This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Psalms” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 3, 1987.

Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision, then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt bash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun lest he be angry and he perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.

Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Father, we are rejoicing. In the fruit that your word has borne. And Lord, that we ourselves are a part of that fruit. That which you have brought forth for yourself. That in us you might delight. Our God. We would commit ourselves. As those before the harvester now who see by the prompting of your son, the need for laborers. And we would ask you, Lord, that laborers would indeed be raised up for this plentiful harvest. May we commit ourselves to prayer continually in this regard and in this Lord out of our hearts May we please you for Christ’s sake. Tonight is the beginning of a new series for you.

We have been dealing with familiar passages. We have worked our way through first Corinthians We have worked our way through John chapter three. And we did a pretty fair job of working our way through Isaiah forty through sixty six. Taking up particularly the servant songs in that portion of Isaiah prophecy. Tonight we are moving on to another. series in this extended series of familiar passages. We are considering familiar songs.

Now, in a series formally for this church, I preached on the opening and closing songs of each of the five books of the songs within the hundred and fifty songs that we have for us in Scripture. So I’m not going to be taking up those specific psalms. I’ll be leaving them aside and considering psalms other than those psalms such as Psalm 2, Psalm 8, Psalm 16, 23, 51, psalms like those. I couldn’t avoid beginning this series then, opening it with Psalm 2.

We had already considered Psalm 1 formally, and Psalm 2 is certainly one of the more familiar psalms to us. Now, that familiarity may well be because of our acquaintance with this psalm in other respects than its setting here in the Psalter. We might be aware of various musical settings for this psalm. We might be impressed with the music of Handel and the way in which he has set this psalm to music in his oratorio, the Messiah. We might also be aware that this is one of the more frequently quoted psalms in the New Testament. In fact, I would think that this song with someone can are the most frequently quoted songs in the New Testament, and certainly the quotations of the songs are quite important, centering as they do invariably upon the seventh verse and the declaration of the sonship of the Messiah. That declaration more in regard to his exaltation, his vindication, than what we have ordinarily thought as his essential nature.

Therefore, brought into view is the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ and the declaration of his sonship because of those acts and the transformation of our view of things in light of that exaltation, the magnificence of it and its effect upon us then. Psalm 2 this evening. I was hoping that we might be able to spend an evening with these familiar psalms. It may work out that we have to spend more than an evening on each, but so we begin. tonight.

There are some basic things that you want to keep in mind. Generally as you take stock of the songs. You are forced to remember that the songs are poetry. And it does you well to keep that in mind. And to look for those patterns those particular features of Hebrew poetry that are helpful in understanding the song all the better. You may want to ask yourselves certain questions as you run down through the song.

You may want to ask yourself the question as to who is the speaker? He may want to review the psalm in terms of the one who is specifically speaking as to whether he is identifiable or not. In this regard, some of the psalms bear headings. Some of them tell you that they are psalms of David, but As helpful as these may be, we should realize that the headings to the Psalms are not inspired, while the Psalms are.

You may want to ask yourself the question, who is the audience? Not only who is the speaker, but who is the audience? What is the audience in view? Are the people of God in view? Are they in view collectively or in part? Is the psalmist speaking to himself? Is he speaking to the world? Is he addressing the nations, the heathens? Is he speaking to God? Who is the audience in the psalm?

You may want to take up the question as well, what is the particular historical setting of the psalm, and is it possible for us to know anything about that. For instance, there are certain songs that again, their head and it would seem that. At least in the history of God’s people, certain songs have been associated with particular events. I might say that some of the songs are located specifically within the life of the nation of Israel and within the life of David, for instance, because we find the parallels to these songs, if not the songs in their entirety in those settings within Samuel, first and second Samuel. So are there certain historical situations in view?

And to that end, can you can you extract from the psalm certain images or can you grab hold of certain features and figures in the psalm that help you in understanding the historical situation or the mindset of the psalmist and the predicaments that he is addressing or the situations that he is confronted with. Are there these things then that can be a help to you in getting a line on the psalmist’s reasoning. And finally, this is all that could be said, of course, but for our purposes this evening, finally, are there shifts?

Are there changes of pace within the psalm? Are there divisions that seem natural, that are helped that are a help in organizing the material of the psalm, so to speak, setting apart stanza from stanza, idea from idea. Are we able to understand, then, the move from one segment of a psalm to another? Are we able to move through the line of thought to the conclusion of the psalm?

So these are things that we would like to keep in mind as we move through the psalms generally, and see how they help us in getting a handle on these familiar psalms, and are a help to us in dealing with the psalms as we have occasion to both read and sing them.

Turning to some, too. We know, first of all, that we don’t get any help from a superscription for there is none there. The song is not specifically attributed to David, and there is no explicit connection with events or people circumstances in the life of Israel. But we do note certain things about the song.

We note, first of all, that with regard to the one who speaks, it seems as if we are dealing here with the one who is in view in verse seven. That one speaking in the first person there, concerning what the Lord has said unto him. I will declare the decree, says the psalmist. The Lord has said unto me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. So, the figure in view As far as the speaker is concerned, is the eye of the seventh birth or rather, the me, the Lord is done to me and.

This one who is so identified himself can also be connected with the one who is spoken of in the prior verse six. Here in the declaration of God himself, we hear that he is setting up his king, my king, he says, upon my holy hill of Zion. The king identified, therefore, with that one who speaks in the first person in the seventh verse. And if this line is holding true, moving back through the psalm, we can also note that in verse two we have the fact that the kings of the earth, the rulers, have taken counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. So it would seem that the anointed one there, the king of verse six, and that one who is identified as the son of verse seven, are all one and the same. The speaker, therefore, is the anointed one of God. The speaker is the king, whom the Lord has set upon his hill of Zion. The speaker is the son of God, so declared to be by the decree of the Lord.

Now, as to the audience, that’s a more complicated question, for there seems to be a movement through the psalm itself. You’ll note, for instance, How the psalm ends, where there’s specific address, a specific audience and view. Look at verses 10 through 12. It’s plain there, is it not, that the king whom the Lord has anointed, this one who is his son, is speaking directly to the kings of the earth, the instructed kings, Be wise, judges, serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun lest ye be angry, and ye perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. You have the audience, at least at this point, as the psalm concludes, you have the audience being identified as the kings and judges of the earth. But that’s only part of the story when you are taking up this matter of of the kings of the earth, because you see, the kings are representative figures. Notice how the psalm begins. Why do the heathen? There, it’s a collective noun. The noun in view has people, nations. The people imagine a vain thing, in verse 1.

And then in verse 2, the kings of the earth set themselves, the rulers take counsel together. You have moved from the collective consideration to their representative heads. You have moved from the nations, from the peoples in general, to their rulers. So it’s not simply, then, a matter of addressing the kings or the judges of the earth. It’s a matter of addressing all of the peoples who are associated with them.

Now there’s another difficulty in all of this. There’s another perplexity in this. That perplexity, you see, is the fact that you have, while truly the nations, the heathen, the peoples, placed together with their kings and their rulers, over against them stands the Lord and his anointed.

And you may be looking for the counterpart for the Lord and his anointed, namely the people who would be associated with the Lord and his anointed, but there is no parallel given you there. And the question arises as to whether that isn’t deliberate in the psalm. On the one hand, you have the kings and the rulers, and you have the fact that they are connected with the heathen and the people spoken of in verse one, the collective people associated with them over which they rule. But then when you move on to the conclusion of that second verse, you have the Lord and his anointed and them considered by themselves and the people that we would have thought belonged to them, not considered, at least in the psalm, not expressly considered. Are we to think that they are there nonetheless? It may well be that we are to think that they are there nonetheless, but at the same time, it could be that the psalm is quite deliberately omits them. Why? Why might that be the case? Because, you see, the Lord and His Anointed are to be considered in their solitary stance and in their isolation over against all who live in the world. It is the Lord and His Anointed against everyone.

Now, when you realize that, you begin to grab hold of the power and the force of this song, the strength of the whole thing. You see, in considering this King, the one who is described as the Son, this one unto whom has been decreed the decree of God, this one who has been set upon the holy hill of Zion. In considering him, you are to see him in his isolation from all others, so that he stands as a solitary figure with only the Lord standing with him. The force of it is, this one standing alone with only the Lord, you would think is hardly a match for the kings and the rulers of the earth and all the peoples who are associated with them. If there is to be a contest, if there is to be a struggle, If there is to be an upheaval, if there is to be a worldwide rebellion, the king so identified here does not stand a chance.

But that’s not the sense of the psalm, is it? In fact, the sense of the psalm is just the reverse. Here are the kings and the rulers and all those who are associated with them, and they are the ones who do not stand a chance. Over against them is this solitary figure of the king who has only with him the Lord.

There isn’t even in this psalm the note of wail that you find in other psalms, that note of complaint. That suggestion of depression that has to be resolved, there’s no note of that whatsoever. Here, there’s only that note of absolute confidence. Why, the confidence is literally unnerving.

As then the king speaks, We see that he speaks in the context of what we’ve already spoken of in terms of verses six and seven, that as those verses relate to the establishment of his authority. If we are to ask about the historical setting of the song suggestion with regard to circumstances that are in view in this song. Truly, this song has to do with coronation. The king has been enthroned and that by God. And in that circumstance of coronation, it’s as if we are now made privy to a conversation within the king, within that one who has been anointed and so established, as he reflects upon the rule that now has been given him.

Before him stands the entirety of the nations, all of the nations, the entire world. Before him stands all of that. and he doesn’t even blink an eye. There isn’t even a question as to his success. The nations may well plot and scheme, but there’s not a moment’s hesitation in him whatsoever. There isn’t an ounce of doubt whatever in him.

The conversation within himself verses one through three, as he considers the rebellion of the nations against him and his authority. And then, after considering that, his mind flies to the realities of that throne that undergirds him. The fact that God sits in the heavens, the fact that the Lord there shall have those who plot rebellion in derision. And certainly, the fact that that one ordained by God is fixed by God’s decree. What God then says about this one whom he has established follows in verses seven through nine, the promises there given, the utter faith with regard to these promises that is now evident in the Speaker, the Son, the King, the Exalted One, the Anointed One, and the consequent invitation to the nations.

Be wise, be instructed, serve, rejoice, tremble, kiss the Son, trust in Him. The magnificence of the song. Truly. Those that were lacking at the song’s beginning, namely the counterpart to the even. And the people’s mentioned in verse one. Come into view in verse twelve. those then that put their trust in the anointed one of God as that one who has demonstrated trust preeminently.

What about all of the forces that have established themselves against the Lord’s Christ? What about the Jewish nation? What about the Roman Empire? He is a solitary figure standing against them. What chance does he have? Yet he doesn’t even bat an eye His confidence is so utterly complete because, you see, the Lord God stands with him. What force, what power in the world is capable of withstanding him? Will God’s promises be thwarted? Will his purposes fail? The affirmation of this psalm is that they cannot and they will not.

If it was the one then, who in the confidence demonstrated by him here in this song. If it is that one who triumphs, the whole world set against him. What of you who belong to him? What of you who trust in him? Can there be any doubt about your success? Can there be any doubt about your vindication? Can there be any doubt about your ultimate triumph, though the whole world be set against you? None whatsoever. If, in fact, you trust in the Anointed One.

Our God, we pray that here we might meet truly the Lord Jesus Christ. We might see him better. For understanding the Psalms of right. But Lord, we pray. That we might consider to. The strength of his affirmation And the fact that that affirmation is to your glory and our benefit. That as the entire world is no match for him. Neither it is is it any match for. For us who are in him. We pray now Lord that with the confidence exhibited in him. And by him. we ourselves might live.

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.