This morning, we turn to Psalm 2.
I am reading from the American Standard Version of 1901.
Why do the nations rage,
And the peoples meditate 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 bonds asunder,
And cast away their cords from us.He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh:
The Lord will have them in derision.
Then will He speak unto them in His wrath,
And vex them in His sore displeasure:
Yet I have set My king
Upon My holy hill of Zion.I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.
Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations 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.Now therefore be wise, 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 in the way,
For His wrath will soon be kindled.
Blessed are all they that take refuge in Him.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Father, we have already committed ourselves to Thee, but, Lord, we do want to recognize in Thy presence that apart from Thee, whether speaking or hearing, we can do nothing. We thank Thee, beloved Lord, that Thou hast provided that anointing; and into that anointing, by faith, we stand this morning, whether for speaking or for hearing.
Lord, may we meet with Thee and receive from Thee. May this be a time in Thy sight that is effective because Thy Word finds a dwelling place, a lodgment, in our hearts. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The little phrase that I have taken as a theme for what the Lord has given me is in Isaiah 62:1.
For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace,
And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
Until her righteousness go forth as brightness,
And her salvation as a lamp that burneth.
For Zion’s sake.
This morning, I want to speak about the battle over Zion. We shall talk a little later about the real meaning of Zion, but I want to introduce the whole subject by speaking about the tremendous battle and conflict that rages over what God calls Zion.
This second Psalm that we have read together is what we call a Messianic Psalm. That is recognized by all biblical scholarship. Last year we considered another well-known Messianic Psalm, the 110th Psalm. The 22nd Psalm is another well-known Messianic Psalm, and the 24th Psalm is another. This second Psalm is probably the best known Messianic Psalm of them all.
What do we mean by a Messianic Psalm? We mean a Psalm that is prophetic, one that predicts and prophesies the coming, the work, and the glory of the Messiah.
This Psalm has always been accepted by both Jewish and Christian sources as essentially Messianic, and it is quoted a number of times in the New Testament. In other words, this Psalm is all to do with the Messiah, the Lord Jesus.
It has never been adequately explained in Jewish sources what verse 12 means: “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry.” Who is the Son, unless it is Jesus, the Son of God?
This Psalm, as I said, is referred to and quoted a number of times in the New Testament, always in an important way. It contains vitally important truth relating to the purpose of God in this age and the conflict that rages over it.
I believe that it has peculiar relevance to us at the end of the age. Whilst this particular Psalm goes to the heart of the whole matter throughout the ages, taking the central thought of God, the desire of His heart, and the tremendous antagonism of the powers of darkness over that matter, it has particular reference to the end of the age.
At the end of the age, this whole battle is going to be heightened. It is going to come to its climax. If I am right, I believe that you and I are living in that part of the age. Therefore, we are witnessing this conflict coming to its climax.
Let us have a closer look at this Psalm. First, notice the battle that rages over the purpose of the Lord. In verse 1 there are nations and peoples; in verse 2 there are kings and rulers. This raging covers the whole earth: nations, peoples, kings, rulers.
What is the object of their raging?
Why do the nations rage,
And the peoples meditate a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord, and against His anointed.
His anointed, in Hebrew, is His Messiah. Against the Lord and against His Messiah—against His Anointed One. That is the heart of the conflict.
Thank God, the heart of the conflict is not you or me, or our work or ministry. It is essentially the Lord and His Messiah. That is the heart of it.
Sometimes we tend to think that we are the heart of this whole battle, since it rages around us and we get involved in it. We think, “Well, me! Ah, but he never took that. I am a walkover as far as the enemy is concerned. I am no match.”
Do you really think that the enemy is all worked up about me or about you? Of course not. He would only have to blow at you if the grace of God did not come between you and the enemy. That is all he would have to do, and you would fall over in a moment. But it is the grace of God that comes between you and the enemy.
I remember one year seeing our cat, who was quite an eccentric character—the pet cat we had at home. I heard the most extraordinary chattering sound, and I could not think what it was. It sounded almost mechanical.
I went into the room, and there I saw our cat on the windowsill. Just on the other side of the window was a branch of a tree, with a very beautiful bird and two babies. Our cat was chattering with rage. He saw a meal literally within a paw’s length, but unfortunately the glass came between him and the bird.
All he could do was chatter behind the window, and the bird seemed to know it. It hopped about, looked at him, and had a great time.
It reminded me very much of that word:
Thou preparest a table before me
In the presence of mine enemies.
The enemies are there, but thank God for the invisible veil of grace that comes between us and the enemy.
Coming back to the point: the main object of the enemy is not you and me. We are nothing. He could walk over us in a moment, but for the grace of God. What his rage is directed against, and his antagonism centred upon, is the Lord and His Anointed.
Because we have been redeemed by the Anointed of the Lord, saved by the Anointed of the Lord, and joined to the Anointed of the Lord in an eternal union, we have also become the object of his anger.
Sometimes the enemy whispers to Christians—and perhaps it is worth saying this, even though most of the younger ones have gone out. It comes to older ones too. The enemy comes and whispers in our ear, “Listen, there is no point in your being so out-and-out as a Christian. Why are you so out-and-out? You are just inviting conflict. You are bringing yourself into a great battle, and there is no need for it.”
“Why do you not become a little more worldly? Why do you not compromise just a little? In fact, why do you not go back into the world? You will have a good time. Why have all this anger of the enemy? Why have all this having to go against the current of the world?”
I have often heard young people come to me and say this kind of thing: “Oh dear, it is all such a battle. I feel so unpopular. I feel everything is against me. It would be so much easier if I went back.”
They are just like the children of Israel, remembering the onions, garlic, and leeks of Egypt. They were no sooner across the Red Sea, in the wilderness and on their way to the Promised Land, than suddenly all the bondage of Egypt, all the flies of Egypt, all the slavery of Egypt, and all the dark side of Egypt disappeared. All they could think about was that lovely, spicy food.
Now, I know that for many Americans onions, leeks, and garlic would not be something to long for in Egypt. But for the children of Israel, it was something suddenly remembered. They remembered the only good thing about Egypt.
Is that not a strange thing? It happens again and again with us when we have found the Lord. The enemy comes back and says, “You remember the days when you were so happy? You remember the days when you did not have any battle then, did you? It was before you were saved. Now, if you were to go back, you would have that peace again.”
The enemy never says, “You will have the bondage and the slavery, and your last state will be worse than your first.” He simply says, “Go back and you will have a good time.”
When a person is saved by the Son, once the Lord Jesus has really named you with His own name, it is forever. You may be a prodigal son, but you are a marked person as far as the powers of darkness are concerned. They will follow you and follow you and follow you, and would destroy every single thing about you but for the grace of God.
The way of a backslider is always wonderful to start with, but the end is always tragic.
Years ago, when we first began in Richmond together, there were a couple of brothers with us. I remember very well how they went on with the Lord for a while and endured so much of the battle and conflict, especially over the establishment of the Lord’s ways with us in the very beginnings.
Then suddenly they had what they thought to be a revelation: we were all wrong. After considering it for a while, they came and told us that not only were we all wrong, but the whole thing was of the devil.
I listened very quietly and asked them why they thought that. They gave this reason, that reason, and another reason. But then they said, “Here is the greatest evidence. Since we two saw this, we have been getting up at five o’clock in the morning and having a two-and-a-half-hour quiet time.”
“Oh, really? How long have you been doing that?”
“Three weeks.”
“Two and a half hours?”
“Yes,” they said, and eyed me with a steely eye. “Are you getting up at five?”
Well, I could not say I was. Furthermore, when I did get up, I found the quiet time a real battle, as if all hell were let loose at times.
That went like a shot into my heart. Then I began to think, “Could they be right?” I asked some of the other brothers, “Do you find it easy to get up?” None of them did. They all had the same sense of oppression, pressure, and battle.
But these two were in glory. They said, “Oh, we have been in bliss. We have been in paradise. It seems like glory.”
Six months later, they both went out spiritually and have wandered in the far country ever since—for twenty years.
When you think about it, of course it is logical and rational. If the enemy could get you, obviously he would say, “Now then, stand back—the whole army of evil, stand back. Give them a good time. Let them think it is glorious. Do not attack them. Do not pressurize them. Do not give them any sense of our presence. Let them feel as if they are in glory.”
“And then, when we have got them, we will pulverize them.”
Dear friends, the sad fact is this: if you have been saved, you are a marked person. You should never have got saved in the first place—no, no. It does not matter where you go, even into the far country. You are a marked person, and the enemy knows it.
Because of that, he will hate you, just as he hated the Jewish people through all the years of their rejection of the Messiah. Still they are a marked people, and therefore he hates them.
In the same way, even if you were to wander into the ways of the enemy and compromise and compromise, still he hates us. This is why, even in great denominational systems, the enemy works and works and works until he brings a thing right out, until it denies and contradicts its very foundations.
He hates any name of the Lord in that thing—its very beginnings, its very history.
So, dear people of God, it is a great encouragement in one way. Listen to this: if the enemy’s rage is against the Lord and against His Anointed, we know who is going to win. It is as simple as that.
If it were me, if it were you, if it were us, I would have the most terrible fears today. I would look at you and think, “Can they stick it?” I would look at myself and say, “Can he endure? When the enemy really comes out in full force, will it be possible to go right through?”
But when I know that the real objective of the enemy’s rage is the Lord and His Messiah, then I know the battle is already won. It is already won. So I can rest in that.
I know that it is best to walk with the Lord, best to be found in the centre of His will, and best to be involved in His heart’s desire. Quite honestly, wherever you go, you are going to get the enemy. So frankly, now that you are saved and redeemed, why not go the whole way?
At least then we shall know the glory that will follow, and we shall come, by the grace of God, to the throne of God. We shall be in God’s Zion, which is eternal. Best, therefore, to go the whole way with the Lord.
Look at these wonderful thoughts. This word rage in Hebrew is really “to be in tumult” or “in commotion.” Why are the nations in commotion? Why are they in tumult?
“Raging” is a lovely word in English because it carries that sense of restlessness—raging like an angry sea. It is a good word to describe this.
“The peoples meditate a vain thing.” To meditate a vain thing is to imagine or devise a vain thing. The words vain thing mean something empty. They are devising empty things.
Sometimes the empty things they are devising seem to us very concrete, very complex, and very terrible. But the Word of God says they are empty things. Why? Because they are directed against the Lord and His Anointed. Therefore, they are empty and vain.
Then we read about the kings of the earth setting themselves and rulers taking counsel. “Set themselves” means exactly what it says: to station oneself or to take one’s stand.
The whole hierarchy of evil has stationed itself as in battle. It has taken its stand as in battle. It has taken a military position against the Lord and His Messiah, His Anointed.
“Taking counsel” is also an interesting expression. It means to seat themselves close together. I wish believers sometimes did that. We are often very alienated from one another, but these powers of darkness, energizing flesh and blood, take counsel together. They sit close to one another.
They sit in conclave, as Gesenius puts it—altogether in very close connection with one another. If believers are disunited, the powers of darkness are not. They have an all-governing, overarching aim, and this gives them harmony, unity, and togetherness.
The rebellion at the heart of this whole matter is in these words:
Let us break their bonds asunder,
And cast away their cords from us.
It is the mystery of lawlessness. The heart of the whole matter is: “We will not have the reign of God. We will not have the reign of His Anointed One. We will not have His law. We will not have His Word. We will not tolerate His truth.”
Behind all flesh and blood, behind all ideologies and philosophies, behind all human theories, rise these great principalities and powers, these world-rulers of this darkness, these hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenly places.
Turn to Ephesians 6:12. The apostle Paul defines and delineates these spiritual powers that are against us:
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Here you have a whole hierarchy of evil. Principalities are princes—that is, the top. I come from a kingdom, and we would speak of kings or queens. Here you are a republic, and we would have to speak of a president.
If you think of it that way, we would say, “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the president; against the powers,” that is, the executives next down—like the Pentagon, like the State Department, the executives, those who work things out.
I do not know too much about your mode of government, but it is the same everywhere, really. First you have the top, the real supreme head. Then you have the executives, and then you have the world-rulers of this darkness.
This is the most interesting phrase, because it means that all moral and spiritual darkness is governed by spiritual beings.
That means that a thing like Islam, which can hold millions in its grip, has a spiritual being behind it—dictating it and directing it. It is a world-ruler of darkness.
It is the same with many other forms of philosophy: transcendental meditation, yoga, theosophy, spiritism, and all these things. They are world-rulers of darkness. These things are not merely human creations. They are things that have come from the pit, and they enslave men and women.
It is the way that the principalities and powers bind and fetter men and women, keeping whole areas of the world in complete bondage and darkness.
Then we have hosts of wicked spirits. They are still powerful, but they are smaller beings, if you understand what I mean. Their authority and power are limited compared with the others. But literally it says, “hosts of wicked spirits.”
Most of us have never come up against a principality or a power, or probably even a world-ruler of darkness. But we have all come up against some of these wicked spirits. They dictate household upsets, business upsets, and local upsets. You know the kind of thing—it is all behind the scenes.
People say, “Oh my goodness me, what a mystical speaker! Why do you not come down to practical things? After all, we are living in a flesh-and-blood world. It sounds as if we have gone back to the Dark Ages, to the Middle Ages, the way he is talking.”
Good night, dear friends. You only have to have a Marxist or two in a factory, and the whole factory can be in ferment. We found this very much on our side of the Atlantic.
One man breathes little ideas. He is not so stupid as to open up with the Kremlin or ideology, but he talks about actual problems that exist. He preys on them and preys on them and preys on them, and the whole factory is in trouble.
We have this in our teachers’ unions, in our education system, and in all kinds of things. If one person can do that, friends, it stands to reason that those of us who believe in a spiritual world behind flesh and blood recognize that these beings are at work to spread these things: to disrupt, frustrate, perplex, confuse, bring insinuation, bring lies, and bring seducing spirits, so that there is error and much else.
Is all this just to put fear into us? Look at 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh
(for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds),
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God,
and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Is this not interesting? Strongholds—thought fortresses. That means there are titanic fortresses and strongholds. “Imaginations” means speculation.
Here we have speculative theories, not necessarily based—indeed, sometimes based in untruth. Because the rest of it is speculation, my word, the problems that come as a result of it.
High things are exalted against the knowledge of God. There are many such things in this world, and they bind men and women. Think of the thought of Chairman Mao, which bound five hundred million people in absolute darkness. Thought.
But the wonderful thing is this: Ephesians 6 says that we can win this battle. How do we win it? By standing. Having done all, standing.
Here it says that we can cast down strongholds, cast down imaginations or speculations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
This mystery of lawlessness is described in 2 Thessalonians 2:7:
For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way.
We have not time to read the whole chapter, but in the second chapter of the second letter to the Thessalonians, we find that this mystery of lawlessness, this spirit of antichrist—anti-Messiah, if you understand antichrist—has been in the world from the beginning.
The spirit of anti-Messiah was already in the Old Testament from the very beginning, counteracting, trying to frustrate, trying to confuse, and somehow trying to destroy the purpose of God and undo the purpose of God. It has been there all the time.
This mystery of lawlessness has always been there because the aim of the enemy is to destroy the kingdom of God.
People say to me—and I have often thought it myself—“Why does the enemy think that he can win, when every time he does anything, God turns it into blessing and glory?” I would have thought the enemy, with his intelligence, would long ago have realized, “Why, I just cannot win. Every time I do anything, God turns it to the blessing of His people, His redeemed, His elect, and it brings greater glory to the Messiah. So I will give up.”
No. Why does he not give up? Listen: every human being in this place—and everybody else as well—listen. Pride is the most terrible thing in the whole universe. Why? Because that was the initial fall of Satan.
I will be like the Most High.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
When a person is filled with pride, they become absolutely deceived. It is incredible, is it not? When a person is eaten up with pride, they not only believe their own prejudiced ideas, but they go on and on and on with the obstinacy and stubbornness of pride, believing that in the end they will get through.
That is the only explanation for the enemy. He still believes, after these thousands of years, that he is going to win because he has the most insatiable, incurable pride. He still believes that he can unseat God’s Messiah, frustrate the sovereign will and purpose of God, and liquidate the redeemed of the Lord.
I think that is enough to say about the battle over this. You and I are in a battle. Thank God, this battle is not your battle; it is the Lord’s battle.
If it were my battle, I would be very depressed, I can tell you. If it were our battle, I would still be depressed. I know the enemy only has to start breathing insinuations and lies, and many of us will believe them about one another. We shall start inciting; we shall be at sixes and sevens with one another, tied up in knots.
In the end, the whole thing would sink in a morass of infighting and unhappiness. It happens again and again. Thank God, this battle is not my battle, and it is not even our battle. It is His battle. It is the battle of the Lord.
Because it is the Lord’s battle, the end is absolutely secure. Praise the Lord for that.
Remember that the next time you are at the kitchen sink and everything goes wrong. The drain gets blocked up, the children squawk, and your best china gets broken. Remember.
We all think, “Oh, it is lovely to hear these things.” Then we get back, and all these evil beings seem to get let loose on us for a while. Everything goes wrong. The office is upset; the boss comes in and roars at us. Then we are charged by somebody else with something we never said or even thought. Then some believer turns their back on us. Oh, we feel dreadful.
Then we think, “Oh dear, it is not worth it. It is not worth it. What is the good of it all?”
The fact of the matter is this: how does the enemy get at you? Through little things. He uses little things with a tremendous objective. After all, it is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Most of us are ready for the big things. If we saw the enemy coming right out, we would say, “Oh, I know exactly what he is up to. Praise the Lord! I am going to get a few believers together, and we are going to praise the Lord and pray.”
But when everything goes wrong in the home, everything goes wrong in the office, everything goes wrong churchwise, and it all comes in your ups and downs, we do not think of the enemy. We just think of flesh and blood.
But this battle is the Lord’s battle. The way the enemy ties us up is through the tiniest little things, through very ordinary circumstances, until he has worn us out.
I want you also to note the purpose of the Lord. How much more time have we got, brother? We should be finishing now, should we not?
Ten minutes? I could not tell that.
What is the purpose of the Lord? I said that this battle is over the purpose of the Lord. The purpose of the Lord is most wonderfully set forth in Psalm 2. Look at it again. The heart of the whole conflict is over this purpose of God, and the purpose of God is threefold.
Here is the first major constituent in the purpose of God: the King. The King.
Yet have I set My King
Upon My holy hill of Zion.
Who is the King? The King is His Anointed in verse 2—His Messiah—or the Son in verse 7:
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.
Or again, “Kiss the Son.” The purpose of God from the very beginning has been essentially to do with the Lord Jesus. He is the key and the heart of the whole matter.
You and I have been redeemed—we will come to that in a moment—simply because God loves His Son so much that He created us to be together with His Son. Is that not wonderful?
The amazing love and grace of God: to create creatures such as ourselves, who give Him so much trouble, who are so rebellious, who think so much on their own, who are so self-sufficient. Oh, how wonderful it is. The heart of the whole matter is the King.
Turn to Ephesians 1:9-10:
Making known unto us the mystery of His will,
According to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him
Unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times,
To sum up all things in Christ.
The purpose of the Lord is to sum up all things in Christ, that Christ may be everything in everyone, and that the glory of the Lord may cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Praise God.
The Lord said, “As surely as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Summing up all things in Christ.
This King is not only King in title. He is not only King in pedigree. It is absolutely true that He was born King of the Jews, He lived as King of the Jews, and when He died there was one single statement nailed above His head:
Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.
There has never been another Jewish king, and there never will be, from that day to this, until He returns whose right it is to take the throne.
He was born King of the Jews. He was born not only with a title, but with a pedigree. He was great David’s greater Son.
We have both genealogies, as far as we can tell. One goes through Joseph, and the other goes through Mary, His mother—both of the royal house of David. Even the Talmud says, “Jesus, who was of the royal house.”
Of course, the archives with all the genealogies were destroyed when the temple was destroyed. But it is an interesting fact that in all the years of His ministry—three and a half years of His public ministry—while everyone was in commotion about the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of David, never once did the chief priests, scribes, or elders say, “You are not the Son of David.”
They knew very well that the genealogies were in the actual temple court. Anyone who wanted could verify the fact that Jesus was the Son of David. Never once in the whole of His ministry did they bring the one charge that could have destroyed and discredited Him in the eyes of the people: that He said He was the Son of David and He was not. Because He was, and they knew it.
But, my friends, the King is not King because of title, pedigree, or status. He is King because of character. The Lord Jesus has within Him such an intrinsic character that He can do no other than reign.
When He was stripped of all that we call, on our side of the Atlantic, the mystique of royalty—when He was stripped naked, beaten black and blue, with spittle covering His face, His beard pulled out, a crown of thorns jammed on His head, a little reed shoved into His hand, and an officer’s cloak flung around His scourged, bloodied body—
—and they mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews,” heaven was prostrate in worship. It was at that time that Jesus revealed His true kingliness.
If you take most human beings, strip them naked, beat them black and blue, make a mockery of them, and make them the butt of jokes and horseplay, somehow they seem very little, very insignificant, very unkingly, unroyal.
When we see them in state occasions, they seem to have such power and authority because they are invested with all the insignia of government and high office. Strip them, beat them black and blue so that their face is misshapen and swollen, and somehow they seem just like any other bit of human debris.
But not Jesus. Jesus revealed a kingliness, a character: never complaining, never arguing, never cursing, and never reviling.
It was at that moment that Jesus became the King of kings and Lord of lords in heaven’s eyes. Then He went forward to His work on the cross and saved the whole of humanity, that He might come to glory bringing many sons with Him.
The King—that is the purpose of the Lord. Praise God.
I cannot wait for the day when the Messiah comes. I do not know about you, but I cannot wait for the day. I am sick to death of all these presidents and prime ministers, and this wretched United Nations, and all this collywobbling hogwash that goes on in it. Are you not?
When presidents have to go and put their arms around men who have been murderers, and all we get in the United Nations is hogwash about Rhodesia and South Africa and Israel and some other thing, while in Cambodia one million people have been liquidated in the most dreadful circumstances and not a single resolution is passed in the United Nations—it is politics.
The basis of the whole thing is not righteousness. Its foundation is not righteousness; its foundation is convenience. So we have to sit down at table and sup and feast with men who have themselves murdered others, and call Chairman Mao the great light of the twentieth century. I could not believe any president could say such a thing of such a monster.
But that is diplomacy. That is politics. I cannot wait for when the King comes, because then it will not be diplomacy or convenience. It will be founded on absolute truth and absolute righteousness. What He does will be based on what is true.
He will rule the nations with a rod of iron—not a kind of awful autocratic dictatorship, but in righteousness. Oh, friend, I cannot wait for it. I just cannot wait for such a day when this whole thing of politics and diplomacy is swept aside and truth, righteousness, compassion, and love come into their own. What a day that will be.
Then I must rush on to the other two things. The second thing is, “My holy hill of Zion.” The Hebrew is very simply this:
I have set My King
Upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness.
Upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness. What a lovely thought. The mountain of My holiness—holiness meaning soundness, completeness, health, wholeness, separatedness, uniqueness.
It is as if God is saying, “Zion is the thing that has been on My heart from the beginning. I have longed for a Zion for My King, for My Anointed, and I have set My King upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness.”
We shall consider all that when next we take up this matter. I am only going to touch on it now. But notice that the second constituent of the purpose of God, over which this battle rages, is not just the King: it is Zion—the fact that God has set His King, His Anointed, upon Zion.
If we only understood what Zion was. People mock, laugh, and deride what they call Zionism. They say today that it is a form of imperialism, colonialism, racialism, and racism. But, my dear friends, all Zionism is a movement for the liberation of the Jewish people. That is all.
You and I are in a movement for the liberation of the world. We are in the movement that is going to bring back the whole world to the King—the most wonderful Zionist movement of all. Are you a Zionist? I am.
In that desire, this Zionist, lock, stock, and barrel, I am waiting for the King and for the restitution of all things.
Now I must rush on to the third thing. We find it in verse 8:
Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
Here is the third constituent of the purpose of God: the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, and the nations for His inheritance.
So we have three things: the King, Zion, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Dominion.
Praise God, we are in that movement which began with the King—the inexorable, invincible movement for the restoration of all things to God.
It is His purpose to bring us through the Messianic King, through the Anointed One, through the King-Redeemer, into His Zion, and train us for government.
It is part of our task to see that the uttermost parts of the earth become His possession and the nations His inheritance. Thank God, burn into our hearts an evangelistic zeal—a zeal that not only sees what Zion is, but sees that, for our part, we have got to be instrumental in bringing the uttermost parts of the earth back to Him.
Well, dear friends, we must finish. There we have the declared intention of the Lord. It is not just that we have the purpose of the Lord; we have the declared intention of the Lord.
The battle may rage and all the rest of it, but God has set His King upon Zion, the mountain of His holiness. Is that not wonderful? There is such majesty in these words:
Why do the nations rage,
And the peoples meditate 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 bonds asunder,
And cast away their cords from us.He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh:
The Lord will have them in derision.
Then will He speak unto them in His wrath,
And vex them in His sore displeasure:
Yet I have set My King
Upon Zion, the mountain of My holiness.
Then listen:
I will tell of the decree.
Oh, there is a decree. It is a decree.
The Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son;
This day have I begotten Thee.
Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
No wonder it says, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry.” Blessed are all they that take refuge in Him. There is a refuge. We can take refuge, and we can get a blessing.
It is not just that we are going to endure and come through with tattered sails, masts all gone, everything smashed up, limping into the harbour, towed in by some divine tug.
Thank God, we can be more than conquerors through Him that loved us, because this battle is the Lord’s battle.
We will talk a little more about all this when next we come to it. But we must know the King. We must know His salvation; we must know His lordship; we must be part of His Zion; we must learn what it is to be built up in Zion and involved in the work of Zion; and we must learn how to possess the will of God for Him.
In this Psalm there are only two things. Listen carefully: allegiance and rebellion. There is no middle ground. Where do you stand?
Allegiance or rebellion. Are you with Him, because you are in Him? Or are you saved by Him—your position is in Him—but you are not with Him?
Are you compromising, somehow or other dithering on the periphery? God help us.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry.
That is an intimate thing—something direct, something intimate. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry.
Blessed are all they that take refuge in Him.