Sermon … Luke 13 … Tower of Siloam

The point is simple – not every bad thing is indicative of sin. But everybody is guilty of it, so everybody needs to repent.

_______________

Forrest fires burning in the West. Hurricanes pummel Houston and are bearing down on Florida. Earthquakes in Mexico. Tyrants spill the blood of the judicially innocent. Now as then people begin to question the Divine in the affairs of men.  Where was God in it all? What were God’s purposes?

Those questions arise here in Luke 13.

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (13:1–5)

Though we have no historical account regarding this particular blood shedding this kind of malevolence was not unusual in the ancient world. The Jewish Historian Josephus gives accounts of other similar incidents. For example, Josephus in his Antiquities tells us that at one Passover, “during the sacrifices,” 3000 Jews had been massacred “like victims,” and “the Temple courts filled with dead bodies” (Jos. Antt. xvii. 9, § 3); and at another Passover, no less than 20000 (id. xx. 5, § 3; see also B. J. 11. 5, v. 1). Early in his administration, Pilate had sent disguised soldiers with daggers among the crowd (id. Luke 18:3, § 1; B. J. 11. 9, § 4).

So, in light of this most recent outrage, Jesus is queried about God’s intent in all this.

As is His habit Jesus answered their question with His own question.

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?”

I.) Consider Two Assumptions in the Questions,

1.) The first assumption in the question is that personal disaster is in direct proportion to personal sin.

That Jesus couches His response in the way that he did demonstrates that assumed in the account He was given was that the suffering of people was in direct relation to their degree of being bad people. The more wicked they were the more suffering that came their way was the thinking. This idea is found throughout the Jewish mindset,

A.) John 9:1 And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from his birth.2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

B.)Job 4: 7 “Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off?

c.)Job 8:20 “Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will He help the evildoers,

D.) Job 11:6 and that He would show thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.

E.) After a list of accusations against Job in Job 22 Job’s accuser ends with,

10 Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee,

Jesus’ answer here goes a long way towards suggesting that it is not always the case that the amount of personal disaster and suffering in one’s life does not always correlate to the amount of sinfulness in one’s life.

We simply cannot automatically conclude that those Christians we might call snakebit are being hounded by God. The book of Job alone proves this.

 

________
It also reveals that the questioners believed that tragedies were not something that happened outside the countenance of God. Many questioners today wouldn’t ask this question because they would just assume that God had nothing to do with falling towers or the ugly behavior of tyrants. No, the question reveals an understanding of God’s total sovereignty. These tragedies happened. God is sovereign. God is to be inquired as to why it happened.
_________

Of course, suffering and death came into this world in the first place because of sin. So, Jesus’ questioners were correct in assuming that there is a connection between moral evil and physical suffering. But Jesus took that opportunity to remind them that we cannot leap to the conclusion that all people suffer in direct proportion to their degree of sin.

The Bible makes this point very clearly. It shows that the wicked sometimes prosper and the righteous sometimes suffer deeply. The book of Job especially belies the idea of a proportionate relationship between sin and suffering by showing that even though Job was the most upright man in the world, he was visited with untold misery, and then had to endure the questioning of his “friends,” who assumed he must have fallen into terrible sin.

Thus, when Jesus asked His disciples: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?” the answer was obvious. No, they were not worse sinners than anyone else. Jesus wanted to get the idea of a proportionate connection between sin and suffering out of the disciples’ minds lest they think that they were better people in God’s sight because they had not suffered and died. So, He warned them: “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

To drive His point home, Jesus mentioned a similar incident: “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” Again, the answer was clearly no. These victims were no worse and no better than any other Jews. So, once more He warned them: “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Those who were killed by the Roman troops and those who died when the tower fell may have been upstanding citizens. But in the vertical dimension, in their relationship to God, none of them was innocent, and the same is true for us. Jesus was saying, “Instead of asking Me why a good God allowed this catastrophe, you should be asking why your own blood wasn’t spilled.” Jesus was reminding His hearers that there is ultimately no such thing as an innocent person (except Him). Thus, we should not be amazed by the justice of God but by the grace of God. We should be asking why towers do not fall on us each and every day.

When anything painful, sorrowful, or grievous befalls us, it is never an act of injustice on God’s part, because God does not owe us freedom from tragedies. He does not owe us protection from falling towers. We are debtors to God and cannot repay. Our only hope to avoid perishing at the hands of God is repentance.

Jesus was not being insensitive or harsh with His disciples. He simply had to jolt them out of a false way of thinking. We would do well to receive His jolt with gladness, for it helps us see things from the eternal perspective. We can deal with catastrophes in this world only by understanding that behind them stands the eternal purpose of God and by realizing that He has delivered us from the ultimate catastrophe—the collapse of the tower of His final judgment on our heads.

___________

And, as a general and national repentance did not take place, Christ’s threatening was most awfully verified. For there was a remarkable resemblance between the fate of these Galileans, and that of the main body of the Jewish nation; the flower of which was slain at Jerusalem by the Roman sword,

___________

He cautioned his hearers not to blame great sufferers, as if they were therefore to be accounted great sinners.

Charlottesville … A Post-Mortem

It has now been two weeks since the Charlottesville Chaos and while I’d like to think this is a postmortem after the dust has settled, I know that is just not true. There is plenty of dust that is yet to be stirred up. All the same, I want to get on the record as to my observations in relation to Charlottesville. So, in no particular order,

1.) This conflict is not ultimately about race

It may be argued that race is the occasion of the conflict but in no way is race the cause of the conflict. If it weren’t about race it would be about something else. In the past, the faux issues have been worker oppression by the bourgeoisie, oppression of women by an evil patriarchal system, and oppression of students by the system.

What is this conflict is about is the Revolution. Most Americans believe that Communism died with the USSR  and so their knowledge about the reality and techniques of Communism is virtually nil. Most Americans do not realize that for the Marxists the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. The conflict in Charlottesville was never primarily about race. The conflict in Charlottesville was about advancing the Revolution.

In order for the Marxist Revolution to be successful unto the seizing of power conflict, division, and chaos must be generated by any and all means necessary. In this most recent rendition of Revolution, the issue chosen is the issue of race. In order for the Revolution to be successful envy and distrust must be created and accentuated with the result of an intense conflict wherein a totalitarian regime can come to the fore.

In the end, the Marxist Revolutionaries must create a stampede in the social order. The stampede exists in order that some Marxist tyrant can step forward in order to stop the stampede.

All of this is classic Marxism 101.

2.) Unite the what?

The rally was called, “Unite the Right.” The problem is that a good deal of what showed up in Charlottesville was not “right,” but instead was an expression of National Socialist beliefs of one degree or another. In other words, the “Unite the Right” rally found genuine elements of the right coming together to unite with leftist organizations.

It has been a myth long concocted by the left that expressions of National socialism is a “rightist” expression. This myth has been created in order for the left to have a bogey man on the right but the truth of the matter is that a degree of the violence that we saw in Charlottesville was between varying factions of the left. It was the same kind of violence that was seen in the Weimar Republic Germany and was characteristic of the Spanish Revolution. In all cases, it was and is just variant expressions of the left seeking to grasp power.

Because of the above, I think it was a mistake for the leaders of organizations that attended Charlottesville who are legitimately of the right as defined by support for limited and decentralized government to attend this rally. This is especially so if those leaders knew the other organizations who were going to show up were suspect.  There is no “Uniting the Right” with organizations that are left and neo-nazi and the attendance by the genuine right in a rally with pagan left organizations only ends up delegitimizing those who are genuinely on the right.  This is even more true for organizations who characterize themselves as Christian. These organizations need to be reminded of the prohibition of being unequally yoked.

3.) Even John Lennon had this figured out

In his Revolution soundtrack, Lennon wrote,

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow

In the same vein, we might write,

But if you go carrying the Nazi flag 
You’re just going to make people gag

No organization is advancing their cause by waving a Nazi flag. Similarly, no organization is advancing their cause by associating with those carrying a Nazi flag.

4.) All because I am convinced that it was a mistake for Christian organizations to attend a rally where they were asked to unite with the left  — and this because of the Scriptures command to not be unequally yoked —  this does not mean that I don’t believe that the Christian men in attendance were not demonstrating a heroic bravery. My Grandfather fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was a brave man as seen by the Bronze Star that he earned in that battle. However, I still think it was a mistake for him to be there and it was a mistake for these united States to have been involved in that war. The men at the Charlottesville rally may be faulted for their decision to attend but they can not be faulted for a lack of courage or bravery.

5.) Note the qualifier

President Trump was correct when he said,

“You have some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group — excuse me, excuse me — I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

There were many fine people who attended this rally to protest the taking down of the Robert E. Lee statue. I am honored to know several of them and double honored to call them friends.  The fact that the organizations they were aligned with made a mistake in supporting such a rally does not diminish the fact that many people in attendance, who were part of the legally permitted protest are upstanding Christian people.

6.) But they chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”

Well, given these kinds of statements as below it is not a wonder. Start at the 38 second mark,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ&t=8s

Start at the 5:50 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jg-Es2PNUg&t=4s

Some people do not want to become culturally or racially other than what they are culturally and racially or other than what their Christian forebears were culturally or racially. Some people don’t want to be genocided. Such people are apt to chant what others find to be edgy.

I will grant it would have been much more effective for those carrying the Tiki torches to be singing “Christ shall have Dominion.’

7.) The reason that this event exploded

It exploded because the antifa attended. The “Unite the Right” folk had a permit to march. If they had been permitted to march without being harassed there would have been no incident.  The antifa attended with the purpose of injuring people. They were launching bottles of urine and feces. They were launching soda cans filled with cement. They were spraying mace, bear spray, and who knows what other vile liquid. If you want to ask who brought the violence it was not the “Unite the Right” folks. It was Antifa. The fact that the “Unite the Right” folks may have used violence in order to defend themselves is perfectly normal.

8.) There is no serious threat from the Fascist left though there is a huge threat from the Bolshevik left.

It wasn’t the Fascist Nazi left who blew up in violence in Berkley when Milo Yiannopoulos showed up to speak. It wasn’t the Fascist Nazi left who blew up in violence at Middlebury College when Charles Murray showed up to speak. It wasn’t the Nazi Fascists who threatened such violence that Ann Coulter had to cancel her speaking engagement at Berkley for the threat of violence. It wasn’t Nazi Fascists whose violence canceled the Trump Rally in Chicago in 2016. It wasn’t Nazi Fascist who rioted in Baltimore and Ferguson. It wasn’t the Nazi Fascists who rioted when Heather MacDonald showed up to speak at Claremont McKenna College. How many have I missed?

There is no serious threat from the Fascist left though there is a determined effort by the Marxist Bolshevik left to rend the social fabric of America.

9.) The Establishment is the left

The response of the Media being breathless over Trump’s correct assessment of the Charlottesville in terms of guilt proves that the Media is Bolsheviki. The same goes for the Republicans who couldn’t get to a microphone fast enough to denounce Trump’s accurate representation.  This social order is Bolshevik. The Media is Bolshevik. The Political class is Bolshevik. The Juridicial class is Bolshevik. The Clergy is Bolshevik. The therapeutic Psycho-shrink class is Bolshevik. The academic class is Bolshevik. Exceptions in each exist but speaking, on the whole, our civil social order is Bolshevik. To do anything to fault the Bolsheviks will result in outrage as Trump saw.

10.) Karl Marx knows antifa?

“We make war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of country, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keynote of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed.”

11.) Why Right Wing Protesting Seldom works

Why does left-wing street activism work, and right-wing street activism does not? As Carl Schmitt explained in Theory of the Partisan, street activist, guerrilla or partisan warfare is never effective on its own. The street activist working from below is only effective in tandem with working with those from above. Schmitt taught that the street activist is only successful as an interested third party (military, political force, bureaucrat) is operating from positions of entrenched power. This teaches us that successful street activism happens typically only when it is already in power and not when it has no sponsor from above.

Right-wing street activism in the modern world is cargo-cult street activism where the ‘from below’ participants on the right believe that if they just copy the empowered left activist they will get the same result. The problem though is that without the hammer from above the anvil below can’t succeed in shaping the social order in a “right” direction.

12.) The “Church”

Exceptions notwithstanding, the pop Church seemingly lines up just short of “Black Lives Matter.” A great number of the Clergy seem to just assume that the current “racism” narrative is true. (Nevermind that the whole notion of racism was popularized by Trotsky in order to create the sense of social displacement and injury that Communism thrives upon.) In their own version of “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my,” the Clergy give us ubiquitous denunciations of “White Supremacists, White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and KKK members.” There are 330 million people in America. I would be impressed if you wouldn’t have room to spare for all the Neo-Nazis and KKK members to fit in in a modest sized Synagogue in America.

And yet the pop Church is absolutely consumed with that bogey man narrative.

As far as White Nationalism goes, there was a time when White Nationalism was not seen as any more suspect as Chinese Nationalism as it exists in China.

“Cosmopolitanism gives us one country, and it is good; nationalism gives us a hundred countries, and every one of them is the best.”

G. K. Chesterton

“One of the very reasons that Paul desired that the Gentiles become Christians was not only so that the Gentiles themselves may be blessed but also so that the Gentiles, then as Christians, may proceed to provoke his own Israelitic nation to jealousy and thereafter to faith in Christ. Accordingly, I think we must judge that every Christian who does not love his own nation is either an ungrateful cosmopolitan rascal and a rebuilder of the tower of Babel or otherwise is woefully ignorant of Scripture. And, I am sorry to say that the world is full of these kind of people today.”

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee
Sermon

“Nationalism, within proper limits, has the divine sanction; an imperialism that would, in the interest of one people, obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will. Later prophecy raises its voice against the attempt at world-power, and that not only, as is sometimes assumed, because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason, that the whole idea is pagan and immoral.

Now it is through maintaining the national diversities, as these express themselves in the difference of language, and are in turn upheld by this difference, that God prevents realization of the attempted scheme… [In this] was a positive intent that concerned the natural life of humanity. Under the providence of God each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfillment of which depends on relative seclusion from others.”

-Geerhardus Vos,
Biblical Theology

Look, if you’re in a Church that cannot find it within itself to see the problem of growing Bolshevism in this country and instead is only feverish about denouncing the National Socialist Lilliputians while ignoring the Bolsheviki Giants you need to think long and hard about where you are attending.

I highly recommend this article for a more thorough analysis of what the author refers to as “The Kalergi Clergy.”

Charlottesville and the Kalergi Clergy

13.) What I pray for

I pray that the Church and Christians could just despise both National Socialism and International Socialism… both Fascism and Communism. I pray that we would have nothing to do with either one of them. What I fear is that we are being stampeded into choosing one or the other. We would be better served to just let them duke it out and pray that they might destroy each other.

This means I’m hated on much of both sides. The racial Marxists hate me because I won’t back their play for a return to a Christless White Nation. The class Marxists hate me because I find ridiculous their view that Christianity means an imagining their’s no nations where all colors bleed into one.

Ah well, I’ve got big shoulders. I can handle all that hate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Psalm 2 — The God Who Mocks

We mentioned briefly last week that some scholars believe that Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 were written to be read together. The reason for that is some of the similarities between the two in terms of how God deals with the righteous as contrasted with how God deals with the wicked.

TIES TO PSALM 1
Psalm 1 — The Righteous vs. the Wicked

Psalm 2 — The Wicked world vs. the Righteous Son

 

Psalm 1  – Begins with “How blessed” (v. 1) – True happiness is not being settled in sin.

Psalm 2 Ends with “How blessed” (v. 12) – True happiness is trusting God’s Son.

Psalm 1 — call to “meditate” (v. 2) – true meditation on God’s law
Psalm 2 — “devising” (v. 1) – anti-meditation on exalting self and dethroning God …

Psalm 1 — Righteous meditate on God’s Law both day and night (vs. 2)
Psalm 2 —  The Wicked’s attitude to God’s Law is to break those bonds asunder, and cast away those cords from us

Psalm 1 — Scoffers (v. 1) – The wicked mock God.
Psalm 2 Scoffs (v. 4) – God mocks the wicked.


Psalm 1 — Righteous one is planted by streams of water
Psalm 2 — Righteous One is installed on Mt. Zion, God’s holy mountain

Psalm 1 – “the way of the wicked will perish” (6) – final end of the wicked
Psalm 2 “perish in the way” (v. 12) – final end of the Nation’s wicked leaders who oppose God

Psalm 1 — Wicked blown away like chaff
Psalm 2 — Wicked broken into pieces like pottery

Psalm 1 — True faith expressed in delightful meditation on God’s word
Psalm 2 — True faith expressed in reverent adoration of God’s Son, the living Word
So Psalm 1 -2 give us a strong contrast to the ways of the righteous vis-a-vis the way of the wicked. This is a theme of the righteous vs. the wicked is a theme that is repeated throughout the Psalms and one reason we should be much in the Psalms since the theme of God establishing His people while at the same time unseating the wicked is a comfort to God’s people.

Last week we look at the first strophe of this Psalm and noted the desire of fallen men to cast off God, His Christ, and God’s law. That fallen man remains committed to this program is seen by just a couple quotes,

“We make war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of country, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keynote of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed.”

Karl Marx

“Come, Satan, slandered by the small and by kings. God is stupidity and cowardice; God is hypocrisy and falsehood; God is tyranny and poverty; God is evil. Where humanity bows before an altar, humanity, the slaves of kings and priests, will be condemned … I swear, God, with my hand stretched out towards the heavens, that you are nothing more than an executioner of my reason, the scepter of my conscience … God is essentially anticivilized, antiliberal, antihuman.”

Joseph Proudhon

And so as we looked at closely last week the peoples’ rage and imagining of a vain thing. We tried to establish the point that when in vs. 3 the Revolution expresses itself by a resolve to cast God’s cords away and break asunder their bonds that this an expression of a desire to be done with God’s law and His providence. We tried to connect the dots that as courts and legislators seek to overthrow God’s explicit law that these are modern day examples of attempts to break bonds and cast away cords.

This was the first point. “A People’s Rebellion Observed.” This week we move on to consider the second strophe of this Psalm in vs. 4-6 and note “God’s Ridicule Levelled.”

PSALM 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. 5 Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure: 6 “Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.”

II.) God’s Ridicule Levelled

A.) There is ridicule found in God’s position vis-a-vis the wicked’s raging

Vs. 4-6 moves us from the machinations on earth where we find rage and conspiring by the wicked rulers of the Nations. In first 4 we are transported as it were to God’s heavenly court room and in the face of all this rioting rage to overthrow God and His Messiah and their law we find God remaining seated.

Elsewhere in the Psalms it is said “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered.”

God is not threatened in the least. Per the Psalmist in Psalm 115,

” But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”

There is calm in the face of rebellion. There is nothing for God to be harried about. He does not call a council to map out strategy. No sweat lies upon His brow communicating concern. God merely sits. Sitting on the throne, of course, communicates security and control. The nations rage and God ridicules them by remaining seated.

We would do well to remember this when we see the fomenting of the wicked around us. We see antifa seeking to break asunder God’s bonds. We see Social Justice Warriors seeking to cast away God’s cords. We see a tide rolling in resolved to take a stand against the Lord and His anointed. We even see the Church and clergy marching in the streets supporting a Worldview that is hostile to Biblical Christianity… or maybe we are facing the hostility of friends and family for our Christian stand.

If we find ourselves understandably in turmoil we would do well to find calm in God’s ridicule of all this inasmuch as He remains seated. God is our God for the sake of Christ and He is not threatened in the least by those who threaten either Him or His people.

Luther adds here,

“This is to show that there is not a doubt to be entertained that all these things shall come to pass. And the gracious spirit does it for our comfort and consolation, that we may not faint under temptation but lift up our heads with the most certain hope.”

B.) There is ridicule found in God’s response

Orig: a primitive root; to laugh (in pleasure or detraction); by implication, to play:–deride, have in derision, laugh, make merry, mock(-er), play, rejoice, (laugh to) scorn, be in (make) sport.

Laughter … derision … mocking … scoffing

Psalm 37:13
The Lord laughs at him, For He sees his day is coming.
 
Psalm 59:8
But You, O LORD, laugh at them; You scoff at all the nations.
 
Proverbs 1:26 (Wisdom speaking)

I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes,

By repeating the same idea twice we have a tautology in this verse. Nothing is added in the second statement that isn’t already there in the first statement.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. 

In Hebrew usage, it is to emphasize the truth of a matter. It is not a great deal different from our Lord saying “Verily, Verily.” By the repetition, there is an emphasis of the certainty of the thing.

J. A. Alexander offers here that this derision/mockery is “the strongest possible expression of contempt.”

This should alter our understanding of God’s character. This contempt of God for the wicked fits into the motif of “God is always angular and will never be made smooth.” God laughs, mocks and scoffs at the wicked.

This is what God delights in doing. Many might see cruelty in such behavior but I see the love of God for His own name and glory. What better response could there be to those who would roll God off His throne and place themselves in His place?

It is simply the case, citing Alexander again, “to God Himself there is something in sin that is not only odious but absurd, something which cannot possibly escape the contempt of higher much less the highest intelligence.”

We see God laughing at the wicked throughout Scripture,

1.) Pharoah decides to kill the Hebrew male issue and God laughs by placing the destroyer of Egypt at Pharoah’s table.


2.) The Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and decide to place it in service of Dagon’s temple, only to find first Dagon lying prostrate before the Ark and then subsequent to another effort decapitated and without hands.

3.) The enemies of God kill Christ and God laughs in the Resurrection, Ascension, and judgment coming of Christ in AD 70.God is full of this kind of merriment. The wicked keep Him pealing in laughter. Some would bring a complaint against God’s compassion here insisting that this laughter isn’t very compassionate.

When we consider the issue of compassion and mockery we must keep in mind that compassion is seldom a zero sum game. That is to say that often it is the case that if God were to show compassion to one party He would thereby be showing callousness towards another party.

Compassion thus cannot be considered in a vacuum. Compassion towards a murderer is callousness towards the victim’s family. Compassion for one who is effectively advocating homosexuality as just another life-style is callousness towards those who are being charmed by that argument. Compassion towards egalitarians and feminists who are quite self-conscious about what they are attempting is callousness towards every daughter and every wife who will be hardened and hurt by the culture that the advocates are seeking to build. Just as it is callousness towards every son and every father who will be emasculated and emptied by that same culture. The loathing that is revealed by any mockery reveals a corresponding compassion and love for the opposite of that which is being mocked and lampooned.

 So we would ask,

How is it compassionate to the righteous for God to not mock the wicked? How is it compassionate to God Himself to not break out in laughter against the contrivances of the wicked? Would we really suggest this mocking of God mean or full of animosity?


Note, there is no begging of God here for the wicked to come to His Messiah and surrender their hearts. There is no “softly and tenderly Jesus is calling” here. There is only straight up derision for those who would take a stand against the Lord and His anointed.

Pop Christianity doesn’t like that kind of God. But here we find Him described as such

We should keep in mind here the words of Alexander Maclaren here when we consider the terror in the idea of God mocking His enemies,

“To draw rebels to loyalty which is life is the meaning of all appeals to terror.”

And we would add, though if the rebel refuses life terror will indeed be his lot.

C.) There is ridicule found in God’s Words,

 5 Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure: 6 “Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.”

 

 

Conclusion

“What a great measure of faith is necessary in order to truly believe this word: For who could have imagined that God laughed as Christ was suffering and the Jews exalting? So, too, when we are opposed, how often do we still believe that those who oppose us are being derided by God, especially since it seems as if we were being oppressed and trodden under foot both by God and men?

… We should … fortify our hearts and look forward toward the invisible things and into the depths of the Word … I also shall laugh with my God.”

Martin Luther
Commenting on Psalm 2

Application

1.) We can continue to look forward to this day and pray for its hastening.

This day has not yet arrived. The wicked still plot and scheme. We can pray for their defeat.

2.) We can join in God’s laughter and I would say in God’s mocking. That is another sermon in itself but here I will just note that from Elijah’s mocking God’s enemies on Mt. Carmel, to Amos’ mocking of God’s enemies in his book, to Paul mocking his enemies in the book of Galatians we find the saints of God mocking God’s enemies.

3.) We can praise God that by the work of Christ He has made us who were once His enemies, to be His friends and so no longer an object of His mocking.

4.) We can ask God that He might be so kind as to make His enemies His friends by sending the Spirit to convert.

5.) We can continue to advance the necessity of all men everywhere to repent before the day of the Lord arrives.

6.) We can support with our monies and efforts those organizations that are committed to overthrowing the wicked.

 

 

Psalm 2:1-3

I. The Nation’s Rebellion Observed (2:1-3)
 
A. The Psalmist Sees The Nations Rising Up for Revolution (1)

1.) Note the presupposition of the Psalmist

The presupposition of the Psalmist is that it is unnatural for the nations to rage, plot, and conspire against the Lord. The operating assumed premise throughout is that the nations ought to know better. They ought not to take up against the Lord and His anointed. The fact that they have seems to strike the psalmist as a great oddity. Do you hear it in his voice?

Why do the nations rage?

It’s almost as if he is asking, ‘why whatever has gotten into them. Don’t they know better?’ His presupposition is that what is going on here is something that is altogether contrary to nature. What is true of the nations was true of Israel at one time,

“The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”


2. Why do the nations rage?

b.) Note NationS

We’ve spoken many times on the idea of ‘nations’ in Scripture so we won’t take a great deal of time here. Suffice it to say, once again, that throughout the Scripture, it is the nations as nations God deals with.

Dutch American Theologian Geerhardus Vos offered this insight as it relates to God’s dealing with Nations,

“God’s decree is not exclusively concerned with individuals but also comprises nations and establishes the bond between generations. The destiny of a nation is weighed by Him, as is the destiny of a person. There is not the slightest interest, indeed is completely impossible on Reformed grounds, to deny national election or whatever it may be called.”

Geerhardus Vos 
Dogmatic Theology Vol 1. — pg. 111

This reality that God deals with nations clearly prohibits the New World Order agenda of erasing the Nations and turning the world into a vast melting pot. If God elects nations then nations are God’s means whereby he elects persons from those nations. To advocate positions that would destroy nations is to resist God.

As it was the Nations that mocked God and His anointed in Psalm 2 so it was the Nations that Christ commissioned His disciples to gather in Matthew 28 and so it is those Nations which come into the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21:24). Everywhere in the Bible, it is nations as nations that are dealt with.

We mention this again only to note that the modern impulse to erase all distinctions from national distinctions to racial distinctions to gender distinctions is an anti-Christ agenda.

c.) disposition of nations

Rage … conspire,
so angry
in an uproar
Rebel

The Hebrew word here is ragash (raw-gash) and means

1. (Qal) to be in a tumult or commotion
2. (TWOT) to conspire, plot

Here what seems to be communicated is that the nations have as their rallying p0int a rage against God that is channeled into a joint effort to conspire and plot Revolution against God and His authority. The way the Psalmist speaks you almost get the sense of a mob scene as the nations are gathered for the purpose of dethroning God and His anointed.

Of course, this has been the motif of fallen man since the fall. He will not have God rule over him. For God’s order fallen man would replace a utopian order. So man rages, plots and conspires against God and His anointed.

We should note here that from this Scripture we can assert that conspiracy theory is true. Fallen man conspires and plots. And we see that testified to throughout Scripture.

I Kings 21 … the conspiracy of Ahab against Naboth
II Samuel 11 … The conspiracy of David against Uriah
Acts 23 …  Paul’s nephew uncovered a plot to assassinate Paul, and his knowledge foiled the attempt
John 11:47-49 … Conspiracy to kill Jesus
Matthew 28 … Conspiracy to lie about what happened to the body of Jesus

And fallen man continues to conspire against God.

Much that we see around us is the consequent of men conspiring against God seeking to implement their order over God’s order? You really don’t think, for example, that Sodomite marriage, or gender blenders, or the flourishing of transhumanism, or the Robots for intimacy craze have at its roots the reality that men are conspiring against God and His anointed?

Conspiracy is one mark of fallen man and the Christian who refuses to entertain conspiracy theory as revisionist explanation for any number of historical events is not wise.

Alexander MacLaren rightly said here,

“the conspiracy of banded rebels… set before us with extraordinary force … all classes and orders are united in revolt, and hurry and eagerness mark their action and throb in their words.”

2. Why do the peoples (Rulers) plot a vain thing?

a.) There is a little humor about this Scripture. Here you have all these rum rulers running around plotting and conniving against God and His anointed and their rule. And all the while they are meeting in secret to cast off God’s rule, God is omniscient. No wonder God holds them in derision and laughs.

That vain thing they plot is the dethroning of God and the enthroning of themselves.

Many have envisioned the soon success of this plotting.

Voltaire offered,

“Before the beginning of the 19th century, Christianity will have disappeared from the earth.”

Some years later, in the same space where Voltaire uttered this prophecy, a depository of Bibles existed.

“Change is always one generation away. So if we can plant the seeds of doubt in our children, religion will go away in a generation, or at least largely go away. And that’s what I think we have an obligation to do.”

Lawerence Krauss

 Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity.

John Lennon

So the plotting and predictions continue and will continue until the already present p0stmillennial kingdom expands to the point of exposing the fools who plotted in vain.

And this plotting happens in every field.

a.) In the area of Law men like Christopher Columbus Langdell, Roscoe Pound, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Benjamin Cardozo moved the discipline of law away from its Biblical moorings evinced in Puritan Commonwealth documents like “Abstract of the Laws of New England,” towards standards that evinced a humanistic, evolutionary, naturalistic and Statist paradigm. In the late 1800’s Langdell did yeoman’s work moving law training away from a century of Lawyers in America concentrating on what the Constitution said to Darwinian inspired notions of where the law was perceived to be moving (case law training). By Langdell’s work, the Constitution came to be seen to be evolving under the guidance of an imperial judiciary. Legal positivism, being rooted in an evolutionary basis thus was part of the vain plot to overthrow God.

b.) In sociology, the Father of Sociology plotted in vain against God.

August Comte spent his life seeking to abolish Christian worship and the Christian religion and when he was finished he established a new religion and proposed a hierarchy with himself at the top of the food chain and the soul of his deceased mistress as a sort of Queen of Heaven, and not being satisfied with that he created a liturgical humanist calendar by which to mark days and seasons.

c.) In politics

you have a variety of plotting. Ultimately all versions of Marxism, whether Fabianism, Syndicalism, Fascism, National Socialism, Communism, Trotskyism, Cultural Marxism, etc. are all just so many political plottings against the Lord and His anointed. They are ways by which the plotters seek to overthrow God and His order in favor of their utopian order where the State is God.

Having said that, there is good news here also that points to the rest of the Psalm.  All this plotting is in vain. All this energy … all the time spent … all the anxious energy is in vain. The Christ hater spends his life in vain because consciously or unconsciously he has spent his life plotting in vain against the Lord and His anointed.

Well,  this takes us from vs. 1 to vs 2-3 where the Psalmist is a little more detailed in his ponderings.

B. The Psalmist’s details the plotting as (2-3)

1. Against the Lord and His Anointed…

a. The kings of the earth set themselves

b. The rulers take counsel together

First note that this text is taken from a time when the King of the Hebrew people was seen as God’s regent over the earth. So closely was the King identified with the Lord that opposition to the King was opposed to God.

Now, we know that the anointed mentioned here as a higher and fuller meaning than just the King of Israel at this time. We know this because this Psalm is quoted in Acts 4:25-26 and applied directly to Christ. Jesus Christ is the greater King than any of Israel’s Old covenant Kings. He is the one whom the nations and rulers rage and plot against.

He is called the anointed

Because he has been ordained by God the Father,
and anointed with the Holy Spirit, 1
to be
our chief Prophet and Teacher, 2
who has fully revealed to us
the secret counsel and will of God
concerning our redemption; 3
our only High Priest, 4
who by the one sacrifice of his body
has redeemed us, 5
and who continually intercedes for us
before the Father; 6
and our eternal King, 7
who governs us by his Word and Spirit,
and who defends and preserves us
in the redemption obtained for us.

But the focus of this passage is of Jesus Christ as the great King to whom the loyalty of all other Kings must be given.

A great deal of time and energy has been spent on Christ anointed as our high priest and that rightly so. But Jesus Christ is also our great King and as King His command must be adhered to.

Presbyterian A. A. Hodge understood a Kingship of Christ that has been lost in much of the Reformed Church today,

“A Christian has no right to separate his life into two realms… to say the Bible is good for Sunday, but this is a week-day question, or the Scriptures are right in matters of religion, but this is a matter of business or politics. God reigns over all, everywhere. His will is the supreme law. His inspired Word, loyally read will inform us of His will in every relation and act of life, secular as well as religious; and the man is a traitor who refuses to walk therein with scrupulous care. The Kingdom of God includes all sides of human life, and it is a Kingdom of absolute righteousness. You are either a loyal subject, or a traitor. When the King comes, how will He find you doing?”

A.A. Hodge

Indeed, if a candidate for the ministry took Hodge’s words into his ordination service I wonder how many Presbyteries around the country might refuse to ordain him for that conviction?

But, Presbyteries notwithstanding Christ is anointed King and He rules all things as the Lord’s appointed man.

2. Against the Lord and His Anointed they say…

a. “Let us break Their bonds in pieces”
b. “(Let us) cast away Their cords from us”

What else can these bonds and cords be except God’s law?

The Hebrew word for “break” here carries the idea of snapping a chain apart. Here it would have to do with the intent of snapping the chain of God’s purpose or plan as expressed in God’s Law.

H. Rondel Rumburg offers in his work in this Psalm,


“There is no respect for the Anointed King whose truth challenges their desires. They evidence this by rejecting His role for men, by rejecting His role for women, by rejecting His role for nations, by rejection His role for families, by rejecting His role for the unborn, by rejecting His role for the Church, by rejecting His role for justice, by rejecting His role for the ministry, by rejecting His role for the Lord’s Day.”

How bizarre is this mindset? The one who provides breath and life is revolted against in favor of death. The only one who can provide meaning is tossed in favor of irrationality.

This is the culture we live in and these are the times we have been given. We live in a culture enraged against God and His anointed. But we are not to despair. We are to recognize they are involved in vanity. They can no more successfully pull down God than you can pull yourself up while standing in a bucket.

Conclusion

Here is the conclusion of the matter. The more these people are successful in their plotting the more they will fail.

“Just as all truth rests upon the truth that is from God, so the common foundation of all rights and duties lies in the sovereignty of God. When that sovereignty is denied or (what amounts to the same thing) banished to heaven because His kingdom is not of this world, what becomes then of the fountain of authority, of law, of every sacred and dutiful relation in state, society and family? What sanction remains for the distinctions of rank and station in life? What reason can there be that I obey another’s commands, that the one is needy, the other rich? All this is custom, routine, abuse, injustice, oppression. Eliminate God, and it can no longer be denied that all men are, in the revolutionary sense of the words, free and equal. State and society disintegrate, for there is a principle of dissolution at work that does not cease to operate until all further division is frustrated by that indivisible unit, that isolated human being, the individual—a term of the Revolution – naively expressive of its all-destructive character.”

– Guillaume Groen Van Prinsterer
Mentor of Abraham Kuyper

Hell; Then and Now

Go to Hell
To Hell and back
What the Hell?
Give em Hell
Come Hell or high water
We’re proud that our Preacher doesn’t preach  “Hell, fire, and brimstone”
The Road to hell is paved with good intentions
“Hell is other people” — Jean Sartre (No Exit)
Going to hell in a hand-basket
People will say of the soon to be deceased, “They will split hell in half.”
Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn.

So the idea of “Hell” is much in our lexicon but increasingly we as a people don’t believe in Hell.

We know that because in a 2007 Barna survey it was revealed

that only 32 percent of adults see hell as, “an actual place of torment and suffering where people’s souls go after death.”

We know that Hell isn’t in our belief system much because as Dr. Paige Patterson, President of Southwest Baptist Seminary has said,

“You can traverse the entire United States on any given Sunday morning, and you very probably will not hear a sermon on the judgment of God or eternal punishment. Evangelicals have voted by the silence of their voices that they either do not believe in (the doctrine of hell) or else no longer have the courage and conviction to stand and say anything about it.”

Because Hell is so little spoken of and because it is one of the themes in Scripture, I try, every couple of years to preach at least one sermon on Hell and that in the Summer time because there is an easy to connect corollary.

First, we must note

I) The reality of Hell

A.) The New Testament speaks openly and repeatedly regarding the reality of Hell. It is,

The final abode of those condemned to eternal punishment (Mt. 25:41-46, Rev. 20:11-15)

Described as a place of fire and darkness (Jude 7, 13)

Described as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8:12, 13:42, 50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30)

Described as a place of destruction (II Thes. 1:7-9, II Peter 3:7, I Thes. 5:3)

Described as a place of torment (Rev. 20:10, Luke 16:23)

B.) Jesus Himself repeatedly speaks of Hell

HADES — Abode of the Dead

(1)  Capernaum exalted to heaven, then brought down to hell (hades) Mt 11:23 / Lk 10:15 …two mentions on SAME OCCASION
(2)  Lord says He will build His church: Mt 16:18 …one mention, ONE OCCASION
(3)  Parable of Rich man & Lazerus:  Lk 16:23 …one mention, ONE OCCASION

GEHENNA…

(1) Sermon on the mount: Matt 5:29-30,22 and Mark 9:43,45,47… all 6 on the SAME OCCASION reported by both Mark and Matthew…
(2) Warning the Apostles to fear: Mark 10:28 / Luke 12:5  two mentions…SAME OCCASION…
(3) Upbraiding the Pharisees:  Matt 23:15, 33 …2 mentions …SAME OCCASION
(4) Warning against offending little ones: Matt 18:9 …one mention, ONE OCCASION

The Greek word for Hell here is significant. Gehenna or the valley of Henna was a deep, narrow slight valley south of Jerusalem. Here the ancient idolatrous Jewish Kings and people would offer up their children in sacrifice to Molech ( 2 Chronicles 28:3 ; 33:6 ; Jeremiah 7:31 ; 19:2-6 ).

Later in time this same valley  became the Jerusalem dump. Here the corpse’s of animals and of criminals, and all kinds of filth, were cast away and consumed by a fire forever stoked and smoldering. The Gehenna dump thus in process of time became the image of the place of everlasting destruction.

This is the word used for the place of the wicked. It is the word used to speak of the Devil’s residence along with his servants. Because of the constant burning fire of the Jerusalem dump we easily understand the connection to everlasting fire as associated with Hell.  However, there might be more observed here about the nature of Hell with the usage of the word Gehenna. The Gehenna in Jerusalem like all city dumps was a place where no order existed nor meaningful relationship between objects exist. Hierarchy was non-existent.  It was a place of utter chaos and destructiveness.

Contrast that with this sanctuary or with your own homes. There is order here. Everything is in the place it is in for a reason. All is in a meaningful relationship with all else. The pews are faced in all one direction. The Cross, in the center, is ever before us. The pulpit is in the center thus communicating the centrality of God’s Word. The acoustics are designed for sound. The Windows for the movement of air. All is in order and all is properly related to everything else. Even our brass Church mouse speaks of meaning as it speaks of the necessity for quiet in God’s house.  (Quiet as a Church Mouse.) So there you have it. As humans we thrive on order, hierarchy, and meaning but a city dump as standing as metaphor for Hell there is no order… there is no natural relationship between objects. There is no meaning in the dump. There you find a once priceless Grandfather clock next to some old tattered sheets next to an old tennis shoe, next to a empty box of Frosted mini flakes, next to used kitty litter. The city dump is meaningless chaos. The city dump is total destructiveness.

In the words of Rushdoony,

“This tells us then something about Heaven and Hell. Heaven is that realm where all people and all things have a meaningful, loving fulfillment, one in another. There is a totality of meaning, a totality of purpose, a totality of fulfillment; whereas in Hell, there is a totality of isolation. There is no community between one person and another. There is a total isolation, so that everyone is his own world, his own universe, his own god.”

Well, what might we say here? We might note that as man constantly flees from God he at the same time integrates downward into the Gehenna dump with the result that he creates cultures of Hell where meaninglessness is prized as meaning. Where order is surrendered in pursuit of chaos. Where hierarchy is given up in favor of equality.

“Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are equal.”

~Nicolás Gómez Davilla

One thing that is certainly true in a dump is that all the refuse and junk is equal … equally useless.

So, hell in Scripture is a place of endless burning. This stands in contrast in Scripture to heaven which is a place of endless blessing. Hell, like the Gehenna Jerusalem dump is a place of chaos, equality, and meaninglessness. Heaven, to the contrary, is a place of perfect order, eternal hierarchy, and total meaning. Hell is a place of total isolation whereas heaven is a place of complete community.

Here we can find a measuring rod for our family, churches, and communities. Do our community relationships take on the flavor of heaven or do they take on the character of the city dump — everything in isolation, nothing unique, all equally rotten and corrupt?

II.) Church History and Hell

For the Augustinians…….“They who shall enter into the joy of the Lord shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness. . .The saints’. . . knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted. . .with the eternal sufferings of the lost.”

Augustine, The City of God

SECTION 1.“In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. . .So that they may be urged the more to praise God. . .the saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens. . .to the damned.”

Aquinas
Summa Theologica

“The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven.”

The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. . .Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell. . . I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss.

Jonathan Edwards
[“The Eternity of Hell Torments” (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]

“God shall not pity them but laugh at their calamity. The righteous company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God’s judgment, and shall sing while the smoke riseth up for ever.”

Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732

III.) Hell and the Character of God

A.) Lose the Doctrine of Hell, and you lose the Justice of God

1.)  The denial of the eternality of Hell is another example of putative Christians or unlearned Christians or immature Christians attempting to make God out to be nicer than He makes Himself out to be. It is an attempt to save God from being God. It is sentimentality trying to rescue the alleged mean glowering character of God. It is another example of do gooders, who by doing their good, end up making Christianity crueler then any Devil could. This denial of the eternality of Hell is taken up by those who, at the very least think, “My God would never be that mean.” It is the argument which attempts to make God “reasonable.”

But God is not “reasonable.” At least not by modern man’s standards. This is something the Reformed Evangelist Rolfe Barnard understood. Barnard quotes two Psalms,

Psalm 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that forget God”

And in Psalm 7:11, we find these words: “God is angry with the wicked every day.”

Despite everything we hear today, Hell, God’s eternal penitentiary of the damned, is a terrible reality that men need to be faced with these days. I am aware of the fact that the popular “god” of the popular Christianity today is not the God of the Bible. Like a dead trunk, the popular “god” has no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and no arms to punish the ungodly. But the God of the Bible had fire in Sodom. He had a rod of iron for Samaria, for Tyre, for Jerusalem, and for Belshazzar. The God of the Bible dashed to pieces entire nations like a potter’s vessel. However, the modern “god” has no judgment in his hand; according to the popular gospel today, the modern “god” has sheathed the sword, and sits down as an indulgent weakling. His arm which used to visit vengeance upon impenitent sinners, now hangs nerveless and paralyzed–that is the popular “god” of today. I refuse to worship such a “god”–such a “god” is the creation of man’s wishes, but not the true God of the Bible.

Rolfe Barnard

 2.) Denials of Hell do not seem to comprehend that by altering the anchor example of God’s eternal justice (The condemnation to Eternal punishment for those who rebelled against God and His Christ) that the effect is a relativizing of temporal justice and punishment. If the anchor of justice is set loose and diminished in the Cosmic Divine realm the effect is to set adrift any ideas of absolute justice in the temporal realm.  If God’s justice is altered in terms of Hell and / or its duration then justice is the realm of man can be relativized and altered as well. One reason why we see so much injustice around us is that the Church no longer upholds the justice of God, by affirming the doctrine of Hell.
3.) Those who insist upon the conditionality of Hell or deny the eternality of Hell are those who will, in themselves or in their generations, become those who rebel against the whole concept of fixed Justice. When we deny the proper required Justice applied (eternal Hell) against those who commit crimes against God’s character and who do not find forgiveness in Christ, we will, over the course of time, deny the proper required justice against those who commit other lesser crimes. If the required proper punishment is denied, in our thinking, against those who commit the greatest of all crimes (unrepentant rebellion against the Character of God) then the consequence of that will eventually be the denial of justice implemented against all other lesser crimes.

So … getting rid of the eternal character of Hell guarantees the eventual arise of Hell on earth.

  4.) The Holiness of God is infinite and as such rebellion against God’s Holiness requires eternal punishment for those who do not close with Christ. The denial of the eternality of Hell is a denial of the august and majestic character of God. Low views of Hell insure, and in turn cause, low views of God.

The doctrine of Hell is a case where the punishment fits the crime. Any lesser punishment would suggest a lesser crime. The suggestion of a lesser crime would suggest that an offense against the person of God is somehow an offense that shouldn’t have the fullest possible consequences.  The eternality of Hell corresponds to the Majesty of God and His Law.

B.) And here we round off in speaking of Christ.

Christ is the who bore the Hell of God’s elect that that we might know God’s favor. If we deny Hell, we are denying at the same time the monumental importance of Christ’s work. If Hell, is not real … not eternal, then why is Christ dying for sins that merit the punishment of Hell?

A denial of Hell, ends up being a denial of the meritorious finished work of Christ. On the Cross Christ takes my punishment but if there is no eternal punishment why should I be grateful that He took it?