Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of
Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.
I hope the following message challenges, encourages, and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
All right, let's get into the word this morning.
If you would turn with me to Psalm Chapter 2, we are in a
miniseries, I guess you could call it.
We're looking at Psalm Chapter 2, and I want to look at Psalm
Chapter 2 and Psalm 149 this morning.
I want to tie those two together, and I also want to tie
in what we've been talking about on Wednesday night.
So on Wednesday nights, we've been doing a series that we're
wrapping up this Wednesday on authority, the biblical concept
of authority. Authority is different than
power. Power is a force from heaven
that comes upon us to do with God what we can't do without
him. Authority is the authorization
from the author to execute his will and to put our stamp on
things. It's really a governing word,
and God gives us authority, and so we need to understand that.
So we've been. I'm going to just read through
some things, otherwise I'll talk too much.
I know that's shocking to pastor.
You could. Yeah.
OK, we no one acted surprised. We have been talking about
authority. I want to give a quick over.
So God as creator or the author of all things hold all
authority. He controls the narrative, so
he's writing the story. He's the author.
He does he How he does so, however, is crucial to the rest
of your theology. If you get this wrong, it has a
cascading effect which shapes the rest of your theology, and
in so doing it will relegate you to passivity if you don't
understand how God governs. So God governs through delegates
He authorizes. And so as the source of all
authority, the author in turn authorizes others within his
created order with authority, responsibility for which he
empowers us. And so he does that with human
beings and he does that with angelic beings.
And we need to understand that because if we don't, there are
theologies that undermine and will literally create passivity
in the human heart because we think that God is up there doing
everything and acting upon us rather than saying, hey, I want
you to do something. And in other words, while most
of us are down here wringing our hands saying, God, look at the
situation. Would you do something?
Why don't you move? God looks at us and says, why
don't you do something? I've invited you to invite me.
It's called prayer. And so we need to engage and
there's there's action that we need to we need to participate
in. And so God delegates authority
to us. And that brings us to the whole
concept. We've talked about it last week,
touched on it, the concept of the Divine Council.
Now Psalm 2, what we're going to look at has it's got several
themes that carry throughout Scripture, themes that are very
important to your and I's role. And so it's Psalm Chapter 2.
It's got there's a number of points that it hits that we're
going to just touch on this morning that are overarching
themes that kind of spread throughout Scripture.
And one of them is the divine council.
Now, if you've ever studied the divine council, I don't know
about you, but when I read, when I first began to study about
this, I thought, this cannot be right.
I wasn't taught this in Bible school.
And if you don't have that reaction from time to time in
reading your Bible, you're probably not reading your Bible.
Seriously, You ever been reading and all of a sudden you realize,
I don't know what I read because I was thinking about something
else Good. I'm not the only one.
A lot of times we can just read over the Bible because we
already know what we believe. We already have this
presupposition that we bring to the word, and so we just gloss
over things and we miss things. That's, that's one of the
benefits, by the way, of reading other translations because it
kind of jars you and causes you to look at things from a little
different angle. And so you'll end up seeing
things you don't see or sometimes listening to the Bible
on, on, you know, on audible or something like that, listening
to the word because you'll catch things you wouldn't catch
before, because our tendency is to superimpose what we already
believe and miss what the word is really saying.
And so one of the things we need to do is we need to learn to
slow ourselves down in the study of the word in the reading of
the word. And as we slow down, we'll
discover things in like, whoa, I never saw that.
Can that really be? I have found myself disagreeing
with the word of God on many occasions.
Now I'm I may not be the brightest bulb in the room, but
I do know this that when I disagree with the word of the
God, God, the problems on my end.
And so I need to re look at that say God, what is this?
I've never seen this before. And that is a healthy thing for
us to be kind of hitting those snags in our Bible reading and
seeing things that we've never seen before and thinking
through. And the divine council is one of
those. And so real quick here, the
divine council, I'm just going to give you a little overview.
The Old Testament reveals a council of decision makers,
those beings with whom God willingly shares the
responsibility of governing His creation.
The book of Daniel gives us an interesting insight into the
happenings of the divine counsel in regards to an earthly king,
the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar.
So why don't you turn with me to Daniel chapter 4?
Very quickly we're going to look at that passage.
But the divine counsel is something that shows up in
numerous passages. Daniel 4 gives us a behind the
scenes happening and so the idea is that there is this, this
ruling body, this council, COUNCIL, this, this decision
making body that and and just just let me pause there.
God doesn't need any help making decisions.
He's pretty smart, he knows everything.
He's all powerful. God didn't make us because he
was lonely. I've heard people say it.
Well, God made us because he was lonely.
No, he wasn't lonely. He is self-sufficient.
He is perfectly, he perfectly has everything that he will need
for his existence. However, he is so relational and
so benevolent and giving that it emanates from him.
And he had one son. He wanted many sons.
He wanted a big family. He wants, he wants to share his
creation. He wants to share his rule with
his people. And so he created us.
And so God doesn't need a divine counsel, but he created one.
That's his business. That's above my pay grade.
Why he did it, I don't know. I know he doesn't need it, but
he did it. He doesn't need you and I, but
he created us and I'm glad he did.
I kind of like life. I like, I like this better than
the alternative of not existing. And so God created these things
because of his nature. So Daniel chapter 4, we're going
to look at this real quick. Look at verse one, but king,
King Nebuchadnezzar, Well, jump to I'm sorry, this is let's
let's look at verse jump to verse 4.
So in this passage King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.
Listen to he introduces it here in verse 4I.
Nebuchadnezzar was at ease in my house and prospering in my
palace. I saw a dream that made me
afraid as I laid in my bed in the fancies and visions of my
head. I like that the fancies and
visions of my head alarmed me. So I made a decree that all the
wise men of Babylon should be brought before me, that they
should make known to me the interpretation of the dream.
And so he says, I was at ease and prospering.
Sometimes we get so at ease God will interrupt our ease to kind
of jar us awake and bring some correction.
And that's what he was doing with the Nebuchadnezzar.
And in this dream, if you read on, I'm just do a quick
overview, He saw this large tree with roots that went down deep
into the earth. And then the tree, the branches
spanned and over the earth and the birds of the air found
shelter in his branches, and people came to live underneath
it. And it was this glorious tree.
And then he says this in his dream.
He says, Look at verse 13. I saw in the visions of my head
as I lay in bed, and behold, A watcher, a holy one, came down
from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said,
thus chop down the tree and lop off its branches, branches,
strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.
Let the beast flee from under it, and the birds from its
branches. And so there's this, it says
that a watcher came and look at verse 17.
This is so this sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the
decision by the word of the holy ones.
Now what is going on there? That's a weird verse.
And so he calls his wise men his, his, the the all his, his
wise guys, his wise men. He brings them to say, hey, I
had this dream. You need to tell me what it is.
I'm very troubled by it. And Daniel being a man of God,
comes and he says to Daniel, I know and see his theology wasn't
all that correct. But he said, I know that the
spirit of the gods live within you, Daniel, tell me what my
dream meant. And Daniel tells him, Daniel
being a wise man, understood this guy held within his hand
the power of life and death over Daniel's life.
So he says, O king, live forever.
I wish this was about your enemies, but it's not.
You're in trouble because you are that large tree.
And the Lord has decreed that for seven seasons you would be
removed essentially. And then and, and so he it, then
it speeds forward. And one year later, Nebby is on
his porch looking out over his palace.
And he says, oh, is this not great Babylon that I've made for
my glory? And an audible voice from heaven
says, you be in trouble, boy. That's a paraphrase.
And he was literally sent out to pasture for seven years.
He wandered his hair grew out, he lost his mind and he became
like a brute beast. He's out eating grass and he's,
he's like a, like a beast of burden out there.
And they remove him from rulership.
But they he's just kind of alive out there in the yard somewhere.
And then after seven years, he comes to his senses, just like
Daniel told him would happen from the dream.
And he praises the living God, the the most high God, and he's
restored to rulership. It's a crazy story.
But my point is this, that number one, God was
orchestrating global affairs. He removed a king for a season
because he got too big for his britches.
It's not what the Hebrew says, but that's what that's what I'm
saying. He got too big for his britches
and God said, I'm going to remove you for a season and he
puts them back in. But whereas in the dream it
said, this is verse 17, the sentence is by decree of the
watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones.
This is this is a divine council scene where these beings are
intervening in global affairs. But look at this, look at verse
24. This interpretation, O king, it
is the decree of the Most High. So it begs the question, which
one's right? Is it the decree of the
watchers, these angelic beings? Or is this the decree of the
Most High God himself? And the answer is uh huh,
because this is a decision of the Divine Council that God is
ruling over global affairs. We see this in Psalm 82.
We've talked about this before, but if you look in Psalm 82, it
literally talks about the divine council.
In Psalm 89 does as well. But in Psalm 82, it says God
took his seat in the divine council among the gods.
He, he, he ruled, he, he, he sat in judgement.
And then he begins to rebuke these members of the Divine
Council. Now, what's important for you
and I this morning is that there is a ruling body called the
Divine Council that makes decisions over governing affairs
on the earth and #2 that they are imperfect, just like you and
I, and that God delegates authority.
And then he calls them into account for what they have done.
And we see this throughout the Old Testament.
It comes up as a theme again and again.
Why is that important to you and I?
Because it has everything to do with how God governs His
creation. And if we don't understand that,
if if our theology says that God is up there micromanaging every
minutiae of life and every decision made and everything
that happens was declared by God and sovereignly chosen by Him,
then all that we have to do is simply sit back and yield to
what God is doing in the earth. But I'm telling you what it will
do is it'll create a passivity in you that will cause you to
not do what God's called you to do.
So that's, that's the divine counsel.
So here is the astounding conclusion of the New Testament
that the New Testament seems to assert.
And this is where we tie in with the New Testament.
So we have this divine council that we have glimpses of in the
Old Testament. And now in the New Testament we
have introduced to us this new decision making body.
And it's called the ecclesia. It's what we nebulously
translate church, which by the way is a poor translation.
And there's reason that the English translators chose that
word because it was going to cause political problems, but it
doesn't mean the gathering of believers.
An ekklesia was a very clear a word that was already clearly
defined within the hearers of Jesus when he said I will build
my ekklesia and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. The ekklesia was raised up to
contend against Hell's purposes in the earth.
The gates of hell shall not contend against, shall not
prevail against it. And ekklesia was a ruling body.
It was a group that were called together.
They were called out to legislate affairs.
The Greeks had it and the Romans had it.
And Jesus speaking in that culture borrowed that non
religious term and said that's what I'm building.
I am building an ekklesia and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. It was a legislative body that
would that would govern affairs within the Grecian and Roman
world. Matter of fact, there's there's
literature that reads in the Roman world.
If two or three are gathered together.
There you have the ecclesia. Does that sound familiar?
That's not that what I just quoted you was from Roman
secular literature. And so we need to understand
when Jesus says this, it had a meaning already in the minds of
the hearers and we lose things when we don't realize that and
we just adopt it and saying this is what this is about all.
I will build a group of people that will sit on cushioned
chairs and air conditioning and hear a guy talk for an hour a
week. That's not what Jesus was
building. He was building a legislative
body that would enforce his will in the earth.
And so that's what I want to show you this morning.
So let's look at Psalm chapter 2.
We're going to read through this Psalm chapter 2 again, it's got
it's, it's, it's a, it's full of themes throughout Scripture and
it's really 12 verses, 4 sets of three verses.
So we're going to read through it and I want to unpack this for
you. So the first 3 verses, and we
need to understand this was a, an encounter that King David
had, OK, like we talked about this last week, if you want to
know what it says to us, you have to 1st know what it said to
the person that originally received it.
And this was an encounter that King David, who the Bible also
tells us was a prophet. He was a prophet king and he
also functioned as a priest, by the way.
He was a type of G, you know, he was a foreshadowing of the
office that Jesus would function in.
And so David was a prophet and we talked about this last week.
But if you look at, I want to say it's Jeremiah 22.
It God is rebuking the false prophets and this was the charge
he brings against them. He said you have not stood in
the counsel of the Lord and it's not COUNSEL, it's COUNCIL
because in the Jewish mindset, in the Jewish religion, what
qualified you to be a prophet in the Old Testament was to stand
in the counsel of the Lord. That's why Isaiah, Isaiah's
inauguration is initiation into the prophetic office was he went
up and stood before the Lord and he saw the Lord and his train
filled the temple and he was made Privy to the goings on in
this divine council scene. And the Lord says, who shall we
send? Who will go for us?
And Isaiah had the gumption to speak up and say, pick me, I'll
go. And the Angel came and burned
his lips because he said, I'm a person of unclean lips among a
I'm a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips.
And he was inaugurated or initiated into prophetic office
by that scene. And so David also goes up into
an encounter. There are things that David
shares here that he would not know, he would not be Privy to
outside of divine revelation. He was brought into an encounter
with God, and that's what this is.
And if we don't understand that, this passage will lose its
weight. And it's nice poetry.
Oh, that's cute. And we'll move on.
But literally what happens is David has an encounter in the
throne room of God and he hears things and God says things to
him and gives him marching orders.
And David literally says in here, he says, I'm going to tell
you what he said. Now, if that doesn't make you
kind of scoot on the edge of your seat and lean in and say,
what do you say? What do you say?
Then I want to pray for you after service.
This, this should stir our hunger because David is there.
These, these tracks that David's leaving are little Rd. maps for
you and I so that we know what we're called to and how we can
function. I don't know about you, but I'm
not, I'm not content to just let David have those kinds of
encounters. Man.
If there's a crack in the door, I want in.
I want in on this. And so David tells us what
happened. So this is what it says.
So verses one through 3, why do the nation's rage in the
people's plot in vain the kings of the earth set themselves, and
the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his
anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart, and cast
their cords from us. There as in plural, who's the
anointed 1 and the God of heaven.
And the anointed one was actually David.
No, we talked about this last week.
But this is vitally important because we tend to read this
solely as talking about Jesus. But it's not just talking about
Jesus. Yes, it's a messianic Psalm
pointing, pointing forward into the into the future of what God
would say over the Son Jesus. But first and foremost, it's
David having an encounter and God saying, you are my son
today. I have begotten you and that
word I told you. There's themes throughout this
passage that are very important that are all through Scripture.
Sonship is one of them. And so God is calling David into
something very specific with these words, sonship and all
that that entails. We'll get to that in a minute.
And it's also foreshadowing the Son Jesus.
Today you have become my son, and he's God's going to give his
son the Son Jesus, who is also the Son of David.
The son, the nations as an inheritance.
But here's the thing, what the New Testament does is it cracks
the door open and what we know as the divine council in the Old
Testament, that decision making body now in the New Testament
begins to talk about this decision making body called the
ecclesia of God, made-up of sons.
And what we need to understand is sonship in both Old and New
Testament has royal connotations because of whose son we are.
So we'll, we'll get into that in a moment.
So he says, so date the first 3 verses.
David's now gone. He's in this divine council
scene and he looks down on the kings of the earth coming
against Israel and God's purposes.
And David is incredulous. He's like, you got to be
kidding. They're down there.
We're not going to take this anymore, you know, shaking their
little fists and he's like, you got to be kidding this.
Why do the nation's rage? Why do the people's plot in
vain? And God's response is the same.
The next three verses are God's response.
So David looks at the kings, says to them, he's saying this
is crazy. Why would they do this?
Then he looks at God and he says, he who sits in the heavens
laughs. When you are going to war as a
human king against people who want your life, it's really good
to get God's perspective on them and your situation.
And what does God do? He has a good belly laugh.
He who sits in the heavens laughs.
And then he holds him in derision.
The word derision means to mock. And God holds him there, makes
fun of him, and won't let him out of the room, which of which
there are made a mockery. And then he will speak to them
in his wrath and terrify them in his theory, saying, As for me, I
have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
And so literally what what God is saying is he's saying, hey,
kings down there, you guys throwing your hissy fit down
here, You global rulers, Putin, Zelensky, Trump, every other
ruler. As for me, I've already set my
king on Zion, my holy hill. You can throw your hissy fit,
but I've already decided who's going to rule this thing.
And so God is juxtaposing him over against all the rulers of
the earth. Now make no mistake about it,
God installs rulers. Daniel chapter 2 is very clear.
God promotes kings and he removes them.
He did it with Nebby, Nebuchadnezzar, most powerful
man on earth. How God's going to deal with
them? There was no military might big
enough to deal with Nebuchadnezzar.
So God said I'll do it make you out of your mind for a little
bit. He's over there eating grass.
OK, now let's get let's you helps think you've learned your
lesson and then reinstalls him. And so God is saying I've
already chosen who will rule from Zion, my holy hill.
Now here's another theme that's all throughout Scripture, this
concept of Zion or God's holy hill.
Zion becomes synonymous with the government of God and Hebrews
chapter 12, it juxtaposes it over against Mount Sinai.
Mount Sinai represents the old covenant, Mount Zion, the new
covenant, Mount Sinai. He said we have not come to
Mount Zion this is or Mount Sinai this is Hebrews 12 to a
mountain trembling and it peels of Thunder and lightning and we
can't approach. He said, but we have come to
Mount Zion and he shows this as the the government of God, the
mountain of God. And Mount Zion originally
referred to Jerusalem. David chose Mount Zion to rule
from. And that that's a whole nother
theme that is fascinating. But what?
So when David kills Goliath, he chops the giant's head off with
his own sword, which will preach for another day.
He grabs that head, throws it over his shoulder, you know, big
old head, grabs it by the beard or by the hair, and it's bloody
dripping down his back, and he's just walking.
And David's not content to just leave it lie there.
He carries it all the way to a place called Jebus, a city out
of which the Jebusites ruled. And then he puts the head there.
It's like a weird thing to do, but I am convinced the reason he
did that is he was sending a message.
Hey guys, when I sit on the throne, I'm coming for you next.
This will be the place that I take.
I am going to rule from this because Jabis would become
Jerusalem. It was the city on it was Zion.
In fact, I'm convinced the reason David wanted to rule from
Zion is because David had read the scrolls and he had read in
the book of Genesis where there's this guy, this weird
dude called a priest of the Most High God and the king of Salem,
which would eventually become Jerusalem and in between would
be called Jabus. And this guy sat on a throne and
his name was Melchizedek. And David looked at this guy and
said this guy is a priest of the Most High God, but he's not a
Levitical priest. He's not from the tribe of Levi.
And so if he could get in through a back door, then
there's one open for me. I can get in.
I'm not, I'm not kept out because of the wrong lineage.
I, there's another way in. And David looked at, at
Melchizedek and said, he rules from that throne.
And that's where I want to rule from.
And this is so significant that, you know, in the New Testament,
it tells us that Jesus rules from the throne of David.
I told the first service, if I wasn't wearing a mic, that'd be
a mic drop moment. Seriously, that that's a
profound thing that David, that God was so affectionate and and
knit to this man, that there's something that David established
in the Spirit, that Jesus actually rules from the throne
of David. He rules from the spiritual seat
of authority that David established that that's what
Jesus sits on and rules the universe and he'll rule from
there and from eternity. It's an amazing thing.
And so Mount Zion signifies the government of God.
And so when God says I have set my king on Mount Zion, yes, it
was talking to David and David, you're going to rule from
Jerusalem and all that, that, yes, that means that.
But there's a wider meaning that God is going to rule from the
spiritual Mount Zion of Hebrews chapter 12.
And so David understands this and God is declaring this to the
kings of the earth. Now look at the next three
verses. Now David says this, I will tell
of the decree. This is where he says, guys,
listen, God spoke to me and I'm going to tell you what he said.
This is what he's saying. He said, I will tell of the
decree. The Lord said to me, You are my
son today. I have begotten you ask of me,
and I will make the nation's your heritage, the ends of the
earth, your possession. You shall break them with a rod
of iron and dash them like pieces, dash them in pieces like
a Potter's vessel. Now there's a whole lot involved
that we don't even have time to get into the reinheritance of
the nation's and all that does have to do with the divine
council. We don't have to get get it time
to get into that, but this whole thing on Sonship is very, very
important. He says today he said I will,
I'll tell you the degree and David's saying this is what the
Lord said to me personally, OK, that that's what he's saying.
The Lord said to me, David, you are my son today.
I have begotten you. And so this idea of sonship, we
touched on this last week, but I just wanted, I want us to get
make sure we get this. So in Roman culture, sonship was
a status, a standing into which biological male offspring were
initiated once maturity had been exemplified.
In other words, it wasn't a a non biological child being
brought into the family, it was a biological child that was
initiated into maturity and therefore authority.
That's the idea. Once initiated, their standing
in the family fundamentally changed, especially in relation
to those outside the family. He then became a legal
representative authorized to do business on behalf of and of the
father and the family. That's the idea of Roman
sonship. Jewish sonship had an another
element to it. So until adoption, an initiation
into sonship that this is still Roman adoption.
The male offspring was considered a Tecnon or what we
call a born one that a child of God.
That's the word we translate child of God.
He was a Tecnon. A born 1A child was understood
to share the nature of the father, but a son shared the
character. Being born into a family granted
the potential of sonship, but submission to the discipline of
a what? What Paul calls in the King
James Version, a schoolmaster. The Greek word is pedagogue,
grant submission to the discipline of a pedagogue or a
male nanny granted character, ultimately qualifying the son to
exercise authority over his former pedagogue doing business
in the family name. So that was the idea and the New
Testament, when it talks about his sonship and it's talking
about this maturity thing, this process.
In the Old Testament, sonship in relation to God communicated
governmental authority. This is very, very important.
When we talk about someone being a son of God in the Old
Testament, it was talking about governmental authority.
Adam, or although a strange sounding idea, it is nonetheless
accurate. Furthermore, this was an idea
shared with the entire Fertile Crescent world.
A son of God was most often a designation given to a king.
Kings were viewed as the son of and even the embodiment of a God
that they served. So many of you know that the
Pharaohs Pharaoh was known as the son of RA.
Caesar was actually worshipped eventually as a God.
At first he was that he was the living representative on earth
of the God, and then he became deity himself.
And so it was the living embodiment that was the idea in
the ancient world, because they understood that there was a God
that ruled over the affairs of men and that it was the God.
It was God himself who would elevate kings and remove them.
Now they had different views of different gods.
Matter of fact, the Romans had this pantheon of gods, which was
actually a misinterpretation of the divine council, which is for
another day. But it was a twisting of the
mythology. It was a mythologizing of the
biblical view of the divine council.
And so the Jewish people, however, had a more developed
idea of sonship as reflected in the Old Testament.
So now listen, there's a progress here.
Adam was referred to as God's son because he was the original
ruler of the world. God gave him dominion.
He said be fruitful, multiply and take dominion.
He was the son of God. But Adam sinned and abdicated
his authority. Psalm chapter 8 God put
everything under man's feet. Hebrews 2 quotes that but adds
yet at present we don't see everything subject to him.
Why? Because man abdicated that
through sin. Then Israel as a nation carried
the title Exodus 422 through 23. Hosea 11/1 talks about Israel as
a nation being godson. Why?
Because they were his representative before all the
nations of the earth to be an example of what it's like to be
in relationship to God. So he would Israel as a
corporate people, as a nation. God spoke of them.
This is my son, Israel. And they were to be the one
through which God would reach the royal, because in the
Kingdom of God, it's a monarchy. It's always ruled by royal
family. So God rules through his sons
and daughters. And so Israel was an example
now, then, then our son of God, then later on, David as king was
referred to God's son. That's what we're talking about
this morning. And then the Son, the Messiah,
Jesus, of course, tied all of these together in that he was
the last Adam. He was the true Israel of God.
Matter of fact, the verse in Hosea that calls Israel his son
is quoted about Jesus in the book of Matthew.
So Jesus is the embodiment of Israel.
He's the true Israel. And to be grafted into God, to
be the true people of God, you've got to be grafted into
Christ. And he was also the son of
David. So Jesus takes all these titles,
this idea, and he sums it up in him.
Now, what does all that have to do?
That's a nice little theology history lesson, Pastor.
Well, here's the thing, that in Christ you and I are invited
into sonship. And we need to understand what
that means, that our invitation into sonship is a governmental
role, that you and I carry authority for affairs in the
earth. And again, while we're saying
God, why don't you do something, He's looking at us.
Say, why don't you do something? I've granted you authority.
Invite my intervention, ask of me and I will give you the
nation's as your inheritance. And so this sonship is a very
important thing that if we just gloss over, we can miss so much.
So David says what God told him. I will tell you of the decree.
You are my son today I've begotten you.
The word begotten means that God takes responsibility to bring
him to a sonship and he does the same with you and I.
The day you were born again, God took responsibility to grow you
up. Now you can fight the process or
you can cooperate. I would recommend the latter.
It's miserable to fight God. Matter of fact, if you fight God
and when you were in trouble, you always want to lose when
you're fighting God because if you lose, you win, and if you
win, you lose. OK, OK, Verse 8, ask me and I'll
give you the nation's, your inheritance, the ends of the
earth's, your possession. And then he says you shall break
them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a Potter's
vessel. We'll come back to that.
And then David, he said earlier in verse 7, I will tell of the
decree. Here's the decree versus the
last three verses. Now therefore, O kings, be wise,
be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling. 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.
So David hears the Lord, he hears the word of the Lord
towards these kings and David. I wouldn't be surprised if David
yelled this dry riding off in the battle, you know, what was
it he says now? Therefore, O kings, be wise, be
warned, O rulers of the earth. I believe he was screaming these
3 verses going into battle because what he's doing is he's
declaring A decree from heaven. He's imposing God's will as the
sun, as the one who's seated on Mount Zion, as a picture for you
and I. What we're to do, we're to carry
that authority. Now turn with me to Psalm 149.
Let's look at this real quick. We'll close with this passage,
Psalm 149. So we've looked at the second
chapter of Psalms, and now this is the second to the last
chapter of the Psalms. Listen to what it says.
Sing the Lord a new song, His praise, in the assembly of the
godly. That word assembly is very
similar to what we translate in the New Testament as ecclesia.
Let Israel be glad in his Maker. Let the children of Zion rejoice
in their king. Let them praise His name with
dancing, making melody with him, and tambourine and lyre.
For the Lord takes pleasure in His people.
He adorns the humble with salvation.
Let the godly exalt in the glory, and let them sing for joy
on their beds. Now listen to verse 6.
Let the high praise of God be in their throats.
I love that and a two edged sword in their hands.
Another theme we see throughout scripture is this idea of the
word of the Lord as A2 edged sword.
We see in the Book of Revelation early on Jesus has a double
edged sword coming out his mouth and it signifies the word of the
Lord that God rules through his word.
He releases his word and it it mows down, it levels the enemy.
We see in Hebrews chapter 5, the word of God is sharper than any
2 edged sword. So when it says that we, it's
talking about, we have praise in our mouth and then we have the
word of the Lord in our hand and we're going into battle with
that. That like David, we need to hear
the decrees of the Lord and then release the decrees of the Lord
and the earth. Why?
What's the purpose of this verse 7?
And it's interesting. Verses 7 and 8 follow the same
outline as chapter 2 of Psalms. He says to execute vengeance on
the nation's punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings
with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.
Chapter 2 talks about kings, peoples, nations, peoples,
kings, and then nobles. The only word that is different
in the last chapter or second to last chapter over the 2nd
chapter is the word nobles. But they have the same meaning.
It means somebody that carries weight.
They may not have a governmental position, but they have
influence in the earth. And the Lord saying that as we
worship him, we come in. There's a place in corporate
worship that we reach a platform of authority and we release the
word of the Lord and it literally binds kings with
fetters. How many of you have read the
book Reese Hall, Intercessor, raise your hand.
How many of you have never read it?
You need to listen. Seriously.
This book is a case study for this hour of human history.
It is a vitally important book. Reese Hall was a Welsh coal
miner that got saved during the Welsh revival.
And God began to deal with him, to prepare him literally to be a
weapon during World War 2. And so it's a fascinating book.
You'll read it and wonder if you're saved because this guy
walked with the Lord. But it's really, it's really a
good book. And So what we find is that God,
you know, prepared him so that when Hitler came on the scene,
Reese Hall began to pray against the rising power in the earth.
Matter of fact, a lot of people don't know Reese Hall wrote a
book about I think it was called the Rising Powers or something
like that. And he declared, he prophesied
that Hitler would not come to power, wrote a book on it and
was wrong because he understood the danger that Hitler would be
to the purposes of God in human history.
So he started a Bible school and they became this prayer meeting
that literally play prayed. The Allied forces through World
War 2, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Britain, said
of Reese all he said when Reese and his team pray, we win
battles. The global powers understood
what he carried. Now when Hitler, if you know,
Hitler took, he was, he went into the Rhineland and went into
Czechoslovakia and Britain stood, it was, you know, they
were trying to keep him from going forward.
So Chamberlain was the Prime Minister.
This is before Winston Churchill and Chamberlain met with Adolf
Hitler. And people look at that as a
hinge moment in which everything started going in the wrong
direction. In Chamberlain, his name is
synonymous with accommodation of evil and a spineless person and
all that and and all that. He would have stood up.
However, what a lot of people don't realize is that Hitler was
very frustrated with his meeting, that when he met with
Chamberlain, because he told Chamberlain, he said, I don't
know why I'm giving you what you want.
He was kind of puzzled about it. And his advisor said later he
was very angry and he told them, he said, this is the first time
I've ever disobeyed the voice because there was this voice he
would listen to and it would often be contrary to his
military advisors. And they were in awe that as he
would, he would say, no, I know that your military, you know,
you're brilliant military analysts, but we're going to do
such and such. And then when they do it, they
would win these battles. And they were in awe of Hitler.
But for the first time, he disobeyed that internal voice.
And what it did is military analysts will look at that to
this day. And they say that it gave
Britain time to prepare for war. Had he obeyed the voice, that
demonic voice that was manipulating him, that he could
have marched right into Britain. But Britain had time to prepare
for war. So in Psalm chapter 2 says you
shall be a rod of iron that shall break them as pottery.
That's a vivid picture. The rod of iron is that
unbending rod. It's strong and pottery is
brittle. And what he's saying is that I
will use you. I'll put iron in your backbone
and I will strike the, the, the, the brittle will of these kings
that stand against me and you'll shatter them.
And that's exactly what happened with Adolf Hitler.
For a moment he gave in. He, he couldn't even understand
why he was frustrated with himself.
But got what happened is God made room so that eventually
Hitler would be defeated. And it began there because it
gave Britain time to gear up for war.
Listen, you and I are part where sons of God.
We've been given a royal position.
We talked about this last week and the old covenant.
The sons of God were primarily the the most of the time where
that phrase shows up, it's talking about angels.
Yet it mentions Israel as a son of God and Adam and how Adam
abdicated and then David is declared a son.
But it's a rare thing to be used of a person.
It's more the Angel angelic and the men are servants.
In the New Testament, the men become the sons and the angels
the servants. There's a shift because you and
I have been brought into this elevated position.
We are to rule and reign with Him and not in the sweet by and
by, but in the nasty now and now that we are to bend the will of
rulers in intercession. We are to be the iron rod in
God's hand. And if we don't understand this,
we end up abdicating our role. We're not.
We don't allow the Lord to use this because we think, well, it
doesn't really matter who am I? And I'm here to tell you, you
are a son or a daughter of God and God wants to grip you
tightly and he wants to bring you into those conners
encounters where you here the decrees and you release them and
God will bend the will of world rulers.
The reason I brought up this book about Reese Hall is we are
living in an hour very similar that things are shifting
globally and the church needs to be the one to be inserted and
shepherd this thing through an intercession.
But if we don't understand the tremendous authority that God
has extended to us, then we sit idly by wondering why God
doesn't do anything, while heaven looks down at us and
wonders the same. So God has called you to inherit
nations. He wants you to bend the will of
Xi Jinping. He wants you to bend the will of
the Brazilian President of Putin and Zelensky and Donald Trump
and everyone else because he said his king on Zion, his holy
hill, he's already chosen, chosen the the ruler of the
world. And you and I are to get in his
presence, hear what he's saying, and begin to declare that in
prayer and not take no for an answer and bend human will.
And in the out and in times of upheaval, God always has had his
people. And I'm just telling you that
I've had this word again and again from people coming through
here. God has called heartland to this
to declare the word of the Lord. We're to dig in, in prayer.
It's not an arrogant thing. It's arrogant to leave that spot
empty because it's God's assignment.
It's arrogant for us to say, well, who am I?
Who are you to question the word of the Lord?
Who are you to question what God says about you?
You need to step into this role or to exercise God's will.
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
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