PSALM 2: Who Is Really In Charge Of This World?

This second  Psalm provides us with a  wonderfully God centered  worldview  for times  such as these, when the world   is  so topsy turvy, and so disparaging and so opposed to the  kingdom of  the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many Christians are fearful as they  look at the present political landscape, as  they consider what the future might hold for them and their children, and as they ask, “Why do the nations do this?” 

General Observations 

This Psalm was written nearly three thousand years ago, probably by David the king of Israel. It is a Messianic Psalm. We know this because this Psalm is directly applied to the Lord Jesus Christ in Acts 4: 25, 26, Acts 13:33 and Hebrews 1:5. 

In the book of Acts 4:25ff the church had only just come into being, and already she was being persecuted. Two of the leaders of the early church, Peter and John, had been arrested. They had been examined and   condemned by the Jewish authorities. They had been warned not to preach and teach in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth. Then they were set free and they went back to their church   and reported what the chief priests and elders had said. We are told that the moment that the church heard this, they prayed, and in that prayer they were   quoting Psalm 2.

Outline  

1.  2:1-3 The opposition against the kingdom of the Messiah

2.  2:4-6 The divine   response and declaration to the madness of the world

3.  2:7-9 The LORD proclaims the new era of the reign of the Messiah  

4.  2:10-12 Advice is given to the kings of the earth to fear the Messiah

There is obviously a historical background to this Psalm. It is not easy to figure out what occasion David was alluding to. There is also this mysterious references to a king who was greater than David (see also Psalm 110:1).

The best answer to this intrigue is that, even though David was describing something that was happening in his own day, he was speaking prophetically. By faith he was speaking of what was going to happen when the Lord Jesus Christ, the greater Son of David, would come into this world. 

And so we find  that the rulers of Jesus’ day truly set themselves against Him, and by implication, against God Himself, for the Messiah is God's Anointed King. 

And today the nations, peoples, kings and rulers continue  to  do the same. The true church has always found  that she is  raged against in the world. 

The eternal relevance of the Bible is hereby confirmed. 

Something that happened 1000 years ago has relevance and application to the church born at Pentecost. 

And 3000 years later it has relevance and application to our own day. 

A situation that has occurred in past distant history  can now be used to explain the present.  

I.   2:1-3  The opposition against the kingdom of the Messiah

The Psalmist starts with a question, 

“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.” (2:1-3)

This is really MORE than a question. 

The Psalmist is expressing his amazement. "Why are the nations doing this“? 

This is what we ask ourselves when we look at our present world - when we see a world so opposed to biblical Christianity! 

We are not talking here about institutional Christianity. 

We are here talking about churches and individuals that uphold the gospel and gospel values. 

We are talking about those who preach that this Messiah King, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the ONLY way by which a person will be admitted into the kingdom of God the Father- the Creator God. 

We are talking about those who uphold kingdom values NOW. The law of God is written in their hearts, and they will uphold it. 

They will honour God in setting Him apart as holy. 

They will uphold a biblical view of creation. 

They will uphold a biblical view of sin. 

They will uphold the only biblical cure for sin - Faith in the Messiah alone! 

They will shun idols- even the idols of the heart. 

They shall not use the Name of the Lord in vain. 

They shall set aside one day in seven to worship God. 

They  shall duly honour  father and mother.  

They will uphold the biblical view of marriage. 

They will uphold the sanctity of the family. 

They will stand for biblical ethics.  

They will uphold the biblical view of human sexuality and of gender identity. 

They will call murder what it is- a shedding of blood. 

They will uphold the rights of the unborn to live. 

They will uphold the sanctity of life. 

They will call adultery what it is – breaking up another marriage. 

They will take stealing, the giving of false witness and covetous hearts seriously.

 

The nations rage … the peoples plot against this rule of God and His anointed One, because this world is a fallen world. 

It lies in the power of the evil one. 

This is what   David observes. 

That is what the early church was observing and mentioning in prayer to God. 

This is the truth about the history of the human race. Mankind is always restless-always tossing, and never quiet. That is why the Bible sometimes compares the human race to the restlessness of the sea. Isa 57:20 says, “The wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.” 

While there are periods when life seems relatively calm, there are many periods when it is like the raging of the sea. The 20^th century was tumultuous – First World War; Spanish flu; Second World War. God alone knows what raging the 21^st century may bring!  

Our earth is a restless place.  

That is how it was at the time before Noah’s flood! 

That is how it was before sinful and restless Israel was carried away by the Assyrians in 722BC. 

That is what it was like before sinful and restless Judah was carried into captivity in Babylon in 586 BC. 

That is how it was before Christ was born under Roman occupation, and that is how it was before and in AD 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed! 

That is how it was  before the time of the Reformation. 

That is how it is today, in our time. 

The nations rage. The people plot. They take their stand against God and His Messiah.   

This restless human sea is committed to tear apart the safety cords designed by God for our respective societies. Hardly anything that the Bible holds as sacred is sacred any longer. We have already observed that everything designed by God for our good is being raged at. It is plotted against by substituting the good order and the boundaries that  God creates, with cheap and deadly substitutes for the satisfaction that we should find in our relationship with God and in  God ordained human relationships.

But, …“the peoples plot in vain“  -  the kings  - the rulers  -  the wise men  of this world  - the leaders of society - the politicians, the educationalists, the philosophers, the newspapers, the social media  and other  opinion makers. 

You are aware of all these - what are they doing? 

They are mostly devising futile and empty schemes to cure this world’s ills.

They don’t like gospel solutions. 

They hate God.

They tell Bible believing Christians that their religion promotes hate-speech, stifles freedom of choice and stands against scientific thinking.   This is absolutely not true. Biblical Christianity commands us to speak the truth in love. Biblical Christianity has freed many peoples from dark oppression. Many Christians have been at the forefront of scientific discoveries.  This idea that we can live a happy and a good and a full life without God, and in defiance of His teaching, it is sheer madness. It is vanity! (Ecclesiastes)

II.   2:4-6  The question: What does God think of this?

He who sits in the heavens laughs!  The Lord looks down upon this defiant world with derision, and not only derision, but with a great declaration of His almighty power:  

5 Then shall he speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in His fury   6 as for me I have set my king upon Zion my holy hill.”   

He will speak in His wrath and terrify them in his fury. 

All it takes is a little virus for us to understand that we are not almighty. 

We are not God. 

Every war, every pestilence, every famine, every disaster is a reminder that we can easily be shaken.

But all  that is nothing, when compared to the coming wrath that will take place when the Lord’s Messiah shall appear and  when the existing world order will be shaken, destroyed and rebuilt.

Who is this King set upon God’s holy hill?  

It is a reference to the Messiah. 

He is the One of whom the world in his day said, "He says that He is the Son of God - let's get rid of Him." ( Parable of the Tenants - Matthew  21:33ff) ...And they joined together - they took counsel together, and they condemned Him and they nailed Him to a cross. 

They killed Him. 

They took down His body. 

They buried it in a grave. 

They rolled a stone over it and sealed it. 

They put soldiers  at the grave, to guard it. 

They said, "That's the end of Him, we've finished Him off!" 

But on the morning of the third day, God raised Him from the dead.

After 40 days He ascended into His glorious place,  from where He presently rules, and from where He shall come to judge the living and the dead.  

God says, “I have set my king on Zion my holy hill.  This is the God that the world is defying!  

5 Then shall he speak to them in his wrath… - this arrogant world is under the fearful wrath of God! 

The Psalmist has shown us God’s reaction to all this   madness.  And God laughs at these puny little men that come with their ‘peashooters’ Him.

III.  2:7-9 The LORD proclaims the new era of the reign of the Messiah  

1. 2:7 He is the eternally begotten Son of God (Jn 3:16; Hebr 1:5,5:5). This present  world order  under the influence of Satan  will be brought to an end.

2. 2:8 He is the ascended ruling king who has been given the nations as a heritage (2:8). In Revelation  5 & 7 we see  a picture the elect from every nation assembled before the throne. He is their King. 

3. 2:9 As for the faithless among the nations, a fearful judgement awaits them. The Messiah has planned a new kingdom in which there is no place for power brokers and self-driven men.  

IV.      2:10 -12 This requires a proper response. Advice is given to the kings of the earth to  fear the Messiah.

1. 2:10,11 Kings, rulers of the earth:  be wise; serve the Lord with fear; rejoice with trembling". Rulers are the key to how a nation is led. Let the kings and ruler of this world  take note NOW - let them learn to fear the God  of this Messiah- King NOW. He is  coming SOON, and when He comes to claim His inheritance, they shall stand before Him and give an account. He will judge them. What do you think Jesus, our coming King,  will say to  our  current world leaders?  

2. 2:12a  Kiss the Son: Rulers and people of the world bow down to Him; own Him now, while He calls you to repent  (Hebr. 3:7,8; 4:7.  If you don’t do this you will   perish!

3.  2:12b  Blessed are all who take refuge in Him:  A comforting message for  those  that  have bowed  their knee now to King Jesus. Here is the gospel invitation and proper response. This is how we are called to live in this world. Under Christ’s rule and at peace with Him and with one another.

Psalm 6 : "The Believer Broken and Healed by God"

Why do the Psalms speak to us? 

Because they dare to portray life as it is!  David and the other Psalmists  never tried to pretend that they were spiritual supermen unaffected by life's ordinary and sometimes extra ordinary trials.

They were not unaffected when they were being sinned against, or when their own sin caught up with them. No! What they did was to bring their troubles, vexations or brokenness   to God, telling Him as honestly as they knew how that  these things were affecting them physically emotionally, spiritually. And then they would   cast themselves afresh upon God for mercy. 

Very rarely do the Psalms express utter hopelessness e.g.  Psalm 88 is an exception 

A few introductory notes:  

1. This is the first of seven Penitential Psalms. cf. Psalms 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143). Spurgeon: “It’s language well becomes the lips of a penitent, for it expresses at once the sorrow, the humiliation and the hatred of sin (v.8) which are the unfailing marks of the contrite spirit when it turns to God”[1] 
2. 6:1 is also found in Psalm 38:1  
3. The Psalm can be divided into two parts

• (i) The Psalmists vexation (6: 1-7)   and

• (ii) the Psalmists victory (6:8-10)  

 

(i) (6:1-7) The Psalmists vexation - Prayer   outpoured  

  

6:1 O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. 

It seems as if David may have brought these circumstances on himself because of some sin. He knows that God is angry. He knows and admits that God is entirely justified in His wrath   e.g. such a situation as is found in 2 Samuel 24 – David’s unsolicited census, which incurred the wrath and punishment of God.  

In this realization he begs God: do not rebuke me; do not discipline me. Pain is never a welcome guest.  We never seek it voluntarily, but it happens, and when it happens, we seek to move heaven and earth to get rid of it. When we sin, and  when God in His fatherly care of  us  thinks it wise to  rebuke us or to  discipline us (see Hebrews 12:5-11, which is based on  Prov. 3:11,12; Deut. 8:5; Ps 66:10)  we must  not think  that God is unloving or   wrong to do so:

“God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebr. 12:7-11). 

But right now, David is literally begging for mercy. He is   clearly experiencing pain. Look at the language!  

(1) "I am languishing." 

(2) "My bones are troubled." 

(3) "My soul is also greatly troubled." 

(4) "I am weary with my moaning." 

(5) " Every night I flood my bed with tears." 

(6) "I drench my couch with my weeping." 

(7) "My eye wastes away because of grief." 

  

Pain accompanied by sorrow is what David is experiencing. “Sorrow”, said John Webster (1580-1634), a playwright and a contemporary of William Shakespeare, “is the eldest of the children of sin”. However, in God’s economy, pain or sorrow may be a great tool to get us to listen to Him.  C.S. Lewis says it well: “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (The Problem of Pain, p.81) 

David is in pain… 

  

6:2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled (shaken). David pleads with God to be gracious. He is asking for grace from God. He deserves God’s wrath, but he asks that God not deal with him according to what he deserves. He feels the consequences of his sin in a physical way “…for my bones are troubled” - and he is looking for relief from God.  Physical pain- because of sin - is frequently mentioned in the Psalms:  e.g.  31:10: “my strength fails me because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away”; 32:3: “my bones wasted away” (context: sin - see verse 5); 38:3 ”there is no health in my bones because of my sin” etc. The literal Hebrew rendering of   Psalm 6:2 is, “my bones are shaken“. He was literally feeling shaky in a physical sense, but there was more to it. Physical pain because of sin must not be discounted in pastoral counselling, though care must be taken here to always attribute physical suffering to sin. The example of Job is a reminder of this danger.  

 

 6:3 My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD—how long?  The same root word is used here   as in 6:2. “My soul is greatly troubled (shaken)”.  He is shaken in body and soul. Spurgeon observes: “Soul-trouble is the very soul of trouble. It matters not that the bones shake if the soul be firm, but when the soul itself is also sore vexed this is agony indeed.””[2]  So, we have every reason to believe that David finds himself in a very deep hole – he is spiritually and physically shaken! 

From this follows another very common question found in the Psalms, “But You, O LORD – how long?”  - (Psalm 13:1- 2 – 4 times; 35:17; 74:10; 79:7; 80:4; 89:46; 90:13; 94:4; 101:1).

The prophets were also asking this question (Jer. 12:4; Isa. 6:11; Hab. 1:2; Zec. 1:12).

The saints under the altar in Revelation 6:9 were asking this same question.

According to Spurgeon[3]  this apparently was one of John Calvin’s ‘favourite groans‘ (Domine usque quo – Lord how long?).  And it sums up David’s desperation.  

  

6:4. This is David’s dark night of the soul. It is like Christ’s cry of forsakenness – although not remotely in the same degree.  He begs God: “Turn (lit. return), O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love.”  

Here we understand that the sense of God’s absence was the main cause of his misery. His sin had caused David to experience the loss of God’s felt presence. This is different to Job who had experience this forsakenness, but not due to his sin.  David had grieved the Holy Spirit. However, it is significant that   David tenaciously clings to God. He refuses to let Him go and he appeals to God’s steadfast love (Hebrew: chesed) - a major and oft repeated OT concept. He appeals to God’s covenantal love. God’s covenantal love is rooted in His election. The principle is clear. Those whom God chooses, He will never forsake (Deut. 31:6,8; Josh.1:5; Hebr.13:5). Though David is unfaithful, God is not (2 Tim 2:13). God will discipline His son, but He will not forsake his son. David knows that!  

  

6:5 Listen to David’s further plea: “For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?” David is now throwing ‘holy arguments’ at God. Listen to Spurgeon again:

“Ah poor trembling sinners, may the Lord help you to use this forcible argument. It is for God’s glory that a sinner should be delivered…”. 

This is not to say that we should expect or ask that God should compromise His holy standard by overlooking the sin. He cannot! No, here we appeal to the grace and mercy of God, offered to us in Christ. Christ has borne our sin on the cross. Those who appeal to Christ will find mercy.  David by faith must appeal to God via the sacrifice offering of His greater Son. But he cannot possibly stay in this condition. Only a forgiven sinner has capacity to praise God.  Those who die in their sins have none. That is David’s argument.  

  

6:6&7 “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes“. David desperately wants this miserable period in his life to come to an end.  “Ah brethren, it is no light matter to feel oneself a sinner, condemned at the bar of God …” (Spurgeon 1/58)  

  

(ii)  6: 8-10 The Psalmists victory – Prayer answered  

Here is the turning point of the Psalm. It starts with these words: “Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping”. Now, whatever David had done to be deserted by God, it seems that it had to do with these workers of evil.  It may be that we surround ourselves with workers of evil – false alliances, bad counselors, unspiritual people on whom we have come to depend. The time has come to sweep the house clean. “The best remedy for us against an evil man is a long space between us” (Spurgeon: 1/58).There comes a time when we must say, "I can have no fellowship with you" !  

Repentance is a practical thing. It is not enough to weep about our pain and our loss of peace of fellowship with God. We must address the problem. We must get rid of the source of evil. The temple must be cleaned of all its unclean elements.  

Throw out the evil companions that keep your heart captive. Grace and sin are quarrelsome neighbours. One or the other must go!  

 

6:8b ,9 The LORD has heard the sound of my weeping (Spurgeon – “liquid prayers”); He has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer. What brought about the change? It is prayer   which brings the need to God. God in turn works in the soul by the Holy Spirit, the Convicter of sin, the Counsellor and the Comforter to bring about repentance, and this in turn leads to our healing – hence the believer broken and healed by God! 

 

6:10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. Those that were holding David back, causing him to fall for the sin which caused the   discipline of God now have the tables turned on them. David is free. They are shamed!   

  

Applying Psalm 6 

1. Understand the power of sin. Be careful of ungodly alliances. 
2. Sin has painful consequences 
3. When aware of this  weep, and  humble yourself  before God  
4. Use holy arguments ; appeal to His covenantal faithfulness 
5. Plead with God until He breaks through  
6. Practice  true repentance. Distance yourself from evil. 
7. Ungodly friends will leave you.  
8. God will be your friend - and you will be happy and blessed  (Psalm 1)  

[1] Spurgeon the Treasury of David  1/56 

[2] Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, 1/1:57. 

 [3] Ibid.