapter 1, verse 16,
which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spoke before
concerning Judas, which was God to them that took Jesus. The Lord also mentions, you remember,
it as a subject foretold in the Old Testament Scripture, that
a friend would lift up his heel against him. Now, the second
discernment of the Apostle after Pentecost, a prophecy, we find
in Acts 2, verse 14 through verse 21. The Spirit of God came. All that
saw and heard were amazed and perplexed. What can this mean? What is this? Some went so far
as to say, these men are full of new wine. They are drunk.
They are inebriated. They have over-imbibed. They have been in the wine cellar. They have tarried. too long at
the wine. The apostle Peter, however, sets
aside their charge of drunkenness and proclaims it to be the fulfillment
of a certain prophecy found in the book of Joel. In verse 16
he said this, this is that spoken by Joel. The passage referred
to is found in the prophet Joel, chapter 2, verse 28, to verse
32, which contains these words, I will pour out my Spirit upon
all flesh. Now do we wonder, how did Peter
know this? How did the apostle recognize
it? That at once he could declare
it to be the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel. It must have
been the guidance of the Spirit of God. He said, this is that. This which you have just seen
is none other than that that Joel prophesied should come in
the end times. And so it was in the book of
Acts that both Peter and later the Apostle Paul held before
the Jews in abundance the prophecies that were fulfilled and connected
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Several of them by the way taken
out of the book of the psalm. Such is the case with our text
here for today. The disciples, in all that they
had experienced, remembered and applied a prophecy from the psalm
which they had seen fulfilled before their very eyes and recently
in their life. And in their own situation, They
had seen this prophecy come to pass. Now we read in Acts chapter
4 and verse 23, "...and being let go," that is, Peter and John,
"...had been imprisoned by the high muckety-mucks of Judaism,
the hierarchy, over the fallout of the healing of the crippled
man at the temple gate." And in chapter 3 verse 1 through
11 you have that account. And because the leaders could
not deny the miracle that was done, they prayed Peter and John,
but only after, in verse 17 and the last part, threatening them
and ordering them to cease and desist speaking in the name of
Jesus. Verse 18, "...commanded them
not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. Verse 21,
they further threatened them. Later, chapter 5 and verse 28,
the high priest said unto the apostles, did we not strictly
and absolutely forbid you to teach in this name? And what
have you done? You have filled Jerusalem with
your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Now, critical time has come in
Acts chapter 4 as seen in verse 17. First of all, the highest
authority in Judaism. The great high priest and all
of his kin, the rulers and the elders and the scribes wanted
to muzzle the preachers against declaring the gospel of our Lord. They wanted to check any further
spread of Christ. They speak of it as if it were
a disease to be spread and to infect them and turn into some
kind of a plague. And R.C. Linsky, who is pretty
good on the Greek tenses, makes a very good point that from that
time on, when they were released and given these commands, Any
preaching in the name of Jesus was a violation of the legal
authority in Judaism. And it was, in their nation,
illegal by the high priest's edict to preach Christianity
any longer. Now, two points are to be made
here. A. In Acts 5 and verse 28, where
the original injunction is referred to, Did we not tell you not to
preach in this name any longer? And then, B, we notice, could
this be an impetus to Saul of Tarsheth, who had letters in
his possession from the high priest when he was struck down
by the Lord on Damascus Road? But we must get to our text and
to our prophecy and how they apply it. When Peter and John
were released, they rejoined the brethren. They told them
all that had happened to them. They told them all that the chief
priests and the elders had told them in the end of verse 23. But verse 24 contains their reaction. Were they afraid? Did they cower
behind locked doors? Would they be cowered into silence
and threatened into silence? Would they moan on account of
their persecution and what they had endured for the gospel? Nay. On the contrary, they praise
God as the Creator, as the Great God of all things existing. They ascribe unto God a sovereign
lordship, and they praise God as the All-Powerful One who was
directing them. And they include a portion. are
a stanza then from the second psalm. In Acts 4, verse 25 and
verse 26, which concerns a confederation of the wicked against the Lord's
holy and anointed one. They cite that particular portion
of the psalm that speaks of the rage of the wicked and the kings
of the earth. against the one which God deems
to exalt to a throne of glory and of power." Now, this is one
of those prophecies. This one found in the psalm that
some commentators feel has a double application. Some, first of all,
primarily apply it to David. Those who opposed him, and yet,
did he sit upon the throne of Israel. This is, however, our
secondary application, is our greater David. Spurgeon wrote
in his introduction to the 2nd Psalm that it sets forth the
tumult of the people against Christ, the Anointed One, and
the determinate counsel of God to exalt His Son to reign over
all of His enemies. Back in Psalm chapter 2 and verse
1, The heathen rage. The people imagine a vain thing. They rage like an angry and an
agitated sea when it is cast up by the storm. They foam out
their filth, as it were. They make a loud noise. They
dash to and fro. And in Psalms 2, verse 1, the
word rage. The people Imagine a vain thing. The margin has it. They mediate,
or meditate rather, a vain thing. Not only the heathen and the
people in verse 1, but also in the second verse. The kings of
the earth themselves set themselves and take counsel together against
the Lord. Their intention? What have they
in mind? Verse 3, to tear away the a providential
bounce of God from off of them. To throw off all restraint that
God might exercise upon them. To overthrow divine law. To do as they would. To be their
own God. For everyone to do that which
is right in their own eye. To set their own standards and
to rule their own life and be free of any religious restraint
whatsoever. Now, what shall be the reaction
of the Almighty God to their raging and such thing? What does
the Almighty think of their schemes which they have concocted? Verse
4, Psalms 2, He that sits in the heavens shall lay. So impossible
is their scheme. So ridiculous is their scheme
and their attempts that the sovereign of heaven laughs at their puny
and their vain attempts to overthrow the purpose of God and cast off
the shackles of divine providence. Now, going back to Acts chapter
4, the apostles and disciples also make some application of
the second psalm to what was done, notice, to the holy child
Jesus, the very Son of God. It answers to God's anointed
in the psalm. He is God's anointed. Now, they can see. They have
discernment. They have spiritual enlightenment
so that they can see that the psalm was fulfilled in what was
done to the Lord Jesus Christ in those days and times up until
His death. They name the confederates that
are involved. There is Herod. There is Pilate. With the Gentiles, the people
of Israel were gathered together. They had their part in the misery
and in the death done to God's anointed. But they imagined,
as the Psalms said, a vain thing. They imagined that they could
put Jesus of Nazareth to death with minimum consequences. They vainly imagined, that is,
the people did, that they could be rid of Jesus once and for
all, the inspiration and the leader of this new religion,
and put an end to it and save their nation and save their religion
of Judaism, settle back into their accustomed routine. They
view Christ and His followers as a threat to the established
religion of Judaism. So let's try to sum up all the
things that drove the conspiracy to put our Lord to death on the
cross. The first act toward that end
were the Jewish leaders. The priests. and the scribes
stirred up many of the people. Then comes in Pilate. Then comes
in Herod. Then the false witnesses that
are brought against our Lord. There were the Roman soldiers
who had their part in the whipping and the crucifixion of our Lord. All of these and perhaps more
that I have forgotten had a hand in putting the Lord to death.
They all gathered themselves together against the Lord. Now, expositors have, in various
combinations, explained this unholy alliance against the Christ
of God this way. The Gentiles raged against Jesus
in the person of the Romans who executed Him. The people who
imagined a vain thing were His Jewish adversaries. The kings
who set themselves in array against him were represented by Herod,
and the rulers were represented by none other than that wretched,
coward Pilate, who sentenced the Lord to the cross without
finding him deserving of anything of debt. Herod, allowing his
men of war to mock the Lord for his claims of kingship, the Jewish
rulers who suborn liars that might testify falsely against
our Lord. We best not miss something in
both Psalms 2 and Acts 4, that this One against whom all of
these are allied is God's anointed. Is it not a common man? This
is not an ordinary religious leader. This is God's anointed. Psalms 2 and 2, His anointed. Acts 4 and verse 27, Whom you
have anointed. Now the word anointed, quio,
is like the word which came from the word Christosos, and for
Christ, the anointed one of God. When we think of anointed, We
get a two-fold picture. Number one, there were the anointing
often done by pouring or smearing or rubbing oil or something of
that sort. Usually oil upon the head, upon
the body of a person, and even material objects such as those
that were in the tabernacle. Secondly, the significance of
anointing was to publicly consecrate one unto an office or a religious
service, such as Aaron was anointed as the high priest in Exodus
28 and verse 41, consecrated unto that office. Saul was anointed
king in 1 Samuel 15 and 1. David was anointed in 1 Samuel
16 and 13 in the midst of his brethren. And as I mentioned,
even the tabernacle and some of the vessels therein were anointed
by Moses. Leviticus chapter 8, verse 10
and 11. Now this will help us to understand
the actions of David toward King Saul way back yonder in the Old
Testament. In 1 Samuel 24, 1 Samuel chapter
26, You remember that Saul had been
the invertebrate enemy of David, and when David had opportunity
to slay Saul, for God had caused a deep sleep to fall upon the
wicked king and he slept in a deep sleep, David declined to slay
Saul. He declined to lift his hand
up against him, saying this in 1 Samuel 26, verse 9, who can stretch forth his hand
against the Lord's anointed and be guilt-free." You see it again,
1 Samuel 24 and verse 6. And what do we read in Hebrews
1 and verse 9 concerning the Son? God has anointed you with
the oil of gladness above all of thy fellows. This is a reference
to Psalm 45 and verse 7. Also, Isaiah 61 and verse 1 and
Luke 4, 18 and 19 refers to the anointing of the Lord. None less than God Himself had
anointed Messiah for the task with the oil of gladness, or
the Holy Spirit, and that above and beyond all of His fellows,
so that those gathered in conspiracy against Christ were in effect
lifting their voices, lifting their hands against the one who
had been anointed by God. How audacious were they to lift
their hands against God's anointed. Will God cut them some slack
because they acted in ignorance? Acts 3.17, they killed the anointed
one of God, they killed the Prince of Life, Acts 3.15, they gather
together in confederacy against the Holy One of God. We're coming after the amazing
statement in Acts 4 and verse 28, where the persecuted disciples
acknowledge that in spite of all that had been done to our
Lord, all His mistreatment and His beatings, the blasphemies,
All that had been done to our Lord was guided by a divine sovereignty
using the wrath of man. The meaning is this. Those who
were gathered together, those who assembled or brought themselves
together, their actions, all that they did, their most wicked
action against our Savior were so ordered They were so guided,
they were so restrained, they were so directed by the secret
providence of God that rather than defeat the intent and the
purpose of God, their actions actually serve to bring to pass
the purpose and the intent of God. The meaning is not that
they contrive together. It's not that they said, oh,
let's see, if we do this, it will fulfill this Scripture.
If we do that, it will fulfill another. No, that was fathers
from their mind. They had no intention of fulfilling
any Scripture, and they were wholly ignorant of the purpose
of God in regard unto Christ. Their intentions were only evil,
especially the Jews and their leaders. who wish to eradicate
Christianity and all of those who worship in that way. Their
situation is described in type in the words of Joseph to his
brethren in Genesis chapter 50 and verse 20. When Joseph had
revealed himself to his brethren, he said this, they were terrified
and afraid. He held their life in His hand. He could put them to death. He
had that power. But He said this to them, As
for you, you thought evil against Me, but God meant it unto good
to bring to pass to save much people alive." That is from the
famine. You have a like passage also
in Genesis 45 and verses 5-8. His brothers hated Joseph, They were jealous. They were
filled with envy against him. And remember that they plotted
a killing. And they sold him away into slavery
only to find in time to come, in the time of the famine, that
their evil deed had resulted in the saving of their life. For Joseph had managed well.
the affairs of Egypt. God made their sin to serve His
purpose. Let's emphasize that. Their jealousy,
their envy, their hatred, they're selling Him into slavery. They're
casting Him into the pit. Once they would kill Him, but
no, they did not. And this fulfilled a purpose
of God. Joseph was second in command
in the land of Egypt in the time of the famine when Jacob sent
his sons to Egypt to buy bread or to buy wheat. Even so, with
the prophecy of Psalm 2 in their mind, they discern some things
such as the vanity of the Jews and the enemies of Christianity
in attempting to overthrow the purpose of God. This is the vain
thing imagined, that they can overthrow God that they would
be able to throw off the restraint of God. Yet, God would set Him
upon the holy throne, holy hill of Mount Zion. They saw a second
thing. They saw how perfectly the prophecy
was answered in those who joined legion together to put the Lord
Jesus unto death. That's the people. That's the
heathen. That's the kings. That's the
rulers. the Roman soldiers and all that
came together against the Lord. And then see in verse 28, they
acknowledged that the evil actions of evil men, blind and ignorant,
had nonetheless served to fulfill the determinant counsel and will
of God without any intention of doing so in their mind or
heart. So they did what God purposed
to be done without any script of their own to go by, without
any prompting, without the slightest view to Scripture or concern
about the will of God. They did notice whatsoever. This is a rather extensive word
and all-inclusive, meaning as much as, as many, all that. Those things. They did those
things. unwittingly and unknowingly,
which God had determined to be done unto Christ. Like in Acts
13 and verse 29, they fulfilled all that was written of Him. They put Him away from their
counsels. He was mocked. They gave Him
vinegar to drink. They smote Him. They stuck a
spear in the side of our Lord. They gambled for His garments
that He wore to Golgotha, each of these things the prophet had
minutely predicted, and they came to pass in our Lord." Now,
here's a statement, and a scripture to go with it. God makes the
wrath of man to praise Him. Psalm 76 and verse 10. The wrath of man shall praise
thee, the remainder of wrath shall thou restrain. And despite
both Pilate and Herod, powerful men, declaring Jesus to be unworthy
of death, He was put to death by a conspiracy, by a confederacy,
by an unholy alliance of evil persons who gathered against
our Lord. And yet God's purpose is not
defeated. It is fulfilled. Christ, despite
their opposition, is raised up again from the dead. is highly
exalted to the right hand of God. He is made Lord and Sovereign
and is given dominion over all, including those that put Him
to death. The Lord God hath made Him Lord
and Christ. Yes, whatsoever was determined
before to be done, they did by the things they did to our Lord
and our Savior in this unholy alliance without any thought
or regard to the glory of God, or the will of God, the purpose
of God, or the Word of God. And yet, by amazing providential
guidance, did all that was written concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. But it did not defeat God's purpose. He's raised up. He lives. He is alive evermore. Death hath no more dominion over
him, absolutely none. He that sitteth in the heavens
laughs at the frail, futile attempts of people upon the earth, for
his power is almighty. All right, thank you for your
attention this morning and for your prayers. Let's stand together
for a prayer, please, being dismissed.