Psalms 2:1-12 (KJV)
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Among the more serious students of the Bible certain terms become sort of “buzz words”.
When we hear them we tend to perk up our ears and pay a little closer attention.
The reason is that we associate the words “conditional” and “unconditional” with the opposing views of salvation that are held by the Calvinists and the Armenians.
Calvinists preach a doctrine called “unconditional election”.
The idea of it is that, if you are elected by God for salvation, you will go to heaven regardless of what you do or do not do concerning Christ.
Armenians preach a doctrine called “conditional salvation”.
Their claim is that a person’s salvation is based entirely upon what they choose to do with Christ. You are saved of your own free will, and conversely, once saved, you can choose, by will or by actions, to “unsave” yourself.
Like almost everything in the Bible, the truth isn’t found in one extreme or another but somewhere in the middle.
- Anyone can be saved
- But only those who, by their free will call on Christ are saved
By the way you might be wondering why any of that matters to you. I would like to attempt to answer that:
You see, contemplating issues concerning your salvation give you confidence in your salvation.
And there is a difference between being confident in your salvation and being ignorant about your salvation.
Someone who has studied and considered and is sure of his salvation is much more likely to endure when difficulties come than someone who just blindly goes on assuming he is saved.
2 Corinthians 13:5 (KJV)
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
Believers in America just 250 years ago, suffered brutal persecution and sometimes death for the things they believed.
Do you think they could have endured that if they just giddily danced about assuming they were saved?
Debates and discussions and differences of opinion concerning these things are crucial to having confidence that what we believe is right and worth dying for.
And if it is worth dying for, it is definitely worth living out.
Now, the reason all of this has a bearing on this message is because of construction of the last sentence in verse 12;
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
He didn’t say:
- Blessed are certain people who put their trust in Him
- Blessed are a few of those who put their trust in Him
- Blessed are most of them who put their trust in Him
The Bible says,
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
I know for a fact that a lot of Christians don’t believe this verse.
They say things like, “Why does God bless him and not me?”
They will say something like, “God just blesses him more than He does most.”
One time I was speaking with a preacher friend of mine about a particular ministry I was praying about starting.
As we conversed, I shared with him some of my concerns about starting the ministry.
- It was going to be expensive and
- It was going to take a great many workers
I frankly did not know where we would get the resources to start the ministry. This pastor stopped me and said, “Brother McKenzie, you’ll succeed in the ministry. God likes you.”
The way he said it, and because I knew him well, my immediate reaction was, “And God doesn’t like you?”
The fact was that he thought God blessed some people who put their trust in Him more than He blessed other people who put their trust in Him.
But the Bible says
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
In other words, the blessing is unconditional. It belongs to everyone who puts their trust in God, without exception.
This is an unconditional promise.
If you have put your trust in the Lord, you are blessed.
But, I do want you to notice that there are some “conditions” to this unconditional promise.
We’re going to begin three quarters of the way down the Psalm.
The Psalm is a sort of dialogue between the Psalmist and the Lord.
Verses 1-3 the Psalmist asks, “Why do the heathen rage and people imagine a vain thing?”
Why is it that so many people will not trust the Lord and why is it that so many live such wicked lives.
Verses 4-7 The Lord answers, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh…”
None of this has caught the Lord by surprise and He will be completely vindicated in the last day.
He has a plan that involves the coming of His Son and establishing Him as King.
Jumping to the end of the Psalm, Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Verses 8-12 transition us from “imagining a vain thing” to putting our trust in the Lord.
There are at least four conditions that lead to those who put their trust in the Lord being blessed
I. INQUIRY
Psalms 2:8 (KJV)
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
The blessed Christian is a praying Christian.
He has learned that in an of himself he is nothing, but with God nothing shall be impossible.
In April of 1984 I moved my wife who was seven months pregnant and myself to Astoria, OR to plant a brand new Baptist Church.
I had only been to Astoria one time in my life, and I didn’t remember that time until we drove into town April, 7th. That one time we had only driven through the town, not bothering to even stop.
We moved there because there were two families who were looking for a pastor and because our pastor in Platteville, CO sent us there.
We wanted to come back to the Pacific Northwest to pastor but Pastor Smith would not allow me to come on a survey trip and would not let us leave until we knew where we were going.
After doing some research, I had settled on three places
- Baker, OR
- Hood River, OR and
- Astoria, OR
My pastor and his pastor, Brother Bob Roarke, sat me down in a restaurant and asked me to describe the three places.
Baker is cowboy country, hunting country and the town I really liked
Hood River is right across the river from where my grandparents lived and I knew we could stay with them until we go settled in and were successful.
I described Astoria by saying, “I have never been there but all I can imagine is that stinky ocean smell and trees that only have leaves on one side because the wind blows all the time.”
They both laughed and said, “That’s where you’re going.”
We got to Astoria and things did not go very well.
The only place that I could find that would rent to me was an abandoned gas station that flooded every time it rained.
The town was in an economic depression so I could not find a job and I had been trained not to accept support because, “With shekels come shackles.”
April of 1984 through August of 1987 we struggled.
Those two families quit before we finished the first summer.
After 2 ½ years we had about 20 of us, including my family of now four.
- I was nearly 30 years old
- I felt pretty much like a failure and
- I really wanted to quit
One day I was reading my Bible and praying in my little gas station office.
Psalms 2:8 (KJV) was the focus of my prayers.
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
“God, you told me to ask. I am asking. Give us a building, gives us a congregation. Give us a ministry.”
Now, to be honest with you, I knew what I was doing.
Just south of Astoria there was a church that had been without a pastor the whole time I had been there.
They weren’t a large congregation, but they had a beautiful building and I was sure that if God would just give me that building we could get a work fired up and going.
“God, give me the heritage of the heathen…”
They weren’t lost people, but they weren’t Baptists either.
I am not kidding or even exaggerating.
While I sat at my desk, Bible opened to Psalm 2:8, praying that God would give me the heritage of the heathen, Pastor Mark Hunsberger from the GARBC church just to the north of us pulled into our gas station parking lot.
He told me that he was going to resign his church and that the deacons had asked him to come ask me if I would consider becoming their new pastor.
Becoming the pastor there took another couple of months but literally,
I asked and God gave.
A blessed man is marked by prayer.
His first quality of character is
- not hard work,
- not good people skills,
- not charisma
It is prayer.
He has put his trust in the Lord, and it is to the Lord he prays.
The blessed man secondly is marked by
II. INSTRUCTION
Psalms 2:10 (KJV)
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
No matter how successful a person may seem to be in this life, he is a fool who refuses instruction.
I do believe a wise man picks carefully those who instruct him.
It should not be
- The ungodly
- The sinner or
- The scorner
As we see in Psalm 1 but a wise man has instructors.
One of the problems that I think I find in Christians these days is that there is hardness about instruction.
I think it is because we have so many churches preaching so many different things that for the most part most Christians don’t think any of it matters.
- They just want a church that preaches sort of like they believe
- They want a church that is comfortable for them and their family
- They want a church that doesn’t put tons of pressure on them
They just want to go to church and feel good about it.
It creates weak Christians with weaker families.
A blessed Christian is wise enough to be instructed.
The blessed are marked thirdly by
III. ENGAGEMENT
Psalms 2:11 (KJV)
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
They serve the Lord.
They participate in the activities of their church.
- They attend
- They arrive early and
- They get engaged in the work of their church
I spoke with a fellow this week who is from another church. He is a student at our college and was here to hand in some work and I could tell he wasn’t doing very well so I just asked him what was going on.
He’s been depressed.
And a huge part of his depression is the result of him feeling like he is a “taker” at church.
- He’s broke
- He’s out of work
- He’s nearly homeless and
- He’s been that way for a while now
But talking to him, the thing that bothered him was not that he was living in an apartment that had no electricity
Not that he is behind on his bills
What bothered him was that he doesn’t feel like he is able to contribute to his church.
He meant contribute to his church financially, but the same is true of a person who doesn’t contribute to his or her church in any one of the things God gives us to give:
- Time
- Talents and
- Treasure
If you want to be blessed of the Lord, serve the Lord. Get plugged in to a ministry and get engaged in the work of the Lord.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
Its true of every Christian; we are blessed.
But there are some conditions to experiencing the blessing of the Lord
- Inquiry – learn to ask
- Instruction – learn to learn
- Engagement – learn to serve the Lord
The final mark of the blessed is
IV. INVOLVEMENT
Psalms 2:12 (KJV)
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
I refer here to a loving relationship with the Lord.
No Christian is going to feel blessed if he or she doesn’t love the Lord.
Suppose a husband and wife do not nurture their love for one another.
They have everything that is required for marriage
- They have the certificate that says they are married
- They have a house that the two of them reside in
- They have pictures hanging on the wall of places they have been together
- They likely have children either still in the home or grown up
They have everything marriage is.
But if they have not carefully nurtured their love for each other, they are not blessed in their marriage.
There are a lot of Christians who are in that very spot spiritually:
- They are saved and will not lose their salvation
- They have a Bible and have read it at least a little bit
- They probably have a church that they claim they belong to
But if they haven’t nurtured their love for the Lord Jesus Christ, they will not believe that they are blessed.
Just like a marriage can grow gradually apart if no effort is taken to nurture it, so a person’s relationship with Christ can slowly fall apart if they don’t work to grow in their love for the Lord.
Conclusion
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
It is an unconditional promise.
- Every Christian is blessed;
- Every Christian can be blessed.
But there are some conditions to experiencing this unconditional promise of blessing:
- Inquiry – learn to ask, to pray
- Instruction – learn to learn
- Engagement – learn to serve the Lord
- Involvement-learn to love the Lord
