Alright, you can take your Bibles this evening and turn to the book of Psalm chapter 2. Psalm chapter 2. Brother Steve asked if I could preach again tonight with the funeral and then the meal and spending time with family. He just didn't have time to put a message together and then I told him to make sure he just stays with his family, don't worry about being at church tonight. Again, I was thinking, what can I do that would be sort of starting tonight and concluding tonight? And I got to thinking, well, Psalms is a very big book. Of course, you know, it's the largest book in the Bible. And I thought, well, Brother Steve here and there has hit different chapters in the book of Psalms. What I'm going to do is anytime I get a chance, unless the Lord changes directions, anytime I get a chance to just preach a solo message, I'm going to grab a chapter in the book of Psalms. So I went through and looked in the archives at what chapters in the book of Psalms Brother Steve has already done or myself has done in the past here at the church, and we have preached on Psalm chapter 1. You've heard messages from Psalm chapter 1, but Psalm chapter 2 we do not have a message from. So I did not pick the topic, I picked the text, and this is what came out of the text. You probably see the title of the message on the screen. This is probably not an encouraging thought for tonight, but I promise you we will have an encouraging application. But this is the theme of the text from Psalm chapter 2 that we're going to look at tonight. So let's start off by reading Psalm chapter 2, verses 1 through 12, and we'll start with verse 1. It says, Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. 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 you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled. You're probably very familiar with Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is, "...blessed is he that walketh not in the path of the ungodly, nor sitheth and seetheth scornful." It's a good wisdom psalm. This is a good life plan for your life. And it's really an encouraging psalm. It says, listen, this is how the wicked are. Don't do that. Here's some good advice for you not to do that. And so then you come to Psalm 2, and it's like, whoa. This is not our lovey-dovey God that you hear on the radio sung about on your probably the most recent Christian stations. One of the new popular songs out sung by, I think, Jesus Culture is called The Reckless Love of God. I'm going to try to refrain from criticizing that song very strongly, but it really... and watch out for this when you see... and this is not just with new songs. This is actually with... you can find this in some older songs too. Watch out for songs that try to portray the love of God in some kind of boyfriend-girlfriend romantic type of love. That's a very superficial and unbiblical view of love, and it is not the same love that our God has for His people. The first psalm was a contrast between the righteous man and the sinner. The second psalm that we just read is a contrast between the tumultuous disobedience of the ungodly world and the sure exaltation of the righteous Son of God. You may see songs written from the message in Psalm chapter 1. I dare say you probably never have heard a song sung about what's in Psalm chapter 2, about God laughing at the wicked as they try to scheme how they're going to do away with God. Psalm 2 progressively shines its poetic spotlight on four vivid scenes relating to the mutiny of mankind against God. This chapter is 12 verses long. Of course, the book of Psalms is poetry. So it's broken down really in four different scenes. You have verses 1-3 is one scene. Verses 4-6 is the second scene. The third scene is verses 7 through 9, and then the final scene, number 4, is verses 10 through 12. So what we're going to do is we're going to break this down, and we're going to look at the first scene. Scene 1 is human rebellion. Human rebellion. Let's look at this. It starts off and asks a rhetorical question. Think about this question for a second. Why do the heathen... this word heathen actually can be translated also Gentiles or nations. The word heathen can be nations. So, why do the nations, why did the Gentiles, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine or plot a vain thing. What does vain mean? Vain means empty, right? So these nations, these peoples, are so upset and they're plotting something that's going to amount to nothing. So the rhetorical question is asked, what are these nations doing? Who do they think they are? They're trying to plot an empty thing. What is the thing they're trying to plot? Verse 2. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers counseled together against the Lord." What are they trying to imagine? What are they trying to plot? It's against God. It's against Jehovah, Yahweh. They're plotting this empty, vain, ridiculous, meaningless thing that they're raging about is against God, which is the very definition of why it's meaningless. No nation can come against God. Now let's break this passage down. Let's look at this passage. This psalm is considered a royal psalm. It's considered a prophetic psalm, a messianic psalm, if you will. The immediate context, it's believed that David did write this psalm. The immediate context is that this psalm is speaking of the nation of Israel and the Gentile nations, God's intervention or sovereignty over the nations as they plotted against Israel, and David being this anointed one. In the immediate context when they lived during that time before Messiah came, that's how this psalm is viewed. And so we understand that as part of interpreting the Bible, we get to what the original audience intended the meaning. But we also know on this side of history, looking at Christ and what the New Testament authors have quoted this, and we'll look at some verses later on how they used this verse and Acts in different letters, that this is also talking about the world scene, with all of the world nations against God's Anointed One, who is the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. So with those two views in mind, I want you to understand that as we go into this passage. It says, why do the heathens rage? Why do the people imagine a vain thing? Has not the nations of the world always done this? Verse 2 says, "...the kings of the earth set themselves, they put themselves up, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying..." Now watch what they say. "...let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us." Human rebellion. Ever since Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, the nations of the world have been trying to get rid of God. They don't like the fact that they have to adapt to the moral law of God. They want it over. Let us break the cords. Let us get rid of these restrictions that God is putting on us. Nimrod did it in the Tower of Babel. And I think that the interesting thing that you see, and I'm going to tie this together with the current situation of the world today, the interesting thing that you see throughout history is this. that whenever they try to push God away, they vilify God, they hate God, and they try to break away from God's law, at the same time they replace Him, or try to replace Him. They try to lift something else up in God's place. Nimrod thought that man could replace God by building a tower towards heaven. You go through history. Philistines did it. The Egyptians did it with their false pagan gods, their idols. You go to Nebuchadnezzar. What did Nebuchadnezzar want to be worshipped as? A god. But the Persians that succeeded the Babylonian Empire weren't any different. Anybody who was the ruler of a nation was considered the one to be worshipped. And it is the same way with the Romans. Caesar was considered the deity. They had the gods in Rome, but they wanted Caesar to be worshipped as a god. This continues on. Let's fast forward several thousand years and we see that this problem never really changed when you come to Nazi Germany and Hitler. And you look at the idea systems that came out of Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx that we know today as communism and socialism, and both of these systems that are for governments and nations at their core, both Nietzsche and Marx both believed that the key to governmental success and nations thriving was to get rid of God. It was Nietzsche that declared, I believe it was Nietzsche, God is dead. And that's why you have Christians a lot of times that denounce they hate communism. Because at the core of communism, we understand that to accept communism is accepting this governmental socialist system of how to practice living in a governmental realm that denies the essence of God, that kicks God into saying, leave God out of the picture. And so all the way back, we go all the way back to the Psalm chapter 2, and what does he say? What are you guys doing? Why are you raging?" And at all this time, from Nimrod, to Nebuchadnezzar, to Hitler, to Marx, to Nietzsche, to Castro, to Putin, he's saying that you are imagining a vain thing. Any time, now watch this, we just mentioned a whole lot of people that we think are godless, but what we are seeing today in America too, that same system is being taught in the colleges today, being pushed as a favorable system even in high school curriculums today, and now the leaders that you have going to Washington are saying the same thing. And God is looking down on them and saying, you are imagining, you are plotting something that is meaningless. Because what you're plotting and what you're trying to accomplish is against the very God that created you, your Creator. And so all of this, and we come to verse 3, the question is asked, and then you come to verse 3 and He gives you the answer. What are they trying to do? And this is what man has been trying to do in the garden. We've been talking about the fall of man on Sunday nights in Genesis. All of this comes back to the fall of man. And what are they trying to do ever since the fall of man? Get away from the restrictions that God puts on us. What does verse 3 say? Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords. Listen to Acts 4, 25-28. Who through the mouth of our father David your servant said by the Holy Spirit, Why did the Gentiles rage and the people plot in vain? Verse 26. The kings of earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His anointed. Does that sound familiar? What Peter is quoting here is Psalm chapter 2, what we're in. Verse 27, "...for truly," he goes, Peter transitions from quoting our verse that we're in tonight, Psalm chapter 2, to then speaking to his audience there in Acts chapter 4, "...for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servants Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." What is he saying? Peter then refers back to the passage that we just read, that we're in tonight, and he says, you Jewish leaders, you conspired, you plotted the vain thing. You, with the Roman Pontius Pilate, tried to conspire and plot this plan to get rid of the Anointed One. And it didn't work. It did not work. Because, in verse 28, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. This was chosen by God. This was decreed by God. This is the irony of man's depravity, devising, conspiring, scheming emptiness. They hate God, they hate God the Father, and they hate God the Son. Luke 19.14, But citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, We do not want this man to reign over us. That was their reaction to Christ when He was walking on the earth. The answer to the charismatic question, we need signs, we need miracles to be happening all over the church because that's how we're going to reach the lost. Well, I got news. When Jesus Christ walked the earth Himself, they still rejected Him as they saw Him doing miracles Himself. They watched Him raise a dead man to life. And their reaction was? They plotted to kill the dead man. You know that in the Gospels, after Jesus raised Lazarus to life, word getting back to Caiaphas said that witnesses among the Sanhedrin said, yeah, we saw it. That guy was dead. Jesus raised him to life. And you know what Caiaphas' reaction was? He trusted what he believed what they said. He must have raised him back to life from the dead. You know what Caiaphas said? wonder if there's a way we can kill Lazarus and then let people know it never really happened. That was their reaction. That was their reaction. The world wants nothing to do with God's law. They want nothing to do with it. I've been watching some things. I found this ministry called Living Waters. Living Waters is a ministry ran by Ray Comfort. Ray Comfort is an Australian guy and he likes to go out on the street with a camera and a microphone to record it and he just asks people questions and then leads them into the gospel and then gives them the gospel. He didn't care who he was talking to. And so you can go on YouTube and look for videos of his. He's very good at it. He's not afraid to ask him any questions, regardless of who he's talking to. But he goes through and it's interesting because he's talking to people and he'll sit there and ask them all kinds of questions. Do you do this? Do you do this? He'll set up, he'll say, alright, here's the situation. One that he did, he asked like 25 people on the street that day. He said, There's a man there, he's a rat to his wife, he's not a good husband. His wife comes by and says that she'll give you $25 million if you'll drop a pill, one pill of arsenic in his coffee. $25 million and you'll never get caught, would you do it? And probably three of the 25 people that he talked to said no, they wouldn't do it. Everybody said absolutely, never get caught, absolutely. Now here's what's funny. He goes through later and he keeps on talking to them, keeps on talking to them. And then about 20 of the 25 say they're Christian. When you ask them, you're a Christian? Yeah. Talk to one guy. He's sitting there and I'm like, this guy looks like an elderly woman. And then he starts talking, and you're like, whoa, that's not an elderly woman's voice. And this guy is just a transvestite crossdresser. And he said, you're a Christian? He said, yes. And so whenever Ray Comfort will start to ask them about God's law and what the Bible says, oh, that's not my God. God wouldn't do that. God doesn't put those restrictions. Even mankind tries to make up a god in their minds to get away from God's law. Mankind, in our depravity, hates God's law over us. And so mankind does whatever they can to get rid of it. So this brings us to scene number two. We saw human rebellion in verses one through three. In verses four through six, the scene changes and we see a divine reaction. How does God respond to this? Verse four. He that sitteth in the heavens. Who's that? Who sits in the heavens? God. What is God's reaction? Watch this. Shall laugh. Now understand this. This is an anthropomorphism. What is an anthropomorphism? That's a big word. Anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is this. It is a human attribute ascribed to God for the purpose of helping us relate to God. So we can understand. This is not necessarily saying that we have a guy in human form that is up there sitting in a seat, pointing and laughing at the wicked. But this reaction is an anthropomorphism to show what God thinks of mankind plotting to break away from God. He laughs. He laughs. Now what I'm going to show you is the title of the message is The Sovereign Wrath of God Over the Nations. And this is going to teach us something about the nature and character of our God. But at the end, I want us to understand that our God is still loving and still good. But in His loving, in His love, and in His goodness, He is also just and righteous in His wrath. And there is no contradiction there at all. Verse 4, He says, He that sitteth in the heaven shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision. and derision. The psalmist turned from his description of the nations to portray the Lord's response to their plan. Verse 5, He then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his great or sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." So what do we see here in these verses? Number one, we see that God doesn't think too much of their planning and their plotting. We understand this. We live in constraints of time. And for us, that moves too slow. You've heard Brother Steve talk about it. I put something in the microwave and it's moving too slow for me. He conveys that idea very well. We think everything moves too slow. But understand that God is outside of time. Therefore, when God declares that they are going to come to His wrath, and we say, when will it happen? God says, it's already happened. You just haven't got there yet. Now, if you sit and think about that too long, your mind will turn into spaghetti. These are another one of those areas where the character of our God and the doctrine of our God is outside the limit of our brains. But it's already happened, as He declares it. But then, in that realm of time, He then gives us a prophecy of when it will happen. And we have the book of Revelation, which we'll talk about in just a minute, that explains a lot of that. Psalm 37.12 says, "...the wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him." Verse 13, "...but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day..." Whose day? The day of the Lord. "...is coming." The day of the Lord is the day we talked about in the book of Zechariah, that is also talked about in the book of Daniel, that is referring to what happens in the book of Revelation. The day of the Lord, which is the judgment day of God when He comes back on a white horse. Verse 5, "...then shall he speak unto them his wrath, and vex them in his sordid pleasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." Let me say this. We talk about God's election in the New Testament. God's choosing, chosen for the foundations of the world. This is hard for us to swallow, but I believe not just, and we're seeing it right here, that it's a biblical teaching, but not just God's election, but you have to understand that God is appointed also the day of the judgment of the wicked. There's not just a teaching in our Bible about divine salvation, but also divine damnation. We don't like that. We don't even want to think about that. But again, let me say this. In divine judgment, in divine damnation, He is completely righteous and just and good in it. I like what Brother Steve said when he was covering Romans. He said, God does not choose anybody to go to hell. Why? Well, it goes back to the fall of man. When Adam sinned, we all sinned. Therefore, we are sinners. So we are already predestined to hell as well as predestined. We are already destined, not predestined, we are already destined to hell. It is by God's grace that then chooses us to be saved. He did nothing to cause us to go to hell. That was all done as our sin in Adam falls to us. Okay. This is too heavy for Wednesday night. We're moving quickly, though. We're moving quickly. This is a message that was prepared in the few hours I had today, okay? Because I didn't have any hours Monday or Tuesday. All right, so we're moving quickly. Number three. Scene number three, divine rule. We saw human rebellion. We saw divine reaction to that rebellion. And now we come to scene three, divine rule, verses seven through nine. Verse seven. 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 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." So the scene shifts. According to the text, who's speaking now? The Anointed One. The scene shifts to the anointed one, whether it's David or Messiah, Christ. But this situation here is now the anointed one, the Messiah, Christ speaking in His person. I will declare the decree informs the rebels that God rules His creation on the basis of sovereign decrees. He doesn't ask for a consensus or take a vote. God's decrees are just and He never makes a mistake. Warren Rearsby. This right here is a text and a chapter that, to me, just completely blows the idea of open theism out of the water. I've talked about that a little bit, this idea that came about about 10-15 years ago by theologians that could not handle different passages in the Bible and didn't want to reconcile, so they came up with the idea of open theism. That means that God does not know what's going to happen. These guys think that they're alleviating God from responsibility when bad things happen. Actually, this belief really did not come about until after 9-11. Some really weak and sad theologians, I say sad, they weren't like sad, but they're pathetic to me, in a reaction to try to alleviate God from responsibility of 9-11, said, well, God didn't know 9-11 was going to happen. But because God wouldn't want all those innocent people to die in a World Trade Center. And so what they do is they concoct this idea and they go to hard passages that if I was to turn to you and ask you to explain it, you'd have trouble with. But we understand that there's no contradictions in Scripture. Whereas we see in Psalm 2, verse 7, it says, I will declare the decree. The decree of who? The decree of God, that God decrees, that God preordains, that God predestines. that God chooses, all of these things that point to God's sovereignty, but then you go to Genesis chapter 20, I forget the chapter, but chapter 20 where Abraham goes to sacrifice Isaac, and he comes up with a knife, and he's coming down with a knife, and God stops him and says, what, now I know that you will obey Me." And they say, look there, God didn't know that Abraham was going to do it. That's why He did that. And so they use texts like that. Like you go to Exodus, where you have Moses and God conversing with Moses. And God says, they have angered Me and I am going to destroy them all and make a nation with you, Moses. And Moses says, no, God, if you do that, this is in the Bible. that if you do that, then what are the other nations going to think of you? And then the very next verse says, God repented of what He was going to do to the children of Israel. And so the open theist handles those verses and they say, see, God doesn't know what's going on. But then they come to passages like this, or they go to passages like John 1, and the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. And then you continue on in John 1, and it says... Sorry, I was reading this the other day and I thought it was absolutely profound, and now I can't remember it. So let me turn to John 1 so I don't misquote it. John chapter... One, he says, and the same was in the beginning with God. All things that were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. Continue on verse 10. John 1, he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, To them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." It was all God's sovereignty in doing that. Not the will of man, but God. And you go to Ephesians 1, it says, "...you who He hath chosen before the foundations of the world to be the adoption of God." That does not sound like a God who does not know what's going on. So how do you understand these things? Well, there is explanations. I did not prepare explanations tonight. One of the explanations for a couple of them, there's one in 1 Samuel. If I had the passage wrote down, I sort of stepped in it by bringing the subject up and not having the stuff. One of the subjects is in 1 Samuel where God talks about choosing Saul to be the king and then repenting that he had chosen Saul. But then it says that God's repentance is not as man's repentance. Saying that whenever it's talking about God, saying that it's not the same as man saying that. And then another idea is the idea of anthropomorphisms. It's not that God did not know. It's that God chose this language so we could understand to relate to a God that is beyond us, that is a spirit. if you will. So we come back to verse 7 of Psalm chapter 2, and he says, I will declare the decree. What is the decree? The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son this day, have I begotten Matthew 3.17, and then all four of the Gospels, it says, "...Behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Who was it that declared that Christ was the Son of God? It was God. And it was declared that by the psalmist. See, everything that happened with the life of Christ, the Jews should have known. Because they knew the prophecies. They knew Psalm 2. Acts 13, 28-33. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when he had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead. And for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that was God promised to the fathers." He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus as also it is written in the second Psalm You are my son today. I have begotten you It was all prophesied beforehand that this was going to take place. What about this phrase, today I've begotten you? That's something we also need to understand. Because is this declaring that this was Christ's beginning? This was the second part of the Trinity? God the Son's beginning? Was this when He came to be? No. That's a heresy. Rather than a reference to origin, because there is no procreation within the Trinity, this vividly conveys the oneness shared between the Father and the Son. This is pointing to the begotteness of His incarnate form on earth. Why? Because Christ Himself said, before Abraham was, I am. Christ Himself declared that He was pre-existed along with God the Father way before then. So we know that this is not the time that God the Son became, for God the Son always has been. Again, another thing we don't want to meditate on too long. As John MacArthur says, you'll find yourself underneath the bed contemplating your navel. I never understood that, but whatever. Verse 9. Verse 8 says, Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for the inheritance. You understand that anything Christ asks of God, God grants. Why? Because they're in perfect agreement. They cannot be in disagreement. For the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Verse 9, Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now here's a verse that is used several times in the New Testament. Now here's where we get to this prophecy about the judgment. Psalm 110 verse 5 says, "...the Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of His wrath." What is the day of His wrath? The day of the Lord, that day which shall come that has not yet come. Verse 6 of Psalm 110, "...He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses." What? That does not sound like the God of the seeker-friendly churches. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. Revelation 2.26. This is to the church of Thyatira. He said, The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations. and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and when earth and pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father." Here he's telling this church that one of the rule of lords is that as he rules in the day of the Lord with a rod of iron, he will then have the authority from the Father to then grant that authority to those of the church to carry out his rule in other parts of the earth with a rod of iron. How awesome is that? I mean, just think about that for a second. How cool is that going to be? I don't know if I'll get to rule any place, probably not. Probably much more worthier people will get to rule, but still, that's pretty neat. Revelation 12 verse 5, she gave birth to a male child. The one who's to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to His throne." What was this referencing to? First coming of Christ. There in the book of Revelation. Revelation 19, 15. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, which is... this is where it happens. This is the day of the Lord when you get to Revelation 19. From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. Because why? Because the nations at that time will all turn against Him. Now I don't personally believe that America is a Christian nation anymore. I can understand if you want to debate that fact, but I don't think that America can be called a Christian nation anymore. But you understand that this nation will turn completely against Israel and against God and will be one of these nations that the wrath of God is poured out on. So then we come to the last part of scene four, human responsibility. We saw human rebellion, we saw a divine reaction to that rebellion, then we saw divine rule in the situation, and lastly we come to the final scene, human responsibility. Verse 10, Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. This word kiss means to embrace discipline or receive instruction. Understand this. It was a sign of submitting to the king. In medieval times, this was very understood that whenever you came before the king, if he granted you permission to come before him, what would he do a lot of times? Hold out his ring and you would do what? You would kiss it. So this was the idea of submitting before the King." So you could say, kiss the Son or submit to the Son. Show your allegiance and your submission to the Son's divine rule. Revelation 6.16 says, "...calling to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of the wrath has come. Who can stand?" Watch this. That's what it's going to look like for the wicked. The ones who do not kiss the sun, the ones who do not submit, they're going to be screaming for the rocks to fall on them and put them out of their misery because of the wrath of God that is shining on them. Now watch this. Here's the opposite of that with God's people. Psalm 511. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O Lord, you cover him with favor as with a shield." Here's the two extremes. In the day of the Lord, The wicked are be screaming out to die because the wrath of God is on them. And the righteous, God's people, will be held out as blessing with a shield being covered over them. So, application. What should our reaction be to this wrath? Obviously, this is not maybe an encouraging idea of God, but it is an accurate and true idea of God, a scriptural idea of God. So what is our reaction? We are not the wicked nations. We are not the wicked. Now, in ourselves, our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We understand that. But we are not who it's talking about here. So what is our reaction? What should our reaction be to the wrath of God over the nations? Three-pronged, and I get them from verses 11 and 12. I think that our reaction should be the same as what He calls them to do, and that is this. Number one, serve. Verse 11, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Serve. We need to serve God. While we are here, we are to serve God. That's supposed to be our life. Your life is to be a servant of God. Wow, Foster, June, and Sue was there today. Today at the funeral, did we not hear the testimony of a man who spent his life serving God? I mean, everything that they proclaimed about him was a guy who went all the way into the end, trying his best to serve his king. So let us do that. We may not be able to go to Washington D.C. and steer the head of the leaders or the Supreme Court or even President Trump. So what are we supposed to do? Sometimes it makes you feel insignificant, doesn't it, with your one little vote that you probably realize that ain't going to do a hill of beans. What are you supposed to do? Serve your king. Serve your king. Number two, rejoice. Verse 11, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. This is an interesting idea. Rejoice. John Piper, I got some notes here from John Piper. He said this, there must be holy fear mixed with the Christian's joy. There must be a real fear and real joy. The reason there is a real fear is because there is a real danger. Hebrews 12.29, for our God is a consuming fire. But watch this. Fear does not rob you of your joy for two reasons. For two reasons. Number one, fear drives us to Christ where there is safety. Number two, even when we get there, the part of fear that Christ relieves is the hope-destroying part. God help a member of Calvary Baptist Church with the preaching and teaching that you've heard from the Bible if you feel like your hope is dashed when the election doesn't go your way. Don't be like Jerome. Be like Augustine. You say, what are you talking about? In AD 400, when Rome was sacked by the barbarians, Jerome left his home in the small town that he was living in. Jerome, the guy who produced the Latin Vulgate. Jerome left his small town and went to live the rest of his days. An old man went and lived the rest of his days in a cave and wrote while he was in the cave, all is lost, all is gone, Rome is fallen. I mean, just he was distraught. Life was over. The wicked had won. Same situation, but a different area. What does Augustine do? Augustine goes and writes, Rejoice in the Lord, people of God, because His kingdom is far above the nations of the earth. Don't be Jerome, be Augustine. Okay? And rejoice. Rejoice. He leaves another part, the part we want to feel forever. There is an awe or trembling in the presence of grandeur that we want to feel as long as we are sure it will not destroy us. Because we know that not only is our God a love who loves on us and blesses us, but we also know that our God is a God of wrath. Think about it. I don't know. I was never this person. Maybe some of you were. Maybe not even now, but maybe back in the day. That's why theme parks make so much money on roller coasters. Because people have some type of excitement and fear. That's why horror movies make money. That's why they keep producing. Because people like to be scared when they know it may scare them, but it's not going to hurt them. And now I personally don't like horror movies and I don't like roller coasters, okay? But I do understand that's a part of it. We have that thrill type of thing. But you understand, in Christ, in the joy that we have with Christ, we also have a fear and an awe, a trembling of God, because we understand who He is and an understanding that His wrath can come out. What does verse 12 say? When His wrath is kindled a little, just a little bit, His wrath can be poured out whenever He deems it necessary. But we understand that in that fear of that, that because He has chosen us and we are now in Him, We understand that that capability is there, but that He has saved us from it. So serve, rejoice, and lastly, submit. Submit. Verse 12, kiss the Son. Submit to the Son. What is this for us as believers? When we find it in the Bible, we adapt to it. And if the Bible says this, and we didn't know it said that, we change to this. Let us not be an arrogant people that think that we know everything that's in this book. Let us be a people that is seeking this book earnestly to find out what things in our life it has to say about it so we can change it. Submit. So serve, rejoice, and submit. Again, I will close with this one sentence from John Piper. The only safe place from the wrath of God is in God. I like that. The only safe place from the wrath of God is in God. So what do we do? We know that the wrath of God is coming on these nations, and America is one of them. So let's serve, let's rejoice, and let's submit. Let's pray. Father, we thank You so much for all that You've done for us. We thank You for Your Word to show us what a powerful and sovereign God You are. We are in awe of Your glory. And we thank you for choosing us. We thank you for allowing us to be part of your family. We ask that you'll watch over our pastor tonight, his family, and be with those that couldn't be here, and that you'll touch them. Bring us back Sunday as we come to worship you. We love you and give you praise. In Jesus' name, amen.