This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Revelation” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 13, 1994.
Our reading tonight in Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter 2 verse 18. Give your attention to the Word of God. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like burnished bronze, says this, I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first.
But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bondservants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. and I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan as they call them, I place no other burden on you.
Nevertheless, What you have, hold fast until I come. And he who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of a potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from my Father, and I will give him the morning star.” He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Then turning over to chapter 19, reading from verse 11. This is verse 11, Revelation 19.
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and wages war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems. And he has a name written upon him which no one knows except himself, and he is clothed with a robe dripped in blood, and his name is called the word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. And from his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he might smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I’m turning back to chapter 12, verse 5, Revelation 12, 5. and she gave birth to a son, a male child, who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne.
Our Father, we continue in our prayers on behalf of your servants who have been called by you to carry your word throughout the world. Our Lord, we know that the time may be late in this country with respect to your church and with respect to the office of the ministry of the word.
But we are encouraged by what we hear from other places, in other lands, knowing that it may be the beginning for them, and that we may yet see such vitality and such a marvelous harvest. And Lord, though we sit in the midst of a wilderness and desolate place, May we delight in the bright sunshine that shines forth from the gospel in these places. May we not be overcome with despair. Instead, Lord, may we glory in what you are accomplishing. So bless your word, our God. This is our prayer and our hope. Let us see, O God, your transforming power at work in the hearts of men and women throughout the world, as your church is brought together and strengthened in places, even places that have not known it before. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
You may want to look once more at Psalm 2, and note verses 8 and 9 of that psalm. You will see in that second psalm that the coming Messiah is promised the nations as his inheritance. But the Messiah now, in verse 9 of that second psalm, is portrayed as exercising his rule over the nations by breaking their resistance to him, by breaking them, if you will, through an overt, direct use of force. Thou shalt break them, so reads the psalm at verse 9, Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, Thou shalt shatter them like a potter’s vessel. Now the assumption of many throughout the history of the church has been that Jesus Christ as the risen, ascended Lord is presently in a position to exact his justice upon nations and governments by a most direct route, specifically through other governments and nations that are already in his corner, whose earthly armies and branches of government are overtly Christian. Thus, in the minds of these who have so approached the matter in this manner, the appropriateness of the images that we are given in verse 9 of Psalm 2. Nations beaten by a rod of iron, broken in pieces like so many earthenware pots.
Now, this interpretation of the second Psalm has taken various shapes. since the days of Constantine, and is applicable in the case of Constantine himself. You will remember that Constantine was that pagan worshipper of the Persian sun god, Mithra, who at the beginning of the fourth century gained control of the northwestern territories of the Roman Empire. The only trouble was that the south and eastern portions of that empire were controlled by Maxentius. Things came to a head in the year 312 at Nelvian Bridge, about ten miles north of Rome. The night before the great battle at that site, so the story goes, Constantine saw a cross in the sky that bore the words, Conquer in this sign. Constantine the next day won the battle, and Christ became a heavenly Lord with an earthly army in the employ of an earthly government.
The subsequent medieval empires, East and West, projected their own interpretations of Psalm 2, as did many children of the Reformation. Running through all these variations on the theme was this theme. Jesus Christ is King of Nations, who is at work presently in the most direct fashion, bringing those nations to their knees through armies and through political action. A sort of high-water mark for this sort of thinking with respect to Psalm 2 was reached in the American Civil War. The mood of the North and its army was captured in the words of Julia Ward Howe and her famous hymn, in which she visualized God as present, quote, in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps. They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps. I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps. His day is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah, his day is marching on.
The awful—and I mean that—the awful sentiments of the battle hymn of the Republic neither change nor improve throughout its five verses. This is how sees Christ himself incarnated in the Union Army, and nothing less than the Millennial Kingdom dawning in the wake of its conquests. By verse three, She is reading, quote, a fiery gospel written in burnished rows of steel, unquote, and she is identifying slain Southern soldiers as Satan crushed under Christ’s heel. By the last verse, she equates Northern soldiers’ willingness to die for the sake of political liberty, with Christ’s death for sinners. As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, while God is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah, while God is marching on. You see, there is good reason why you do not find this hymn in the Trinity Hymnal. Mrs. Howe spoke for the North and sanctified its cause with her poetry, while countless, and I mean countless, ministers in the North did the same with their sermons. It was no different in the South. The South, too, had its regiment of poets and preachers.
Leonidas Pope, the Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana, declared that it was for the sake of, quote, our altars, that is, our churches, that we strike, unquote. Robert Louis Dabney, the favorite among conservative Southern Presbyterians, not only defended the South’s cause as Christ’s cause, but following the war he swore that he would not forgive Northern Presbyterians for their part in the Union’s crime. And he called upon God for his retributive providence to demolish the North, this is to demolish the North and abolish the Union.” He made that statement in 1867.
It would seem then that Psalm 2 was fine material for enlisting an army, as well as drafting a political platform. But it would also seem that the imprecatory Psalms were especially well suited for calling down fire upon your political and military enemies. But has the Church of Christ been on the wrong track with respect to Psalm 2? have even a great many well-intentioned and otherwise doctrinally orthodox Christians done tragically wrong specifically at this point?
It would seem so if we take our cue from the book of Revelation. If we set our exposition of Psalm 2 within the context that it is given in the book of Revelation. Psalm 2, specifically verses 8 and 9, is directly quoted three times in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 2, verses 26 and 27. In Revelation 12, verse 5. Revelation 19, verse 15.
All of those passages we have read this evening. Now, I don’t know how fast you can turn from text to text, but if you take a quick look at those verses and scan them hurriedly, I think that you will notice in them that each of them has an explicit future reference. that in itself of interest. Each of them has an explicit future reference. This being the case, it would seem that the point of view put before us in the book of Revelation, with respect to Psalm 2 and these verses which we have mentioned, is that the exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord in his resurrection and ascension cannot be equated with the overt, direct subjugation of nations, but rather that overt, direct subjugation of nations seems to be referred to the future and deferred to the second coming. This is most abundantly clear in the Revelation 19 passage, which we have read, verses 11 through 16. It seems unmistakable, does it not, that these verses are specifically referring to the Second Coming. But looking at Revelation 2, verses 26 and 27, these verses apply Psalm 2, verses 8 and 9, to the reward coming to those who overcome and keep Christ’s deed until the end. Do you note the context? Look at verse 25. What you have, hold fast until I come. Verse 26, And he who overcomes, and he who keeps my beads until the end. What end is in view? Specifically, the return that is mentioned in verse 25.
To him I will give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as vessels of a potter are broken to pieces, etc.” Once again, as we note in Revelation 19, so also here the end, or the second coming, is in view. But even though the overt and direct subjugation of nations spoken of in Psalm 2 is delayed to the second coming in the book of Revelation, it is not as if the Messiah presently is not exercising his sovereignty over nations and in the Church.
The shattering blows of his iron rod The crushing weight of his rule registers not directly, but indirectly, through the eternal providence over which he now presides, and through the ministerial, declarative, moral, and spiritual discipline which he exercises in his church. therefore is very real, even in the present administration of his reign. It is very real, but at this time it is being wielded in a veiled and hidden manner appropriate to the present veiled and hidden nature of his kinship. This means that the iron rod, though cloaked, is ironically asserting itself, or showing itself, manifesting itself. And that’s not simply in Christ’s behind-the-scenes providential superintendence. of all things pertaining to this creation, or even in Christ’s presence in and through the disciplinary procedures at work in his Church.
Even more, this rod of iron, cloaked as it is now, this rod of iron ironically shows itself manifests itself in the form, in the precise form, that the Messiah has taken to himself, or the form in which he is portrayed for us here in the book of Revelation, and I have in mind specifically the fifth verse of chapter twelve. and she gave birth to a son, a male child, who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was cut up to God and to his throne. As I pointed out to you last week, it is not as a child that Christ ascends into heaven, but he is portrayed as such in this passage. Why? Because, you see, it is specifically in the form of that child that he presently exercises his reign. The rod of iron then, which he exercises now, is consistent with the image in which he is portrayed.
It is consistent with the child that is set before us in Revelation 12.5. We see then, it is in the image of this child that the Messiah ascends and takes his throne. this image specifically communicating to us what?
That it is specifically in his weakness, in his humility, in his submissiveness, in his service, in his dependence, and in his trust that this Messiah presently administers his reign. You don’t think that’s a rod? Is not that the rod that has crushed you? Is it strange, then, that Jesus will preach as he does? pointing out that passage to you once more that I set before you last week, Matthew 18 verse 3, “‘Unless you are converted and become as a little child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'” The one who beckons others to come as children has himself been portrayed as the child preceding them.
And it is specifically the characteristics that are attached to the form of that child that are now being cultivated within us. And this is the power of his reign. It is not by armies. It is not by the strength of the flesh. It is not by the machinations of political machines. It is not something conjured up and set before a populace through a political platform. Here it is.
The appropriateness, then, of the image of the child, which Jesus, in his revelation of himself in this book, has chosen to communicate to us the significance and meaning of his rule. And also, I might add, his present exposition of Psalm 2. Weak, confounding the mighty, humble, submissive, a servant, utterly and completely trusting of his Father. It is in such form that the Messiah presently administers his reign to the benefit of all throughout the world who will themselves be converted and become like children, thus entering the kingdom of heaven. It is under the image of a child that the Messiah is portrayed as entering his reign. It is under the image of a child that the Messiah presently reigns until the end comes. So then, I ask you, be led astray any longer by the misappropriations of Psalm 2. Don’t jump the gun with regard to the direct and overt fulfillment of what is in view in Psalm 2, verses 8 and 9.
Instead, by faith now, behold your King. And be like Him. As I said, There is a rod in this. In fact, we are dealing here with the most profound discipline of all. For by it, you will be tested as to whether or not you will truly submit to Him. As long as you’re convinced that you’re going along this road for the power, as long as you’re convinced that it is the grasping of power that is in you, you will miss the profound discipline that is in view in Christ, yes, in his present reign, but also in his cross. Help us, Lord, for we often find that we do not want to go in this direction at all. We would rather justify our passions and our prejudices and back them up with armies and governments, all in the name of Christ. The harder road is the road that Jesus traveled to the cross.
The harder road is the road of discipline by which we are disciplined by that image set before us in Revelation 12.5. But even though this is the harder road, O teach us its truth. And in teaching us its truth, may we not depart from it. And Lord, in not departing from it, may we prove to be most useful to you.
This, Lord, unto the close of the age, when the one portrayed as a child will come as a mighty warrior. Coming, in fact, oh God, to destroy all those who have been in opposition to him, even in opposition to his humility. We pray this through the One who has revealed Himself and who is coming.
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