Welcome to our second psalm and our first lesson in this psalm. And I've entitled it Sinners in Rebellion. And we're going to look at the first three verses of this psalm. And let us read them first. And as usual, I use the English Standard Version, the SV. but you can use whatever version is available to you or which is easily readable to you. Because oftentimes we're looking behind the vernacular language, the language that we commonly use today to look at the original language, the Hebrew or the Greek if we're in the New Testament. And sometimes the Greek, the Septuagint when we're in the Old Testament for comparison. Let's read, starting in verse one. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. Since accountability is personal, it's all about you. not Satan. And I want to drive that message home. Because we're New Testament Christians, and by that I mean our salvation was gained by Christ in the Gospels, part of the New Testament. He is the new covenant that is the entire function of the book of Hebrews is to explain why there is a new covenant and why it is different from the old Mosaic or Aaronic covenant and cultic priestly functions. That is what the the new nature is all about. It could not be brought in under the old covenant. The water bulls and goats, by no means satisfied for sin. They just all pointed to the coming new covenant. And so, when I say we're new covenant Christians or New Testament Christians, covenant is Greek and Testament is Latin. That's where it comes from, but they're exactly the same meanings. Satan is very much revealed and active in the New Testament section of the Bible. However, he is also in the background as a running theme throughout the Old Testament, and he pops up rarely. Of course, he's there in Genesis 3, he's there in Zechariah, and he is the one who brought sin to man. However, he did not force man nor woman to participate. They participated of their own volition. Now there's no such thing as free choice or free will, and that's a common parlance today. I believe in free will. I'm sorry for you because it doesn't exist. It is like being unbiased. I'm unbiased in my news reporting. No, you're lying because nobody is unbiased. It's an impossible position. The law of excluded middle forbids it. You're either in sin, or you're in grace, there's no third position. And so what we have here is individuals in Psalm 1 being accountable. And you have these two paths. Now you're on the sinner's path. You're born under that. We talked about that. The hadarech. And we saw how everybody is accountable for being on that path. Well, Psalm 2 deals with corporate man. I hesitate to say governments, because today we see that governments are literally puppets for powers behind them. And we see in the Old Testament, the ancient kingdom, the very ancient kingdom periods, that governments were legitimized by their religions, by their definitions of right and wrong, of moral and not moral, because that's what laws do. You know, I was brought up to believe that you cannot legislate morality. And I would parrot that all the time. It's a lie. That's exactly what laws do. Laws legislate morality. They define wrong, not so much right. And then they assign penalties. That's simply what they do. And they do it to make themselves stronger. To make themselves more in control over you. That's what governments do. Now it's not until we get to Christ's temptation in Matthew 4, specifically, that we see that Satan is actually owner. behind the governments. And it remains true today for all governments. Includes everything, everyone. Every government excludes none. I know each government likes to legitimize theirselves, especially in the Western culture, it used to be that they were aligned with God. God is on our side. Individually, he calls to you for salvation. Corporately, God is not the author of your godless government, and all governments are godless. There was only one theocracy, and that was ancient Israel. And they did not do well. They declared they did not want God on their side. I think I said, okay, have a good life. But you, itty bitty nation, in the midst of big empires, and how are you gonna last? Not very long. And they've never been an independent nation since. Now, modern Israel, the nation established in 1948 by the United Nations, is directly tied to them for its existence. They brought it into existence. They can define it out of existence. That's what happens when you're beholding to power greater than your own. And thus, in essence, they aren't independent either. and they've been dependent upon Western culture for the technology and stuff to defend themselves against their own problems, their own caused problems. But I run down the rabbit trail on that one. Both Psalms emphasize accountability for sin. Satan, as I mentioned, is hidden in the background, is rarely discussed in the Old Testament. You are responsible. You decide to sin. Now, this was not lost in the Old Testament. If we turn to Ezekiel 18, starting in verse 19, and we'll read down, we're not gonna read all the way down, but it goes down to 23. We're talking about why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father? When the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins dies. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. Righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my statutes, and does what is just and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Lord. and not rather that he should turn from his way and live. And this phrase here is the essence of the scripture. This is the whole purpose of this creation, to turn to God and be made into the very, complete image of God, insofar as is possible to put the infinite image of God into a finite vessel. And Christ is the quintessential example of that. Now, we will never attain to the level of Christ. That is not the function. But we shall be sons of God, and hence gods. But if we're all gods, then there's nothing special about it. So, when Satan was offering woman, probably overheard by man, to be as gods, they were going to be above others. He said, it's just two of us. And That is why there was that struggle, that struggle for control from the very beginning. Some are more special than others. Let me borrow from George Orwell. The phrase, the devil made me do it, did not work for woman or man, nor will it work for for you when you stand before Christ to give an apologia for your sins. Now, apologia is not, oh, I'm sorry, I did wrong. It's not an apology. I don't know how we got to that definition in English, because that's not what you're doing when you're doing an apologia. That's a Greek word, and it means defense. You're gonna stand before Christ. and you're going to give a defense of your life. You're going to defend why you wanted a world without Christ, and why your morality was good, and that he's going to show you your life, and your own words and thoughts and deeds will testify against you. and your apologia, your defense will fail. But we're not to that point yet. He's long-suffering, he's merciful, he's giving time after time after time for people to realize the results of a life without Christ. And we can't do it on our own. It does take Christ working in our lives to bring that about. That is how ingrained we are in our new nature. That is how hopelessly, utterly lost we are without Christ. Now Psalm 2, as many of the Psalms are, are written in Acts. Our first one was also, it was a three-act poem. And we have to remember that it was written in Hebrew. So in Hebrew, it's gonna make a lot more sense. We're translating it from Hebrew into another language, where its cadence and its divisions and its inherent structure may not mirror well in our language or in whatever language you're reading it in. And so we have to keep this in mind. And we're going to be highlighting this from time to time as we go through some of the Psalms. As I said, I'm not sure how far we're going to get into the Psalms before we break off into another book. Because it's 150 Psalm. That would probably take the next five years or so. And that's just being conservative to get through that. And I'm not sure that I'm actually the best one to teach the entire group of Psalms, the psaltery, as they used to call it in the old English. But it's written as a phoric poem, and it warns corporate man that they do not have power against God and will be held accountable. Now that doesn't bother corporate man at first, because in verses one through three, those that I read this morning, and that pertain to this study, we see that man is in rebellion against God. Pure and simple. That is what the flesh does. God made man in the flesh. There wasn't any accident that was purposeful. When God said it was good at the end of creation and rested on the seventh day, it means he didn't do any more creative work. That's all it means. It means he wasn't working because Christ said the Father and I are working even until now. What are they working toward? Salvation. And once Christ has secured it, they're still working to bring salvation to you. But it means that the way he created us and the environment, not just the earth, but the entire universal environment, was the way he wanted it. It wasn't an accident. And we were made in the flesh for a reason. Because this creation is temporary. And guess what? You have to control the flesh. And man cannot control his own flesh. That's how much he needed God. But man and woman sought to do it themselves. And that didn't work well for them or for us. And that is inherent quality of sin, is that you want to do it yourself. And after you get done making all the same mistakes everyone before you has made, but you wanted to do it yourselves because you're ignorant. How'd that work for you? Verses four through six, God is not threatened. In fact, God is not even the main element in this poem. God gives son lordship over man. Corporate man has a choice. Submit to the sun or perish. That is their choice. Where someone was a cum, let us reason together, poem. Psalm 2 is obey your parish, them's your choices. There is no third choice, it's excluded middle. You can make a third choice, you can make a fifth choice, you can make a millionth choice, but it's not reality. There are only two choices for sin, and that applies even to Satan. In fact, if we go to Revelation 20, I don't think it's a spoiler here for anybody, starting in verse 7. And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number will be the sands of the sea. And they will march up over the broad plain of the earth, surround the camp of the saints, and The beloved city by fire will come down from heaven and consume them. And the devil, that'd be Satan, who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and suffer where the beast and false prophet already were. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then we have the great white throne judgment down to the end of Revelation 20. the death and hell were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown and she was thrown into the lake of fire. That's your choice. You can be with Christ, but in sin, you don't want Christ. That is the problem. You do not want Christ. You do not want God's truth. You want nothing to do with God. You're going to build it yourself. That was the fallacy that Satan held out to woman. Now, she was tricked. Man, nah, he was not tricked. He knew exactly what he was getting into, because he wanted to be boss. And you got to be boss. And guess what? You know what you find out as boss? Everyone wants to rebel against you. Nobody likes you. You ever get into management? Guess what the people under you do? Complain about you the entire time. The whole time. Why? Sin. It's called grumbling, gossiping, backbiting. And you say, well, those are minor sins. No. we're going to see that those are not minor sins. Those are the very essence of the expression of your sin. They're devastatingly corrosive. Now we have to understand the language and context is essential in studying for the psalm. I think all the commentators since the 16th century or so, studied from the same playbook. They're taking this to mean that it applies to the Gentiles, because Nations is actually the English translation of the Hebrew G'voy. And it can mean Gentiles, it can mean non-Jews. But we're going to see that that is not necessarily so. You have to go by the concepts. And notice that these are in duality. He didn't give us three words, he didn't give us four words, he gave us two. And that's gonna be very common in Hebrew. It's very common in the Bible. You have saved, you have lost. You have good, you have evil. And it's not that you have Christ and you have Satan because they're not any more close to the same level. Our minds want to put them on the same level, but they're not the same level. Christ is not threatened by Satan. There is never any context in which Satan is going to ever best Christ, because Christ is God and Satan, he not. He a created being like you and me. But we see these two words and this duality, they're common, they're reinforcing each other to really show that it's all peoples, not just Gentiles, but it's all peoples together. And it's most likely and I'm not a language expert, so I cannot say definitively, but it's most probably a common Hebraic idiom, and we're going to see it used elsewhere in scripture in just a few moments to give you a clearer perception of how it was used. So the nation's oft translated as Gentile, as in the Greek, as in the, Greek word ethnos. But its true meaning must be derived from its context, because it's often translated as peoples also. You get an Englishman Hebrew word search, and you look up the Hebrew word, and you see all the places it's used. And the English word that was used for translation. You'll see nations, you'll see peoples, you'll see other stuff. And the same is true of peoples, which is li'om, and it simply means a group, which may or may not refer to the Jews. Once again, it's oft translated as nations also. So as much as I emphasize word studies and understanding the Bible, if you've followed me for any length of time, I do because I think that is just terribly overlooked and most often terribly abused. as in an eisegetical manner to emphasize what you want the scripture to say. And that is why a lot of evangelicals now will reject word studies. Well, we don't do that word Hebrew Greek thing because that's just trouble. We're just going to read it in our language and that's it. And because the translators were inspired Well, no, they weren't, ever, in any translation. It's the best effort according to what they wanted to accomplish in producing their version of the scriptures. It's impossible to translate exactly from one language to another for a variety of reasons. And that's no more evident than in the Psalms and the Proverbs. But we must get our meaning out of Scripture, and so we must follow the context and common usage of the language. They must guide us. That's exegesis, getting the meaning out of Scripture. not reading into it. And this is not limited to just Bible study. We do this constantly in every discipline and in every genre. So to say that these are just corrupted tools so that we can arrive at the meanings that we want is disingenuous at best because these are common tools used daily You just don't know you're doing it that way. Act one, verses one through three. Who's in rebellion? Now these two Hebrew words were used in reference to Rebecca's, well, difficult pregnancy. These nations and peoples. Now we need to go there and look at this. Genesis 25, starting in verse 21. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren, and the Lord granted his prayer. And Rebekah, his wife, conceived. The woman struggled within her, and she said, if it is thus, why is this happening to me? So she went to inquire the Lord, and the Lord said to her, you ready? Two goyim, or nations, are in your womb. And to peoples, leoim, from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. And sure enough, the first came out red all over his body like a hairy cloak. They called his name Esau. And afterwards, his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel. Heel, H-E-E-L. So his name was called Yahib. And Isaac was 60 years old when she bore them. So we see these two words at work again. Exactly the same words. Now here they're translated consistently as they were in Psalms 2, gois nations, goyim, and leo, leoyim, and peoples. But what do we infer from this? Well, Esau became patriarch of Edom, or as it later became called, Edumia. Now if you're familiar with the Gospels, you're going to know that Herod the Great was an Idumean. He descended from Esau, who ruled over Herushalom, and whose heirs participated in Christ's sacrificial death. That'd be Herod Antipas. In other words, they're non-Jews. That was in Luke 23, verses 6 through 12. And while he has a minor role, he is in agreement. He voiced no objection to the death of Christ. And Jacob, or Jacob in the English, patriarch of Jews through his 12 sons. In fact, they were only called Jews after their Babylonian captivity, because they were from the only nation that existed, which was Judah, and they've been known as Jews ever since. His life, a demonstration of being on the sinner's path, But put on the salvation path by God, actually by Christ, his sons continued in sin, and they continue in sin today. And from his lineage, you have the false Jews, and God is pulling out his true Jews just as he pulls out true Christians today from Christendom. And of course, this is essential to understand that the majority of Jews are false Jews. In fact, today, anyone who calls himself a Jew is a false believer because they have rejected Christ. unless you get the Messianic Jews, which are confused because they think they're Jews and Christians. They didn't read Paul well, because Paul in Romans says, I am born out of time. I should be over here with the Jews, but that's not where I'm at. I am here as a Christian. This is where God saved me. And I bring the message of the church. And he was the major voice of the church. He went to the Jews first, but always only pulled out a few true Jews, those who did believe and were saved. And they became the nucleus of a new church, Christians. And he embraced that. First they were called people of the way. how to act in the Hebrew or hohadas in the Greek. That's how they were known until there were enough of them and people began calling them Christians after Christ. Thus nations and peoples refer to non-Jews, false Jews, and true Jews, those who are saved. In other words, everybody. So when you come to the beginning of this Psalm, you're looking at an indictment against everybody. It's not that the Jews are over here special, and they're protected, and none of this is referring to them. Because when you read the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, everything refers to them, and it's not good. And the power of words reveals the heart. What are the nations, the peoples doing? Verbally expressing their sin. Let's go look at this again. Because we're still in verse one. What are the nations doing? Rage. What are the peoples doing? Well, in ESV and in most English translations, it's translated as plot or plotting. And when you look at the Septuagint, the Greek passage, it is also referring to plotting But when you're looking specifically at the Hebrew, it's not just plotting. It's grumbling and murmuring and speaking out. In other words, it is just another duality here reinforcing this veminous heart of sin that just spews out this corrosive attitude. And so, this duality, both of these words together with the same concept are reinforcing this. Rage, ragas, conveys restless outpouring of anti-God, or ungodly. Now, I use the word, the Greek word, asabeia. to drive home the ungodliness of things. And we get this from Romans 1.18. In fact, we're going to go there in a moment. And so the speech comes from the sin nature. That is its essence. That is what the sin nature produces. It's this veminous speech that just spews out constantly. And the plot, hara, it's more than just plotting, being in secret and we're going to do our thing and we're whispering amongst each other. No, we are grumbling and murmuring. We are speaking out the distrust and testing of God. And we want to emphasize that. Now let's go to Romans 3. And we're gonna go to verse 10. And you should memorize this. We could go throughout the writings and pull these up. But Paul has done this for us. He's gone to the Psalms, he's gone to the Old Testament, and he's pulled up these verses and he's put them together under inspiration of God. as it is written." So this is God's testimony against sinful man, of sinful man. None is righteous. No, not one. In other words, all peoples are unrighteous. Includes everyone, excludes no one. No one understands. No one seeks God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. When we say worthless, we mean totally, absolutely depraved. Now, you may not be acting to the full extent of your total depravity. because of God's restraining power of the Holy Spirit on our society. But we see today where that's being pulled back, just like it was pulled back in the time of the Romans, and later on the time of the Greeks, and in other cultures. And we see it today, and what do we see? Violence, and degradation, and death. as man joyously seeks to live in a world without God. And what is their language? Vile. And joyfully vile. And anti-God as Zebea. No one does good. No. Not. One. Not Jacob. Not Abraham. On their own. No, not one. Not Adam, Adam, nor woman. Their throat an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asp is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses, bitterness. Their feet swift to shed blood. And their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. That is mankind. that was you before you were saved and that is you if you're not saved and that is you when you choose to walk in sin though you are saved so this is this raga ha ragas haga this rage is plotting and these words are reinforced they reinforce their asabeah revealing the rebellious plotting. And the Hebrews' wilderness experience demonstrates this concept in action, this testing of God, because that's the point of it, is to test God, to put up these false tests and say, see, God's impotent. God can't do nothing. So why do we need to follow God? Now if you're not an Old Testament Christian, and you're just reading stories out of the Old Testament, you may have heard of these things, but you don't understand these things. The Old Testament is not a collection of stories. You need to stop that mentality. The Psalms are not a collection of pretty poems that you run to for comfort. You get some comfort from some of them, but the main comfort is salvation. That is the comfort that God offers you. Let's turn to Exodus 17, 1 through 7, and it's the waters of Massah, also called Meribah. Now I put Massah here just to separate it from the next example that we're going to look at. But here they've gone out into the wilderness, they've escaped from Egypt, Pharaoh's let them go, they've passed through the Red Sea, they've done all that stuff. And they're on their way to Mount Horeb to receive the old covenant, the law, the Mosaic law. This is the first generation of Jews and mixed multitude that are out in the wilderness. And they murmured against God of no water. And we know that what they're doing is they're murmuring against Christ, they're rejecting Christ. Go to 1 Corinthians 10. And it's starting in verse four. And all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not very happy. And thus they were overthrown in the wilderness. Remember they had to stay out there that 40 years so this first generation died off? Because they were always testing God and finding him wanting. So how about the children? Did they change? Well, we go to Numbers 20, verses two through 13, and guess what? We're in a different place, but we're still at the same problem. We're at a rock, and there's no water. And we're whining. Only now we're whining a lot. We're murmuring and grumbling, and we're thinking about stoning Moses, and thinking about going back to Egypt. It's 40 years later, you think Egypt's gonna be able to take you back? They've lost that infrastructure. They're not going to take a bunch of huge conglomeration of immigrants. It would collapse their economy. It would collapse their society. There's no way they could absorb that many at one time. That infrastructure is gone. It collapsed when they left. And they're still struggling amongst themselves Because everything that was built up in Egypt, the wealth and the government and the socialism under Joseph, was taken away by God in his nine trials. That they're greatly weakened. And they're still struggling with regional powers trying to overcome them. Not unlike today. Today, it is a coordinated worldwide event to collapse Western societies. Because you notice, they're not immigrating in mass into Africa. They're not going into the Middle East. They're not going into the Orient. They're not trying to get into Russia, Uzbekistan, or those areas. In fact, the Slavs say, we're just not going to take you. We'll just shoot you. coming west to destroy Western society, which is the last bastions, basically, of God's gospel truth. But here we are at Meribah with the second generation. These are the children of the first generation. What did they learn? Nothing. In fact, they became worse. They were going to stone Moses. At least the first generation wasn't gonna stone Moses. Second generation, we're gonna stone Moses, we will kill him and Aaron. In fact, we'll just kill both of them. And yet Moses also sinned here, as did Aaron, because they violated God's holiness in their anger. And when you read the text, you see that Moses made himself equal with God. When he said, how long must God and I, how long must we carry you, deal with you? That was not his place to say because he wasn't carrying them. God was carrying all of them. But here they were speaking against God. This is the corrosiveness of grumbling and of mumbling and of feeding into each other. And why do we do this? Well, there's a specific reason why we do this. Romans 1 verse 32. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve death as sin, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. That is why they flock together. Their rebellion is doubling down on sin is basically the foundation of cultural beliefs. We seem to think that goodness is at the core of our culture. We get welled up with pride when we read the Declaration, and tears come to the eyes during the reading of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, because these are documents written in heaven from God. No, they're not. They're documents written in hell by Satan. If you understood Thomas Jefferson's theology, you wouldn't be making that stupid statement. Just because you use the word God doesn't mean that God is buying into what you're saying. You're just implying that God is blessing this, but you can imply anything. That doesn't mean that God is bound by your ignorance. So we've come to verse two here, and we're talking about kings and rulers. Now, are we talking about two different things here? No. We're not. Once again, it's literary license. It's variety. Nations and peoples. Kings and rulers. It's just, we do it constantly. When I write, and I write a weekly post, you have to vary your language. If you're using the same words over and over and over again, trying to hammer home that concept that you want people to grasp, It gets boring and they turn their mind off. Oh, I've read that word, I've read that word, I've read that word. And they're not reading anymore. So you have to vary the words to keep their mind sharp. Oh, that's not the same word. What does that mean? And so you're engaging the reader. These very, very ancient, very well-known literary concepts seem to be lost on modern men and not taught in their public education. And so rulers, kings and rulers is probably another idiom, but we do know it's a duality, a reinforcing duality, showing that this is corporate man. When I say corporate, I mean societal man, government. Now if you studied with me for any length of time, you'll know that I see government starting with Cain in Genesis 4. It didn't flow from godly people. It flowed from sinners. And he said, to build a home on this earth. Whereas Abraham and those who are of God are not looking for a home on this earth. They're looking for a heavenly city to come, and our eyes should be on that. Instead, many evangelicals, many who call themselves conservative biblical Christians, their eyes are right here, and they'll join with anybody lost to get the government they want here, even though the government already belongs to Satan. I mean, it's like, do you read that book? Do you study this book? Do you understand this book? Stop just memorizing a verse and throwing it out there and standing back with your arms folded like you've done something. You look ignorant. Do you understand that this earth and heaven universe is passing away? And so we're talking about those in control of corporate man. When we say those in control, you don't rule without consent of the governed. A king doesn't rule without people. We might say he's a dictator, that he or she has control over the population, but in actual fact, they don't rule without the consent of the governed, dictator or not. And so these rulers and their people set themselves or dig their heels in rebellion, unifying themselves against God. Now, I substituted the Hebrew idiom into an English idiom, dig in their heels. Or dig their heels in, either way. Their rebellion is against God, the Father, and his anointed. Now, it's still Messiah. In fact, that is the Hebrew word, is Messiah. And English is just a transliteration of that word, not even a translation. They just put the letters in English, and it means anointed one. And thus Christ is the thematic cohesion of this psalm, not the Father. The Father is nothing. To be honest, the Father is infinite. He created, or bara, the physical elements out of nothing. It is the Son who fashioned this creation out of that material that the Father bara'd. out of nothing, created out of nothing. Christ is the cohesion of this physical universe, John 1, 1-5. In fact, Christ is the thematic cohesion of the entire Bible from Genesis 1-3 all the way down to the end of Revelation. His depiction is in stark contrast to his humble depiction in the Gospels. You read Isaiah 9, 6-7, he humble. But here, he's not acting so humble. Because this is how nations are gonna have to deal with him and his second coming. We're not looking at his first coming. We're looking at his second coming here. They mirror their father's hatred of Christ, which is Satan, who was appointed above him. When I say he, Christ was appointed above Satan along with man, which sparked Satan's rebellion. Now, I'm gonna say that that's my opinion. And we can go to Hebrews 1 and see how this is so. But John 8, 44, Christ plainly said that to the Jews, You say, Abraham's your father? Not so much. Because Abraham confronted with the truth he believed. You? No, you don't. You want to kill me. I'm not understanding that. And I'm not understanding how you're like Abraham then. Oh, you have a father, all right. That'd be Satan, the devil. So in Hebrews one, starting in verse five, for to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son? Today I have begotten you, monogenesis. Or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, and that world there is not the earth, He brings them into this structure, into this, as we're seeing here in Psalms 2, into this political thematic structure. He says, let all God's angels worship Him. The Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and so on and so forth, all the way down to the end of chapter one. Satan was over the throne of God. He was his, he was beautiful, he was everything. We go to Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14, we read about this. What caused his fall? Right here. I says, you know, I got a plan. He said, I don't like your plan. I don't want to be a slave to these mud balls. God says, well, you know, it's not like I'm giving you a choice here. And Satan hated God. See, he got this idea in his mind that he was number two. That was his place. And it's true, he was over all the angels. But when Christ was monogenesist, brought out of the Father, it doesn't mean he was created out of nothing. It means he always coexisted with the Father, but he came from the Father to come into this universe. And I probably can't explain it any clearer than that. And I've had Christians get angry saying that I'm creating a demiurge, a Gnostic view of Christ. And no, I'm not, not at all. He's not inferior to the Father. He is co-equal with the Father in essence. but he has taken a position subservient to the Father. And he was very clear in this in John. Once again, I feel like I have to explain what should already be clear. but often it's not. And so this sparked Satan's rebellion, and this is why Satan came to spark man's rebellion. So, because Satan's now under judgment of death, like a fire, and he sees that, he knows that, and he's scared to death of that little lake of fire stuff. And so he has called into question God's righteous judgment. Hey, you created me, it's not my fault. See, you see how that flows? You created me, it's not my fault. Well, you created man, guess what, he fell too. It's not his fault, it's your fault. You're the author of sin, not me. And so part of what is occurring through this physical creation is God showing himself righteous. with his long-suffering and him providing salvation, but not to angels. Satan's not gonna change his destiny. You can change yours with the help of God. So the heart of rebellion is rejection of God. So our last duality here in this selection of verses is another probable Hebraic idiom reinforcing the concept of God's discipline. Let us burst their bonds and cast away their cords. What are we talking about? Because we're talking about all mankind. So are we being tied up? No. So what is he talking about here? Once again, this is poetic license. This is similes and metaphors. And We do this in our own poems, in our own songs. This song is a metaphor for, and then we wax eloquent about it. So I don't know why, but when you come to the Bible, you have to say, well, it's literal. No, it's normative. Don't fall into the literal trap. Don't ever say that I literally interpret the scripture, because you don't. You normatively interpret the scripture. There's a way to interpret poetry. There's a way to interpret prophecy. There's a way to interpret history. And you say, well, that's not right. Well, we do it all the time in other genres. You don't read history like you read the news, like you read a novel, like you read fantasy literature, like you read poetry and the various genres of that. You approach each within their own specific universal rules of understanding. And as long as they're consistent with them, you have a basis for discussion. And that's exactly what we're doing here. We're not doing anything different. These are just the standard rules of understanding literature. It just has the Greek word hermeneutics because it always has. Hermeneutics did not refer to sacred writing specifically. It referred to understanding any writing. So bonds, moshar, carries the connotation of discipline, warning sinners of their path, which they reject. You have to remember, sinners reject everything of God. Therefore, God gives them over to themselves, because they reject God's restraints. We're gonna throw off these bonds. We don't want God's restraints. We don't want God to tell us what to do. Now, I've made mention to it several times here, so we might as well go to it. Romans 1, 18 through 28. A wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all, all, asabea, all ungodliness, pas, all, and all unrighteousness, etikia, of men. who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. In other words, you hate God. You reject God's truth. You have substituted conceptual goals to guide yourself rather than God's facts. you know, the father of modern geology, back in the 17th century, 18th century, wanted to find an explanation for the geological stuff, layers he was viewing in the rock. But he didn't want Genesis, he rejected that. God, here we are, right here. And so he came up with early form of evolution. Darwin just picked that up 100 years or so later and applied it to biology in order to explain why Europeans were better than any other people on the earth at that time. Darwin is the father of racism. pure and simple. You may read the original title. That was the function of his book. Not to just explain evolution, which he couldn't, and he still can't. But it is substituting man's sinful concepts out of this creation, because we're limited by this creation, our knowledge. to explain what we've already rejected. God has explained everything in his word. The only book of absolute truth we have is the Bible. And so, discipline is given to us to let us know when we're falling off the right path. In fact, the writer of Hebrews literally tells us this. We turn to Hebrews 12, and it says, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastens every son whom he receives. That's in verse five and six. In verse eight, if you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate. You are bastards. And not sons. Let me put that. You are lost and you are not saved. Exactly what he's saying here in Psalm 2. They've thrown off those bonds. They don't want these bonds. They hate these bonds. They hate the discipline of the Lord. They hate the guidance of the Lord. They want nothing to do with this. Let us throw these bonds. Burst them away. Sunder. And cords. Abacht. Picture of God's law setting the boundaries in truth which sinners reject, hating the guilty conscience that warns them, warns them of death. The guilt is a gift from God telling you, you are on the wrong path. You are doing and thinking and speaking the wrong things because a sin nature. There is another way. Sinners are Asobea. I was Asobea, ungodly, substituting my lies for God's truth, justifying my sin. And you're doing the same thing. And when, as Christians, we sin, we're still doing the same thing. How many times have you walked up to a Christian and said, why are you acting this way? You know, the Bible says this. And rather than thanking you for redirecting them, they're angry. How dare you judge me? How dare you call me into question? How dare you? And pastors, they say the same thing. They stand up there and say, well, I'm God's anointed. God's big enough to correct me. You just sit there and listen to everything I say. Okay. There's somebody who doesn't know his Bible very well. Because we don't see Paul writing like that. So they justify their sin, redefining right and wrong to be as God. And that is exactly what they're doing here in Romans. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. And they are without excuse and became futile in their thinking and claiming to be wise, they became fools. says the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and creepy things. And therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, degradation. Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. God gave them up to dishonorable passions. More degradation. You know what transgenderism and LGBTQA plus blah blah blah means? Degradation. They are flaunting their open rebellion against God. and we are against that. We're always against that. However, those who participate in sexual immorality, whether you sneak around or do it openly or just shack up together, you're doing exactly the same thing. So it's not just homosexual, it is saying that we reject God's Discipline. We reject God's truth. We reject God's ways. And we're going to substitute our ways no matter what they are. This is all of these latest trends just shows the open and almost totally complete rebellion of our society against God. Now our society was always in rebellion against God, but they had a false morality, and it was hidden. Now it's not hidden. However, saying it so doesn't make it so. It's the fallacy of appeal to the majority. That'd be democracy to you. Authority, force, and any other appeal you wish to make. Let's have a biblical example of this rebellion here against the Father and His Messiah. Well, there's only one that counts, and that is the sacrifice of Christ, which was God's plan since eternity past, but also voluntary will of Satan and sinners, corporate man, through representatives. the false Jews who had the Scriptures, but whose truth was exchanged for their conceptual lies, Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, lawyers, and others in control. And we see them in this discussion with Christ in John 8, 39 through 44. In fact, that entire passage is a study in how sin totally clouds your understanding. Idumien, in the person of Herod Antipas, who agreed with Christ's death in Luke 23, and that's where it's him and Pilate, the Roman governor, were fast friends, whereas before, they were struggling against each other for control of the region. The Romans, the Gentiles, who knew Christ was innocent but condemned him anyway because he rejected absolute truth. John 18, 35 through 38. Christ says, I came to speak truth. Let's go there and look at it. Jesus answered in verse 34, did you say this of your own accord or did others say it to you about me? That's why they just asked him, are you king of the Jews there? The guy says, well, I don't know. Is this your thought or somebody put words in your mouth? He says, what, am I a Jew? What do I care? Your own nation, your chief priests have delivered you over to me. There you go. There's a collaboration. What have you done? How did you take them off? He said, my kingdom is not of this world. But my kingdom is not from this world. Again, Christ tells him this. And Pilate said to him, your kingdom? He says, well, those are your words, not mine. I didn't say that. For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Now, what's the truth? Man is sinful, and man needs a Savior. He cannot save himself, does not want to save himself. The poison of asthma is under his lips. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Are you hearing the words? Nope, Pilate was not hearing the words. And he said to him, what is truth? No, he wasn't listening. And he says, I find no guilt in him. So he says, and then you have the masses, also in agreement, because what did Pilate do? Well, he walked out and said, hmm, let me release to you Brabus. He's murdered. He wants to overthrow Roman authority in this region. You guys kind of like him, right? Or how about this innocent man over here who hadn't killed anybody? And they all screamed out, Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas. We want the murderer. We want the one who's like us. They rejected life. They chose death. So the truth of Psalms 2, Really, it's all nations rebel against God is revealed at Christ's death, and again, and will again, at His next coming, and later, to end the millennial kingdom. This is the essence of sinful people. We cannot save ourselves. We do not willingly choose salvation. God must reveal it to us, take the scales off our eyes. Well, let's look at a modern implementation of this. When I say modern, I mean today modern, not 19th or 20th century modern. Let's talk about wokeness. You can't get much more modern than that. Today, we see these verses unfold in boldness. by those in control who seek to exercise total control and erase God's truth and His people's. You know, Christians are the most persecuted group on the earth today, and there's not one word in the headlines about that. And when I say Christians, I mean Christendom. I mean Catholics. I mean Episcopalians. I mean people who have no truck with the true gospel of the Bible are being tormented and persecuted by those who think doing God a disservice, and they're just destroying their own kind. But in that, there are true Christians who are also being killed. So, wokeness, a product of critical theories, is scoffing and delusion to reject God's truths. Man generally agrees. Now, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy 3, Let's go there. And we're doing a lot of the scripture reading today, because I want you to see where this comes from. Don't know, I'm just making it up. But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. Now, that means extreme hardship is coming. People would be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Does that sound like today? That sounds like today people walking around flattening it, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. And we're to avoid such people. And again, in chapter four, starting in verse three, well, the time is coming when people will not endure sound or proper teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own truths, to suit their own lusts, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. And, of course, this is exactly what we see. The ungodly, the Acebea, use lies to legitimize their fallacies. Scientisms, evolution, fossil fuel scarcities, climate change, self-made pandemics, eugenics, sexual practices to degrade individuals and prey on the weak and limit reproduction. And of course, financiers through governments openly scoff at scripture, seeking to implement their great reset of total digital control over all peoples. Their transhumanism goal to escape death and judgment shows their ignorance. This world is not eternal. Now, if you noticed, when we discussed this, that I left out an important concept in verse one. Because I had to explain all of this before you could understand why that concept is there. Why do the nations rage in the people's plot? In vain. Remember, I didn't mention in vain. Riq, to no purpose. because all their efforts are in vain. They think they will replace their body and not die. They will live forever in a mechanical or cyborg-type body and never die and never have to face that judgment. And it'll just continue on and on and on, because the universe is eternal. But it's not. It is not eternal and you will never escape death because death is not the dying of the physical body. Death is separation from God and you are already dead in your trespasses and sins. You are already separated from God. You are already lost. The battle is not even fought and you lost it. just by being conceived. Psalms 51.5, I was conceived in iniquity. Yes, you were. Sin nature was passed on to you. But this will end. All their efforts will be empty, purposeless, in vain. 2 Peter 3, starting in verse three. Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers, remember I keep using that word, comes from here, will come in the last days with scoffing, of course, poison, venomous words, grumbling, mumbling, raging, plotting, following their own sinful desires. They will say, where's the promise of his coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. And here you are. Universalism, materialism. This is the essence of scientism. All scientisms. They deliberately overlooked this fact. Deliberately. Remember the father of modern geology? He deliberately excluded Noah's cataclysm. this fact that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the water that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. Like the Hebrews, it says, he will take them off like a cloak and roll them up. They will vanish in a puff of fire. The entire universe, whoosh, it's gone. This is their vanity. This is what it all comes down to. If we're going to understand the Psalms, then we have to go into them in this kind of detail. And, and I know some of these lessons are long, but I'm trying to, to conceptually wrap up each part, rather than break it up. And so You learn about the nations and raging and then we come back to another lesson and then we learn about the rulers and but we've we've lost sight of the nations and the raging and and I'm trying to bring them all together in a package and I know it's long and that's why I record them so you can start and stop them as it's convenient to you so you can meditate on them and that's why I provide the handout so you can look up the scriptures and follow them. because I want you to grasp the totality and modernity of these lessons. As the preacher said in Ecclesiastes 1, 9 through 12, nothing changes, nothing is new under the sun. All these words, all these things that you're touting is new, it's just repackaged sin that has always been. And yet Christians are running around stomping out these little brush fires over here, then over there, and they're kept busy doing nothing when they should be handing out the gospel. Because this is perishing. This will occur. We will not stop this. They will get their day in the sun. to show themselves totally depraved. And it may come down to many of us dying. This has always been a serious business. And it's about time that Christians got serious in their understanding of it and meditating on it and preparing themselves Yes. Isaiah died. Christ died. Paul died. Peter died. Stephen died. What makes you so special? Thank you.