I ask you to turn, if you would, in your Bibles to the second Psalm, Psalm 2, which we have already not read, but rehearsed together in meter as we have sung this Psalm today. But now we'll read it as we find it here in the authorized version. Psalm 2, and again, let's give attention to the public reading of God's Word. 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 sword his pleasure. 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 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. Amen. We'll end our reading and trust the Lord's blessing to be again upon the public reading of His inspired Word. Let's do bow our heads and hearts again together. Gracious Heavenly Father, we rejoice today to sing and read of David's greater Son. We would pause and ask now that You would give help of Thy Spirit. Lord, You tell us very plainly in Your Word were it not given to us of Thy Spirit, we would not understand. And yet, Lord, as You have brought us to Yourself and redeemed us and given us understanding of Thy Word that we might seek Christ as He is freely offered in the Gospel, We might receive Him and rejoice in knowing His salvation. Yet, Lord, there is still much that we need Thee to grant us in opening our eyes that we might see and behold in this book. So we pray that You would do that very thing today, that You would give help to every soul. Bless us as we consider this word together. We pray and ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Last Lord's Day morning, we considered a very precious and, as we suggested, very important passage of Scripture as we came to the 24th chapter, the closing chapter of Luke's Gospel. And in particular, we found in our Lord's discussion on the road to Emmaus with those disciples, in one of those early of his post-resurrection appearances. What an Easter evening that was for those men. We see the importance, certainly we ought to see, I hope we all see the warmth of that passage where these men speak and there's even that communion we mentioned among themselves, understanding that their hearts burned within them by the way while the Lord spoke with them. But the important aspect of it being, and even as later that evening as these men, remember, had traversed that seven-mile journey again to go to Jerusalem, they find the eleven and those gathered with them. And then the Lord appears in the midst. And once again, what do we find the Lord doing? We find Him opening from the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. And how that in Moses and the prophets, And it said there, the Psalms, those things concerning himself. And as we noted last time, I've had for the last couple of weeks the liberty and yet the bondage of seeking what to preach outside of the series that we completed. And as I pondered that passage and read it in my own study, I was moved to preach upon it last week. And as I thought even more, I thought, what of that actual direction of the Lord's opening those things in the Old Testament concerning Himself. And so what I'd like for us to do is to take these summer weeks and do something as well we've not done in the past and that is make no real distinction between morning and evening but press right on and take a look not through all the Old Testament that we may on occasion as warranted go outside but just within the book of Psalms. A portion of Scripture that is filled with devotional material, and yet, if we understand it right, and if we read the Scriptures right, they're filled with much theology, much meaty doctrine that would arrest our attention. Look with me, if you would, over for a moment to Matthew's Gospel, just as an illustration of this. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 22. closing days, really closing hours of our Lord's earthly ministry and His teaching in Jerusalem. For those that came to try and trick Him and to find Him wrong in His speech and were asking Him various questions. But we'll read Matthew's Gospel chapter 22 toward the end. Look beginning in verse 41. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? Now let us pause and understand the vast implications even of that question. These men recognized that Christ, the Messiah, God's anointed, was coming. He had been promised. He had been predicted. And so, there's no debate there. The whole struggle was the Pharisees and the chief priests and the rulers recognizing the Christ for who He was. Understanding those scriptures ought not Christ to have suffered, to understand the need of redemption, of cleansing from sin, of grace. Christ asked them, what think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? Then they say unto Him, the Son of David. He saith unto them, verse 43, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, and what does he do? He quotes from the Psalter. The Lord, verse 44, said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? No man was able to answer him a word. Neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions." What did the Lord do? He took them to a messianic psalm, and He asked them to wrestle through an apparent difficulty. If the Messiah, as we see the mounting evidence in the Old Testament, is David's son, If all are agreed that this One that is promised, and all that we see, you look in 2 Samuel chapter 7 in particular, this throne of David that has been promised, and yet David himself calls Him Lord. How can this be? Of course, we can understand the depths of the doctrine that the Lord is asking them to wrestle through. I mean, these are the truths of the incarnation. That there was one that was promised that would be David's son, and yet, how could this one also be David's Lord? All that had been said in the Scriptures, Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning him must be true. And I think, and I was greatly impressed as we read from Hebrews in our Wednesday prayer meeting with the repeated use and even noted, and we took note to pause and see how many times the Apostle there says, again, the Old Testament says this, again this, again this, and how many of these quotations were from these Messianic Psalms. So what I want us to do this morning is to begin, and in these summer weeks where, again, so many times people are in and out, each of these messages then, will not necessarily build upon the other. And I don't even know, as the order of these that will take them, there will be any definite sequence. But yet, these psalms that are undeniably Messianic, there are 15 psalms quoted in the New Testament as Messianic, just in that particular. Though certainly there are others that reach this criteria. But we're going to come then this morning to begin with this, the second psalm, one that is quoted more than once. It's quoted frequently, several of the verses, particularly this reference to Christ's sonship as we'll see. But let us then consider today as we begin a journey into these Messianic Psalms. Psalm 2 that we have before us is a psalm that is filled with particular order. There are many that have suggested, or even some of the ancient Jewish writings that suggested the first and second psalm were one psalm. The division here, I think, is right. And as we go to the book of Acts, and this psalm is quoted, it said the second psalm there in the text. But if you really look, it's very interesting. If you look on the surface, these psalms as you read them appear to be very different. Blessed is the man, psalm 1. Then we come to psalm 2, talking about the heathen raging and the Lord's vengeance and wrath upon them. Work through it. We'll not look at all the particulars, but Psalm 1 opens with this great beatitude. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. It opens with a beatitude. It ends with the challenge of judgment. The ungodly are not sober, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. The second Psalm takes up with judgment. The heathen rage People imagining a vain thing. God's wrath upon them. How does the 2nd Psalm end? Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. Even some of the language as you go to the meditation in Psalm 1, you find the same word used in very different contexts in the 2nd Psalm. There is great parallel here in these Psalms that are before us. As we come to the 2nd Psalm, its structure also is very orderly in another way. stanzas in this psalm of three verses each. And it's very interesting and I wish I had read some of the commentaries I read this week years and years ago. Of course, I couldn't read one of them because I was just giving them as a gift on my last trip to Northern Ireland. They were just reprinted. But how many times have you in the Psalter had a question as you read through a psalm? Wait a minute, who's talking here and who's talking here? It seems like there was a pretty quick jump. Well, one commentator I was reading suggested a term that I hadn't seen before, but speaking of them as dramatic psalms. Not the way we think of it often, but dramatic in that they're different speakers. It's as if they're upon the stage. One speaks and then the other speaks. There's no narrator in between to say, well, here, we're going to change gears. And as we go to this psalm now, You'll find that there are four speakers or four occasions of which one will speak and then another. The first three verses, the psalmist himself speaks of what he sees, what is out there among the kings and the nations. Then you come to the second set of three verses and we find the Lord himself speaking. Jehovah speaks from heaven. And you come to the third set of three verses and this Christ, the anointed one, speaks. These are these giant texts that are so focused upon in the New Testament. And then the last set of three verses, the psalmist speaks again and gives appeal to these that have heard the other speeches. So I want to take these four speeches, as it were, in this psalm for the focus of our thoughts today. And the first three verses, what I would suggest to you, we find here an amazing rebellion, an amazing rebellion. One of the most striking things about this psalm is its startling opening line. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The prophet is simply amazed at what he sees. He sees the heathen, he sees the nations, perhaps better here, rebelling against Jehovah and against his anointed one. And it is something that is overwhelming to him. He must cry out, why do they do this? Why do the heathen rage? And the people imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves and 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. This isn't even an accidental thing. This isn't a disobedience that was just somehow stumbled into. It's a concerted effort. It is, as I say, an amazing Rebellion. And the prophet is troubled, well not troubled, but rather amazed at what he sees. And he uses in imagery, why do the heathen rage? The term there is a term that is used often of the troubled sea. It's tempestuous. You may even have, if you have marginal reading there, tempestuously rage or move tempestuously. Why do they do this? The heathen are troubled. They are in tumult against the Lord, against His anointed. Yet if we take time and we pause and consider throughout the Word, throughout history, and throughout our own experience, this amazing rebellion is the universal experience of unbelievers. There is a rebellion against the Lord. And this rebellion comes, and I think if we can consider it in its general aspect, There's a general and at times even just an individual hatred of Christ and of His people. And we have had the convenience, if we can say it that way, in our nation, for most of its history, of having a godly heritage, of even having a Christian heritage and background, so that a lot of these things have been somewhat muted. There's been the individual trouble, there's been the Whether it's mockery or individual persecution or trouble that comes to believers, of course. But yet, on the whole, there's been an unusual peace for the Lord's people. There's been a prosperity of the church in this land. I think as we see things surrounding us today and the deepening of apostasy and the results of that apostasy that are more and more coming to the surface in our culture, that such days of comfort for the Lord's people are perhaps almost entirely a thing of the past. But I say on the individual level, the Lord said that in the world we would have tribulation. The world hated Him. It will hate those that are His. He spoke to His disciples about the world knowing its own You consider that it doesn't take long even when a group of strangers are brought together for people of like mind to find each other. The channels of communication far above and beyond words. I think these are channels of communication we as the Lord's people need to be mindful of. Our generation and particularly even our area of the country, the warm weather comes and off go the clothes. All these channels of communication. I counsel the camps where our brother Nate Smith is this summer. Each week hundreds of kids would come in from different churches, different states, many of whom never saw each other before in their lives, never met one another. But you're just hours into the week of camp and the kids of like mind have all found their groups already. The world does not like the Lord. The world, then, does not like the Lord's people. I say there is this general and individual hatred of Christ and of His people. But our psalm goes further than this. Our psalm goes and speaks of an organized opposition to the Lord. An organized, a purposeful Rebellion. Turn with me, if you would, to the book of Acts. We're not going to take occasion for all of the references, but Acts chapter 4. We find that our psalm is noted here. Acts chapter 4 is, if you understand the context surrounding, we could say, the first persecution of the New Testament church. Peter and John have been arrested. They've been challenged about their preaching in the temple. They've been taken. They've been chastised. Now they've been released. And we read verse 23 of Acts 4. And being let go, they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, Thou art God which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is. who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ, for of a truth Against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." The New Testament tells us very plainly, here is fulfillment of the words in this psalm. The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Christ. And they see this fulfilled quite readily and quite quickly. But let us understand, that reference in Acts 4 certainly does not exhaust the reference in the Psalm. You can go through every other opposition to the church in the New Testament and see it's in fulfillment of what the Psalm has said. We can go beyond and look in church history and see how many times have there been, yes, concerted, organized efforts against against the Lord and against His Christ. As we go particularly to the Revelation and its remarks about the end time, turn if you would to Revelation 19. Because I think here, and really if you look at the psalm that is before us as we'll find with so many of the psalms, there is a prophetic aspect to them. There are varied things that are in fulfillment of what is said, The ultimate and literal fulfillment waits for those last days. Look in Revelation 19 and verse 19. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gather together to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army. You can go to multiple other passages in the book of Revelation of the gathering together of the rulers of the world. We've come to understand and let us understand that. That's why we were a little eager in talking about the heathen raging. We often use the term heathen with reference to those that are unchurched, they are uneducated, they know nothing of God or Scripture in particular. They know of God because there is the revelation of the creation in their own conscience, but untaught. But as we go to the last days, we go to that final apostasy. It is deeper than that. There is an awareness. of Christ. But there is an adulteration and a rejection of His Gospel and of who He is. And the man of sin setting himself up, and yet he will gather together the kings of the earth. They will work together in union against the Gospel, against the Savior. hear this end time rebellion is just but the final culmination of what we would hear echoed throughout the years. We have no king but Caesar. What a cry of the Jews and their rejection of Jesus. What about their cry? We will not have this man to rule over us. Do we not hear that today? Whether it is on a national or international level and growing apostasy and darkness, or whether it's on the individual level of the one we'll see in our workplace tomorrow through the week, would say, I won't have this man to rule over me. I submit to you, it is an amazing rebellion. Why do the nations rage? The people imagine But let us come and look to the second speaker in the psalm. We read then, beginning in verse 4, with what I would suggest is an appropriate response. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. We don't see this in any way reflecting a sinful character. a laughter that we would often drift into, perhaps in our insecurity and our fear. No, here we see in this appropriate response, I say, the calm and the confidence, and I'm hesitant to use that word because I think calm applies greatly. We've used it often even in our prayers of late of the calm that surrounds the throne. But confidence, it just seems too weak a word. to speak of the Sovereign who rules and reigns and holds the universe together by the word of His power. But here, He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. Here is this concerted effort, this organized rebellion by the most powerful and influential of the earth. And His response is but a smile. His response is to but laugh. If you would, look with me again in the book of Acts, because I think we see application again just building. But Acts chapter 2, the Apostle speaks of these that had in that earlier day concerted together against the Lord and against His Christ. This is really an important passage in Peter here. Chapter 2 of the Pentecostal season. He says, verse 22, Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, the man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken him by wicked hands, have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover also, flesh shall rest in hope." And then what does he do? We go on and quote yet another messianic psalm of the wonders of this Christ. But I say here this appropriate response, the calm, the laughter of the throne, Here we see that even back in the day of Pentecost, the preacher could go forth and say, these that had come together, the Gentiles and Jews together, their leaders representing the whole, have rejected and crucified this Jesus of Nazareth. And it was by wicked hands that it was done. And they're accountable for their wickedness. But yet He was delivered by the determinate counsel. We hear these that in all of their amazing rebellion, all of their imagined strength and ability against this Christ, had done what they wanted. Yet it was by the determinate counsel of God that they did it. And they gave Christ His victory as He there purchased His people. I say if we can understand here that the Lord smiles at the awfulness of those events, yet that His will is accomplished. How much more as we work through the ages, perhaps even we as the Lord's people in His church, various seasons of blessing and prosperity or declension or even persecution, can understand the smile of God on the face. None of this is thwarting His purpose. None of this is altering His plan. None of this is injuring Him at all. How much more when we come to read of those last days, just as in the crucifixion God's purpose was not thwarted. One of those last days in which it is said even here that He will set, verse 6, His King upon His holy hill of Zion. We read in the revelation of those kings, confederate together against him, the point where they believe their victory is imminent is when their defeat will be handed to them. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a voice, the shout of the archangel and the trump of God. Can we consider that day? Can we look forward to that day? all the apostate imaginations of confederated forces of evil meet with an appropriate response. Christ indeed will be set upon Zion's hill. I want to come to our third division of the psalm as we turn yet from the Lord speaking from heaven to this anointed one speaking. Verse 7, I will declare the decree. Notice the importance. Notice the formality of these words. I will declare the decree. The Lord, notice the all capitals there underneath here, Jehovah 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." Again, the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Let us understand here that there is an acknowledged ruler. An acknowledged ruler, it is Christ Himself. I want to pause just for a moment. This is one of those little rabbit trails that would be worthy of a lot more than we're going to give it. But I spoke of this a little bit on Wednesday as we were reading in Hebrews and the psalm is quoted. Thou art my son this day if I begot thee. We are Trinitarians. We believe the revelation of God in Scripture depicts for us mystery that it is, difficulty that it is for us intellectually to approach it, much less grasp it, but one God. infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in all of His perfections, yet existing from eternity in three persons. The doctrine of the Trinity. John's Gospel is built upon it. You can't get through the opening two verses of John's Gospel until you're beyond. It's amazing that the Russellites or the Job's Witnesses would go there. Of course, they have to corrupt the text to do what they would do with it. The deity of Christ and what his appearance in history in the incarnation shows us that was, as it were, subtly revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures. But this light from heaven now of the Triune God. But yet there are those that have struggled because one of the aspects of the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is the eternal Sonship of Christ. The denial of that is saying that his sonship is something that was given in time, that it began at some point. And it's the text from this psalm that those that deny the doctrine of eternal sonship usually spring from. Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Well, again, let me say we're not going to exhaust this here, but can I just suggest to you some thoughts Number one, as you go to the book of Acts, you see that this psalm is quoted in one of its many quotations with reference to the resurrection of Christ. I noted on Wednesday that those that deny the eternal sonship usually don't date His beginning to be the Son at the resurrection. Even though that's where this verse they say that forces them into their doctrine places it. And the reason for that is obvious. because Christ is called the Son before the resurrection. Actually, as you go to the very introduction of Christ's earthly ministry at His baptism, what do we find? We find there that the Father speaks audibly from heaven on one of the two occasions where the very same words are spoken. And He says, blending this psalm and Isaiah 42 together, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Isaiah 42 speaks about my servant, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. Psalm 2, this is my beloved son, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. So the sonship is obviously true before the resurrection where these, quoting this psalm, want to date it. Their theology doesn't fit, much less their exposition. He pointed out Hebrews, though He were a Son, yet learned the obedience by the things that He suffered. The suffering all confined to the incarnation. All those things that were true of Him in the days of His flesh, in the days of His humiliation, were in spite of the fact that he's the son. Not that he became the son in order to endure them. They were in spite of the fact that he's the son. I'll just leave this little digression with some thoughts I've borrowed or stolen, however you want to label it. I think if you footnote it, you're not plagiarizing, so you're borrowing instead of stealing, so I footnote. John Brown's commentary on the book of Hebrews you'll find in the Geneva series. He had a powerful comment He said a lot of our problem with this doctrine of the eternal sonship is that we try and take things that are true of a temporal relationship and apply them to an eternal relationship, where they obviously can't apply. What things are true of a relationship between a father and son? Well, in the temporal context, there are some things that are true that can't be true of the father and the eternal son. In our temporal lives, a father and a son have these distinctions. First, the father is before the son. The son is subsequent to the father. That's a temporary relationship. A temporal relationship. That can't be true of an eternal relationship. You can have something that's eternal and yet one is before the other. One is after the other. Also, in our earthly temporal relationships, Sonship involves, for a season, inferiority. One is making the rules, and the other one is hopefully obeying the rules. If you're struggling with that, then join us in our Shepherding a Child's Heart class in Sunday School. But this posteriority and inferiority are true in temporal relationships between father and son. There are other things that are true in a father-son relationship that can apply in eternity. Things such as identity of nature. Son is of the flesh. Literally of the substance of the parent. Yet, in the triune God, an identity of nature. We also can understand resemblance. The son would look like the father in a temporary, a temporal relationship. Not to look like the mother, but we understand these things. Resemblance. That can apply in eternity. This such resemblance and union that there is this connectedness. And also, something that does apply in time that can apply in eternity. affection and affinity. Oh, we would love our neighbor and love all men, yet there is a particular affection for those that are of our own flesh and blood. Here we see these things very clearly apply in that eternal relationship between the Father and the Son. Well, that is a lengthy little side right there about an important doctrine that this psalm points us toward. Here I say we in this third section read and hear of an acknowledged ruler. We said the Father speaks from heaven at the baptism. This is my beloved Son whom I am well pleased. We've seen that recently in the Mount of Transfiguration where he also adds, Hear ye Him What is true then of this acknowledged ruler? I will declare the decree. Hear Christ Himself speaking. 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. Here's one of the reasons, as if we needed other reasons than the New Testament's use of this psalm where we understand it. Far more than David is in view here. One far greater than David is in view. Ask of me, I will give thee the heathen, the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. These are things that belong unto Jesus alone. You consider that, and I think it's really an interesting text. Ask of me, I'll give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. Can we not see a two-fold reference there? Reading the Scriptures and particularly the prophets and their rebuke of Israel in the Old Testament, the Lord said, there's going to be a people of a strange tongue I'm going to use to rebuke you. Who are those people? It's you and me, the Gentiles. And you go to Romans and Paul expounds it very plainly and very carefully that God is now calling out from the nations a people for His name. And He's using even these that He's calling His own. Those that were not My people shall be called My people. To do what? To provoke unbelieving Israel to jealousy. And so here is the Son who was asked, the heathen, for His inheritance. And He's receiving it. Ephesians speaks of it in this way, the redemption of the purchased possession. What description of us as his people? Never pause and rejoice that you have been purchased. Often that would carry connotations in our context of slavery or of inferiority. No, here is one that deserved wrath, was destined to eternal destruction. It was redeemed. It was purchased away from it and adopted to be a joint heir with the King of all. And here, if this is slavery, then let me be enslaved. And while this acknowledged ruler receives the heathen for his inheritance and salvation in the Gospel, and let us just turn, if you would, to the book of Romans for a moment. Romans chapter 11. I probably should have my other Bible. Romans 11 is marked very sufficiently in that particular Bible. But here Paul begins to conclude, sewing all the threads together of the questions about Israel and the Gentiles and the relationship. And he speaks of the Gentiles being brought in. And he says here, Well, look with me if you would, verse 24, we'll go from there. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, speaking of us Gentiles, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these which be the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness, notice these words, in part, Blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved as it is written. Thou shalt come out of Zion the deliverer and shalt turn away ungodliness from Jacob. What a tremendous thing this fullness of the Gentiles that are being brought into his kingdom. The heathen being received as his inheritance. But this is only part of the truth of the psalm. Perhaps the more prominent truth of the psalm is what we read of very late in the New Testament scriptures. As we turn to Revelation 11, we'll not turn it up now to read ourselves, but you see the description there. Always understand the cyclical nature of Revelation. It starts at the beginning, takes us to the end, and it starts over from another vantage point at the beginning and takes us to the end. Starts again and tells the story yet another time. You see that in the sequence of the trumpets and the viols. These aspects of the book. But in Revelation 11, the seventh trumpet Again, bringing us to the end. What is said there? If you listen to Handel's Messiah at Christmastime or sometime else throughout the year, you've seen it often. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. The heathen received as His inheritance. And I say again, the calm that surrounds the throne, the Lord smiles even where the apparent confederated strength of the apostasy of the last days, the world seemingly in complete union against him. Babel. Babylon the Great and its culmination and the pinnacle of its strength. And he speaks a word. And I believe in that day it will not merely be the destruction of the man of sin and the nations confederated together with him, but it will be a day of revival. There will be those whose civil lives have been disrupted and threatened and many that have been slain because of the power given to this one. There will be a multitude without number who believe. Israel herself will believe. Here this acknowledged ruler will have the heathen for his inheritance. We watch the news. We read the papers. Perhaps we're sober. It would be, I think, an amazing thing if a godly soul were not sober in these days. I think such days bring areas of great caution and concern for us. Let us not be nation worshipers. I say that as one who is patriotic. I believe in the sovereignty of various nations. I even believe a good healthy dose of state sovereignty as well in our federal union. But those are all things for another venue. But a lot of these things can be lost. And we're still members of the kingdom of God. Let us never give up or compromise aspects of that invisible kingdom in order to preserve a visible earthly kingdom or nation or state. Keeping this is more important than not compromising this. In order to get the outward things that the church would want, She'll always make alliances with others. She shouldn't. It's kind of like Judah, thinking, why would we think it could be right that the Babylonians would come and have rule over Israel or over Jerusalem? So we must ask the Egyptians to help us. When they're not fighting against the Babylonians, Jehovah is temporarily making use of the Babylonians to teach Jerusalem a lesson. And I fear there are many in the church that are trembling for their Jerusalem. Civil, outward, financial, whatever sense. And they'll hold hands with any Egyptian to ward it off. Be jealous. Even in all your prophetic study, whatever chart you come up with, whatever millennial variation you come up with, the doctrine of justification is where you have to stand. When something takes you away from justification by faith alone, it takes you away from Sola Scriptura, from Sola Christos, from Sola Fide, from Sola Christi, That's wrong. Stand on these things. What does the Lord say? The opening words of the Olivet Discourse. The opening words when He would speak of His coming and of the end of the world. Take heed. No man can deceive you. I go somewhat further than our psalm, but here I say what a wonderful portion of this acknowledged ruler. Christ receiving. the nations for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. We come to the ninth verse, the last of the Messiah's own speech. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. These very words quoted in the closing verses of Revelation chapter 2, obviously fulfilled yet at the very end. When we come to our fourth speaker, it's the psalmist himself again, and I just hasten to give you really the thought that these closing three verses, can I suggest here, we read of an advised repentance. Be wise now, therefore, ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear. I love this next phrase, rejoice with tremor. Reverence and joy are not mutually exclusive. Modern church is direction not withstanding. Reverence and joy together. Kiss the son lest he be angry and he perish. And notice the phrase, when his wrath is kindled but a little. You go to Revelation where the description is of the outpouring of his wrath. Completely, even the dregs, the bottom of the bowl are poured out. That the flood of Noah that destroyed all the life upon the earth saved eight souls. It's just a picture. See how pouring of wrath it is to come. So there is an advised repentance. Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. Will you bow in the day of His wrath, in which there is no space for repentance, though it may even be sought carefully with tears? Or will we bow the knee now to this One who has come and has offered Himself as the recipient of that wrath in our place? That we might be part of His inheritance and His joyous kingdom. rather than those upon whom you will pass the rod. I think you'll agree with me as you just see we have barely sampled the use of this one Messianic Psalm in the New Testament Scriptures. Here's a portion that is filled with Christ. May God give us grace to see Him. May God give us grace in these days in which everything else would buy for our attention, our allegiance, our thoughts, our affections, that we might have them subdued unto the Messiah, subdued unto this Christ, subdued unto this One who is coming again and who is described as the King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Let's bow our heads together. Heavenly Father, we come asking She will grant us not only ourselves, but to see many more yet in this place to kiss the sun, to rejoice at the good news of deliverance from our sin. Lord, we pray that you will take up the Word, these hurried references to it throughout the remainder of the Word, and yet teach us, challenge and yet encourage us, Lord, we pray. Let us see that calm. today that surrounds the throne.