I'd like to ask you to open your Bibles with me to Psalm 2 this morning. Psalm 2. We are in the midst of a short series focused on three Psalms, last week, this week, and then next week. And part of my goal is to help us understand, as we talked about last week, how the entire five books of Psalms are organized and what purpose that God intends for them to have in our lives, which I think is relevant for all of world history, as we're going to see in a few moments, but perhaps is particularly relevant for us in our day and age. Last week and this week, we're giving our attention to the first two Psalms, both of which together serve as an introduction to the fundamental themes and structure of the entire book of Psalms. And then next week, we're going to look at how one particular psalm, Psalm 11, fleshes out these themes that are introduced in these two psalms. Last week, we discovered that from Psalm 1 that the foundational truths that are developed throughout the entire Psalter and that provide necessary help for us, we who are God's people, are a number of things. Number one, we saw the dominant theme of the entire book as the very first word of Psalm 1, and that is the theme of blessedness. That's the goal of the entire Psalter. That's the end goal of our lives. We want well-being, we want to flourish, we want to prosper, or to put it in explicitly biblical terms, we want to be able to praise God freely with our lips and with our lives. We want what Psalm 150 is going to express, and that is all things praising the Lord without anything standing in the way. That's the idea of free and open blessedness. But very quickly, as we saw, Psalm 1 expresses what we already know by experience. And that is that if we choose the righteous path toward that kind of blessedness, we are very quickly going to encounter people who have a different picture, a different idea of what it means to be blessed. And they're going to counsel us to go a different way. And so Psalm 1 introduces us to the fact that there are two kinds of people in the world with two kinds of images of the blessed life, and whichever image you have as the controlling image of your life, whatever image of the good life that is governing you is going to control your path, is going to influence and drive your way. And so really the fundamental purpose of the book of Psalms is to help to form a proper image of blessedness within us. It is the Torah, God's word, shaping our image of true blessedness under God's rule, such that we will truly prosper, we will truly flourish, even in the midst of wickedness around us and sin within us. The truly blessed person, as we saw from Psalm 1 last week, will meditate on God's word. He will muse on the music of the Torah, such that we are formed by it. Now, Psalm 2, builds on these fundamental ideas and further expands them in a few significant and helpful ways. These two psalms, as I mentioned, are meant to be read together. They're meant to introduce the structural framework and themes of the Psalter together. And so we're going to see some of these basic ideas developed and a few things added in addition. So let's read this psalm together, and then we'll spend a few moments looking at it. Psalm 2. 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. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. So how does Psalm 2 expand and develop and then build on those basic fundamental ideas of Psalm 1? Did you notice any? Did you notice any connections between the two Psalms? Look at verse 1 again and see if you notice how Psalm 2 expands what we saw in Psalm 1. It opens, why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? Psalm 1 began by saying a truly blessed person will not allow his image of the good life to be shaped by what? To be shaped by the counsel of the wicked. Psalm 2 is going to show us what that wicked counsel is. what that wicked image of a good life is. It shows us their conception, their image of what it means to be blessed in contrast with the image of blessedness that was explained in Psalm 1. And again, this is a deliberate development between the two Psalms. For example, let me show you a couple of things. Look at the word plot in verse 1. The people's plot in vain. That Hebrew word is the exact same term as the word meditates in Psalm 1-2. This is deliberate. Remember, this Hebrew word has the idea of musing on something. something that forms and shapes our imagination, forms and shapes our image of the good life. This is why the King James Version translates this phrase, the people imagine a vain thing, same concept. This is a picture of the wicked imagination of the good life. A righteous person's image will be shaped to reflect the Torah, the word of God, But a wicked person's imagination will reflect a different, vain image. And that's what this psalm is primarily about. And so what is that image? Well, notice what the wicked, what the nations, what the people say about the rule of the Lord in verses two and three. What do they say? While a righteous person imagines the rule of the Lord to be like a tree, like a flourishing tree, Psalm 1, that which enables us to experience blessedness. But how does a wicked person imagine life under the rule of God? Well, verse 2, the kings of the earth set themselves against God. The rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. And notice what they say. These two phrases are a perfect picture of the wicked image of life under God's rule. Verse three, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. This is what the wicked image of God is like. When they think of the rule of God, They conceive of his rule to be like bonds that must be broken. Like cords that must be cast away if they're going to have true freedom, true prosperity, true flourishing. The wicked image of the good life is a life of prosperity as we already talked about last week. It's a life of prosperity apart from God, free from God, free from what they consider his bondage. They explicitly reject his rule because they imagine his rule to be oppressive. But folks, there is nothing further from the truth. John said in 1 John 5 3, his commandments are not burdensome. They're not oppressive. Because as ruler, God didn't just command his rules arbitrarily as a despot, as a tyrant. He gives commands that accurately reflect the way things ought to be, the way things that he designed to be, the way that he designed flourishing to happen in this world. So they're not burdensome. And this is why when we keep God's commands, when we submit ourselves to his rule, the result is true blessedness, true flourishing. And so this again is why we need to make sure that our inner image of God's rule is correct. If we walk in the counsel of the wicked, if we allow their image to shape us, then we will conceive of God's rule as burdensome. But if we meditate on the Torah of the Lord, if we allow the scriptures to shape us, then we will conceive of God's rule correctly. And so these two Psalms, Psalm 1 and Psalm 2, express two different images of life under God. One as a flourishing tree, or the other as oppressive bondage. And again, whichever image controls your life will drive your path. And as we saw last week, and as we'll see again in Psalm 2, it will determine your ultimate destiny. But this is exactly how the wicked imagine the rule of God. And folks, this is how it has been throughout the history of the world. Think for a moment about the serpent's counsel to Eve. Did God really command you not to eat of the tree? That's burdensome. He just knows that if you eat it, you're gonna become like it. So burst that bond apart and eat the fruit. Or think about the Tower of Babel. God had commanded Noah and his sons, and he had given them a blessing, be fruitful, be blessed, flourish, multiply, increase greatly on the earth, multiply in it. That was a blessing. God intended that to be a blessing for the people. But the descendants of Noah migrated east together and they said, that's burdensome. Cast away that cord from us. They say in the book of Genesis, come, let us build ourselves a city and top it in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we disperse over the face of the whole earth. What God meant to be a blessing, multiply upon the face of this earth, the people saw as burdensome. They saw it as restraining and they cast it off. Or think even about the Israelites in the Old Testament. God gave them his law, the law of Moses, and he said in Deuteronomy chapter 28, if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God and be careful to do all the commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. That sounds like blessedness to me. But the Hebrews said that's burdensome. If we want peace in our land, we need to intermarry with the Canaanites, contrary to God's law. And if we want our crops to grow, then we need to worship Baal, the god of the storm. And if we want to have children, we need to worship Asherah, the god of fertility. Let us burst those bonds apart and cast those cords from us. They wanted a good life. that their wrong image of life under God's rule, their imagining a vain thing, led them to cast off what they saw as restrictive bonds and cords, when actually the commands of God were given to them as a path toward true flourishing. I mean, I could go on and on. This is the story of human history, is it not? And that's exactly the point of Psalm 2. Remember, Psalm 1 and 2 are introducing us to the structural framework to the entire Psalter. Psalm 1 introduces the basic foundational concepts that we saw, but then Psalm 2 shows us how those basic structural foundations work their way out throughout human history. In fact, This is exactly how Jesus's own apostles interpreted Psalm 2. They interpreted world history through the lens of Psalm 2. In Acts chapter 4, after Peter and John experienced the first persecution of the church, And after they were released, I mean, you can imagine, they're probably wondering, what's going on here? What is happening to us? I mean, here they were, followers of Jesus, seeking to do his will, seeking the blessed life in his rule, in his sphere. And what do they get for it? They get arrested. I mean, they got arrested for healing a man and preaching about Jesus. And folks, we're not too far away from that in our own country. what the apostles experienced in the first century. And if it happens in the not so distant future that you are arrested simply for teaching someone about Jesus or doing good in the name of Christ, how are you going to respond? Well, how you respond will be based on what has shaped your image of the good life. If your image of the good life has been shaped by the American dream, a nice house, comforts, no opposition, total freedom, if that has shaped your image of the good life, then you are going to cave under the pressure in pursuit of that image of the good life. But how did the apostles respond? How did the apostles respond after the first persecution? Well, they went here to Psalm 2. They interpreted what they were experiencing through the lens of this fundamental Psalm. They recognized Psalm 2 as the lens through which to interpret all of human history as a conflict between images of the good life, a life under the rule of God versus a life that froze off the rule of God. And so they quoted verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 2, because they recognized that what was happening to them was just another in a long list of examples of this conflict that's portrayed in Psalm 2. In fact, they also recognized that their little part in the unfolding of the framework that Psalm 2 lays out was actually nowhere near the most significant example of it. This kind of conflict happened to the garden, it happened to the Tower of Babel, it happened with the children of Israel, it happened all through history, it was happening now to the apostles, but the most significant time when it happened is what the apostles immediately recognized. In Acts chapter 4, right after they quote Psalm 1 and 2, this is what they say. They say, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel. You see, what was the ultimate example of the nations raging and the people imagining a vain thing? What was the ultimate example of the wicked acting out their image of God's rule as oppressive? Well, the apostles knew that the ultimate example of Psalm 2 was the crucifixion of the Son of God. And that was no stretch. This was no eisegesis of Psalm 2. This is exactly what Psalm 2 says. Look with me again at verse 2. What does it say here? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. Well, who is the anointed? The apostles identify who the anointed is in Acts chapter 4. This is the Messiah and they knew this is Jesus. The apostles knew it. In other words, Psalm 2 explains how those fundamental truths of Psalm 1 play out in world history, and the Messiah is at the center of it all. The apostles knew that, they interpreted the conflict that they were experiencing in light of that, and it gave them great comfort. And folks, when we face the kind of opposition and conflict that Psalm 2 predicts, it's inevitable, that should give us comfort as well. You are not alone. This conflict that you are experiencing, this pressure to give into a wicked image of the good life, this persecution against you, it's not the first time it's happened. In fact, this grand narrative of conflict is what Jesus himself was part of when Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel nailed him to a cross. And you might get the idea, after reading Psalm 1, that the truths that it portrays are individualistic, but Psalm 2 helps us to see that this is not the case. Psalm 1 does say blessed is the man. You might get the idea that if you just pick the right way and you ignore wicked counsel and you delight in the word of the Lord, then you will have a blessed life all by yourself in the midst of a wicked world. Psalm 1 might give you that impression. But what Psalm 2 helps us to see is that your individual experience along the way toward blessedness is part of a much bigger story. and the Anointed One, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is right there in the center of it with you. Christ is the ultimate blessed man. He is the one who did not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. He is the ultimate blessed man who perfectly delighted to do his father's will. He is the ultimate blessed man who faced the rage of the nations and the vain imaginations of wicked people. And Jesus said, as the world hated him, so it will hate you, his people. But he's there with you right in the midst of it all. And folks, the beautiful thing is that not only is the Messiah the ultimate quintessential example of this story of conflict between the wicked and the righteous, He is the solution to the whole thing. We see this in how Psalm 2 portrays God. And we see it in how it portrays His response to the imagination of the wicked. Look at the image that Psalm 2, verse 4 paints of God. What image is this Psalm painting about the rule of God? Well, it says, he who sits in the heavens. Now, let's pause there for a moment. The Hebrew word there that's translated sits, the ESV is actually a little misleading here. The Hebrew word is actually much more metaphorical than that. It paints a far bigger picture. Remember, the Psalms are using poetry to help to form our inner image of reality, and that's what Psalm 2 is continuing to do here. And I want to show you a couple more examples in the book of Psalms that use this same very Hebrew word to see if you can see the image that it's meant to portray. Look at me, for example, at Psalm 9 real quickly for a moment. Psalm 9 and verse 7. The psalmist here says, but the Lord sits enthroned forever. He has established his throne for justice. Or turn a little further in the book of Psalms to Psalm 29. Look at Psalm 29 and the 10th verse. We're looking at occasions when the same Hebrew word is used, and Psalm 29 verse 10 is another one of these, where the psalmist says, the Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as King forever. So in those two cases, what additional word do the translators add to the word sit to give it its fuller meaning, its fuller metaphor? The word enthroned. That's the picture. That's the sense of the word. And that's clear in Psalm 9 and in Psalm 29 in the context. In Psalm 9, it says, he has established his throne. And Psalm 29, the second phrase of verse 10 says, the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. This word, this is picturing royal imagery. That's the picture Psalm 2 is giving to us. That's the image it's painting, and that's clear a few verses down in verse 6 of Psalm 2 when it specifically refers to him as king. And if you pay attention, you'll find that this is another fundamental image that develops throughout the book of Psalms. We didn't see that image in Psalm 1. Psalm 2 is adding that as a fundamental image of the entire Psalter. The Psalms use other images of God, of course, to shape our conception of Him, but the overwhelmingly dominant image of God is God as King. You'll find Him called King throughout the Psalms. You'll find references to His throne in heaven, like we see here in Psalm 2-4. You'll find other images like scepter and kingdom and dominion and reign and rule. Even a term like judge in the ancient Near East had the idea of a ruler, like a king, which you can see in the book of Judges, where the judges were sort of champion warrior rulers of the people. There are even other royal metaphors in the Psalms that we might today not even recognize as royal. Let me just show you one example of them in a verse that uses the same word for enthroned as chapter 2 verse 4 does. Look with me at Psalm 80 for a moment, and then we'll go back to Psalm 2 after this. Psalm 80 in the first verse. This verse uses the same Hebrew word for sits enthroned. Look at the last phrase of Psalm 80 verse 1. It says, you who are enthroned upon the cherubim shine forth. So there again is that image of God being enthroned. But notice what image does the verse open with? Shepherd of Israel. When we think of a shepherd today, like in Psalm 23, we typically think of cuddly little sheep sitting by a stream in a pastoral setting, right? Birds chirping, sun shining. But in the ancient Near East, the image of a shepherd was another royal image. To call God the shepherd of Israel is to imagine him as the king of Israel. You see, from beginning to end of the Psalter, these songs, these songs are given to us to help us to muse on God as King. And that's the image that Psalm 2 is portraying, God as King. He who sits enthroned in the heavens, how does he respond? How does this king respond to the rage of the nations? How does he respond to their vain imagination of a good life apart from his rule? How does he respond when the kings of the earth set themselves against him and against his anointed one? How does he respond when they burst off what they consider to be bonds and when they cast away what they imagine to be cords of his reign? How does he respond? He laughs. But his laughter is not really at all humorous, because it very quickly turns to derision, as Psalm 4 says. It very quickly turns to wrath and fury. He will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, verse 5 says. You break my bonds of my rule, I will break you. Verse 9, with a rod of iron, and dash you in pieces like a potter's vessel. You set yourself against my anointed one. You reject him and arrest him and accuse him falsely and strip him and beat him and mock his rule with a crown of thorns. You nail my anointed one to a shameful cross. Ha! I have set my king on my holy hill, he says in verse six. You see, those wicked rulers thought that they were bringing to an end the rule of God's anointed when they crucified him. They thought that they were foiling God's plan. But the apostles knew better. In Acts 4, after they quoted the first two verses of Psalm 2, they said, as I read a moment ago, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, the nations were gathered together, but I didn't read the last phrase. What did the apostles affirm with confidence? These nations were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. You think you've thrown off God's rule? You've actually done the exact thing that established His right to rule. You've actually prepared the way for God to set Him as King on Zion. Psalm 2 predicted this. It predicts it in verse 7. When it says, I will tell of the decree, the Lord said to me, you are my son. Now, hold on for a minute, who's talking here? Who is speaking in verse seven? Well, this is the king that God set on Zion. This is the Lord's anointed. And when he says that the Lord said to him, you are my son, he is explicitly using language from the Davidic covenant in second Samuel chapter seven. He is, he is quoting the promise made to David. When God said, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body, I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. That's what Psalm 2 is quoting here. It's quoting the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel chapter 7. So who then is this offspring of David? And when is this fulfilled? When is verse seven fulfilled? When does the promise come to fruition? Well, keep reading. Today, I have begotten you. In other words, the Lord is saying to his anointed, today I have established you as my son, the offspring of David, whose throne of his kingdom I will establish forever. So when does that take place? When is the today? Well, they may have wondered when they first read Psalm 2, but we don't have to wonder because Peter tells us, Peter tells us in Acts chapter 13 when he quotes this verse, Psalm 2 verse 7, and he says, this he has fulfilled by raising Jesus. In other words, the death and the resurrection of Jesus is what established his right to rule as David's descendants whose kingdom will be forever. And so, you wicked people, you may think you're bursting the bonds of my rule by casting off and killing my anointed one, God says. No, that is exactly what will establish his rule. And his kingdom will reign forever. I will give all of you to him. as his heritage, as his possessive, the verse reads. And if you resist him, he will break you with a rod of iron, verse 9. So here we have in Psalm 2, Psalms 1 and 2, once again, two conflicting images, two conflicting images of the good life that compete throughout world history. An image of a tree that flourishes under the rule of God? Or an image of God's rule as oppressive and tyrannical? And the wicked's counsel is that the only way to flourish is to burst the bonds of God's rule and cast away his cords. That's their counsel. So what is the counsel of the righteous? What is the counsel of the Torah? Well, that's what we find in verses 10 through 12. Here's the right counsel. The wicked counsel, cast off God's rule. It's burdensome. The Torah's counsel, verse 10. Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear. Rejoice with trembling. Folks, that's the counsel of the Torah. This is an accurate image of what it will be like if you resist the rule of God as king. Remember what the last line of Psalm 1 promised? It's probably there on the same page. Look at it. The way of the wicked will perish. And so the Torah counsels in Psalm 2, kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way. Exact same terminology. Acknowledge him as king, the counsel comes. Accept that image or you will not stand in the day of judgment. You see, the irony is that if your image of the rule of God is that it is a thing to be broken and cast off because it is terrifying, then that's the image that will actually come to pass for you. You resist his rule as something oppressive, then you will experience oppression. You break his bonds, he will break you. Once again, your image of the blessed life and its relationship to the rule of God will determine how you live and will determine your ultimate destiny. But, but if you kiss the Son, if you serve Him with fear because you know that His commandments are not burdensome, You don't imagine God as a tyrannical despot. You imagine him as a shepherd king, as a fortress, as your redeemer. If that's your image, then you will be blessed. Blessed is the man, Psalm 1 tells us, whose imagination is shaped by the lighting in the Torah rather than in the wicked counsel. And look at the final phrase of Psalm 2. This is put here intentionally by the editors of the Psalter to form a bookend with Psalm 1. Psalm 1 opens, blessed is the man. The final verse of Psalm 2 says, blessed are all who take refuge in him. And here is the final fundamental truth that you will find over and