Why do people rage against God? In Psalm 2, the nations and their rulers conspire against the Lord — a rebellion as old as the human heart. Dr. Toby Holt unpacks this psalm's picture of human defiance and God's enthroned King.

The kings of the earth plot to throw off God's rule, but God in heaven is unmoved. Psalm 2 is a Messianic psalm pointing to Christ, God's appointed King, who will one day rule the nations. For now, God shows patience, calling rebels to "kiss the Son" before judgment comes. "Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."

Questions this study answers:

1. Why does God "laugh" at earthly rulers? Because their rebellion against the Almighty is futile. Nothing they plot can shake His throne.

2. How is this psalm both political and prophetic? It speaks to real rulers who oppose God, and points ahead to Christ, the King God has installed over all nations.

3. How should we respond to God's King? By trusting and submitting to the Son rather than resisting Him. Those who take refuge in Him are blessed.

"Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing?" — Psalm 2:1 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

In Psalm 2, the author asks this provocative question,

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Why do the nations rage?

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In other words, why do the nations rebel against their Maker?

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Why do the people that God has created reject their Creator?

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And how do they think that rejection is going to turn out?

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In today's study, we'll consider the rebellion of men and the reconciliation of Christ.

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If a 10-foot man was to meet you in the parking lot here after church,

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you go out in the parking lot, there's a 10-foot giant of a man,

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and he approaches you and he threatens you, what would your reaction to that be?

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Well, some of us would be anxious about that because we would say,

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this man is much bigger than I am.

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Now, what if that same 10-foot man turns around and behind him is a 20-foot man?

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What is his reaction going to be?

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Well, then he's going to be just as anxious, and we could keep on going.

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If you have a 100-foot man standing behind the 20-foot man,

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than the 20-foot man, strength no longer appears so strong. Strength and power, such as it is,

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are always defined in contrast to that which is weaker. The only way you know strength is because

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you know weakness. The only way you comprehend and understand that which is powerful and strong

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is when you look at that power and that strength and contrast it to that which is inferior.

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If you look at an ant, you say, that's quite small. An ant is very tiny. It is no threat to

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me whatsoever. So an ant's very small. Now, to the ant, we are, of course, ginormous. But you know

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what? To the ant, a toddler is ginormous. Everything is larger than an ant because an ant is fairly

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insignificant. With that said, as you keep going up in power and strength, that power and strength

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contrasts against the weakness of everything that is around it. Now, if that's true, how much more

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so when we talk about God and man, when we talk about the creator and the created? Presuming that

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God exists, and he does, presuming that God exists, then he is obviously superior to all that which

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he has made. He's stronger, more powerful than everything in the world around us. Now, most of

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us get that. We say, well, yes, if there is a God, he's more powerful than me. We get that. But you

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know what mankind does? Mankind says, well, all right, he's bigger than me singularly, but is he

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bigger than us? And nations and peoples and groups and coalitions and political parties and all these

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different things are oftentimes formed, or at least formed up, of those who might themselves

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feel insignificant towards God, but as a group say, hey, we have the collective power and right

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to determine our own path, our own legislation, our own road forward. Collectively, the nations

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have often been comprised of rebels who have banded together in order to collectively shake

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their fists at the heavens. So here's the question. If you can't take God down, and you can't,

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What about all y'all? What about us? What about every man, woman, and child on this globe? What

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about every man, woman, and child on this globe, along with every bird in the air, every beast in

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the field, every demon from hell? Could all of that take down God? What do you think? No, why not?

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Because there's a difference between potence and omnipotence. Potent is something that's

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mildly powerful, right? You drink something, you say, well, that was potent, you know,

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mildly powerful, right? Omnipotence, entirely different. Omnipotent is all-powerful. When we

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talk about our power, it is nothing compared to the power of God, even if we were to form it all

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up together. If mankind collectively was to launch every weapon of rebellion we could against the

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heavens, every nuke in our arsenal, the throne of God would not move one inch, and God wouldn't

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flinch when it came at him. Why? Because he transcends us in a way that we do not comprehend.

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And because he transcends us in such a way, what a stupid, rebellious thing it is to do to say,

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well, I think we have the right and the prerogative to override God's will for our lives. He told us

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what to do. I think he gave us 10 commandments, but you know, I don't like three of them. And so

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collectively, if we all don't like three of them, we'll do our own thing irrespective of what he has

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said. It is silly and foolish and rebellious to think that that will work out well in the long

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run. God is not mocked. The nations rage against God. Sometimes they rage against him militarily

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and they persecute the church. Sometimes it's culturally. Sometimes it's legislatively.

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Whatever the case, God does not sit there and go, oh me, oh my, what am I going to do about this?

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In Psalm 2, we see God knows exactly what he's going to do about it. And the only thing that

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has caused him from not doing it yet is his patience for the very rebels that are casting

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their fists skyward. The only thing that has prevented him, so to speak, prompted him,

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that might be a better way to put it, from not bringing down the fury and the wrath and the

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winepress is all we see in here. The only thing that has caused him to not do that yet is he's

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also incredibly patient, loving, kind, and forbearing. But that forbearance has a shelf life.

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And in due time, the lamb who was slain will return his line of Judah. And in today's text,

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we see a messianic psalm that points forward to the anointed, who although he was crucified by

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mankind at one point, the lamb led to the slaughter. When he returns, it will be in judgment. And we

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see all of that encapsulated in Psalm 2. All right, if you would, let's look at verses 1 through 3,

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and then we'll just work our way through this text. Verses 1 through 3. Why do the nations rage

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and the people plot a vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take

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counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bonds

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in pieces and cast away their cords from us. Let me stop right there. You ever want to find the

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Trinity in Scripture? Psalm 2, verses 1 through 3. The nations rage. The rulers take counsel

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against the Lord and against his anointed. Who's that? Jesus Christ, saying, let us break their

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bonds and pieces and let us cast away their cords from us. All right, these verses, as we said a few

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moments ago, these verses are just a case study in rebellion. In verses 1 through 3, we see the kings

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of the earth who are representative of the peoples of the earth, but the kings of the earth have

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determined with one voice to rebel against their maker. They want to cut his bonds, shatter his

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laws, cut the cord, run, turn, go away from him if they could. Now again, what kings are in reference

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here. Well, some believe that David wrote Psalm 2, that he might have been referring to specific

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kings of his age. Certainly the heathens were raging as Israel began to be dominant under the

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time and the reign of King David. The other nations absolutely raged against Israel and its

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kings. So it's possible that these are the kings that David has in view. He's talking about other

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heathen pagan people in his age. However, I think a better understanding is to see that David's

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talking about all kings everywhere of every nation who have turned against the Lord. He's probably

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referring to Pharaoh. He's also probably referring to Hitler. He's referring to Herod. He's referring

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to Ahab. He's referring to Kim Jong-un. He's referring to every leader of every nation,

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every tribe and tongue who has led the people away from God and unto destruction. He's referring to

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all these kings, these leaders who started to believe their own press and to think that either

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That they as individuals, or at least their nation, is capable of thwarting God's will and law and plan.

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And that was normative.

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Think of Pharaoh.

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Dear heavens, Betsy, this is what Pharaoh did.

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Pharaoh's whole deal was this.

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God says, I am God and I'm going to prove I'm God to you by raining plague after plague after plague down upon you.

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And then they will know that I am the Lord.

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Right?

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That's what we see in Exodus.

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Then they will know that I am the Lord.

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Well, did Pharaoh know?

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Well, he knew.

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He just didn't care.

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He didn't like what he knew.

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So he eventually let the people free.

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You remember the story of Exodus, that God delivers the people?

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He uses Moses as his spokesman to do it, but it was God's deliverance.

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God's deliverance of the people from Pharaoh's hand, and ultimately, Pharaoh's spirit's broken.

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He says, okay, you can go, you can go, you can go after the Passover.

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But then they went, and what happened next?

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Well, the people go, and before they're gone, you know, hardly any time at all,

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Pharaoh has a change of heart, and he determines, I don't like how this went down.

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I will marshal my troops, my armies, and I don't care if there's a pillar of smoke by day and a

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pillar of fire by night going after them. I don't care if the power of God has been manifest by

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10 plagues on my house. I don't care if God's power is so evidently manifest in everything

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I've seen here for the past number of weeks. I don't care. We're going to chase these people

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down. We're going to slaughter them at the banks of the Red Sea. And so they try to do that. What

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happens? Only people got slaughtered on the banks of the Red Sea and in the Red Sea were Pharaoh's

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armies. But Pharaoh went to war against God. Herod, Ahab, and we could go, the list is great,

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Nimrod of Babel. The list is tremendous of those who went to war against God. And in every single

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case, it did not go well for the one who did so. And it didn't go well for the nation that did so.

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Remember, this is not simply a factor of God saying, all right, Pharaoh, you're out of here.

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I'm going to deal with you. It was also the people who had yoked their voice, so to speak,

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to Pharaohs. When a nation collectively has turned against God, has it ever worked out well for the

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nation? No, no. Why would it work that way for any nation, including ours, if we were to follow a

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similar trajectory? Spoiler alert, it won't. It won't. That's what we see here. The nation's rage,

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the people plot a vain thing, and God is not fooled and he is not threatened. Let's look at

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verses four through six. Then he who sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in

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derision. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure, saying,

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yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. You know, earlier we talked about the 10-foot man,

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20-foot man, 100-foot man, and the like. If you were to step into a boxing ring, the MMA ring,

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whatever it is, you step into the octagon with someone who's clearly, clearly bigger and stronger

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than you, and you go, oh, this is going to be a challenging situation, what would be the most

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unnerving thing that that person could do? Would it be to flex or something like that? Well, I don't

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know, maybe. But I think the most unnerving thing that an opponent can do when you step up against

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them is just to laugh at you. As if you're nothing, you pose no threat. You ever watch the old WWE,

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watch the old wrestling and such? If you had two similarly sized wrestlers going against each other

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and they put them on the screen for an interview, you got Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, whoever

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it is, they're sweating and their eyes are bulging and they're flexing and doing all that sort of

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stuff, right? The idea is that this is going to be a real match between these two. But every now and

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then, they'd have some giant individual and they'd have some tiny weak wrestler come on in against

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them. And every now and then, the big guy would just laugh. There'd be no sweating and bulging

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eyes and all that. Why? Because the outcome was obvious. Well, here what we see is that God,

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when the nations come against him, when the nations rage against him, when the nations flex

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and sweat and their eyes bulge and all this sort of stuff, when the nations do that, what does God

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do? Well, he laughs. But not only does he laugh, look at his posture in verse 4. It says he's

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sitting on his throne and guess what? He does not bother to get up. Look at this again, verses 4

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through 6. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. He was seated on his throne with his feet up on

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the footstool. He who sits in heaven shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in his derision.

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God doesn't have to plant his feet to deal with the threat of the nations. He does not have to

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get up. He does not have to prepare in any way, shape, or form to contend with the entirety of

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the globe coming against him. Why not? Well, it's because of what we said earlier. There's a

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difference between potent and omnipotent. God is the latter and not the former. So here what we see

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in verses four through six is that he laughs. God just laughs at this. He laughs at the politicians

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and the legislators and the celebrities and all those people who are raging through culture and

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laws and everything that they could possibly do against his ethic, against his code, against his

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laws, against him. He looks at that and he laughs, but here's the problem. Verse five says he doesn't

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laugh forever. Verse 5 said his laughter stops. What happens next? Well, nothing good for the

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people he's laughing at. Verse 5 suggests that his laughter turns to fury against those who

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fight him, those who attempt to usurp his reign and his rule. Now, I mentioned Pharaoh earlier.

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Didn't turn out well for Pharaoh. God was not threatened by Pharaoh. In God's time,

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God dealt with Pharaoh just like that, but there's examples throughout the book. How about in the New

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Testament? Anyone remember the story of a guy named Herod Agrippa? Now, if the name Herod comes up in

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scripture at all, this is not a good name. Have you ever known anyone named Herod, just out of curiosity?

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It's right there next to Ahab and Jezebel. Herod, Ahab, Jezebel. There are none of these people. Why?

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Because this is villains. Anytime there's any Herod in scripture, there's not a guy to look up to.

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Well, there was one Herod. One Herod, his name was Herod Agrippa. He was a king of Judea around 41 BC.

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So this is after the time of Christ's death and resurrection. Now, Herod was a meanie. He was

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cruel. He was vindictive and the like. In Acts chapter 12, Herod, this mean, cruel leader,

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he makes a treaty with some of the pagan kings around them. And then he goes and he decides to

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hold court in front of his people in order to conflate his own success with this treaty and

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his own divinity, really. Listen to what it says in Acts 12 verses 28 through 23. So Herod had been

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very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, but they came in with one accord, and having made

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Blastus the king's personal aid their friend, they asked for peace because their country was supplied

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with food by the king's country. So on a set day, Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne

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and gave an oration to them, and the people kept shouting, the voice of a god and not a man.

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Then immediately, immediately, an angel of the Lord struck him

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because he did not give glory to God.

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And he was eaten by worms, and he died.

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All right, Acts 12.

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You have a microcosm of everything else we're talking about here today.

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You have this pagan, wicked, heathen king

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who not only is pagan, wicked, and heathen,

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but also has determined to set himself up against the God of heaven

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to the degree that he no longer even really respects

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the God of heaven's turf, so to speak,

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and when the people, the people start chanting to Herod Agrippa, this is the voice of a God and

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not a man, he just says, amen. He says, you got that right. What happens? Right then we see in

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Acts 12 verse 23, immediately an angel Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God and he

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was eaten by worms and he died. That is one of the most ignominious deaths you will find in the

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entirety of scripture. So what did he do wrong? Well, again, what it says here is that he did not

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give glory to God. That's the cause. Now Herod had done all manner of things wrong previously.

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This is a guy whose entire legacy was just built on sin after sin after sin. This is a bad guy.

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But the stopping point, you know, God says, all right, everybody out of the pool was the moment

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Herod Agrippa stood before the people, received their praise of him as a God, and usurped the

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glory from God himself. That was enough. And so God came calling. Well, in the earlier parts of

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chapter two, that's the sort of behavior that God is saying the leaders of the nations have been

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doing since the dawn of time. They keep raising up and plotting and scheming and banding together

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and having these alliances and all that, and they think that they're great, and they think that

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they're grand. And then some of these knuckleheads start to say that they're God, start to say they're

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divine. The pharaohs, remember, they were always taught, and they taught others of their own

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divinity. The Caesars started to believe that too. Nero, that was one of his things. You start seeing

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yourself in that way and once you start identifying yourself as a god then you have to ask well if

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there is a god greater than me i need to either take him down or just to reject and ignore that

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he's even there well herod agrippa probably did a little bit of all that and so god dealt with

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herod agrippa at the very moment at that very moment agrippa did these things god struck him

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which is ironic the way god struck him because think of it this way here's a guy who is effectively

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saying, I am not only like a God, but I'm basically God. You know, give me the praise, give me the

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praise, give me the praise. Well, a guy who thought he had that sort of clout, that sort of power,

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a guy who thought that he was all, you know, all that, he gets struck by worms and dies.

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Here's the newsflash. If you don't have power over a worm in your gut, you do not have power at all

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in the scope of eternity, in the scope of creation. Herod Agrippa had no more control over the worm

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in his belly than much of anything else. Everything that he had been given, even the power he had,

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had been delegated to him from above. He could not prevent, could not stop, could not halt

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what was going on in his own belly, let alone across the scope of this globe. If you can be

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taken down by a worm, you aren't that strong, and you certainly are not God. All right, let's

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look at verses 7 through 9. Verse 7, I will declare the decree. The Lord has said to me,

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you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your

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inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of

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iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. You know, earlier, I think it was in our

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call of worship, we had a reading from the book of Revelation. And in that reading, we saw a

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description of Jesus as this one who was seated on a great white horse wearing this great long

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robe. Now, do you remember what words were written on this robe? Specific, do you remember what words

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are written on the thigh of this robe? What are the words? King of kings and Lord of lords. King

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of kings. So, in Revelation, you have this picture of this lamb who was slain, the one who was sent

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to the slaughter. You have this suffering servant. You have this shepherd. But you see in the book

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revelation, how he's depicted here, not necessarily as the lamb. In this text, he's depicted as one

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who has come to conquer, and on his robe, on his thighs, written these words. He's the king of kings

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and the lord of lords. Now, if you could be a king for just one day, would you like that?

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If you were given a country, a nation, I don't know, even an island somewhere to be king,

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wouldn't that be kind of nice? It sounds nice on one level, but here's the thing. It's one thing

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to be a king somewhere here on earth. It's one thing to be a ruler amongst your fellow men

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here, but it's another thing altogether to be referred to as the king of the kings. That is

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an entirely different implication. The implication of Jesus showing up with king of kings, lord of

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lords written on his thigh is that every kingdom in the world to which he has come falls under his

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jurisdiction, right? Remember, the pagans didn't have that practice. We've talked about this at

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other intervals. The pagans saw things differently. They had kings of different jurisdictions.

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Remember, Paul shows up in Athens, looks around, says, you guys have a God. You have a God for

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everything. All men are of different gods. Well, here, when Jesus shows up, he's a king of kings,

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the Lord of lords, the God of gods. He is number one. And that's what we see in verses seven through

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eight. The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today I've begotten you. Ask of me and I will

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give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession.

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Everything, every tongue and tribe, every knee shall bow is what we see in this text. And what's

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cool about it is that this text was written a long time before the incarnation. So you remember,

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we look back at this through the prism of fulfilled history, and we can look and say,

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all right, I can see what this psalm talks about, about this suffering servant, about this Messiah,

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and I could see how that ultimately points to Christ and everything that he did and the like.

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But the neat thing when you read Psalm 2 is that that was all written a long time before

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the incarnation itself. It was all written a long time in advance. It anticipated who Christ would

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be, what he would do, and among the things it anticipated is that when he shows up, he's the

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boss. Psalm 2 is not predicting the coming of just any old king. Rather, it's talking about the advent

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of one before whom every knee would bow, God's divine son. And what we see in verses 7 through 9

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is that it declares that when this guy shows up, when this guy shows up, and especially when he

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comes back in the yet still future, all mankind has got one choice. And this is true of us as

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Christians. It's also true of pagans across the globe. We either bow before him willingly or we

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be broken by a rod of iron. And that's what we see in verses seven through nine. Now, presuming that's

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true, that you either bow before him or you get broken, what decision have the kings of our globe

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generally made? Well, it's not been to bow. Sometimes, think of when Jonah shows up in

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Nineveh, the king of Assyria, they figure out this is not going well, and they go to sackcloth and

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ashes, and they lament as a society from the king on down. So sometimes, but very infrequently,

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most often, when God, through his prophets or through his words, speaks to the nation,

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speaks to the leaders, speaks to presidents, speaks to council, speaks to all these things,

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Most often, the tendency of those that are being spoken to is to reject what God has said

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because it runs contrary to what they want to do.

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With that said, verses 10 through 12 contain a warning to those who would do so.

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Let's look at verses 10 through 12.

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Now, therefore, be wise, O kings.

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Be wise, O kings.

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Be instructed, you judges of the earth.

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This is almost a plea, almost a petition, saying, pay attention, guys.

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presidents, leaders, kings, nations, commissioners, whatever. Pay attention. Be wise, O kings, be

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instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, kiss the

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sun, lest he be angry and you perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed

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are all those who put their trust in him. Have you ever heard of the Hebrew phrase El Shaddai?

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I'm sure you have. You remember the song from the age, El Shaddai. But what does it mean? What does

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El Shaddai mean? Well, it's interpreted in a few different ways, but in Latin, it's translated as

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Deus Omnipotens. What do you think that means? Well, it means God Almighty, Omnipotent. El Shaddai,

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God Almighty. El Shaddai, God Almighty. As we said before, the other pagan nations had a whole

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litany of different gods, but Judaism and Christianity posit just one, El Shaddai,

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one who is almighty not some mighty not some potent but almighty and omnipotent and that's

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what we see in these verses we see a god who is omnipotent however again the kings of this earth

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don't like it when his jurisdiction treads into theirs which is the cause most of the things you

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see in the media and culture and politics and the like where you're talking about the sanctity of

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life when you're talking about other morals and the biblical ethic what you see is a culture that

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It rejects the biblical ethic and then empowers legislators to enact what they want.

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And then we see culture and celebrities sing the anti-praises aloud on virtually every station we turn to.

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People do not like it when a transcendent king, a transcendent anyone, an external anyone, tells them what to do.

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But here in these verses, we see this petition.

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Listen, O kings, listen, be students of history.

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How does this turn out? Not well.

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Listen, be wise, be shrewd, lest he be angry, lest he come and remove your throne, lest he come deal

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with you. Just read the books of Kings and Chronicles and see how it turns out whenever a

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king of any nation, including Israel, thumbed their nose at God. It does not go well. Here's

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the thing. It was especially true of Israel, but it's true everywhere. Every authority is delegated

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authority. Every authority is delegated authority. And that means that all authority should be

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administered in line with the source that it has been delegated from. That's why we do what we do

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in the church with a respect for how God wants it done, because he's the one who delegated the

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authority to us, so we need to turn to him to see how we do what we do. With that said, we see that

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if you don't do that, things will go badly. We focused on that for a while. As we close, I want

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to focus on something encouraging. We see at the very end of verse 12. If you look at the way this

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psalm concludes. What you see is words of great hope. Verse 12 closes with this statement,

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blessed are all those who put their trust in him. Blessed are all those from every tribe,

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every tongue, every nation, whether they be former rebels and heathens and pagans,

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whether they be people of God's covenant community, blessed are those who put their trust in him.

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See, the bad news for the rebel king is the same news as the bad news for you and I. The bad news

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for the rebel king and for peasants alike is this, that we're all sinners and God has the right to be

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angry at all of us. We stand back and we go, yep, it's the president's fault. Yep, it's that Nero,

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Nero, you know, Pharaoh, it's all their fault. So they did all this naughty bad stuff. Well,

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here's the thing. We all stand on the train tracks of God's wrath because we're all rebels.

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The difference is not all of us have had the same level of power that some of those guys in history

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had. If you were to give all of the people in Gulfport the same power as Pharaoh's, man alive,

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watch out. With that said, all of us are rebels. All of us are rebels, whether you're a king or

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whether you're a peasant. And because of that, we are all in danger. But the good news we see in

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verse 12 is that God himself has determined to rescue us from God's own wrath. That's the message

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of the gospel. We have messed up. We have rebelled. We have shaken our fist at the heavens. It's not

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just bad guys from scripture that did this. It's you and I. We have shaken our fist at the heavens.

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We have rejected his will. We've done it this very week. And the wonderful news is that God did not

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come calling for you the moment you did so, the way he did Herod Agrippa. He has instead been

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patient and kind and forbearing with you, especially if you're his child, you're a son

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or daughter. He treats you that way. He's forgiving. He's forbearing. And he says, blessed are those

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who are trusted in me, because even when you mess up, I am there for you. And I have made atonement

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for the very sins that you've committed against me. Remember, the gospel is broken down into the

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two parts. We have a problem. We're sinners. We've shaken our fist at the heavens. We've rebelled

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and rejected against our king. And the problem is the consequences, and the consequences of the

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wages of sin is death. But in verse 12, we see the promise that is replete through all the New

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Testament, that although we are sinners, while we're yet sinners, Christ died for us. There is

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means and there is hope for rebels who have rejected their God, and that is that God is

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determined to save us by sending his own son on behalf to pay the price that we were due.

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All of mankind at one point stood on the train tracks of God's wrath, including you and I.

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But God determined to save us by sending his son to pay the penalty that we should have paid.

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And so what is our hope?

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Verse 12, blessed are those who trust in him.

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This is a declaration or a call to faith.

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It's a call to respond not by continued rejection, but by repentance, confession, and faith.

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And the anointed one that we saw in verse 3.

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There are a lot of bad kings in scripture.

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We've talked about a few of them tonight,

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but the gospel is the story of a good king

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who's not only powerful,

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but he's also merciful to his former enemies.

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And rebels like us turn to him for forgiveness.

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Guess what?

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He forgives us.

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That's the encouragement we see in Psalm 2.

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Blessed are those who put their trust in him.

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Fellow rebels, if you have not yet done so,

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then let today be that day.

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Let's pray.