God Brings Forth His Son and Gives Him the Nations

- SERMON TRANSCRIPT-

Turn in your Bibles to Psalms 2 this morning, as we're gonna meditate on God bringing forth his Son. When it comes to Christmas, I think we Christians, especially older ones, the older we get, we know that things are not as they appear. The holiday, Christmas, has a surface feel to it, and it's there everywhere, everywhere we look. I, for one, enjoy seeing houses get decorated, I like seeing the lights, there are certain houses near us in North Durham that really roll out the red carpet for people. I mean, they put out lights, I don't know what their electric bill is. They even have dedicated radio stations where if you sit in front of their houses, you can listen to a presentation and it's pretty amazing. I'm not certain whether they take them down, I think they may be up year round, and then they just plug them in as though their neighbors don't see them, like in July or August, but there are other houses like us, we put up lights and we love to see it, our neighborhood is decked out and we enjoy that. We also see all the green and red in the malls and the different things, and that's all that kind of surface aspect, but appearances are deceiving.

That's not what Christmas is all about, and we Christians know that. I think when it comes to appearances being deceiving, I think about Christmas presents and disappointments I've had over the years. I'm not gonna share them with you, but even quite recently, have you ever been part of a white elephant gift exchange? Alright, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you that don't know what it is, you take something relatively worthless and put it in a very nice box with wrapping paper and ribbon and all that. What's really fun is when you see little kids who don't know the rules of the game, taking part. And so they frequently go to the largest, most spectacular box, and they'll rip off all of the wrapping paper and they'll open up and find a single shoe inside, or a pair of nail clippers, or some piece of lawn decoration like a gnome or something like that. I don't mean to offend those of you that love lawn gnomes, but those are the kinds of things that tend to show up at white elephant gift exchanges.

And so, appearances are deceiving. Christmas is about far more than that. The real meaning of Christmas, we know as Christians, is about the indescribable gift I just prayed about, about the gift of the only begotten Son of God. The gift of Jesus Christ, and the gift of salvation, the infinite mystery of the God-man, the incarnation of Jesus Christ being fully God, fully man. Christians have wrestled with the theology of the incarnation from the very beginning when we try to understand. Really, Mary perhaps was one of the very first as she held her little baby boy in her arms, and she pondered the words that the angel Gabriel had spoken to her, how he would be both the son of David and the son of God. And it says in Luke 2, that she pondered these things and treasured them in her heart. When Jesus came into the world, it was a scene of amazing simplicity and weakness, and even poverty. Here was this young Jewish couple, so poor that they could not find decent lodging place in which Mary could give birth to her firstborn, there was no room at the inn, perhaps the most famous words ever spoken about an inn, or a hotel. So it led to Joseph and Mary finding a warm, dry place in a cave perhaps, or a barn or some place where animals were stored in the vicinity of Bethlehem. And she brought forth her firstborn and she wrapped him up with swaddling clothes as the scripture says and laid him in a manger. This's just a box filled with feed for animals.

“The real meaning of Christmas, we know as Christians, is … the gift of Jesus Christ, and the gift of salvation, the infinite mystery of the God-man, the incarnation of Jesus Christ being fully God, fully man.”

 And so here, the only begotten Son of God was laid in a condition so far beneath the way most newborn babies are treated worldwide. This was a picture of weakness and poverty, and of obscurity. The halls of power around the world did not know anything about it that night. Think about the Roman Emperor who was on the throne of power, ruling over a quarter of the population of the world, he knew that Palestine, Judea was part of his domain, but he wasn't thinking much about it, was by his perspective probably a backwater. The Emperor Caesar Augustus had issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world, and that moved populations around, and so his mandate determined the motions of the Jewish nation as a whole, and of Joseph and Mary in particular. But when Christ was born, Caesar Augustus knew nothing about it. It didn't mean anything to him, at all. The Son of God entered the world as an infant, weak, totally dependent. He needed His mother to wrap Him up in cloths, needed his mother to feed him, needed her husband to protect them both and provide for them. They were hardly the picture of omnipotence, hardly a threat to the thrones of the high and mighty.

And yet from the beginning of his life to the end, Jesus had mighty enemies that hated him and fought against him and opposed him, that took counsel together, enraged against him. And this sermon is to show the heavenly perspective of that earthly opposition, is to lift all of us as believers in Christ up into the councils of the Almighty, into the throne room of God and see all of that opposition to Christ from that heavenly perspective. To hear Almighty God laugh at the opposition is good for us. It's delightful for us to hear that laugh and to understand how deep, and wise, and powerful that laughter of God is in reference to all of his enemies. Appearances can be deceiving when it comes to opposition to the Gospel, it can be seen that the human opposition to Christianity have the upper hand, that they're actually winning. That they're carrying the day, but appearances can be deceiving.

The fact is, Psalm 2 teaches us, that the decree of Almighty God is for the final success of this kingdom of Christ, and nothing can stop it. And he's put his omnipotence behind the spread of the gospel. Psalms 2 tells you how it's going to be with Jesus, the Christ. Almighty God has decreed that he will rule the earth. And Psalms 2 is telling the human race to get with that program. To not fight, to not oppose, to not resist, but rather to find refuge in Christ, and for us to realize the richness of that refuge, and to come into that refuge and find safety in Christ. That's what Psalms 2 all about. So let's walk through it together.  

I. The Nations Rage Against God’s Son

It begins in Psalms 2, verses 1 through 3 with the nation's raging against God's Son. "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 one." That is the Christ, saying, “let us burst their bonds apart, and let us cast away their cords from us."  So it's amazing how the Psalm begins with the rhetorical question, “Why?” It's like, "Why do they do it?" It's nothing but futility. It cannot succeed. So this is heaven asking Earth, "Why?" From the beginning, nations and rulers conspired against the Lord and against his anointed one, conspired against Christ.

You remember that shortly after he was born, Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple grounds, and there was an old man there named Simeon, a prophet, who had been waiting for the Lord's Christ. He had been assured by God in his own heart, in his spirit, that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. And now the time had come, and he took the baby Jesus into his arms and he said this, "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel. And to be a sign that will be spoken against. So that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed." In other words, the nations will rage against this baby, the rulers will take counsel against him, they will rage against him. This was immediately, these words were immediately fulfilled by King Herod, Herod the Great. Why was he great? He was great in wealth, he was great in power locally, but not worldwide. He was great because he made big buildings, but he was not a great man, he was an evil man, he was a tyrant, and he was zealous and jealous over his own throne. So much so that he killed his two sons lest they should grow up and topple him from his throne. As a matter of fact, Caesar Augustus heard about this and said of King Herod, "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son." 

It was this very man who conspired to have all the babies born in Bethlehem, all the boy babies that were born in Bethlehem and its vicinity, who were two years old and under slaughtered, lest this baby should rise up and topple him from his throne. But Herod did not realize how impossible it was to kill this baby. How Almighty God, God the omnipotent sheltered Jesus, the baby Jesus with the shadow of his wings. And did enough to keep him safe, didn't need to do any more, just spoke to Joseph in a dream, to tell him to take Mary and the baby and flee to Egypt until the danger had passed, that was all. He didn't send an angelic army, which he could have done. They were there the night he was born, he could have sent, but instead just did enough to keep him alive and that's enough. But it was impossible for Herod the tyrant to kill the baby Jesus.

And so this conspiracy, this rage, this opposition against Christ came from the very beginning of his life. And it went throughout his public ministry, right to the end of his life as well, right to the end of his days. And in his public ministry, throughout his ministry, Jesus had opposition. He had people that rose up against him that actually even conspired to find out how they might kill him. For example, in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and the Jewish leaders that were in opposition then went out and conspired how they should kill Jesus. And so they took counsel together. And so these plots continued day after day throughout the rest of Jesus's life. And culminated, of course, in his trial, in which the Jewish leaders pressured Pontius Pilate, against his will, but conspired together with Pilate to the end that Jesus should be killed, that he would be crucified. It was exactly what these evil leaders had wanted to do throughout Jesus's public ministry. They wanted him dead, and now he was dead. But God raised him from the dead. And within a short amount of time, bold and courageous Christians, followers of the Christ, rose up in his place, filled with his Spirit, and began boldly to preach the gospel to the very same ones who conspired to kill Jesus.

And Acts Chapter 4 tells about how Peter and John boldly said, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." What incredible boldness! Now, at that point, the leaders weren't quite ready to kill them, weren't quite ready to physically attack them or torture them, so they release them. And Peter and John went back to their own people, and they gathered the people together to pray and they quoted the same psalm, Psalms 2. Acts Chapter 4:25-28, they said in their prayer, "You spoke, oh God, by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of your servant, our father, David. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed one. Indeed " they prayed, "Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had determined beforehand should happen."

So even in their plotting against Jesus, they were just fulfilling the decree of Almighty God, even the decree in this Psalm. They were doing exactly what the Sovereign God had wanted them to do. So from the beginning of Jesus's earthly life, through to the end, and then after he was ascended and seated at the right hand of God, his followers, the same rage, and the same counseling together, and same plotting has gone on against the Lord and against his anointed one. So it is today. We Christians are aware, here in America of increasing rise of opposition to Christianity. We are learning more and more, and it's I think a good thing for us to know that we are aliens and strangers in this world, this is not our home. Our citizenship is not here, but in Heaven.

And while Christianity has had a comfortable, generally positive relationship with the surrounding culture and with the government for centuries, generally positive, that it seems is a decaying orbit coming to an end. So we can see the aggressive secularization of our culture. I could reach for kind of low-hanging fruit on that and talk about how this or that nativity scene was forbidden in this or that locale. Or the things that Starbucks is or isn't doing with their coffee cups at this time of year. These things are minor. What's worse is the increasing rise of godless or unbelieving world views that are coming with teeth to force Christians to violate their consciences.

I heard recently from a member of our church of, this particular man's mother was forced to sign a document that she would refer to transgender people by their preferred pronouns. And if she didn't, she would lose her job. Well, that's gonna bring people quickly to a fork in the road, isn't it? Imagine in a particular ward of a hospital that cared for anorexics, that you are forced to follow those individuals' delusions and tell them that they could stand to lose a little weight.

And so we are surrounded, we are in enemy territory, and it's going to become more and more difficult for Christians to stand firm. I think back to the early days of the Roman opposition to the gospel, when the Emperor Decius in the year AD 249, forced Christians to burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, and get a paper certificate saying that it had been witnessed, that they'd done it. And they had to say, “Caesar is Lord” when they did it. And that brought people quickly to the fork in the road. And I wonder what kind of difficulties we're going to have, not just in that one issue, but in more and more issues living overtly for Christ. 

But the troubles that we American Christians have are as nothing compared to what our brothers and sisters are facing around the world. Many of our brothers and sisters know exactly what kind of counsel the rulers take against Christ in their country. I think about what happened in October in China, where the government sent bulldozers and backhoes and a large crane in a particular province where Christians were gathered together to worship and to pray and they began breaking the building down while the service was going on. This happened in October. The pastors were arrested and imprisoned for, "gathering people to disturb social order."

And so we see the rulers of that most populous nation on earth gathering together and taking counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed ones. It's been going on for decades in that country. Or you could think of the leaders of Muslim nations that do the same thing and make life utterly miserable for people to cross over from the lie of Islam to the truth of Christianity, and then the laws are against them, they're incarcerated, they lose their freedom, they lose perhaps, even their lives, where their families are even encouraged to hunt them down and kill them and not prosecuted, because that's just part of their interpretation of Islamic law. Or it could be even at a lower level where governments like the Indian government will give a visa to a missionary wife, but not to her husband, and they know very well that that will keep that couple from going back on the field to continue their work.

The government of Russia does the same kind of shenanigans. So those are lower levels of opposition, they're taking counsel together, they're opposing, they're trying to fight. Psalm 2 speaks to all of these situations, all of these circumstances. Behind all of this, we have to see a vast conspiracy. So, you're like, "Wow pastor, I didn't know you're a conspiracist." I actually am. I think there is a deep, dark, intelligent, wicked conspiracy at the highest level, to unify all of these efforts against the Lord and against his anointed one. And you know who's running it? Satan. And he is ruling over the dark opposition to the gospel. Revelation 12 talks about this, how that ancient serpent, the devil, Satan, stood ready to devour the woman and her child, and was unable to do so. So he turned his rage against the believers, the followers, the children of the woman. So it is. Revelation 12. This has been going on, and it continues, and it's going to continue till the end.                                 

II. God Laughs at their Rage... and Threatens Them with His Own Rage

Well, God laughs at the rage, and he threatens them with his own rage. Look at Verse 4; "The One enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them." This is for me an amazingly comforting picture of God. The reaction of all of this conspiracy and opposition is heavenly laughter. A laughter of derision. It is impossible to measure how infinitely above their plots and their power he is. It cannot be measured because it is infinite. AW Tozer in his book ‘The Knowledge of the Holy’. He said this, "Forever God stands apart in light, unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as he is above a caterpillar. For the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite. But the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite. The more we meditate on the infinite gap between creator and creature, the more we'll understand this laugh of derision, God's omnipotence.” God's throne does not experience the slightest tremor at this human opposition. Doesn't tremble at all. He's not alarmed. He's not at a loss. What to do? He just laughs. Now, you can imagine if every human being on the face of the earth were gathered into one vast plane, I don't know if there'd be one plane that would be large enough, but maybe somewhere in Central Asia, so 7.5 billion people, and all of them gathered in one place, and at a certain signal, they all jumped and landed back down on the Earth at the same time. 

Would the Earth crack apart? Would the earth shake and tremble? Would there be tidal waves all over the earth because of that? No, it says in Psalm 104:5 that God set the earth on its foundations. It can never be moved. But you know what something? Hebrews chapter 1 says, that Christ's throne is more eternal than the Earth.  It's more eternal than the Earth. That's what it says in Hebrews 1:10-12. "In the beginning, oh Lord, you laid the foundations of the Earth and the heavens of the work of your hands. They will perish. But you remain. They will all wear out like a garment. Like a robe, you will roll them up, like a garment, they will be changed, but you remain the same, and your years will never end." That's what the psalmist says ultimately to Jesus, that's what the author to Hebrews says ultimately about Christ's throne. It cannot be shaken. All of the nations are as nothing before the sublime majesty of Almighty God. Isaiah 40:15-17 says, “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket. They're regarded as dust on the scales. He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor all its animals enough for burnt offerings, before Him all the nations are as nothing, they're regarded by Him as worthless and less than nothing.” 

So God's laughter of derision is a measure of how threatened he is? Not at all. But it's more than that. There's a deep cleverness and in a fascinating wisdom to God's laughter at his enemies. What he does is he takes their opposition, specific details of their opposition, and turns it around on them and actually uses specific aspects of how they are seeking to stop the spread of the gospel to actually spread the gospel. The clearest example of this is Tertullian, famous statement, "The blood of martyrs is seed." The blood of martyrs causes more Christians to spring up. You can't fight it by killing the Christians. You just make more Christians when people who until that time were afraid to die, saw men and women who were not afraid to die, and they said, "Whatever those people have, I want. I don't have it, and I want it."

So that's the laughter of God. You dug a hole, you're going to fall into it while I pass by in safety and I'm gonna actually use the aspects of what you have done to spread the gospel. I was speaking to a mission's leader recently, and he was talking about… I think in heaven, we're gonna find how many laughters of God there were in 20 centuries where specific aspects of their plans were turned around and God used them for his glory. We're gonna find out. But there's a remarkable story, so I was speaking to a mission's leader, and he told me about things, great things that are happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini came in 1979, very famously took over the American Embassy. It was really a watershed moment in terms of the relationship between the West and Islam. And there's a lot of things that changed then in 1979, from that point on, it's like a hinge of history. But one of the things that happened is many, many Iranian Muslims became disenchanted with Islam and were looking for something, something else, not this, and they were open. And God, in amazing ways, began to infiltrate that country with the gospel, and it goes on to this very day. There's an explosion of Christians, of Christianity in Iran.

Now, what's interesting is they have very significant health care needs, and they're not looking for missionary doctors to come from the United States. No, not at all. There's no way you could get in with a missionary visa into the Islamic Republic of Iran. So they actually strangely have a connection with the communist government of Cuba, and so they have asked for doctors to come from Cuba. Well, maybe you didn't know there's an evangelical revival going on in Cuba too. And God is doing an amazing work in Cuba. And who do you think is lining up to fill those slots, to go from Cuba over to Iran to serve the people of Iran? I'll just leave it to your imagination to figure out who it is that's going. But wouldn't it be amazing? Wouldn't it be the laughter of God for the communist government of Cuba to pay for missionaries to go to the Islamic Republic of Iran? Now, I'm not saying it's happening, but wouldn't it be amazing if it were? 

I'm gonna look forward to that part of our heavenly joy and looking backward at what God did to turn the whole thing around again, and again, and again, that's the laughter of God. Psalms 18:25-26, "To the faithful, you show yourself faithful, to the blameless, you show yourself blameless to the pure, you show yourself pure, but to the crooked, you show yourself shrewd." You wanna be crooked with God, He will be shrewed with you. And Psalms 2 just teaches that, God laughs at the plans and turns them around. God also, however, doesn't just laugh, he also threatens them with his own wrath. Look at verses 4-6 again, "The one enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, 'I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.'"

Now, at the end of this Psalm, this threat of God's wrath is made overt, is made plain. You don't have to wonder what he means. It says it. "God will not take the attack on Christ and on His people kindly. He will wait patiently, but at the right time, He will overwhelm all human enemies with His wrath and with His judgment." Psalm 110:1-2, "The Lord says to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, you will rule in the midst of your enemies.'" It's teaching the same thing as Psalm 2.

Now, at the end of the world, I believe, scripture teaches us that the persecution against Christians will reach an almost unbearable crescendo. Jesus said, "Unless those days had been cut short, no one would survive." We're talking about, as I preach to you the Book of Revelation, the reign of the anti-Christ and his hatred of God and of His people. And so the antichrist will establish himself as God, and he will speak words of blasphemy against God, and he will attack the people of God, and he will kill many of them. 

Daniel 7 makes it very plain, what's going to happen. Daniel 7:21-22, it says, "As I watched this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them" and defeating them, that means killing them, "until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High and the time came when they, the saints, possessed the kingdom." A few verses later, Daniel 7, 25-26, "The anti-Christ will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time. But the court will sit," that's the heavenly court, "and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever."

So God is going to pour out his wrath on that final phase of human government, and the second coming of Christ will happen then, and at that point, there will be no refuge for those that up till that moment have rebelled. With the breaking open of the sixth seal in Revelation 6, we see the seeking for refuge, and they don't find it. Listen to what it says, "Then the kings of the Earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave, and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains." What are they seeking? Refuge, refuge, "They called to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?’" They're seeking refuge from rocks and mountains and caves, and they will not find it.                                                            

III. God’s Decree About His Son

So appearances can be deceiving, right up to the very last moment, it will seem that the anti-Christ forces will be winning, they will have the upper hand, but it is not so. So look at God's decree about his son in verses 7-9, "I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to me, 'You are my son today, I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter. You will dash them to pieces like pottery.’”  So now we are listening to an inter-trinitarian conversation, a conversation between the Father and the Son, between the first person in the Trinity and the second person. Who is telling us about it? Well, first the mouthpiece, David, but he was just speaking by the Spirit. This is really Jesus telling us what his Father told him. Jesus is telling, I want to tell you what my father told me, he made a decree and so God's made an eternal decree about Jesus Christ. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The text speaks of a decree that's a settled ruling from a potentate, a law written down. Remember the laws of the Medes and Persians if written down, cannot be changed. This is more secure than that. This is a decision by Almighty God concerning Jesus. It's a settled final decision, a decree. And foundational to this decree is the identity of Jesus of Nazareth as the only begotten Son of God, “You are my son today, I have begotten you.” As the ancient Creed said, begotten, not made. Jesus is not a created being, but eternally existed as the second person of the Trinity. But a significant change happened concerning him, he became what he was not before, which was human.

“Jesus is not a created being, but eternally existed as the second person of the Trinity. But a significant change happened concerning him, he became what he was not before, which was human.”

 Now turning around and we were created in the image of God, that is true, but until that point, he had not been human, he didn't have a body, but he was eternally pre-existent. For John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But then in John 1:14, it says, "The Word," and here's a key word, "became flesh." So he wasn't flesh before, then he became flesh, and made his dwelling among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So there was never a time Jesus did not exist. Yet the text says, "Today... Today I have begotten you." What does that mean? Today is a time-bound statement, it's a sequence statement, the Alpha and Omega, first and last, beginning and end. So today, something happened. Like there's yesterday, today, tomorrow. So today, something happened. Didn't happen yesterday. Happened today. So what does it mean? Well, when did it get said? Well it got said at Christ's birth. Hebrews 1:5-6, listen to this, "For to which of the angels did God ever say, 'you are my son today. I have begotten you?", that's Psalms 2. None. God didn't ever say that to an angel, he said it to his son, or again, "I will be his Father and he will be My Son." When did he say this, verse 6. And again, when God brings his first born into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him.”  So that's the today, when Jesus was brought into the world as human, when he was conceived, when he was born, when he became human. Today I've begotten you. 

But then it gets said again at his resurrection. Listen to what Paul said, at Pisidia in Antioch, the synagogue there. So he's preaching the Gospel to the Jews assembled in the synagogue. It's Acts 13:32-34, "We tell you the good news, what God promised our fathers, he has fulfilled for us his children by raising up Jesus from the dead. As it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you." God raised him from the dead, never to decay. So he says, "Today, I've begotten you," concerning the resurrection, "into an eternally human, glorified resurrected body."  Both of these moments, his incarnation and his resurrection show the commitment of Almighty God to the second person in the Trinity being human, the Son of Man, and he still is, he will forever be the Son of Man, forever human.

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“Both of these moments, his incarnation and his resurrection show the commitment of Almighty God to the second person in the Trinity being human, the Son of Man, and he still is, he will forever be the Son of Man, forever human”

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  I'm amazed the number of Christians, I'll ask, “Is Jesus still human?”, or “Does Jesus still have a body?” And they just, they look at each other and they're not sure. Cause I think I have a reputation as being a kind of a tricky Bible teacher, and they're not quite sure what to say. So let me tell you, if I should ever ask... Or anybody asks, "Does Jesus still have a body?" the answer is, yes. Is Jesus still human? Yes. Is he still the Son of Man? Yes, forever. He is human. But there's a decisive act of God to make him human to begin with, a decisive act of God again that he should be raised up in a human resurrection body. And then God gives an invitation to his son. Psalm 2:8-9, he says, "Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter. You'll dash them to pieces like pottery." So after Jesus Christ died on the cross as an atonement for our sins, God raised him from the dead. Then God lifted him from the surface of the Earth, moved him through the heavenly realms that we can't even understand and seated him far above all those heavenly realms at his right hand. And he said to him, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for your feet." Along with that, he invites him, "Ask of me and I'll... " you know how the kings would say that, "Whatever you want. Even up to half of my kingdom." You know how kings would say that? So, this ruler of the universe, God the Father, Almighty God said to His Son, "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth, your possession. I'll give them to you."

Well, we don't ever have an overt statement, by the way, Jesus has asked, but he's asked. He has openly asked, and God has granted it to him. And so we get it in the great commission. Jesus came to his disciples after his resurrection and said, "All authority in heaven and earth has been... " what? "given to me." I didn't usurp it, I didn't seize it, I didn't take it. It's been given to me by my Father. And that gives him the right to then build a kingdom. "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age." So that's the right that He has. 

IV. God’s Invitation to Joyful Worship

As they celebrate in Heaven in Revelation 5, after Jesus takes the scroll from the right hand of God, remember that? And they're celebrating wave upon wave of celebration. One of the waves of celebration says this; Revelation 5:9-10, "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood, you purchase people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." 

We are his plunder, we are his gift, we are part of his inheritance. We are his, we are his. God the Father gave you to Jesus. All that the Father has given me will come to me and I'll raise him up at the last day. You are a love gift from the Father to the Son if you're a Christian, and so you're part of that inheritance that Jesus asked for, and he's gonna get the whole thing, he's gonna get all of the elect, all of them are gonna come. Every one of them are gonna be standing around the throne and they're gonna be wearing white robes, and they're gonna be holding palm branches and saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb."

Now, it says, "He will rule the nations with the rod of his power." He has the power to dash them to pieces like pottery. He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But at the end of the world, at that crescendo of wickedness, he will dash his enemies to pieces like pottery. The first coming was quiet, silent night, holy night. A little town of Bethlehem. How deep we see thee lie. 

There's a quietness to the coming of Jesus, it won't be that way the second time. It's gonna be like lightning that flashes from one side and rips the heavens across to the other. No one will miss it. It ends everything. And what will happen? Revelation 19 tells us, "I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called faithful and true. And with justice, he judges and makes war. And his eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns, and he has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. And he is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God, and the armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses, and they're dressed in fine linen white and clean. And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. [Psalm 2] He treads the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh, he has this name written, King of kings and Lord of lords."  Well, God gives us therefore an invitation to come and worship, that's how the Psalms ends. We go through verse 10 through 12, "Therefore you kings, be wise, be warned you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son." 

Christmas is an opportunity to worship. Come and worship. Come and worship, worship Christ, the newborn king. We can come like the angels did that night, and the heavens were open. You see this angelic heavenly hosts, and they're saying, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rest." The shepherds took the counsel of the angel and they went to Bethlehem to come and see what the angel had talked about. And when they had seen him, they went home glorifying God and praising him for what they had seen, which was just what the angel had told them. 

When we think about the Magi, when they finally came, we don't know exactly when, but might have been a year after Jesus' birth, maybe two, no idea. But when they came, they did the same thing. They bowed down and worshipped. And they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. It's all about worship. That's what this is about. This is the purpose of Christmas. To call us away from our idols, to call us away from the idols of our hearts, which Christmas, the secular spirit of Christmas panders to and draws from us the idols of our heart.

“This is the purpose of Christmas. To call us away from our idols, to call us away from the idols of our hearts…”

 V. God’s Warning to the Rebels

Christianity, true Christianity causes us to kill our idols to turn away from those things in emptiness and find joy in worship in Christ. That's what the text is calling us to do, to come and worship, but it also gives a warning to the rebels. Look again at verse 10 and following, "Therefore you kings, be wise, be warned you rulers of the Earth, serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you be destroyed in your way for His wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him."

Do you see at the beginning of the Psalm, how the wicked of the earth, the tyrants are taking counsel together? They're seeking advice from one another to what end? How can we stop Christ? How can we shut him down? You think about the Jewish opponents of Jesus, how they would counsel together and share advice on strategies on shutting Jesus down. Or you can imagine Nero, or some of the other tyrant opposers of the Roman emperors, getting their counsel together, "We have a problem, Christianity is growing, how can we shut this down? Or you can imagine Atila the Hun, and it's like he's bumping into Christianity trying to figure out what it is, and he's got counselors, he's like, "What do we do to stop Christ and to stop Christians?" or the viking plundering leaders, the pagans that were coming, "What shall we do with Christianity? What shall we do with Christ?" You can well imagine one of the 20th century, the tyrants there, you can imagine Joseph Stalin getting some counselors together, "What can we do to shut down Christ and Christians?" or Adolf Hitler? Gathering all of his Nazi cronies, "What can we do about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church, and all of their opposition to our Nazi reign? How can we stop Christ? How can we stop Christians?" Or Mao Zedong thinking, "What can I do to humiliate Christ? To crush Christ and to oppose. What can I do?" 

Do you feel like you wish you could, in the spirit of Psalm 2, to just walk in there and say, "Excuse me, I have some advice to give you. Can I give you some counsel? It's good advice. Don't fight Christ. You will lose." You lose. And any specific thing you try to do, God will laugh at it and use it. So let me just tell you, you kings be wise, be warned you rulers of the Earth, serve him with fear and rejoice with trembling. That's what you need to do.

And why? Because the sword of Damocles is hanging over your heads, o kings, that's an ancient story about a man named Damocles that was enamored by the trappings of a king, Dionysius in Syracuse, about four centuries before Cicero wrote about it. And he was like, "Boy, I would love to be a king." It turns out Dionysius was a wicked tyrant and had many people plotting to kill him. And he knew it, so uneasy lay the head that wore that crown, and he got sick of this flatterer, Damocles, coming and saying, "I wish I were king." He's like, "Fine, I'll let you be king. You can lay on this gold couch and I'll put you in royal robes, and I'll anoint you with aromatic resins and you can eat whatever you want." And Damocles enjoyed that for a day, but then he looked up and noticed that there was a razor-sharp sword hanging by a single horse hair over his head, what is that? And he realized at any moment that sword could fall. Now, Dionysius that put it there, was afraid of human assassins as most tyrants are. That's why the praetorian guard is around Caesar, that's... They're afraid of human... That's not what they should fear. Jesus said, "Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more to you. I'll tell you who to fear. Fear the one who has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell, yes, I tell you, fear him." 

That's where the wrath of God leads. Not to a single sword severing a head or puncturing a heart, not at all, the judgment of God. And look what he says at any moment, his wrath can flare up in a moment. You could have a stroke, you could have a heart attack, you could have a sudden brain fever, you could go out in battle and stay well clear of the battle and surround yourself with the mightiest soldiers in your army, and some Archer will notch an arrow at random and fly it through the air and it'll somehow find a chink in your armor. It's happened before.

So let me just give you some advice. Be wise, you don't know how much longer that you have. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way for his wrath can flare up in a moment. But you know something? That's true of all of us, not just the rulers and the kings of the Earth. That's true of every single one of us. James, chapter 4 makes it plain. “Now listen, you who say today or tomorrow, we'll go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money while you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? It's a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live.’ And do this or that.” 

So it's really a warning to everybody, while you have the time, kiss the Son. While you have the time, believe in him, trust in him. If I could just say it, while you have the time, find refuge in him. Look at verse 12, the final phrase, "Blessed are all who take refuge in Him." The word is poignant, isn't it? It's like a hurricane is coming, and you go to a safe shelter that can survive a hurricane, a tornado is coming, and you go down into that root seller with the iron doors and you're safe from the tornado. It's a life boat when the cruise liner is about to go down in the North Atlantic after having hit an iceberg, it's safety in the face of imminent danger, that's the refuge, and there is no other other than the grace of God, it's the only refuge there is. So find refuge in Jesus, that's ultimately what Christmas is about. It's not about all the trappings and the colors and the paper and the lights. Behind all of that is an offer from Almighty God to give you refuge, refuge in Christ. Close with me in prayer.

Thank you Lord for the time we've had to meditate in your word, thank you for Psalms 2. Thank you for how it tells us the truth. Thank you how it gives us joy that we have been delivered from the real danger that faced us, which was the wrath of God, thank you that it shows us that there is a life of joyful worship waiting for us in heaven and that we can experience and drink in now. That we can serve the Lord with joy and with trembling, that with our tears of thankfulness, we can kiss the Son, and with our faithful sacrificial service, we can kiss the Son. Lord, help us to worship him and find refuge in him. In Jesus name, Amen.