Sermon Tone Analysis

Psalm 2: Long Live the King

Rough Draft

Good Morning, Vanguard.

It’s good to be here today with you on the Lord’s Day.

It has been some time since I was up here.

I preached on Psalm 1 back in December of last year, and today we will be going through Psalm 2. Since it has been some time, I will do a quick re-cap of Psalm 1 so that we have a good start into Psalm 2. If you care to join me, please turn to Psalm 2 in your Bibles.

Let me read our passage for today and then I will pray.

I will be reading from the ESV.

This is the word of the LORD:

Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

2  The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,

3  “Let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.”

4  He who sits in the heavens laughs;

the Lord holds them in derision.

5  Then he will speak to them in his wrath,

and terrify them in his fury, saying,

6  “As for me, I have set my King

on Zion, my holy hill.”

7  I will tell of the decree:

The LORD said to me, “You are my Son;

today I have begotten you.

8  Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,

and the ends of the earth your possession.

9  You shall break them with a rod of iron

and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

10  Now therefore, O kings, be wise;

be warned, O rulers of the earth.

11  Serve the LORD with fear,

and rejoice with trembling.

12  Kiss the Son,

lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,

for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

PRAY

Before we begin with our text, let’s recap what we learned in Psalm 1.

The big idea that we got from Psalm 1 is that Jesus is the Blessed Man.

He is the one who perfectly follows God’s law and does no wickedness.

Psalm 1 also talked about the two paths set out before us: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, and their end result.

We know that the way of the wicked will not last.

Our call is to trust in Jesus as the Blessed Man and in his righteousness.

Only by doing that can we be obedient to God’s Word and live lives worthy of the Gospel.

With that fresh in our minds, we can now continue into Psalm 2. Just like Psalm 1, Psalm 2 has no explicit author attributed to it, though we do find in the New Testament that David was said to be the author of this psalm.

This is a Messianic / Kingship psalm in which the Lord’s Anointed is installed as King on Mt.

Zion.

It is not clear what the background is for this psalm.

Some scholars suggest that this is a coronation psalm that was sung when a new king was appointed in Israel.

Because this is a Messianic psalm, it will point beyond the context in which it was written to include future events.

Psalm 2 is broken up into four parts with each part consisting of 3 verses, so our sermon today will follow that path.

The first part of our sermon, which is the first 3 verses, I have called, “The Nations Rebel”.

Here we read,

Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

2  The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,

3  “Let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.”

Isn’t interesting to see that in these first three verses, we have a universal description of man’s rebellion against God.

It is good use of Hebrew parallelism to capture man’s natural state.

THE WORLD IS IN OPEN REBELLION AGAINST GOD.

This has been man’s response and attitude towards God throughout history.

We see it at the beginning when Adam and Eve first rebelled against God.

They didn’t want to be under God’s rule and decided they could do better.

It gets progressively worse as we continue in the Bible.

It really bad during the time of Noah and as a result God had to send the Flood.

We see it creep up again at the Tower of Babel when man wanted to make a name for itself by building a tower to reach the heavens.

Throughout the history of the Old Testament story, we get this clear picture that man, in his nature is naturally hostile towards God and refuses to submit to him.

And just in case we dare to think that that was the Old Testament, look at our world today.

Just look at the sin that runs rampant in our nation and in the other nations of the world.

Sin is everywhere and it’s approved by the nations!

The nations of the world have gotten together and have decided that they will not be bound by this God of the Bible:

“Why should we follow this God and his Law that restricts us from doing what we want to do?

Just look at what we have been able to accomplish without this God.

We can do better.”

Just look at the sexual immorality in this culture.

What was once considered shameful and wrong just decades ago is now in music, movies, video games; it’s pervasive!

The murder of babies in the womb is applauded as good and empowering!

These are just a couple of ways that the world says:

Let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.”

The opening question in this psalm is one of bafflement:

Why do the nations rage

and the peoples plot in vain?

What are you guys doing?

Why are you plotting in vain?

There is a sense of futility implied here.

It’s pointless in what they are doing.

The wicked that were mentioned in Psalm 1 are now identified as the nations here that plot in vain.

The Hebrew word used to translate the word “meditate” in verse 2 of psalm 1 is the same one used to translate the word “plot” in Psalm 2. As the Blessed Man meditates on God’s Law, the nations meditate on how to overthrow it.

The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,

3  “Let us burst their bonds apart

and cast away their cords from us.”

As we know, the word translated as “Anointed” here is where we get the word Messiah, and in Greek, Christ.

The early church in the book of Acts viewed those who crucified Christ as fulfilling this part of Psalm 2.