Psalms 2 pt II

- this morning we're going to return to our study of Psalm 2
- last week we said that Psalm 2 is a very timely Psalm.
- That’s true because, while Christmas is a wonderful time
of the year, the fact that it's such a popular and
accepted holiday can actually be dangerous, if folks
wrongly conclude:
1) that they know and understand God
2) or that they're rightly related to Him

- simply because they got involved in a holiday that
has some sort of religious significance.

- it's a dangerous thing to talk about peace on earth and
good will toward men...unless we're going to:
1) honestly talk about the God of the Bible
2) honestly going to address our own sinfulness which
caused the lack of peace between us and God to begin
with.
3) honestly going to talk about what needs to happen in
order for us to be genuinely reconciled to God...so
that we might have peace with Him and peace with
others.

- see, there's no shortcuts on the route to genuine peace
- there's no shortcuts on the route to real joy (2 topics
that are so popular this time of year)

- the danger of Christmas is you or I, or those we know
and love, fashioning a God who fits the holiday, that
is not at all the God of the Bible.

- Ps. 50:21 says - "You thought I was just like you."

- and isn't that an apt description of our society?
- whatever place the Lord is given, it's not the God of
the Bible--it is a God who is manufactured and moulded
by human ideas and opinions.

- and the Lord says, "You thought I was just like you"

- John MacArthur, in his book on the doctrine of God, says
"Believing the wrong thing about God is a serious matter
because it is idolatry. Contrary to popular belief,
idolatry is more than bowing down to a small figure or
worshipping in a pagan temple. According to the Bible, it
is thinking anything about God that isn't true or
transforming Him into something He isn't."

- the French agnostic Voltaire said, "God created man in His
own image, and man returned the favor." (in other words,
man tends to want God to be like Him.)

- point of all of this is -- Christmas in America can greatly
contribute to this problem.

- Greg Cantelmo, in an article titled, Criminal concepts
about God, wrote; "It is essential that our ideas of God
correspond as nearly as possible to what He is really
like. Instead, we often put God in a box, and our box is
incredibly small! We tend to let our culture instead of
our Creator determine what we value. Those values
influence our thoughts about God and shape the way we
relate to Him in our daily experience."

- now, Psalm 2 can be a great help to us--anytime, but
especially at this time of year because it gives us a
healthy dose of biblical reality.
- a healthy dose of Who God is, and what He's like.
- and frankly, some of these concepts don't match up
with the way we would naturally think.
- some of these statements almost shock us...

- and the Lord's question to us then would be, "Are you
going to change Me, or are you going to change you?"

- now let's take two minutes and review the basic argument of
this Psalm.

- on your notes, we're really looking at the second
column, the one that says "Key area."
- that's just our attempt to follow the development,
or the argument of the Psalm.

(On white board)
1) The natural (unsaved) man suppresses the knowledge of God.
- this is God's world
- He made it
- He made us.
- The Scripture teaches that every person is born with
the knowledge that God exists, but in our sinfulness
we do all we can either try to:
a) ignore this
b) or suppress it
c) or at least alter it to meet our purposes.

- that’s what verses 1-3 are talking about.

2) (In verses 4-9) the Lord helps us in two ways:

a) Tells us His response to #1 (in other words, what
is His response to the sinful condition of men and
women that seeks to ignore Him, and MAKE LIFE WORK
APART FROM HIM?

b) (but it doesn't stop there--you're almost out of
breath as you read verses 4-5--they're shocking--
but the Lord also:)
- Tells us His solution to #1

- it's not just a matter of the Lord being angry
at the condition described in verse 1-3, He also
wants us to know that He's done something about
it-He's done something to correct the problem.

3) (in verses 10-12) Invites us make right choices and live
in a way that’s consistent with the new understanding
of who He is.
- we're calling this lesson - "absorbing the message of Psalm
2"

- what we'd like to do this morning is to use the chart you
have in front of you, go back through these verses and try
to "wring out" all the applications we can from this
important Psalm.
- in other words, since this is the argument of the Psalm, how
should that encourage you and I to change.

I. Man's Sinfulness
- How they relate to the Person of God)

- now let me ask you to look specifically at verses 1-2?
- what characteristic of sinful man is David especially
singling out as being offensive to God?
(imagining, devising, plotting against the Lord and
His anointed
- we don't want to know God
- we don't want to acknowledge His existence
- we don't want to think about Him or what "claim"
He might have on our lives.

- Now let me ask you this - what would be the opposite of
this? (what should we put in the Godly column?)

- John 17:3 - "And this is life eternal, that they might
know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent."

- Jer. 9:23-24 - Let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his
might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but
let him that glorieth glory in this, that he
understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who
exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness
in the earth, for in these things do I delight saith
the Lord.

- Deut. 4:29 - But if from there thou shalt seek the
Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if you seek Him
with all your heart, and all your soul.

- INPUT - Implications to us?

- Sinclair Furgeson - A Heart For God - What do you and I
boast about? What subject of conversation most
arouses us and fills our hearts? Do we consider
knowing God to be the greatest treasure in the world,
and by far our greatest privilege? If not, we are but
pygmies in the world of the Spirit. We have sold our
Christian birthright for a mess of pottage, and our
true Christian experience will be superficial,
inadequate, and tragically our of focus.

- now, verse 3 gives us another important piece of the puzzle
regarding "What is it about the Lord that men and women
object to the most?"

- INPUT?

- INPUT - now what's the opposite of that? (what should
go in the godly column?)

- INPUT - implications to us?

- now, there's a lot more in this passage, but we probably
need to say a few things to tie up these first three
verses.
- these are very sobering words...very somber words
- like we said last week, we're talking about a clear
battle line being drawn between the God of heaven, and
those who don't know Him.

- this ought to tell us something about the way we view
the world, and the way we view ourselves.

- there's something wrong with believers who love the world
- who look admiringly at the world

- even though the world fits the characteristics verses
1-3 describe.

- this also ought to affect the way we view ourselves.
- you and I can see a little of ourselves in these verses.
- ...or maybe a lot of ourselves.

- and I hope every one of would say--I want to be as far
away from the characteristics described in verse 1-3 as
I possibly can.
- I'm willing to do whatever is necessary in order to do
so.

- now the next question is -- what's the Lord's response to
all of this?
- what does He think when men and women seek top make
life work apart from Him?

- (let's take verses 4-5 together) READ.
- we've listed in your notes some probable responses on
the part of the ungodly to the information in these
verses. - (READ FROM NOTES)

- INPUT - now, what's the opposite of that?
(now, remember, we said that God's laugh is intended to
show us how ludicrous it is to try to live apart from
Him.

- have you ever been in a tense situation where someone
had done something wrong, and the person leading the
meeting just laughs, as a means of showing how
ridiculous it was to act that way.
- by time it's all over, everyone's laughing
- yet the point has clearly been made.)

- and the implication of this is that I don't want to be
involved in any behavior that would cause the Lord to
laugh in this way, or be angry in this way.
- I can see how I've done that in the past.

- now, we need to say that verses 4-5 do us a great service.
- because they help us have a well-rounded view of Who our
Lord is.
- see, you might be here this morning and would say, "I don't
like what these verses are telling me about the Lord."
- "I'm uncomfortable with a God who would ever laugh in
this way, or who would ever be angry."

- do you hear those words we quoted earlier from Voltaire?
- God created man in his own image, and man returned the
favor.

- see, we need to have a place in our thinking for what these
verses are saying about our Lord.

- if you're here this morning, and you tried to handle life
apart from the Person and principles of God -- the Lord is
angry about that.
- we're not talking about mild disappointment.
- we're not talking about "Just have another cup of egg
nog and you'll feel peaceful."

- if you're here this morning and as a husband or a wife, you
tried to function in that role apart from the knowledge and
principles of the Word of God--our Lord is angry about that.

- if you responded to a trial or difficulty at work without
factoring in what the Lord would want you to do,
- or what answers and direction His Word provides, that
makes Him angry.

- this concept isn't the only way He wants to motivate us,
but it is one way.
- can you say this morning, "I don't want to be involved in
any behavior that would cause the Lord to laugh in this
way, or be angry in this way."

- now, thank the Lord the passage doesn't end there.
- we need to know what the Lord's response is
- but we also need to know what His solution is.

- that’s what verse 6 is all about:
- "I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion."

- God had promised David in II Sam. 7 that one of his own
descendants would be the Messiah, One who would be
universally followed, universally worshipped, universally
adored.
- this promise is so sure that the Lord could speak about it
as if it's already happened.
- I have set my king--the LORD JESUS CHRIST.

- while we believe this will ultimately be fulfilled in the
millennial kingdom, it's true in a limited sense today for
all who trust Christ as Lord and Savior.
- we've been translated from the power of darkness, into the
kingdom of His dear Son.

- now we gave some probable responses of the ungodly to this
truth.
- but how would the godly respond? INPUT?
- IMPLICATIONS?

- the argument of the Psalm is that those who have sought to
ignore the Lord, and suppress the Lord, and live apart
from the Lord, MUST MAKE HIM THEIR MASTER, THEIR LORD,
THEIR RULER.

- to go from, "we won't have this man rule over us, to we
must have this man rule over us."

- now, the question is - How do we get from the condition of
verses 1-3 -- to the condition of verse 6?

- how do you make the leap from living for self to living
for God?

- the answer is "you don't...alone", "you can't...alone"
- "you won't...alone"

- that’s what verse 7 is about.

- the astounding truth that the King is going to be the
very Son of God.

- In the Davidic covenant that we mentioned last week from
II Sam. 7 -- the Lord said to David, "I will be his
Father, and He will be my Son."
- this is more than a thousand years before the birth of
Christ.
- no one made this up after Jesus died
- I will be his father, and he will be my son.

- we couldn't overemphasize the importance of that name.
- at Christ's baptism in Luke 3 - God the Father said,
"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

- I'd like us to take the time to read Rom. 1:3-4 to see
just how important this idea was in the life of the
early church.
- READ

- the other passages we've listed in your notes from Acts and
Hebrews are other places where this verse from Psalm 2 is
quoted
- the amazing truth that God was going to send His own Son.

- of course the Lord emphasized this repeatedly throughout His
ministry on earth.
- Peter understood this is Matthew 16 when He said, "Thou art
the Christ, (Messiah) the Son of the living God."
- The Centurian understood it at the cross when He said,
"Truly this man was the Son of God."

- the point is - the only way you and I can go from verse 1-3
to verse 6 -- is because of the gift of God's Son
- the finished work of God's Son.
- the life, death , burial, and resurrection, of the
Perfect Son of God.

- now those who don't know Christ respond to Him in a way
that is reprehensible.

- for some, Jesus Christ is a just part of their "cuss word
repertoire."
- for others, He possesses no relevance for the problems and
challenges of today.

- some aren't that impressed by His birth, or His death, and
want to know, "What has He done for me lately?"

- others say that Jesus of Nazareth was a good man, and was a
convincing magician, but that everything about his
miracles and deity were added by his followers later.

- cf. US NEWS article

- INPUT - response of the Godly and implications?