About this sermon
Joshua 1 charges the new leader to be strong and courageous and to meditate on God’s law, for the Lord will give Israel the land. Psalm 2 asks why the nations rage against the Lord and his anointed and answers that God has installed his king on Zion: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” The apostles applied that verse to the resurrection, when God declared Jesus his Son in power. Psalms 1 and 2 introduce the Psalter, which was sung, and the nations are called to take refuge in the Son.
Sermon transcript
Our first reading, Joshua chapter 1. Now it came about after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.
Every place on which the sole of your feet treads, I have given it to you. just as I spoke to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the great sea toward the setting of the sun, will be your territory.
No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you and will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people a possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, be careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you?
Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble or be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people saying, and then we’ll stop there. Let us turn to Psalm chapter 1. Like I said, we will read Psalm 1 and 2. Here in the Word of God.
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water. which yields its fruit, and its season, and its leaf does not wither. And in whatever he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us tear their fetters apart, and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them, Then he will speak to them in his anger, and terrify them in his fury, saying, But as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely let the decree of the Lord, tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. Now therefore, O kings, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way. For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him. So ends the reading of God’s Word this day. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, may all of us be those who are found to have taken refuge in You, and if any of us does not cause it to happen, for this is Your work, may we be found in Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.
The University of Chicago has an amazing museum. The museum is called the Oriental Museum. Usually, for our ears, for some reason when we hear the word Oriental, we think it must be Asian. Well, the meaning of the word Oriental doesn’t necessarily mean Asian, although it certainly does mean that. It really just means Eastern. The museum that they have at the University of Chicago is the Oriental Institute, which is full of ancient Near Eastern artifacts. By ancient Near Eastern, let me just qualify what I mean by that. They’re the type of artifacts that would be found in the nations that surrounded Israel. Whether the Moabites, the Philistines, the Egyptians, all of these people who would have surrounded them.
You can go into that place and you can see the pottery that they used. You can see the tools that they used. It’s really, really significant. You get an eye, a view into the ancient world that you don’t get in many places. One of the places that you can go in, one of the rooms that you can enter, is the Egyptian room. And they have something that is very significant, at least it was to me. They have an Egyptian room where they have an actual mummy.
It’s a young woman, probably died when she was 30 years old. And the people, the curators of that museum have really reconstructed a lot of her life. You see, this woman, her name was Meres Amun, which means lover of Amun. This woman was a priestess in a temple, the temple of Amun.
It is quite fascinating to go there. You are able to see the songs, at least writings of the songs that she sang. You are able to see the instruments, the stringed instruments that this woman would have played day in and day out. It really gives us a picture of what the ancient world was like. For, you see, it was covered with these kinds of temples. You would have looked at Israel And you would have looked at many of the other nations, and there would have been a lot of similarities. There would have been boisterous singing and playing of instruments in temples there. It is really something to see.
Idols were everywhere. It is said of the city of Athens, ancient Athens, that it is easier to find a god than a man. What do they mean? It’s easier to find an idol than a man. As we read God’s Word in the Old Testament, We must be struck by how often there are descriptions of what Old Testament worship looked like. Think of David. Think of David just for a moment. After his kingdom is finally settled, he’s no longer running from Saul. He’s no longer running from his son. When his kingdom is finally settled, what does he do? He decides, I must bring the Ark of the Covenant into the tabernacle.
And with each step that the Ark of the Covenant moves to get closer to Jerusalem, David’s city, they sing and they praise God. and they sacrifice with each step, as I said. Later on, just a generation later, Solomon builds the temple for the Lord. And even as his father did, so did Solomon, employ singers who would sing in the temple, choirs. It’s very possible that there was someone or some choir singing in the Old Testament temple 24 hours a day, taking shifts to do that, singing the Psalms of David, singing the songs of Asaph, singing the songs of Korah, those which are preserved for us here in God’s Word. There must have been a great amount of excitement in the people’s worship Imagine it.
God has been good to our nation. He has placed his holy one upon the throne, King David. And just a generation later, God has been good to his promises. He has been faithful. How so? He has caused his own son, David’s own son, I should qualify. He has caused David’s own son to sit on his throne. Surely our God is good. But you see, Those two generations passed away, and those two times died out.
And what are we to think of the boisterous singing of the people in the temple at that time? Surely they must have wondered, what is our God doing? Once upon a time, our fathers tell us, we had David, we had Solomon, but now those who are sons of David, they’re not faithful to the covenant. And it is especially in that time, generations later, when we must ask, What sets Israel apart from all of these other temples with priests and choirs and singers praising their God? Why is Israel privileged in some ways?
Our nation, the Jewish nation, is more sinful than the people who surround us. sometimes i wonder if we take the psalms for granted in a sense because we are singing something that is ancient we are singing something that is so old i will never forget the first time i heard the quran read have you ever heard the quran read the holy quran the writings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Now, don’t take this in any way as an endorsement for Islam. I’ve read the Quran, I think it is a book straight out of the pit of hell. But when it is read, it is very musical. It is sung. To read it is to sing it. Arabic. That language is just a window into the ancient languages. You see, that was written down in 600 AD. 600 years or so after Jesus comes into the world. There are some of us who read Hebrew. There are some of us in this room, more than just myself.
But we don’t have that rhythmic, sing-song way about it. Maybe that’s been lost because of the time. But there are many scholars who argue very persuasively that to read the Psalms and the Old Covenant would have meant to sing them. To sing is to read. In fact, it’s very possible, and I believe it with everything in me, that all ancient languages were not spoken. They were sung. Wouldn’t that change how you read the Book of Job, if their arguments were songs that they were singing back and forth? back and forth.
When we think of the Psalms, we must think about the way they must have sounded. We must just imagine it. But we must be taken back to our first reading. Our first reading was from Joshua chapter 1. What has happened? Moses is dead. Joshua is going to take over. The Lord has blessed Joshua in great ways. He is going to be a general of great proportions who is going to lead the people of God. And he is told that he must be one who meditates upon the word.
If he wants to be prospered, if he wants to have success, then do not let this book of the law depart. from your mouth. Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth. Why from your mouth? Why not from your mind? Because ancient people did not read silently. To read was to read out loud. Well, how do you think Joshua did? Was he one who we could say truly meditated upon God’s law in such a way that God prospered him in all things? He did a great job, but he was a sinner like us. He was a man with feet of clay like us.
What happens with the Gibeonites? God had told Joshua, you must not in any way ever, ever, ever make a pact with any nation that you’re going in against. If you make any pact with them, there’s going to be trouble. You must exterminate them. You see, Joshua is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in that the Lord Jesus Christ purges heaven and earth. That’s what he was supposed to do.
But because he did not consult the Lord, because he was not properly meditating upon God’s word, The Gibeonites come, who lived very close, and they said, we are from very far away. Won’t you have mercy on us? Won’t you go into a covenant with us? And they showed mercy to them, and they were duped. He did not follow what he was supposed to do. He did not do what God would have had him do.
When is the one going to come who meditates upon God’s law day and night? Maybe David is the man. Maybe David is the one, the sweet singer of Israel. Could that be the one who would fulfill Joshua 1.8? I need only say the word Bathsheba And you know that that is not the case. So, David has passed. Generations of people have passed.
And we find ourselves in the minds of the ancient singer. These ancient singers would have had all of the Psalms memorized. And they’re gearing up to sing them once again. and to sing all of the Psalms, those songs which were especially and particularly made for the temple period. He sings the introduction. But what is the introduction to the Psalter? Some people would guess it’s Psalm 1.
That’s a very good guess. But it really is Psalm 1 and 2 as a unit. They hold together. They certainly work apart. But they come together as a unit in many ways. They are the introduction. Let me explain what I mean by this. If you have your Bible opened, look at what the first thing we see in Psalm 1. Blessed is the man. Look what the last verse of 2 says. How blessed are all who take refuge in him. Isn’t that interesting? The way that the idea of blessing kind of just encapsulates these two psalms.
Isn’t it interesting that those who stand in the way of sinners, Psalm 1, perish, or perish in the way, 1 6. The same thing happens to those at whom God brings His anger in 2 12. They perish, or they perish in the way, other similarities, and other ways that these two Psalms weave back and forth in contrast and in similarity. Those who walk in the counsel of the wicked will join with the kings who take their stand against the Lord and his anointed, or his Messiah. By way of contrast, the righteous one meditates upon God’s law, whereas the wicked one plots a vain thing.
Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. While the righteous one of Psalm 1 delights to be in subjection to God’s law, The kings of the earth, in Psalm 2, reject God’s law and they seek to be unshackled, unfettered from it. In Psalm 1, those who are judged are found to be like chaff. In Psalm 2, they are broken pottery to useless substances. As I said, Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 are sufficient on their own, but don’t you see just a few ways that they come together to introduce the Psalter? And we could take themes from these two Psalms and just find them weaving their way throughout the rest of the Psalms.
So imagine what that must have been like to be a singer, gearing up, ready to sing that introduction again. Imagine what it must have been like, though, for those who come back after the exile from Babylon. Under Ezra and Nehemiah, they’re coming back into the Promised Land. and they’re going to sing these songs, probably by Ezra and Nehemiah. The Psalter was composed and given as we have it.
You understand that the Psalms were put together piecemeal. Moses writes one, many of them written by David, but as God does great acts in redemptive history, the people under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit write about those acts and those become things to read slash sing in the temple worship service So imagine that Israelite ready to sing, but think of all the gods all around him.
What’s so special about my God? When is my God going to act? When is he going to do these things? When is he going to bring one who truly meditates upon God’s law? When is He going to act and bring one who is like a wonderful tree? Psalm 1. Who has leaves that never wither. When is that going to happen?
When is my God going to bless His people once again? When is He going to end the raging of these people all around us? When is He going to show that He laughs at all of the other nations and all of their gods when at this time it seems like we are indistinguishable from them? When will He put them in derision? When will God warn the kings of the earth that if they do not kiss the sun, He will destroy them? When will my God rise above all of the other gods and show Himself to be the true God and all of their gods to be false? When will he show that that Egyptian priestess, that she worships an idol, the imagination of man, a vain thing, and utter nonsense? When, oh when, will my God act as he says he will in this introduction to the Psalter? As we look at Psalm 2. You might see something of the structure of this psalm.
There’s a lot of what we would call parallelism. Parallelism. Not perilous. A lot of parallelism. Often the way that Hebrew poetry works is you have a statement And then you have a further explanation of that statement. It doesn’t say anything new, but it further expounds the first one. Look at just the first verse. Why are the nations in an uproar? and the people’s devising a vain thing. Now, did Psalm 2, 1b add that much to the first one?
No, it didn’t. It’s kind of an echo. Now, it may be the case that the leader of the singers in that time would sing the first part, and the people would sing the other part back to him. and it would go back and forth. It must have been amazing to listen to that at that time. Second verse, the same thing. The kings of the earth take their stand, the rulers take counsel together. Same thing. Echoing.
Paralleling. it kind of continues on that structure until you get to verse 6, where it doesn’t really have that. The second part doesn’t so much add to it. But as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy hill. My holy hill is really expounding on what Zion is. It’s not saying what the whole verse. It’s not echoing everything there. If we read this with those kind of feelers, this verse can be a bit jarring. It comes out at us. And then the psalm pretty much continues shortly after that. Begins again.
He said to me you are my son today. I have begotten you It is as if the person who wrote this psalm, which is probably David Wanted there to be an emphasis laid on this sixth verse as for me I have installed my king in When is God going to install His King upon the throne?
Jesus Christ comes into the world and lives the life that Joshua failed to live and that David failed to live, because the Lord Jesus Christ is that wonderful tree of Psalm 1, and He is the one who rightly and perfectly and is able to meditate upon God’s Word. Psalm 1 is not a verse that tells us that you need to meditate upon your Bible every day. It’s not about us.
This is about Christ, the One whose meditation upon the Word was so intense and so great that He embodies that Word. He is the Logos. He is the Word itself. When will the people come and kiss the Son? Well, isn’t it interesting the way that Judas chose to deceive the Lord Jesus Christ, to deceive The Lord Jesus Christ. Not that the Lord was deceived in any sort of way. I should say, to betray the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was not surprised.
He betrays the Lord with a kiss. Isn’t it this interesting that that action, which ought to be understood as that which brings blessing upon someone, kiss the son, lest he be angry with you, and you perish in the way? That one kissed the son, and God was angrier at him than anyone else. But he did that to fulfill what was written in the scriptures. That was his end. Though he took this psalm too literally with his deceptive ways.
But when will the nations, when do the nations rage and plot a vain thing? Well it certainly is the case that we look at the nations and they are filled with idolatry and false religion and heresy of all types. But that’s not the way that the apostles understood this psalm. The way that the apostles understood this psalm about the people coming together and trying to cast off the chains of God so that they could have quote-unquote freedom, so that they might be unencumbered, so that they might be able to sin all that they want. When does that happen? According to the Apostles in Acts chapter 4, they use Psalm chapter 2 to talk about what happens with the nations coming together to seek to crucify our Lord.
And they really did come together. We are told in Luke that Herod and Pontius Pilate were enemies. They did not like one another, they did not get along, they were stepping upon one another’s feet. But when they come together to fulfill Psalm 2, we’re told by the Gospel of Luke that they became friends that day and forevermore. That is the way in which the nations come together. The Jewish people, the Romans, Greek-speaking people, and others coming together to crucify Jesus But on the third day, all things changed. Everything changes. Why?
Because you are my Son, and today I have begotten you. But when was Jesus begotten? What sense are we to make of Jesus being begotten? creeds say that Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father. And I want you to believe that. I remember one time seeing an Orthodox Presbyterian elder saying that the idea of Jesus to be eternally begotten of the Father, that that was an error or heresy. that the idea of the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and from the Son, that that is an error, because it doesn’t have any scriptural warrant.
I think it has much scriptural warrant. But Psalm 2, what’s it talking about? Is it saying, today I have begotten you? That is, speaking about the past, eternity past, and saying, today in eternity past, I have begotten you. It’s really significant, the idea of Jesus being eternally begotten. A begetting is an instantaneous thing. You’re in your mother’s womb, and you come out, there’s certainly some time in between, but you are unbegotten and you’re begotten in a moment. This is eternal begottenness from all eternity.
We must compare that with the eternal death for those who rise up against the sun. Death happens like that. But the Bible speaks about those who are in hell as eternally in death. But that’s not what Psalm 2 is talking about. Try again. It’s talking about Jesus being born by Mary. That must be His begottenness. That must be what Psalm 2 is doing. It’s priming the pump for the life of Jesus. That certainly is worthwhile as well.
But that’s not the way that the apostles understood this psalm and its fulfillment. Let me read to you the preaching of the Apostles, Acts chapter 13, 32 and 33. Listen for the way the Apostles understand this. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers that this He has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus.
As also it is written in the second Psalm, You are my Son, today I have begotten you. You see, the Apostle is preaching the resurrection of the glorious Son of God. And whenever there’s preaching, it’s good to have a proof text. It’s good to be able to back up what you’re able to say, what you’re saying. And so they’re saying, they’re preaching, resurrection, resurrection, resurrection.
Now here’s my proof text, Psalm 2. You are my son today, I have begotten you. Does it seem strange for us to think of the Lord Jesus Christ being told, today you have been begotten, today I have begotten you. When He’s eternally begotten of the Father. When He’s already born, He’s born by the Holy Spirit and by Mary. Unless there’s a new concept of birth being given. A new concept of sonship. Something different. Something that has never been known before. And that is what this is. Psalm 2 is a proclamation of Jesus rising again. The first fruits.
And He is the firstborn over all creation, according to Colossians. But He is firstborn over all creation before His incarnation. But when Jesus comes, and He dies for sinners, and He raises from the dead, His resurrection is a sign of the new earth, the new heaven which is to come, wherein dwells righteousness, and He is the first one to be born into that atmosphere. So that we can say that Jesus, in His resurrected body, is not just Firstborn over all creation, that is the highest over all creation. But with His resurrection, He is the firstborn over new creation and the changed world which is coming and will come.
And Psalm 2 proclaims the glorious session of Jesus at the right hand of His Father. For after His many deeds, His mighty works, His glorious resurrection, He ascends to the Father and sits at His right hand, so that all the angels might adore Him, and so that we might worship and praise Him, and so that He might conquer all the nations with the preaching of the Gospel, and so that He might bring an end to the final last enemy, which is death itself. And when he conquers death, when he comes to conquer, and he casts those people who will not repent into the lake of fire, then he will hand the kingdom back to his father as the one who has successfully ruled over all things, heaven and earth. He will come to destroy people like chaff and like broken pottery.
But for those who know Him, for those whose life is hidden in Him, in His life and in His death, whose life is found in His burial and in His resurrection, there are pleasures for evermore. That wonderful tree is also the King of Heaven, who sits enthroned above, making the nations his footstool, and he reigns upon his throne in glory. He has partaken of the firstfruits of eternal life. That is to say, He not only is the Tree of Life, but He is the One who partakes of the Tree of Life, so that He has eternal life as the Resurrected One.
And so shall we. And that wonderful tree appears for us at the very end of our Bible. In Revelation 22, there we read, 22, 1-2, Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life. John is speaking here. The river of the water of life, bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the city, the river, excuse me, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the fruit were for the healing of the nations.” Profound things. We see the fulfillment of Psalm 1, the fulfillment of Hosea, Chapter 14. We see the fulfillment of Psalm chapter 2.
When, O Lord, will you show yourself, King? When, O Lord, will you install your mighty Anointed One? He has done so. But he has not done so in the Middle East. He has set his son in heaven in the Jerusalem which is above. In that Jerusalem which we shall soon see. As an ancient, as an old negro spiritual says, soon and very soon. We are going to see the king. Soon and very soon, we are going to see the king. Let us pray.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.