A Warning to World Leaders
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A Warning to World Leaders

 (ID: 1540)

What comfort can we speak into the turbulence of our times? Alistair Begg reminds us that we cannot properly understand the world’s condition without acknowledging our own innate hostility toward God. When we exalt Christ to the highest place and hide ourselves in Him, we will find an unshakeable refuge from the wrath to come and a Gospel of hope to proclaim to the nations.

Series Containing This Sermon

Psalms, Volume 1

Psalms 1:1–9:20 Series ID: 11901


Sermon Transcript: Print

I invite you to turn again to Psalm 2. We’ve given a heading to our psalm this morning: “A Warning to World Leaders.” It may seem that this should be preached in Washington or in London or in Peking, but it’s being preached in Cleveland. But feel free to send the tapes anywhere you want. The warning, of course, does not come from Cleveland, nor does the warning come from a man. But the warning comes from heaven, and the warning comes from God. That’s why it’s such an important warning, and that’s why the leaders of the earth need to hear it.

Now, before we study this psalm, let’s ask for God to help us:

Father, we greatly need your help, so that we might hear your voice, that we might be able to grapple with the instruction and then the implications of the truth conveyed in these verses. So, whether we speak or hear, we all listen, and we listen for your voice in the stillness of this hour, and we cry to you in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Since last Sunday morning, I came across a quote on the Psalms which I found helpful, and I thought you may also: “The Psalter”—that is, the whole book of 150 psalms—“is not so much a liturgical library … as a hospitable house, well lived in, where most things can be found and borrowed after some searching, and whose first occupants have left on it everywhere the imprint of their experiences and the stamp of their characters.”[1] The notion that we are taking in our hands—which is also true of the rest of Scripture, but in this particular way—the Psalms, which have had the imprint of people’s characters on them down through the ages, is a very telling one and something that ought to stimulate us in our understanding.

When we come to the Second Psalm, as we do this morning, you’ll note that there is a change in focus from last time. Last time, the focus was individual. This time, the focus is far more corporate or in relationship to nations. Last time, the focus was on the one who worships. This time, the focus is on the one who is to be worshipped. In order to understand this psalm, we need to turn the key which opens it to us. And in order to do that, I invite you to turn to Luke chapter 24 for a moment and to the words that Luke records of the encounter regarding Jesus meeting with the men on the road to Emmaus.

And you remember the event, the discouragement of those who walked, feeling that somehow it was all over regarding Christ and his claims. And then Jesus addresses them in these words in verse 25: “‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Not that Jesus went through the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures, but rather, as Luke records it, he made clear that the whole Bible is permeated with himself.

Sometimes, due to ignorance, we make the mistake of thinking that we need to turn to the New Testament in order to meet Christ, when in actuality, Christ is throughout the whole Bible, from the early verses of Genesis right through to the conclusion in the book of Revelation. And it’s important for us to understand that so that when we look into our Bibles, we are not surprised to discover Christ in all the Scriptures. And certainly, the book of Psalms wastes no time in encountering Jesus, and here we are introduced to the Lord’s “Anointed One,” as he is referred to in the second part of verse 2.

Now, it is clear that this psalm has an immediate historical context as well. Whether that was the context of David or Solomon is not particularly germane to any consideration of the psalm. Indeed, the doctrine in the psalm would exist without any immediate historic context. We can probably assume that the events of Psalm 2 were used at times of coronation in the Old Testament period. And while they would be used in that way and would have application in that way, still, as is clear from a reading of the psalm, no one king in the Old Testament context would fulfill the expressions that are here conveyed concerning the Lord’s Anointed One. And Plumer, who wrote of these psalms in an earlier generation, says that “the great design of the Psalm is to foretell the hatred of men to the person and reign of Christ, the glories of the Messiah, and the [triumph] of his kingdom.”[2] In other words, way before Jesus ever came, the psalmist, without, doubtless, fully appreciating the implications of what he wrote, was describing circumstances which would run throughout all of history, down to the time of Christ and then on from the time of Christ, as will become apparent in our study this morning.

Christ is throughout the whole Bible, from the early verses of Genesis right through to the conclusion in the book of Revelation.

Now, in order to trace our way through it, I’d like to suggest that we can have four headings. We will deliberately spend longer on the first than we will on the remaining three. In verses 1–3, we will consider the question that is raised; in verses 4–6, the reaction which follows; in verses 7–9, the proclamation which is made; and in verses 10–12, the conclusion that is given.

A Question Is Raised

In verses 1–3, then, we encounter the question: “Why do the nations rage,” or “conspire,” “and the peoples plot in vain?” Now, the “Why?” question is not so much one which is seeking an explanation as it is making an exclamation. The psalmist is saying, “I am astonished and I am horrified by the reaction of the masses and by the rulers of the people to the Lord and to his Anointed One. After all, isn’t it truly incredulous that those who as individuals owe their very life to the creator God, and as nations,” whom the prophet says are just like a drop in the bucket or the fine dust in the balance of the weighing scales,[3] “isn’t it amazing,” says the psalmist, “that nations should come and unite in solidarity against the living God?” Why would it ever be that an individual who wakes up in a morning, and the only reason that he is able or she is able to see that morning is because God chose to give them sight, the only reason that they are ever able to stand on two legs and walk is because God chose to give them life and limb, the only reason that they are able to communicate what they would like for their breakfast is because God has chosen to give them breath to breathe—“Why would it ever be,” says the psalmist, “that man and men and nations and kings and rulers would conspire against the God who made them?”

Their reaction is first of all one of rage, you will notice. They are a raging mass of humanity. The nations are involved in turbulence. And when you fly on a plane, it is often that they come on and tell you, “We are in turbulence, and unfortunately, because of air traffic control, we are not going to be able to get out of it.” And that is largely the discovery of the nations of the earth, down throughout history. They are caught in a turbulent pattern out of which they are unable to extricate themselves. And unlike flying, where turbulence may be uncomfortable but is largely not dangerous, the turbulence which confronts the nations of the world today is both turbulent and dangerous.

And the nations are comprised of individuals, says the psalmist, who in their discontent murmur their futile plans of insurrection and plot their rebellions, as verse 2 and verse 3 makes clear. The nature of the revolt of the nations we’re not left in any doubt about at all: they are revolting “against the Lord and against his Anointed One.”

Secular man would not understand this. Indeed, if we tried to explain it to him, he would largely reject it. Man in his explanations of the world and the ebb and flow of nations largely has taught and teaches to our sociology classes and to our history classes that the answers to the questions of life may be discovered by looking simply to the capitals of our world. And there, in the machinations of man, as he puts his plans together, we may be able to unscramble the riddle of our days.

The psalmist says, “No, that will not do.” No matter how much we may gaze to those arenas and no matter how much we may glean from them, we cannot ultimately understand our world until we understand it in these terms—namely, that in some cases willfully and in other cases with lack of knowledge, the leaders of the earth take their stand and unite against the Lord. Whether they are capitalists or communists, whether they are rich countries or poor countries, whether they are East or West, whether they are first world or third world, the psalmist says the ultimate issue is this: that man is ranged against the Lord’s Anointed. And the reason for his rebellion is because he doesn’t like to think that the chains and the fetters—which he regards as burdensome, which in actuality are not—that these chains and fetters should ever be placed upon him. “And so,” he says, “let us throw off the chains, let us break the fetters.”

Now, how are we to understand this? Well, one of the ways to understand the Old Testament is to look in the New Testament and see if anybody used in the New Testament the passage that you’re studying in the Old Testament. And sometimes you look, and it’s right there, as it is this morning. So, if you turn to Acts chapter 4—and this is not the only place—but if you turn to Acts 4, you will discover how Peter makes use and understands the verses that we’re looking at here in Psalm 2.

Acts chapter 4, you’ll remember there’s been a healing which has taken place at the Gate Beautiful. Peter has then spoken to those who saw the healing take place. And the priests and the captains of the temple guard, who only a few weeks ago had conspired to put an end to Jesus of Nazareth once and for all, are up to their necks in consternation. They had thought that they had dealt with this business, and now guys who had been crippled for years are dancing round the streets of Jerusalem. And when the people ask, “Why are you dancing around, and how are you dancing around?” they said, “In the power of the name of Jesus of Nazareth.”[4] And so, because they don’t like the Lord and his Anointed One, they are about to close him down. And that’s their endeavor: shut down Peter and John with their preaching and their powerful implications from the preaching.

Acts 4:23: on being released from the Sanhedrin,

Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. [And] when [the people] heard this, they raised their voices together in [praise] to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David.”

And what did he say? Psalm 2: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together…” So, immediately, they understand the implications of what is taking place in their day in light of their understanding of their Bible. In other words, they said to one another, “The answer to this question is in Psalm 2:1–3. The reason that this is happening on the Jerusalem streets is because of what the psalmist told us hundreds of years ago. This is only in the confluence of time. This is only what has been the case and what will be the case.”

And so, we don’t have time to do a major jump through world history, but if you take the first four centuries, then, of persecution—the Roman persecutions which followed—they can be explained primarily in terms of this. When you trace the line through the Dark Ages and on out through there right up to the present day, when you go to the Cultural Revolution in China, when you look at the oppression of the Eastern Bloc countries, when you see the ramifications of a nation only hundreds of years old turning its back on God, turning its back on Christ, emblazoned in all its red, white, and blue splendor and yet united against the Lord and his Holy One… Eighty-six percent of Americans in a recent poll said that they think they’re going to heaven, and the nation is apparently fine. But it’s not fine, loved ones.

Those of you who heard the commentary on WCRF yesterday, given by Chuck Colson, on the movie The Silence of the Lambs will have shared with me the sense that Colson put his finger right on an issue when he said—not having seen the movie but reading the reviews—he said, “What our society calls sociopathic killers, who get their jollies out of killing people and eating them, who skin people and use their skin to make new skin for themselves,” Colson said, “the issue is not that such people exist. The issue is that a nation such as ours would flock into the cinemas to fill their heads with such sin.” And, said Colson, despite all the apparent contingencies to the contrary, our nation fits Psalm 2:1–3. We are united against the Lord and against his Holy One.

You see, we don’t have to, in order to fulfill that, marshal a crusade saying, “Down with Jesus Christ!” All you have to do to fulfill it is to say, “Jesus Christ is not Jesus Christ. And everyone else who ever lived and every theory that was ever offered and every philosophy that was ever portrayed is of equal validity and is of equal possibility and is of equal usefulness to our children. It is important in our schools and is as necessary for our future,” and so on and so forth. And what we find is that the nation and its leaders unites—unwillingly, unwittingly, many times—against the Lord and his Anointed One.

You see, a Jesus who was merely a philosopher and a moralist posed no problem then and creates no issue now. But Jesus, loved ones, says the psalmist, is not a moraler and a philosophist. Philosopher. Yes. He is the King. He is the one who reigns. And the reason that people take issue with him is because he is just that. “I don’t want a king to reign over me!”[5] Wasn’t that what the Jews said in Jesus day? “We will not have this man to reign over us.” And that is what society says today: “We will tolerate him in a shrine, in a corner, but we will disallow him in our public square. We will allow him as a possibility on the stage of human history, on the realm of moral philosophy, but we will not allow him to be king.” But, you see, he is King. So we cannot, by just gainsaying him, make him less than he is. We might as well send out a jolly dog to bark at the moon, thereby obscuring the moon from the firmament, or invite an ant to disable an elephant, as think that by our mere saying we can bring Christ from his throne.

Natural man, even religious man, abhors the authority of Jesus Christ.

Now, the psalmist, hundreds of years before, addresses the issue: “Let it be held as a settled point that all who do not submit themselves to the authority of Christ make war on God.” Now, you’ve got to think that through, loved ones, before you nod. Do you understand what that says? “Let it be a settled point that all who refuse to submit to the authority of Christ make war on God.” Do you realize what that does? That addresses the nominal, moralistic, religious, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. You do not embrace Christ? You’re making war on God. That addresses the superstitious, mystic Catholic. That addresses the Orthodox Jew. That addresses the devout Buddhist. That addresses the moralistic Muslim. And that’s what the Bible says.

Now, whether they do so knowledgeably and willfully or whether with a measure of ignorance, both are without excuse. Natural man, even religious man, abhors the authority of Jesus Christ. You can take that as axiomatic, one, because the Bible says it’s true, and two, because you don’t have to be a genius to see it portrayed.

The other evening, due to the kindness of a friend, my son and I went to see the Cavs play. And as we sat down on our seats, we weren’t in them for just one moment till somebody named the name of Jesus Christ. And I, of course, I looked around, I said, “Oh, we’re amongst friends! Of course!” No. No, because why is it that “Jesus” is a swear word? I’ll tell you why: because Psalm 2:1–3 is on. It’s right. The nations and the peoples conspire against this Christ. And because they have a longing for heaven and because they have a longing for spiritual fulfillment, it is hardly surprising that they will embrace our current pantheism in the New Age movement. Because by this measure, they can set themselves into a crystalline vortex, do whatever they want with whoever they want, and still feel jolly good about themselves. And any kind of vapid, hollow form of Christianity which is prepared to offer that kind of panacea to the masses, I can guarantee you, will be phenomenally successful. But to embrace a King, to kiss the Son? Uh-uh. That’s the question. Why do the nations do it? It’s not a question asking for an explanation. It’s a question, rhetorical, which is making an exclamation.

God’s Reaction

Now, having spent the longest time on that, let us then look at the reaction in verse 4. While the rebellion continues against Christ and his kingdom, it’s utterly impotent.

You see, we need to recognize, loved ones, that we know the end of the story. Our friends don’t like to hear that—it really is annoying to them—but that’s just tough, because, you know, we didn’t write the story, and we didn’t decide when we would get the end. But let me read to you Revelation 11:15: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” Strains of the Messiah come through in your mind. That’s the end of the story.

That is why when God looks at the nations in their turmoil and in their turbulence, he “laughs.” Now, to think in terms of God laughing, we need to understand, is an accommodation to our humanity. God ultimately is unknowable, except that he chooses to reveal himself to us. And in revealing himself to us, he accommodates himself to our finite minds. And that’s why we have imagery in the Bible such as “as a hen would gather her chicks, so would I gather you.”[6] Obviously, God is not configured in that way. It is a picture in order to help our finite minds. In the same way, God, in displaying his mind and his determination, is said to repent and to be angry and to be pitiful, and all of these are there so that we might grapple with something of who he is.

It’s very important in understanding that that we don’t extrapolate from our idea of patience to patience in God or from our idea of anger to anger in God. For God’s patience is not placidity or inactivity. His anger is not some raging, out-of-control performance. His laughter is not cruelty, and his pity is never sentimentality. So when it says here that he “laughs” from heaven and he “scoffs” at them, it is because while the rebellion of the wicked may appear to us to be formidable, to God it’s just despicable. I mean, it is as if Evander Holyfield decided to take all challengers, and I wandered up and started to disrobe and climb into the ring with him. What would he do? Laugh! Laugh! I mean, he may be gracious and not laugh out loud, but inside he’d say, “This is ridiculous!” Not because of the pain; he’s not laughing at the pain he’s going to inflict upon me in bringing about victory. It would be pretty painless, because it would be very quick. He’s not laughing at the pain he causes, the cruel events which bring victory. He is laughing at the arrogance of an individual such as I who would be prepared to stand against such a creature. That’s what it means when God laughs.

He laughs to himself. He chuckles, if you like. He says, “This is crazy. I made these guys, and now they are climbing in the ring with me? They think they can fight me? They call their United Nations together, and they think if they use the word prayer I should be grateful, but nobody knows to whom they’re praying or why they’re praying or what in the wide world they’re doing.” Oh no, God looks from heaven, and “he rebukes them in his anger” and he “terrifies them in his wrath,” and he says, “You know, I’ve said what I’ve said, and it is this: ‘I have appointed my King on Zion, in my holy hill.’”

You’ve got to think this out, loved ones. You know, when Pilate said, “Okay, go ahead and crucify him,” God chuckled, because he looked down and he said, “Haha! You think you’re finishing it? You don’t realize—because this Jesus, when he comes back, second time around, it’s going to be unbelievable. You haven’t seen anything yet. He’s only done a three-year stint at the moment. But you bury him, he’s coming back, and when he comes back, look out.” Right. Amen. That’s the truth. That’s why that song is so great at Easter time:

Go ahead, drive the nails in my hands,
Laugh at me where you stand…
’Cause I’ll rise again.
[There’s] no power on earth can tie me down.[7]

That’s the issue here: “I have installed my King. I put him there. And my eternal decree demands that he will be all that I have purposed for him to be.” The wicked may continue to rant and rave, to disobey his statutes and to despise his Son, but the Savior will see, as Philippians 2 tells us, every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that he is Lord of all.[8] Small wonder the hymn writer says,

O tell of his might, O sing of his grace
Whose robe is the light, [his] canopy space,
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form
And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.[9]

The reaction of heaven to the rebellion of earth is to chuckle, to rebuke, to terrify, and to restate the most significant event in all of human history: Christ has been established as the Lord’s Anointed.

Proclamation

Now, let’s turn, in verses 7–9, to look at the proclamation which is made in the light of what’s gone before: “I will proclaim [this] decree of the Lord.” The decree of the Lord is formed in the counsels of eternity. It is a decree which is free and which is sovereign, as well as being eternal.

And you’ll notice in verse 7, this decree concerns the relationship of the Son to the Father. It is a unique relationship: “He said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’” Others may be said to be the sons of God by creation, or by regeneration, or by adoption, as you think of it in Romans chapter 8,[10] but Christ is God’s Son by an essential and an eternal sonship. If you take notes, you should write that down. And if you don’t understand what it means, nor the implications of it, you shouldn’t let go of it until you both understand it and what it implies. Because it is fundamental to our grasp of biblical teaching concerning Jesus. And it is at this very issue that the question of the cults both stands and falls.

And this fact of Jesus’ sonship, coequal and coeternal with the Father, is proclaimed throughout all of his earthly ministry. In his incarnation it is made clear. At his baptism the voice comes from heaven and says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”[11] On the Mount of Transfiguration, God the Father speaks again, and he says, “This is my Son; I want you to listen to him.”[12] And you’ll notice in his resurrection, as Paul records it for us in Romans 1:4, Paul says, “… and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.”

When we think of this statement here, “This day you are my Son,” or “Today I have become your Father,” we ought not to think of this in somehow limiting the eternity of Christ, no more than the statement concerning the holy hill limits the universality and dominion of Christ. For when you think it out, for a God who is eternal, nothing can properly be said to be yesterday or tomorrow. For God, it is always today. Thousands of years of history are today with the Lord. All of our tomorrows are today with the Lord. Time in and of itself is almost an accommodation to our humanity.

The issue here is that in the proclamation, Christ is proclaimed as the eternal Son. That’s relationship. In verse 8, Christ is the one who makes the request:

Ask of me,
 and I will make the nations your inheritance,
 the ends of the earth your possession.

Loved ones, we need to pray this prayer in our prayer meetings. We need to pray this prayer for our missionaries in France and in Bolivia and in Peru and in the Chinese seas. We need to pray this for our own nation. “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance”—the great ingathering of people to the claims and cause of Christ.

This fact of Jesus’ sonship, coequal and coeternal with the Father, is proclaimed throughout all of his earthly ministry.

This is the advocacy of Jesus. It is not given to any other. He is the only one. He is all that we have as an advocate, and he is all that we require. You will search in vain here for a treasury of merit with which to go before God, for a role for Mary as the mother of Christ in intercession, for a place for intercessory saints. No, it is to Christ and to him alone that the mediatorial reign and rule is. And loved ones, we need to understand this in our day. And that is why, here at the very heart of the Second Psalm, it is made perfectly plain.

The hymn writer says,

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea,
A great high priest whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.[13]

The intercession of Jesus Christ is the hope of the world. Do you believe that? The key to the world, in one sense, is in Psalm 2:8: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance.”

Do we believe that the power of Islam can ever be broken? Do we believe that those who are held in the grip of Buddhist philosophies can ever be set free? More fundamental than that, loved ones, do we even believe that they’re supposed to be set free? Do we believe that when Jesus said, “I am the way … the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father [but by] me,”[14] he knew what he was saying, and he understood exactly what he said?

That’s why prayer becomes very important, then. Because somehow, in the mystery of God’s purposes, he has chosen to release men and women captive to the hold of sin and all kinds of philosophies and religions and released into the wonder of his Son.

The proclamation: Christ the eternal Son, Christ the intercessor, and Christ—verse 9—the ruler. The ruler: “You will rule them with an iron scepter.” The scepter speaks of the power and authority of Jesus’ kingship. It is translated variously as a crook or as a rod, in which case we would understand it to be that which a shepherd would use to distinguish between the sheep and the goats and also to nurture and care for those who were his own.

“You will rule them with an iron scepter; [and] you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” How many times have we as husbands had to go to our wives and say, “I don’t know why you buy that stuff; I mean, it breaks so easily”? And they say, “Well, it doesn’t really break that easily. It’s only if you’re ham-fisted like you that it breaks like that.” But pottery is fragile. That’s why the picture is used here: to remind man in all of his proud boasting that he’s really very fragile. Very fragile.

And so, verse 9 says this: God will surely banish from his presence in eternity those who persistently resist his friendship in time. To reject such love and mercy as are now offered and to incur such wrath as is now threatened is the height of madness. To reject the mercy of God and to embrace his wrath is foolish, and only the proud heart will remain in that stubborn rebellion.

Conclusion

Well, the conclusion is there in verses 10–12. “Therefore,” he says—and he applies it, he conveys a warning to the kings, to the rulers of the earth—he says, “I want you to be wise.” Where is wisdom to be found? “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[15]

What does Paul say, in the early chapters of Corinthians, is the great wisdom of God? Where has it been manifested supremely? He says it has been manifested in a cross. It has been manifested in a roughshod tree. It has been manifested in the death of a Galilean carpenter who was not simply Jesus of Nazareth but was the Lord’s Anointed One. And God says, “Here is wisdom. Here is wisdom.” And the Greek mind says, “This is crazy.” And the Jewish mind says, “This is unacceptable.” And the pagan mind says, “Forget it.”[16]

But do you realize, loved ones, that this message is never going to change until Christ comes back to reign? It will never change. God, if you like—if I may say so reverently—has put all his eggs in this one basket. And it focuses, despite the reaction of the world, there on a hill called Calvary. And he says to the rulers of the world, “Be wise! Be wise. Why do you think, when you can’t even control your economics, that you could ever control the inroads and ravages of moral pollution? How do you think you’re ever going to do it?” he says, and he turns the gaze of the world to his Son.

If the rulers of the world showed such blatant disregard for their physical and material details as they do for their eternal destiny, they would have guardians appointed to their affairs. If men and women showed so much craziness with their checkbooks and with their cars and with their plans as they do with their eternal destiny, somebody would come in, and they would be made a ward of the court. Think it out. Think it out.

So, instead of issuing the instructions of twentieth-century political agendas, as right and as helpful as they may prove to be… For example, you can probably be reelected under the banner “Save the Earth.” My oh my, what an amazing thing this is, that we would now lose sight of polystyrene and rediscover paper. What an amazing discovery! We all knew that polystyrene was a bunch of junk from the beginning. You could neither destroy it, sit on it, or do anything with it. It fought you back. So now we’ve turned back to that which God has made possible for us in the paper products of his trees. Suddenly man wises up to the fact that the Creator knows how to care for his creation, and then man applauds himself and denies the very Creator. “Save the earth,” “Keep the peace,” “Just say no,” “Help the homeless,” “Feed the hungry.” None of these will ultimately do. There is only one slogan, and it’s right here in the thirteenth and final verse: “Kiss the Son.” “Kiss the Son.”

Here’s the answer. You may do all you like to save the earth and keep the peace and feed the hungry and do what you will for the homeless—and we ought to, and we must, and we shall. But all of that is of significance only once we have come to kiss the Son—that is, to bow in homage. Jesus has the ring, as it were, of sovereignty on his finger, and the nations of the world and the rulers and the kings… Queen Elizabeth II needs to bow down and kiss Christ, and then go and do her New Year broadcast and say, “Nation, an amazing event has taken place in my life. I have bowed, taken off my kingly, queenly crown, and laid it at the feet of Jesus.” How about that for a seven-minute broadcast on New Year’s Day? How about John Major, when I see him tonight on Prime Minister’s Question Time on CNN, how about the first question he answers is the state of his spiritual condition? And he answers, “Guess what? I have kissed the Son.” Not “Mr. So-and-So went to church yesterday.” Big deal! Big deal! The reason that they will not say they kissed the Son, if they kissed the Son, is because of the political implications of it. I mean, how could you ever get reelected by all those people who don’t love the Son? You can’t! So you’re in a catch-22.

We need to pray for the rulers and kings of our world. Don’t you see this? And pray Psalm 2:13 for them: that they might kiss the Son. Dylan was wanting it in another way when he wrote,

Come senators, congressmen,
Please heed the call,
Don’t stand in the doorway[s],
Don’t block up the hall[s],
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who [is] stalled;
There’s a battle outside, and it[’s] ragin’.[17]

He was right. Why do the nations rage? Where is the answer to be found? It’s to be found in Christ, the Lord’s Anointed One. And one day, what now seems so unbelievable will become apparent.

Let me conclude with another verse from Revelation. The leaders of the world and the nations who refuse the warning of Psalm 2 will find themselves in the scene described in Revelation 6, when the seals are opened and God speaks finally from heaven; when the sky, as John saw it—verse 14—recedes like a scroll, it rolls up, every mountain and every island removed from its place, notice: “Then…”

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. [And] they called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

And as surely as Psalm 2 prophesied the Suffering Servant, Jesus the Messiah, Revelation 6 prophesies the conclusion of the days. But notice and notice carefully that the psalm does not finish with a warning, but it finishes with a promise: “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” There is no refuge from him, but there is refuge in him. And this is the great message.

When the Prodigal Son saw his dire condition, he knew what a problem he faced to go back to his father, because, after all, in rebellion he said, “I’m tired of you and your fetters and your chains. I’ll away and be my own boy.” And now, in the pigsty of his experience, he realizes that to go home is an awesome prospect—in the way that many a sinner has felt, you know, “Good night, if anybody ever knew how bad I am, they would not be suggesting that I go anywhere near God.” Listen, loved ones, here’s the thing: there’s nowhere else that you can go! There is no place to hide. He’s everywhere. There is no secret to keep. He knows everything.

And the prodigal makes his way up the road, and he must have thought, “Crumbs, when I see my dad, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ve got the speech ready,” and he rehearsed it again and again: “I’ve sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Just give me a job as a servant.” That’s the mentality of man: “Oh dear!” “And when his father saw him a great way off, he ran to him, he fell on his neck, and he kissed him.” And yeah, the boy, he kissed him back.[18]

See, here’s the ultimate issue: Have you been caught up in the embrace of the Lord’s Anointed One? Have you kissed the Son? Will you not, even today?

Let us pray:

Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and pow’r.[19]

We face this psalm, and we realize there is no refuge from you, but glory to your name, there is refuge in you. How many tyrants would chase us around the world to find us? They would kill us. And yet, God, in your mercy, you chase us around our worlds, pursuing us to gather us up in your embrace, that we might kiss your Son, find the reality of true life, the genuine nature of forgiveness, the meaning of time, the nature of history.

May your grace and mercy and peace, sovereign God, descend upon and remain with all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen.


[1] Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary on Books I and II of the Psalms, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973), 18.

[2] William S. Plumer, Studies in the Book of Psalms (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1872), 37.

[3] See Isaiah 40:15.

[4] See Acts 3:1–16.

[5] Luke 19:14 (paraphrased).

[6] Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34 (paraphrased).

[7] Dallas Holm, “Rise Again” (1977).

[8] See Philippians 2:10–11.

[9] Robert Grant, “O Worship the King (1833).

[10] See Romans 8:15–17.

[11] Matthew 3:17 (KJV). See also Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22.

[12] Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35 (paraphrased).

[13] Charitie L. Bancroft, “Before the Throne of God Above” (1863).

[14] John 14:6 (NIV 1984). Emphasis added.

[15] Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10 (NIV 1984). See also Proverbs 1:7.

[16] See 1 Corinthians 1:22–24.

[17] Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (1963).

[18] See Luke 15:11–24.

[19] Augustus Toplady, “Rock of Ages” (1776).

Copyright © 2025, Alistair Begg. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations for sermons preached on or after November 6, 2011 are taken from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For sermons preached before November 6, 2011, unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®), copyright © 1973 1978 1984 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Alistair Begg
Alistair Begg is Senior Pastor at Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Bible teacher on Truth For Life, which is heard on the radio and online around the world.