Please turn to Psalm 2. A few weeks ago, we began our brief study of Psalm 2. We're certainly not dealing with it in the depth that it could be dealt with because this psalm introduces many very vast topics. But we're just doing primarily, you would say, an overview of the psalm and some of the cardinal truths to be learned from it. We will read the entire psalm again today. We considered the first six verses a few weeks ago, and today we will consider the last six verses. Today's message is entitled, Serve the Lord and Kiss the Son. So let's read Psalm 2 together and then we will go to the Lord in prayer again before beginning the message. 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. 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 of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Heavenly Father, we come into thy presence today, and we Rejoice to be able to come into thy house. I do thank you that you have kept the families of the church for the most part in good health so far throughout this beginning of the cold season. And I pray that you will continue to do so, particularly this coming week as our biannual Bible conference approaches. Lord, we look for a blessing from Your hand at that time, but we need a blessing from Thee today as we appear before Thee and hear the Word of God. And this is a very powerful section of Scripture, and I don't suppose that any man can really do it justice as it deals with some of the sublime mysteries concerning the person of Christ and concerning His great dominion and rule over all things. But we praise You because the same Christ that is spoken of here, who has had all power committed into His hands, that He is ruling and reigning over the kings of the earth, but that He is meeting assemblies today as they come together and meet in his name and sing praise to God and hear the preaching of the word of God. Lord, we believe that the gospel is still the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. But we know also that there is Nothing that a preacher or a parent or a friend can say or do to make a lost person repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we pray that this day you would take the Word of God and cause it to penetrate into the hearts of those who have set themselves against thee and who have no interest in amending their ways and their doings and have no interest in believing on Christ and following Him because they think they have something that is better to do and they are willing to exchange their eternal soul for a few years of fun here in this life Lord, we pray that you would awaken them and not allow them to remain in this hard-hearted and ungodly condition, which will only grow worse and worse except you intervene. Lord, may we serve thee with fear and rejoice with trembling. May we learn what it is to have both a godly and reverential fear, but also to be able to rejoice in thee because of all that thou hast done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us today and bless your ministers as we proclaim your word. And we ask all of your mercy in Jesus' name. Amen. So we come today to the second part of this psalm and just a word or two by way of review we have divided the psalm up as I think it it should be divided very naturally into four stanzas of three verses each. And we took the first two stanzas a few weeks ago when we began considering this psalm, and we saw then that the first three verses show us the raging heathen. The heathen are raging, and they are conspiring together against the Lord and against His anointed and, of course, against the people of God. conspiring to break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. Of course, this had its primary fulfillment at the time when Herod and Pontius Pilate and the people of the Jews united together to have Christ arrested and crucified. And we see that in the book of Acts in chapter 4. But we saw in verses 4 through 6 God's reaction to the conspiracies and combinations of His enemies. He wasn't worried by what they were doing. He wasn't troubled. He wasn't injured by what they were doing. He's never injured by what wicked men are doing to Him. He is sitting in heaven, which means that nobody can get at Him. If God is sitting in heaven, there's nothing that a man on earth can do to harm or injure Him. He's sitting in heaven and He's laughing at the ridiculous attempts of men to try to overthrow him and his work. The idea that a finite human person can overthrow the work of the almighty, omnipotent, infinite in every way God is so ridiculous that David pictures it as being laughable. God is laughing at them. He has nothing but disrespect and contempt for his enemies. And in verse 6 he says, in spite of all that his enemies have done, even taking his son and nailing him to a cross, he has set his king upon his holy hill of Zion. And verse 6 helps to lead us into the next section of the psalm where we see the Lord Jesus plainly introduced as the Son of God. One more word that I will give you by way of refreshment of your memory is that we said that this psalm could be applied, at least in a limited sense, to David. Obviously, David was the author of it. He is ascribed as the author of it in the New Testament, and there's no reason to believe otherwise. And if it says so in the New Testament, then we accept it on faith, that being the word of God. So we can apply it to some degree to David and about his reign. But there are things in this psalm particularly that we will see today that could not be fully said of David but must be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. And this psalm is taken in several different sections of the New Testament as being a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is definitely the primary intention of this psalm is to show us something of the person and the character and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we said also that we can make application of it to our own time, and particularly in the first three verses when we see the kings of the earth and the rulers taking counsel against God and against His anointed, and even this admonition that we will be looking at today to the kings of the earth. That's not just something for David's time or for Christ's time. That is something that has a universal application in all times. The kings of the earth and the rulers of the world are conspiring against God and against His people at this very hour, and they always will be. It's not something that's strange or abnormal that you have organizations and corporations and governmental institutions that hate God and are trying to overthrow Him and persecute His people. That's been going on since the beginning of time. But what this psalm does is encourage the people of God that all of their plans and conspiracies and combinations are all in vain. No matter what harm they may be seeming to do to the church of Christ, it is God's people who will be victorious because of their unity with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's all I'm going to say by way of refreshing our memories, considering what we studied a few weeks ago. And so without any further statement, let's come to consider the second part of the psalm. And once again, we will take the two stanzas, verses 7 through 9, and then verses 10 through 12. In the first stanza, we are given an amazing glance into a discourse between God the Father and His blessed Son, whom we know to be our Lord Jesus Christ. We see first the son declaring himself to be the begotten of the father. I will declare the decree the Lord has set unto me. Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. And we have to see and understand this as being Christ speaking. And then in verse 8, it appears to me that it is the father responding to the son and requiring him to ask for an inheritance and for power over his enemies, which he will gladly give to his son as a reward for his perfect obedience. And then in the fourth and last stanza of the psalm, we have an admonition to the kings of the earth. And it goes far beyond the kings of the earth and can be applied to every person on the earth to submit themselves to God's rule under the hand of his son, lest we be utterly destroyed from his presence. And so let us begin this morning's message by taking our first point here in verses seven through nine and gazing for a few moments with reverence at this dialogue between the father and the son. I will declare the decree the Lord has said unto me. Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. We may perhaps in a limited sense apply this passage to King David. He could certainly be called a son of God by adoption as all of God's people have the great privilege of being made the sons of God. That is the tremendous manifestation of the Father's love to his people as we see in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 1. But it is evident that there is something more specific intended here than just the fact that David was a son of God by adoption. Now if we want to apply it to the author of the psalm in any way, we could say that David was publicly decreed to be a specially favored son of God when God had him anointed and then enthroned as king over Israel. And so if we understand it in that sense, and we would have to limit it quite a bit because I think this statement goes beyond anything that could justly be said of David, so that we have to understand it of Christ. But if you do want to refer it to David, you would have to say it's not referring to the time when David was born that God decreed him to be his son, but it would be to the time of his royal exaltation. Now, why do I take any time to make that limited application to David? Well, the reason I do that is because if you understand this decree of being towards David, and God decreeing David to be His son as a royal king, I think that helps you understand what it is saying concerning Christ. That He is not saying that at the time Jesus was born into the world, or at some point in historical time, Jesus became the Son of God, but that he decreed and publicly proclaimed Christ to be the Son of God at a certain point in history. And that point was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there is certainly a temptation into which many theologians have given way, and not without reason, to take the words, this day have I begotten thee, and dive into those deep and profound arguments regarding the eternal generation and sonship of Christ. I have spoken of that somewhat in our studies in the Gospel of John, and so I'm not going to rehash those arguments now. If I tried to do that, we wouldn't be able to get through, probably even finish with the seventh verse today. So we're not going to spend more than a few moments on that. And another reason not to spend more than just a few moments on it is because nobody can really understand it, and people who have written at any great length upon the subject of the eternal affiliation of Christ usually go far beyond what the Scripture warrants. Now, I will say that I do believe in the eternal Sonship of Christ, and I believe that the Scripture justifies that belief. But to marshal all of the scriptural arguments on a subject that is so deep that it can only be imperfectly understood by even the brightest of minds would be beyond our present scope. So I want to suffice to say at the present time, I do not believe that when he says, this day have I begotten thee, that there was a certain point in time and history when Christ became the Son of God. Now there have been even some good men who fully subscribe to the deity of Christ and they say, yes, he is the eternal deity, but he was the eternal word and then he became the Son of God when he assumed human nature and was conceived in the womb of Mary and was born into the world. That was when he became the Son of God. Well, if you adopt that position, as some good men have, then you are confronted with the fact that the Scripture says over and over in the New Testament, God sent His Son into the world. Now, He sent somebody who was already His Son. If He was the eternal Word and then became the Son of God when He entered into the world, you would have to say, He sent the Word and He became the Son. But there's never any statement, anything like that in the Scripture. Christ was the Son of God before He became the Son of Man. And I think that there is no reason to believe anything other than that He has eternally been the Son of God. I don't believe then that David is saying here, when he says, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Many ascribe that to being the father speaking to the son in the ancient days of eternity. And they talk about eternal generation and things like that. And there's probably some good reason to do so. I think that primarily this is referring to the public proclamation of Christ as the Son of God. And that would go along with what we said of David. If you apply it to David, he's not talking about the time when David was born to his parents and God said to him on that day, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. This song is about the exaltation of a royal king. And so if you apply it in any sense to David, God would be saying to David at the time he anointed him and established him as king of Israel, thou art my son, and I have begotten thee as my son in making you king over Israel. Of course, David is one of the famous Old Testament antitypes of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I think we have some justification for making that comparison. But very definitely this passage is directing our attention to the resurrection of Christ. And Acts 13, verses 32 and 33 confirm this for us. Let's turn over there and look at that. This Psalm 2 and verse 7 is indeed one of the most profound passages in all of the Holy Scriptures. And so it helps us that we have some places where Psalm 2 and verse 7 is quoted to give us some understanding of what it means. This is in the midst of one of Paul's great sermons. Paul was speaking to a mixed crowd of both Jews and Gentiles, but addressing primarily the Jews who were acquainted with the Scriptures. I believe he is in a synagogue here. But in verse 32, he says, We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto our fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again. As it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Paul is saying that when Psalm 2 and verse 7 says, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee, that he was prophesying of the resurrection of Christ. However, let this not be understood as implying that Christ became the Son of God when He was raised from the dead. Now, if we didn't have other Scriptures, you could certainly understand it in that way. But historically and chronologically, we know that Christ was confessed to be the Son of God long before He was resurrected, and not just by men. We have the cases of Nathanael in John 1, and we have the case of Peter both in John 6 and in Matthew 16, confessing Christ to be the Son of God. But we have more than that. We have the voice of God the Father speaking from heaven at the time of the Lord's resurrection saying, Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. So obviously, Jesus Christ was the Son of God before He was raised from the dead. I think Romans chapter 1 and verse 4 helps to explain this very clearly for us. So please turn over to Romans chapter 1, just a few pages over in your New Testament to Romans chapter 1, and this will help clarify what it means by Christ being decreed or proclaimed to be the Son of God at the time of His resurrection. Let's read from verse 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, notice verse 4, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. You notice that. He does not say He was made to be the Son of God at the time of His resurrection, but rather He was declared to be the Son of God. That is a vastly important distinction. The resurrection is the final and conclusive proof that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. If you want to object to it on any other grounds, so be it. But when you come to the resurrection of Christ, that dispels all doubt and scatters them all to the wind. The resurrection, Paul says, is God's final and conclusive declaration that Jesus Christ is His well-beloved and only begotten Son. The resurrection was God's grand proclamation to all the world that Jesus Christ is His well-beloved and only begotten Son in whom He is well-pleased. Again, Christ did not become the Son of God at the resurrection, but He was declared to be the Son of God with great power and glory. So this statement of Psalm 2 and verse 7, whatever it may teach us regarding the eternal affiliation of the Son, we know without question because we have this New Testament evidence that it is definitely pointing us to the resurrection of Christ. and not again to the fact that Jesus became the Son of God when He was raised from the dead, but to the fact that He was publicly proclaimed for all the world to see that He is the Son of God by the fact that He was raised from the dead. He's more than a prophet. He's more than a great teacher. He is truly the Son of God and must be worshipped and reverenced as such. We must also recognize that this passage can in no wise be restricted to David, for the statements here are too grand to be applied to him. And even though David was a mighty warrior and defeated many of Israel's enemies and extended the limits of the kingdom further than it had been at any time up until then, Yet there are things here that can never be said of David, because although David conquered many enemies, he didn't conquer the whole world. And verse 8 tells us that God is going to give His Son the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Moreover, at the end of the psalm in verse 12, it says, Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. Now we know for a fact that you can't say about David, blessed are all they that put their trust in him. David was a sinful man like we are and he failed very grievously on certain occasions. Nowhere in the Bible are men commanded to put their trust in David as we are enjoined to do with the Son of God at the end of this passage. In fact, in Jeremiah 17 and verse 5, the Scripture tells us, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm. So if you're putting your trust in David to be a Savior for you and to deliver you from your enemies, well, God's curse is upon you because you're trusting in a man. Well, you might say, well, Jesus was a man, wasn't he? But he wasn't an ordinary man, and he wasn't just a man. He is both man and God, and so he is fully deserving of all of our trust. And so, although I think we can justly apply certain statements of this psalm to David, many of them you can only apply to David in a very limited sense. Now we can learn this also from Hebrews 1 and verse 5 where this same statement is used to prove the superiority of Christ to the angels. There in Hebrews 1 and verse 5 the Bible says, unto which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. The Bible there is telling us that When God says to Christ, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee, He is saying that He is a greater and higher person than any of the angels. Now if Christ became the Son of God at some point during His earthly life, then He would be inferior to the angels at least in order of time. But there is no sense in which you can say that the Lord Jesus Christ is inferior to the angels. And since Hebrews 1.5 tells us plainly that Christ is superior to the angels by virtue of being the Son of God, then He has to be God. Because you don't find any creature anywhere in the Bible that is an intermediate creature between God and the angels. If we would rank the creatures, we would say that there's God, and then there's the angels, and then there's human beings. There's no intermediate creatures between God and the angels. So anybody who is above the angels has to be God. And the Son of God clearly is above the angels, and therefore He is God. Therefore, Christ is the Son of God, and we are fully warranted, I believe, in saying that He is also God the Son, and He ought to be worshipped as God. And if you turn over to Revelation chapter 5 and see John's grand and glorious vision of the heavenly hosts gathered around the throne, you see them worshipping the Father and the Son. You see them worshiping and crying out and praising the Lamb that was slain who hath redeemed us to God by His blood. Jesus Christ is an object of the praise of the heavenly hosts and therefore He must be superior to the angels and He must be God. He Himself is not a creature, but He is the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father and shared the divine glory of the Father before the world was. And so the Son speaks in verse 7, declaring the decree and glorying in the Father's proclamation of Him as His only begotten Son. And then as we approach verses 8 and 9, The scene shifts a little bit. The son has made his declaration that the father has called him his son and says, this day have I begotten thee. And now in verse 8, I think that the context demands that we understand that now it's not Christ speaking, but God the Father speaking to Christ and directing him to ask for an inheritance and then giving him power to break his enemies with a rod of iron. One thing this passage teaches us is that good things received from God must be sought in prayer. And this was true even in the case of the Son of God. Now, it's certainly not original with me to say that it seems to us that if any man needed prayer less than Jesus Christ, I don't know who it would be. Would not the Lord Jesus, even when He was in the flesh and in the likeness of sinful men, we would think, well, He wouldn't need to pray very much at all because He was the Son of God and He was impeccable. He couldn't sin. Why would He need to pray very much? And yet, who was more faithful and more fervent in prayer than the Lord Jesus Christ? I know that I haven't and probably most of you have never spent an entire night in prayer, but the Lord Jesus we find at different points in His ministry continued all night in prayer to God. Nobody set a better example of faithfulness in prayer than the Lord Jesus Christ did in the days of His flesh. And so it may seem strange to us, having established the fact that the Son of God is truly God and equal with the Father, why is the Father commanding Him to ask for an inheritance? Why couldn't He just say, this is my inheritance and I'm going to take it? Well, this shows us two things. One thing it shows us is the father's royal pleasure in his son, that the father really is well pleased with his son and wants to give him a grand inheritance. It also shows us the son's willing subordination to the father in his office as mediator. Never let it slip your mind that Jesus did not did not make himself to be something greater when he became a man, but it was a great act of humility for him to become a man. And it obscured his great godhood when he became a man, so that you could not look at him and say, well, look at that man with that great glow around him. He must be God also. No, it was a great obscuring of the glory of the Son of God when he became a man. But God the Father loved him for it, and God the Father determined that he would reward his son who was the great mediator between God and man because of his accomplishing his purpose of salvation. So, we see the father telling the son to ask him. He said, just ask me for an inheritance and I will give you an inheritance. Now, we need to understand that this was something that was commonly done in royal courts at that time. And we find it at least in a couple of instances in the scriptures of a royal king who is highly pleased with some person, and he tells him to ask for something great and grand. We have it in the book of Esther, when Ahasuerus came to Esther's banquet, and he was highly pleased with his wife, and he loved her and delighted in her. And he said, what wilt thou, Queen Esther, and what do you want me to give you? And I will give it to you even to the half of my kingdom. And that custom had not died out, even several hundred years later in the days of Christ. Because then we find the wicked king Herod, when Herodias danced before him, and he was pleased with how she had danced, and he asked her, He told her to ask some gift or reward of him, and he would give it to her, even to the half of his kingdom. So this was something, apparently, that these ancient kings liked to do. If they were pleased with some person, they would say, ask a reward of me, and I'll give you whatever you ask. Well, that's exactly the picture that David is painting for us here regarding the Son of God. The Father is saying to the Son, ask of me an inheritance, a great, a grand inheritance, even rule over all the kingdoms of the earth, and I will give it to you. Understanding it in this light, we see that the Father is highly pleased with the person and the behavior, and we might say also with the accomplishments of His Son. Concerning the resurrection again, the resurrection is the proof that the Father accepted the work of the Son for sinners. He was raised for or because of our justification, meaning that when God raised His Son from the dead, He was showing that He was completely satisfied with the work that the Son had done in making atonement for sin. And so the Father tells the Son that He will bestow upon Him the desire of His heart. He will give Him power over the heathen, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. He will lay the government upon the shoulder of His Son, and He will give Him power to smash His enemies with a rod of iron, as we see in verse 9. Now, I think that sometimes people either intentionally or perhaps sometimes unintentionally speak of the rule of Christ as a thing to be fulfilled in the future. They say, well, one of these days Christ is going to come back and destroy His enemies and reign. forever in great glory, which is certainly true. And some people, of course, believe in a great end-time revival when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and the wicked will be basically hiding in holes and afraid to perform their wickedness because the righteous are going to outnumber them by such a great amount. Some people believe that the Lord Jesus will come back and will actually reign personally in Jerusalem for a long time before the final judgment. And they look to that as the time when Christ is going to establish His reign. We don't need to wait for that time to find out when Jesus Christ is established as ruling and reigning over the kingdoms of the earth. This was fulfilled at the time of the resurrection of our Lord. You see, this psalm has very great prophetic implications concerning the resurrection of Christ. When was it that the Lord Jesus received His inheritance, His power over the kingdoms of the earth, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth? it was when He was raised from the dead. And that's why you find Him at the end of Matthew 28, after He's raised from the dead and speaking to His disciples, He says, all power is given to Me in heaven and in earth. He doesn't say it's going to be given to Me in the future when I come back again. It's given to Him now. And that's why He told His disciples to go out and preach the Gospel to all nations, because He has power over all those nations, and He's going to make great myriads of sinners in those nations turn from idols to serve the living and true God. not to multiply scriptural proofs that Christ is ruling and reigning now and has been since His resurrection. I will only quote 1 Peter 3.22. There's actually an abundance of New Testament proofs to show that it was the common faith of the church that Christ is reigning now over the kingdoms of the world. But 1 Peter 3.22 sums it up quite well when Peter tells us that the resurrected Christ is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him. Peter believed that even Caesar, sitting on his throne in Rome, was subject to the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Some of you may not be aware that many of the titles that are given to the Lord Jesus Christ and ascribed to Him in the New Testament were actually robbed from the Roman Empire. They were titles that Rome gave to their Caesar. And the apostles said, no, Caesar is not King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That was a title the Romans gave to Caesar. But the apostles said, no, it's not Caesar. He's not the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's just an earthly potentate. He's going to die like all of the rest of them before and after have done. Jesus Christ is the true King of Kings and the true Lord of Lords. Angels are subject to Him. Authorities and powers, all earthly powers from city councilmen up to presidents and senators and congressmen, whoever they may be, they're all subject to the authority of Jesus Christ to whom all power in heaven and earth has been committed. There can be no question that the New Testament church was fully persuaded that the Savior was ruling and reigning over all the affairs of heaven and earth from the moment that He ascended back into glory. They weren't waiting for Him to come back to establish His reign. He was reigning then and there. And that's why they could go out and preach the gospel with such confidence. And I rejoice to proclaim the same truth at this day. This omnipotent Lord, the psalm tells us, will destroy his enemies. He will break them as easily as a man shatters a clay pot with an iron rod. Some of us may have some clay vessels in our homes. And although we probably never tried it, we know that if we had a foot or a two foot rod of iron, that you could take one of those clay vessels and smash it to pieces with one blow. And it wouldn't be difficult to do at all. Well, it's just that easy for the Lord Jesus Christ sitting in heaven to break the kingdoms of this earth, to overthrow kings and presidents and emperors and to raise up another in their place. So when we see in our own time or when we read in the history books of nations falling, of empires crumbling, societies decaying like ours is now, of armies being defeated or economies being ruined, when we see wealth being diminished and plundered, This is Christ, the Son of God, exercising divine judgment in the midst of His enemies. The Great Depression of the 1930s, or this Great Recession that started in 2008, didn't happen just because of bad economic policies, although there were definitely bad economic policies. But why do men adopt bad economic policies? Because God judges them and blinds their minds to do stupid and unreasonable and wicked things because He's going to bring judgment and destruction upon them. Now I know that this doesn't fit in very well with the image of Christ that is believed in by most people who think that Jesus never went around saying anything except love, love, love, and never had any desire to do anything but to help people and to do good for people and to make everybody healthy, wealthy, and wise. But I say that this is entirely in keeping with the picture of Christ that is drawn for us from the beginning of the Bible to the end of it. And I also will go further and say in agreement with John Calvin, who pointed this out in his commentary on Psalm 2, which I thought was really an excellent observation, that not only is this in keeping with the character of Christ as a judge and a ruler and as being the great God of heaven and earth, it's also keeping with the image of Him as being a loving Savior and as a gentle shepherd for His people. You might ask, well, how on earth can that be? How can you picture Jesus taking a rod of iron and smashing His enemies to pieces and saying that that's in keeping with Him being a gentle and tender shepherd towards His people and being a merciful Savior? Well, think of it this way. What did David do, the shepherd David, when he was a young man? And the lion and the bear came out of the woods and tried to devour the lambs of the flock. Did he say, oh please don't do that, oh please submit to my authority? No, he took his weapons and went after them and killed them. He killed the bear and he killed the lion. And that's exactly what our Great Shepherd does for us. The enemies of Christ are numerous and they are powerful. They've always had more power than the people of Christ in this world and very likely always will to the end of time. But it is the gentle shepherd who rescues the bleeding lamb from the mouth of the lion. And you don't rescue a helpless animal from the mouth of a vicious predator by pleading with them to please drop the lamb, and please change their mind, and please behave better. No, you take a weapon and you beat them over the head with it until you kill them, or you shoot them, or do something violent to destroy them. And that's what our shepherd does. And so when we see these nations and empires and dynasties which have persecuted the people of God, when we see them crumbling into disrepair, into financial and military ruin, time and time again throughout history, these empires have always been great enemies of the people of God. And so our Great Shepherd is saying, I will tolerate your persecution of them for a little time, but I'm going to destroy you quickly. He tolerated the wickedness and unbelief and persecutions of the Jews for a few short years after his ascension, and then he sent the armies of Rome in to utterly destroy and annihilate them. The Babylonians persecuted the people of God. The Persians, probably to a lesser extent than the Babylonians, God actually in many ways had the Persian Empire be a great help and support for the people of God. But he brought them down as well for their wickedness. The Greeks certainly persecuted the people of God and defiled the temple of God. He overthrew them. The Roman Empire more than any other, both Rome pagan and their great persecutions at the beginning of the era of the Christian church and certainly their descendants or their, not ancestors, but descendants or their heirs, the Roman Catholic Church, which is basically the heir of the Roman Empire, they continued right along in the process of persecuting the true people of God, the Ottoman Empire, and countless others. They've all crumbled into disrepair and ruin and have fallen before the blow of Christ's iron rod. Those nations, peoples, institutions, and religions which are now fighting against and persecuting the people of God, it may look like there's nothing you can do against them now. Who's going to bring the United Nations down? Who's going to break the power of these governments that hate the people of God and are persecuting them and becoming more violent against them? We don't know how God's going to do it, but we know that He is going to do it. They will be broken to pieces like a potter's vessel also by our ruling and reigning Christ. And that leads us into the final stanza of the psalm in verse 9, or verse 10 rather, where we have an admonition to the rulers of the world. And we do not want to restrict this just to the kings and judges and rulers of the world. And one reason I don't want to do that is because we don't have any judges or rulers here in this assembly. But we want to apply it to all men everywhere. The decree has gone out, and the Father has pronounced Himself to be well pleased with His Son. He has told the Son, all you have to do is ask, and I'm going to give you inheritance over all the kingdoms of the earth. The Son has asked, the Father has given, and now the Son of God is ruling. And in 1 Corinthians 15, we read these words, He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. And Christ isn't going to turn over the kingdom back to God the Father until every enemy, including death, has been trampled under His feet. The Father has given him the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. And praise the Lord in giving the heathen for his inheritance. He's called countless myriads of the heathen into his kingdom and to be joyful and willing subjects of the Son of God. Many are the converts to Christ from the remotest parts of the earth. At the time that the Lord Jesus was on earth, the people in the area where He lived didn't even know that there was a North America or a South America. They didn't know hardly anything about the nations of Asia or about the islands of the sea. But God still said He's going to give His Son the uttermost parts of the earth. And God is fulfilling at this very hour His word that He will bring people to Christ out of every kindred and tongue and tribe and nation. But even among His enemies, Christ holds sovereign jurisdiction over those kings, those communities, and those individuals which have most thoroughly rejected Him. The hardest-hearted sinner in this building today is fully and 100% under the dominion and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you're fighting against Him, He's going to smash you to pieces like a potter's vessel also. You can't do anything to keep from dying. And after you die, you won't be able to do anything to keep the Lord Jesus Christ from commanding you to be bound in hand and foot and to be cast into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and for his angels. To fight against Christ is a fool's errand, I would warn you now. And I pray that God will never let that warning slip from your mind until you submit yourself to God's King. Even when individuals raise themselves up against Him, And even when it goes beyond that and entire nations and societies turn against Him and are given over to a reprobate mind, the Lord tolerates them for a short spell and then He raises His rod of iron and dashes them to pieces. Sometimes He will do it in just a few short years. Sometimes He allows them to continue even for a few centuries. But He has brought them all down. He will bring down the powerful empires that are ruling the affairs of the world today. The destruction of the enemies of God will be perfectly fulfilled at the end of time. And here is something that is quite remarkable and fully in keeping with this second psalm because the Lord Jesus Himself says it. It won't only be Christ Himself personally, but even the persecuted believers will rule the nations with Christ and assist Him in this great work of judgment. Do you believe that? As a Christian, you ought to believe it. If you're not a Christian, you ought to tremble at it. Look with me. Every one of you has a Bible in your lap. Look in Revelation 2, verses 26 and 27. I'm not telling you something that I've made up out of whole cloth. These are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is speaking to the church at Thyatira. And he says here, verse 26 of Revelation chapter 2, And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. Do you not see that this is the language of Psalm 2? And that the Lord Jesus is saying that we, His people, are going to rule the nations with a rod of iron alongside Him? As the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I have received of my Father. So what I've been saying, the Lord Jesus confirms that He has received this from His Father. But He's not going to keep it all for Himself. He's going to share this power and this dominion with His people. That's why Paul can say things like, know ye not that we shall judge angels? It's hard for us to believe that. And if you're an unbeliever, it's certainly difficult for you to think that your parents or your relatives or your preachers that you despise and think are a bunch of knuckleheads who are just denying themselves a lot of fun that they could have in the world and trying to keep you from having fun. I know that you don't want to think that those people are going to be sitting with Christ pronouncing judgment upon you, but that's what the Word of God says. That's an amazing thing. That's one of the most deep and profound things in all of the Word of God to me, that I as a believer in Christ will sit with Christ in the judgment and assist Him in the work of pronouncing judgments upon the nations of the world and assisting Him in breaking His enemies into pieces like a potter's vessel. That seems too high an honor for unworthy sinners as we are. And it's far, far more than we deserve. And yet it is the reward of the travail of Christ's soul. He wants to share this honor with us, the honor of breaking and destroying his enemies. In light of this, David says that it is the part of wisdom for the kings of the earth to forsake their pride and arrogance, to forsake their confidence in themselves and in their own national and military power, and submit themselves to the Son of God. I should hope that myself or any other gospel minister would not be ashamed to present this admonition of David to the rulers of our day if such an opportunity were ever presented. We don't know what we would do if we were ever asked to appear at the national prayer breakfast or even to offer a prayer before the city council. I would hope and pray that God would give us the boldness to say, you who God has given authority over the people of this country or of this community, you need to submit yourselves to the rule of the Son of God and be in subjection to Him and rule according to His law. God's ministers have done that in times past. We see many of the prophets doing it in the Old Testament. And even in not too distant history, we had men like John Knox would stand before Bloody Mary and preach the truth of the Word of God to her without flinching. There was one man, it may have been Hugh Latimer, He stood before King Henry VIII, who was a notoriously wicked man, an adulterous man. And he stood before King Henry VIII and preached from Hebrews 13 and verse 4, where the Scripture says, Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. And when he came back again to preach to the king, he was warned that the king did not appreciate the way that he had preached. And he had better preach in more soft terms today And he stood up and he said that while he feared and reverenced King Henry VIII, that he had greater fear and reverence for the God of heaven who had made him a minister of the gospel. And he took for his text again Hebrews 13 and verse 4, whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Now, again, I don't know that any of us are very likely to be invited to preach before presidents or congressmen or even a city council. But if we were, I would hope that God would give us that same boldness to tell the kings of the earth to be instructed and to be wise and to kiss the sun lest he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. And, of course, the rulers, they don't only bring themselves down to destruction, they drag their communities and their societies down with them. Surely, if it were wise for the rulers and judges of Syria, of Moab, of Ammon, and of Philistia to submit themselves to the authority and power of King David, then how much wiser for the presidents, prime ministers, senators, congressmen, and judges of this dispensation to receive instruction and to submit themselves to him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. They're not going to have any more success fighting against Christ than just some lone individual out there in the middle of nowhere who just wants to live his sinful life and not concern himself with the claims of religion. You don't have any power at all, but you have just as much a fair fight in fighting against God as they do. It isn't a fair fight when you're fighting with God. It's not even a fight. They talk about the battle of Armageddon, and you can use the term battle, but it's not a battle. It's just God destroying his enemies. Now let's say a few words on verse 11 because this is a statement that may ring strange in the ears of some. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Many people, especially in a day and age like ours when We're always told that we need to be positive, we need to be positive, and things like that. They can't form any kind of reasonable association between fear and rejoicing. And we have to admit that that is somewhat difficult. If we think about being afraid of something or of someone, we don't think of rejoicing in the same context. And if you think about rejoicing and being glad and happy and thrilled and delighted, you're not thinking about being in fear also at the same time. There are many of these dichotomies regarding or in the lives of the people of God. And this is one of those great dichotomies, but a great reality that should be present in all of the people of God. To the mind that is untutored by scripture and sound teaching, fear and rejoicing may seem to be mutually exclusive. But if you have familiarized yourself with the teaching of the scriptures, you ought to see that this is a common way of teaching and a common way of addressing the people of God throughout the whole Bible. And we ought to know something of it in our own experience also. You can be in fear and trembling when you go before the Lord to repent of some sin that you have committed, but you can come away rejoicing in heart because God has applied the atoning blood of Christ to your conscience. I think that's something that every Christian knows something about. So this is not some outdated, hackneyed Old Testament dogma. We find it in the New Testament as well. In Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 28, we find these words, Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. So the idea of fearing God and even trembling before God is not an idea that is confined to the Old Testament, but it's right there in the New Testament as well. Of course, the modern idea is to cast out all ideas of fear from religion. That's why you could go to most churches probably today, I would say probably greater than 50 percent, and never hear a word about hell or about the righteous retribution of God against his enemies. There is nothing more destructive to the health of the soul or to the health of a community of God's people than to be in a place where God's judgment and God's retribution against His enemies is never pointed out from the Word of God. Actually, you have to pretty much ignore vast portions of the Word of God, probably more than half of it, because I think there's probably more about God's judgment than about God's mercy if you include all of the prophets in the biblical teaching. But true service to God from his devoted people always contains an element of fear. Some of you probably recognize that I didn't finish the quotation from Hebrews 12 and verse 28, because after telling us that we ought to serve God with reverence and godly fear, he adds this phrase, which is a quotation from the law, for our God is a consuming fire. Now, if you want to prove to somebody that the God who rules in the New Testament is the same God, the same God unchanged from the Old Testament, point them to Hebrews 12 and verse 28. Because when he says, our God is a consuming fire, he's quoting that from the book of Deuteronomy. God is a consuming fire to this very day. And when we appear before God, we should not go flippantly. We shouldn't go into His presence like a laughing and skipping child might appear before its father or mother. We go to God with great reverence. And I believe that it is always proper for the people of God to begin their prayers, either public or private, by ascribing glory and majesty and reverence to the name of God. Though we love and praise this great God for his mercy to us, we should never permit ourselves to lose consciousness of the fact that he is the dread judge of heaven and earth, and that his wrath consumes the profligate and the hypocrite. Now our fear is not a fear that the unbeliever ought to have, a fear of God's righteous retribution against his sin. And we're not afraid that God is like a vindictive individual who just gets mad at us and throws a fit because we did something he didn't like. But it's a fear lest we should prove false and fall under his wrath. Or a fear, even as a child of God, that we should provoke our father. First of all, we should be afraid of the very thought of offending our God who loved us and gave his son for us. But we should also be afraid of the rod that God can use very severely upon his children. Now, I compare this very closely to the respect a child has for a strong father. Some of us can thankfully say that we know what I'm talking about. If you've had a good father, this will make a lot of sense to you. A wise, firm, and just father is both loved and delighted in by his children. But there is also an element of fear, because they know that there will be severe consequences if they disobey. A father who is a just and good ruler of his family and who tries to involve himself in the lives of his children and to have a good association with his children, but at the same time maintains his authority, and even when they get to be teenagers or in their 20s, doesn't let them make the rules for the household, Well, that child ought to reverence their parent and be afraid of the consequences if they disobey. But at the same time, they should love and respect and honor their parent. You see, this love and fear can go together. My children, every day when I come home from work, my girls run outside and come and run up to my car window, and they're delighted when I come home to see me. But when I get angry with them, when they've disobeyed, well, then they're afraid. Now, this works just the same with us in our dealings with God. When we are in the path of obedience, we can delight to come into the presence of God and rejoice in the promises of the Gospel and have a delightful time in prayer and worship. But if we have disobeyed our God and have committed some sin, and have found ourselves to have fallen into some habit of sin, we ought to tremble in fear like a child that knows it's about to get a spanking. So these two things go together even in the lives of young children, and they go together in the lives of the children of God who understand who God is and what He is like. We love and adore God as the Father of mercies, but we also know that the Lord will severely chasten us when we wander out of the way. When we are convinced of sin, we tremble before him until brought once again to the comforting remembrance of the cross and the knowledge that our advocate is pleading our cause in heaven. The believer who knows all fear and trembling and no rejoicing does not view the gospel with the clarity that he ought to have. And there are Christians like that who always seem to be in fear and trembling and afraid that God is going to cast them away, afraid that they are going to fall away and apostatize from the faith and they are always in terror and have not learned how to apply the gospel promises to their conscience. Now that's not a healthy spiritual state for somebody to be in. Doubtless some of those people are real believers, and yet that's not an attitude that a Christian ought to cultivate. But I will say this, I would rather a person be like that than a person who professes to know nothing except joy and rejoicing with no admixture of fear and trembling. A person who doesn't know anything about fear and trembling before God, especially when he is brought to a knowledge of what a great sinner he is, it's almost certain that he's never really partaken of the grace of God to begin with. Well, there's another New Testament passage that tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. So, these things go hand in hand with what David says here. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. We work out our own salvation with fear and trembling lest we should fall short of the high mark of our calling of God in Christ Jesus, but we also can rejoice in Christ Jesus at the same time if we are serving God with no confidence in the flesh. Finally, verse 12, David would admonish the kings of the earth and he admonishes us as well to kiss the sun lest he be angry and we suffer his wrath. Don't think that this word is just for the president and for your congressman. This word is for every one of us. That we should kiss the sun because if we do not, he will be angry with us. People will even do ridiculous things like paint pictures of a laughing Jesus and things like that. Well, what about an angry Jesus? That's more of a reality. You don't ever find any evidence at all that the Lord Jesus ever laughed. I'm not saying that He didn't, but the Bible never gives any indication that He did. But we do find an angry Jesus in the Bible, and we have it right here. If you do not kiss the Son and submit yourself to Him, He will be angry, and you will be destroyed from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little. None shall be able to stand when the great day of the wrath of God and the Lamb is come. And therefore, we do well to be proactive and to preserve ourselves from the coming outburst of divine fury. Now Christ's wrath only needs to be kindled a little to destroy one of His enemies on this earth. And I suppose that even going back to the flood, we could say that that was just a little outburst of the wrath of God, and nobody will see the full fury of it until He burns up the entire created order with flaming fire and creates a new heaven and a new earth. That will be His wrath being kindled to its full extent. But He doesn't need to be furiously angry to destroy His enemies. His wrath needs to only be kindled a little. People talk a lot now about being proactive, about trying to look ahead and see the obstacles and the difficulties that you're going to confront. They talk about planning for the future, planning for your retirement and things like that. And all of that is, of course, well and good. It's a part of wisdom. And even the Proverbs tell us that the prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself. He makes preparation against the days ahead. Businesses do that, and individuals do it, and every kind of organization and entity in the world ought to be not just looking at the here and now. That's how fools act. That's why people fall into all kinds of sins, because they just want the pleasures of the here and now. But people who have a little bit of sense will be looking ahead and trying to prepare for the future, which is a wise thing to do. But what good is it to prepare to have a good retirement and to be prepared for the trials of old age if you have not made preparation for your eternity? You must be proactive about eternity and be making preparations now to settle your eternity upon the solid rock of Christ and Him crucified. And that is the only way you can preserve yourself from the final outburst of God's divine indignation against sin. The only protection we may find from His wrath is by submitting ourselves to the Son of God. This one that I've been preaching to you today, that God the Father has appointed as heir of all things. You think He's going to kick Christ off His throne and let you start making the rules? God forbid. He's going to hold you accountable to His law. And if you don't submit to Christ, Christ is going to destroy you. There aren't any ifs, ands, or buts about it. So we must humble ourselves and do homage to Christ. Now I would have you know that when it says to kiss the son, he's not talking about a man kissing his wife or affectionately kissing one of his children with a kiss of affection. This is talking about a kiss of reverence and submission. This was something that was done at that time when David was at a a king or some kind of potentate. Another king was coming against him. Maybe he had been defeated in battle or maybe he wasn't willing to risk the battle. And he said, he went out and he met the king and said, we will subject ourselves to you. We will pay whatever taxes you lay upon us and we will live under your rule. And it was common for this king who was humbling himself to come out and kiss the king as an act of to kiss the conquering king as an act of his submission to the power and authority of that king. And that is what David is telling us to do, not to himself. He's not telling the Philistines, hey, you better kiss me and yield subjection to me. He is saying that every sinner, including the kings and great men of the earth, must kiss the son and submit themselves to him or they are going to be destroyed from the presence of God. It is true wisdom to submit to Christ while there is still time available to do it, and it is the height of folly to refuse to do so. I will say this, that if you leave this house today and don't go out seeking God and pleading for His mercy, you are doing the stupidest thing that a human being can possibly do. You're making the biggest mistake that anybody could ever make. It will not trouble Christ much to destroy His enemies, even the mighty ones. His wrath need be kindled but a little for His enemies to perish from the way. The kings and rulers even, who persist in placing confidence in their own might, in their own wisdom, in their own ideologies, and refusing to subject themselves to the Son of God, who has been given all power in heaven and in earth, they will learn their mistake when Christ's anger first begins to be kindled. Psalm 110 is another glorious messianic psalm. It describes the priesthood of Christ and pictures Him as being both a priest and a king. And in that psalm in verse 6, it says, He shall judge among the heathen. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall wound the heads over many countries. I want to turn to a couple of passages before we wrap things up this morning. Look with me please in Isaiah chapter 63 concerning the great triumph of Christ over His enemies. And never let it slip your mind that these things will be true of all the enemies of God. If you are outside of Christ when it comes to judgment, this will be true of you. Isaiah 63, who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozareth? This that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength. I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine fat. I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me. For I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." When Christ comes in judgment, He will be doing it to vindicate His oppressed and persecuted people. And I looked, and there was none to help. And I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore, mine own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury. And I will bring down their strength to the earth." Now in Revelation chapter 19, this is actually a fuller explanation of what Isaiah 63 is talking about. Revelation 19 verses 11 through 16. Rest your eyes and let them gaze for a few moments upon this overwhelming passage of Scripture. To me, this is one of the most overwhelming and amazing passages in all of the Word of God. It almost gives me chills every time I read it. And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True. And in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, clean and white, or white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. There's Psalm 2 again. And he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free in bond, both small and great. Everybody, the small and the great, the free and the bond, who have not submitted themselves to Christ will be utterly destroyed and annihilated by Him. If the kings and mighty men of the earth cannot resist the Lord Christ when He is angry, then who are we who are so weak and powerless? What can we do? If those who have command of the armies and of the economies can't fight against Christ successfully, then how can anybody in this room think, I'm going to get away with my sin. I'm going to live a wretched and ungodly and filthy life, and I'm going to get away with it. We have no armies to command. We have no arsenal of mighty weapons. And none of us is smart enough or tough enough to overthrow God. I know how young people want to think that they're pretty tough, and they're pretty cool, and they can get away with things. And they don't have to listen to authority, because they know everything now. But I was there too one day. You can't fight against God and win. Please let that sink into your mind. If you're more interested in being cool or showing the world how tough you are and not interested in submitting yourselves to Christ, you will find out who the strong is when you are blown to pieces by Christ's iron rod. It is nothing to Christ to trample the rulers and warriors of this earth in the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Well, then we would be worse than mad to think that our proud and arrogant rebellion will present some challenge to him. The sinner who prides himself on the strength of his resolution to rebel against God destroys his own soul to satisfy a temporary desire. How much better to be like Moses and to forsake the riches of Egypt and to esteem the reproach of Christ far better than anything this world has to offer. How much better to kiss the sun and turn his anger away by prostrating ourselves at his feet and presenting ourselves as objects for his abundant pity and mercy. Those who do so, be they ever so poor, obscure, and despised upon earth, will reap the rich rewards of the favor of God's Son. And so David finishes the psalm by saying, blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. Jesus delivers His people from the wrath to come. Those who trusted in David would have found him a disappointment all too many times. But there are none who ever trust in Christ who come to regret it. There's not anybody who lives his life in the service of Christ who comes down to die and says, boy, I wish I had tried to have some fun, engage in the pleasures of the flesh for a few more years before I began serving Christ. If he has any regrets, it's that he didn't serve Christ more and better and longer. Many a man has laid upon his deathbed with terror in his heart and fear in his eyes because he knows that an eternity of unspeakable woe is about to unfold before him. But no man ever lay upon his deathbed regretting that he spent his life in the service of the Son of God. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Better to lose your life in this world for Christ's sake and to find it in the world to come than to preserve it in this life and to be numbered among the enemies of God in the world to come. And God have mercy upon us. May He cause us each to soberly consider how we stand before God. And may we all kiss the sun and do acts of reverence and homage to Him and trust in Him for everlasting life.