This is the second section of the sermon I gave last Sunday.

We begin now with the second point of our discussion of Psalm Two:

God’s Response

Psalm 2:4-6
(4)  He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them.
(5)  Then He will speak to them in His anger And terrify them in His fury, saying,
(6)  “But as for Me, I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain.”

God is NOT intimidated by the plans of humanity.  Not even slightly.

But he really doesn’t like it.  Why?

Because God is Good.

Because God is Holy.

Because God is Worthy-he alone is worthy.

Because He is God.  No matter what we do, he is going to win.

So we have God laughing at us for shaking our fists at Him.   Remember who we are in comparison to God: we are described as the flowers of grass (James 1:10).  There is lots of grass in the world.  Think about how many blades of grass you have seen in your lifetime, and how much you care about those individual blades.  Not one bit.  Yet God cares for us-knowing even the numbers of hairs on our heads.  Think if ants were bothering you- invading your house.  You might be annoyed, but you would probably just get rid of them.  It would be nothing.  You’d step on some, maybe spray some.  And the difference between us to God and ants to us is FAR greater.  God is INFINITE.  So what does he do about it?

He sends a king to rule over us.

Really?  That’s your solution, God?  You could just ignore us, but no, you are only making it worse!  Did you not notice we want to get rid of you?  And you sent a king? 

That moves us to see what God revealed to David in our third point:

God’s Conversation

Now we continue Psalm Two:

Psalm 2:7-9
(7)  “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.
(8)  ‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
(9)  ‘You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.'”

This is a bit… ugly.

We tend not to think of God’s Son, Jesus, in this way.

We tend to think of Jesus like the stickers say: a Big Yellow Happy Face with a “Jesus loves You” caption.  Maybe with a rainbow, too.  I have yet to see a Big Red Angry Face with a “Jesus is going to dash you to bits” caption.  Maybe with an iron rod, too. Or a broken vase?

So let’s explore this.  What is happening here?

David starts by reminding us He is writing and God is talking:

• You are my son, today I have begotten you.
• This does NOT mean that Jesus was born or created. We know from John 1 that Jesus was at the creation.
• What it DOES mean is that God the Father is putting Jesus into power.
• Jesus does this, of course willingly.

Notice what God the Father gives to His son:

• The nations as Your inheritance
• The very Ends of the earth as Your possession.

Let’s explore these two things: the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the Earth as your possession.  Remember David is a Jew.  At the time of writing he is writing probably with the intent of Jews writing this.  For him to say that “The Nations” are your inheritance is a radical statement to the Jews.  It causes many problems for them (review Ephesians Two for more about this!)  The Jews are Chosen-the Gentiles are not, but here we have the Jewish Messiah, the Lion of Judah, we have Him inheriting all of the nations.  And just to make sure that we don’t lose that He really means the Nations, he explains the extent of this inheritance: The very ends of the earth.

That means, Jesus owns EVERYTHING. Your car, your house, your 401k, nation, your spouse, your children, you.   Toothbrushes, mountains, ipods, Spain.  Everything.  Why do we need to know this as important?  It is important so that we know because of three reasons:

1. There is NO ESCAPE, unless He Himself makes it.  To the ends of the earth includes EVERYTHING!
2. He will take care of those who take Refuge in Him (which we’ll get to in the next point)-this is the good part. 
3. There are the directions that are given next: what God the Father tells His son to do.  “You shall break them with a rod of Iron, you shall shatter them like earthenware.”

Why such a command? This doesn’t sound very loving, does it?  Actually, it is loving. Because God is love, and everything He does is in Love. So if He breaks and shatters things, then He does it in love.  Remember WHO God is. He is Love, He is Good, He is Holy.  We tend to focus on bits of him at a time.  In a sense, we have to focus on bits of him at a time, because our minds cannot wrap around His vastness.  But He is more than only “Love.”  I think that His Holiness is more important to consider here.  Because He is Holy, anything Unholy, in order to come into His presence, must either be destroyed OR itself made holy.  Holy is perfect. Holy is pure. In order for Him to take possession, the nations must become Holy.  In order to do that, he must demolish or make holy anything that is unholy.  It isn’t because He is egotistical. It is because He is the only appropriate response that is worthy.

Notice also How does the Son Receive these things?

“Ask of me and I will surely Give.”

Jesus must petition God.  Jesus, who is fully God, must ask-that’s submission- from the Father.  So we see a beautiful example of submission within the Godhead.  Keep this in mind when we come across passages saying to submit to one another, or wives submitting to husbands.  Submission, as much as the Rulers of the Nations would like you to believe, is not a bad thing.  Of course, it can be done wrongly, but submission in and of itself, is not bad.

Compare what James says regarding our own prayer lives, “You have not because you ask not.”

Look specifically at why James tells us that we don’t get the things we ask for.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:3-4)

We do not have because we ask God to help us fuel our sins.  Think about that- we have all done it.  But how do we know if we are doing it?  We will discuss that in the next post, as we go over point four.  We see that all of the people described in Psalm 2:1-3 (which is you and it is me) are going to get this iron rod/being smashed to bits treatment, but we have Point Four which I will post tomorrow.

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.