The effective life of the one who knows the King, Psa 2.

Class Outline:

Tuesday October 19, 2022

Psa 1

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stand in the path of sinners,

Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

3 And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,

Which yields its fruit in its season,

And its leaf does not wither;

And in whatever he does, he prospers.

 

PSA 1:1 “How blessed” - a term (ashrey) that refers to the joyful spiritual condition of those who are right with God and the pleasure and satisfaction that is derived from that.

 

In verse four there is a strong shift to the ungodly, “Not so are the ungodly!” The rest of the verse uses a simile to explain that the ungodly life is worthless.

 

PSA 1:4-6

The wicked are not so,

But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the wicked will perish.

 

One of the underlying currents in Psa 1 is for the godly to avoid the advice of the ungodly, which they always seem ready to give. Even though unbelievers may seem to be good people, they do not understand the faith and have no desire to please God or obey His word, and so they can produce nothing of real value. Sure, they can advise you well on what might be the best washing machine to buy, or what is the best entrée on the menu, but not of anything that the life of God values.

 

They are chaff, the worthless husks that have to be separated from the grain and which are easily taken away by a light wind when thrown into the air. The image is striking.

 

The ungodly will be separated and eventually taken away.

 

In the parable of the wheat and the tares:

MAT 13:30

“Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

 

MAT 3:11-12

"As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

 

The people of the world protest. They demand that the church acknowledge that non-Christians also produce good and are valuable to important things, and they definitely protest final judgment. But the Bible is clear: salvation in only found in one name under heaven, by faith in Christ; and all good works can only be done by faith in God and to the glory of God, and if they are not, they are worthless to the Creator.

 

And at the same time, the Creator invites all into His kingdom through Christ, which if they do enter by faith, they can then be shown how to work the works of life.

 

PSA 127:1

Unless the Lord builds the house,

They labor in vain who build it;

Unless the Lord guards the city,

The watchman keeps awake in vain.

 

The ungodly will not survive the judgment.

 

The psalmist is not specific as to whether it is judgment upon them in their lifetime, upon their nation in their lifetime, or upon them at the final judgment, what is termed the Great White Throne Judgment in which all who have rejected the gospel will be judged and cast away forever into the Lake of Fire. (I tremble to some extent every time I think of this) This final fact should be reason enough to pray for your enemies and for all whom you know who are lost; and to pray that we really are lights to the world, which is most strikingly shone forth by our love for one another; and to pray that the gospel flies free throughout the world. We know that God will seek all and save those who respond, and we know that He loves the world and will convict the whole world, but shouldn’t our understanding of what is at stake make us desire the same and petition Him to work in someone’s life to reveal Himself?

 

We have to remember that the ungodly are not going to escape and that God is patient, not wishing any to perish but for all to come to repentance. We must love them and pray for them and do good to them. Don’t give your peace with God away because of the deeds of those who do not know God. Don’t lose your joy with God because of anyone else’s failure to reside in that joy by the fruit of the Spirit. And, as a reminder, who bears fruit in the right season? Those who delight in the Scriptures and meditate on them day and night.

 

Why should we live in this way and why is it so important? The Son of God took humanity upon Himself so that He could take our rulership away from sin and death and the powerful ungodly and place it upon His own shoulders. He came to take life away from the old fallen flesh and to give His own life to each of us, and He would have to humiliate Himself in death to accomplish it.

 

Do you see yourself as personally known by Him and saved by Him?

 

GAL 4:9

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

 

2TI 2:19

Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness.”

 

This moves us to the second Psa, the second part of the introduction to the Book of Psalms.

 

Then we have the declaration of the Lord as King of all the earth and the warning to worship Him with reverence, rejoice with fear, and kiss the Son.

 

Marcus Dods contrasts our conquering King with other human conquerors.

 

[Marcus Dods]“The glory of our King is, that He conquers us for no other purpose than to raise us; that He seeks us not because the fame of our wealth and skill and power had excited His envy or ambition, but because of the cry of the oppressed reached to heaven, and the sighing of the prisoner came before Him whose ear is delicate to catch the feeblest and most distant, and to understand the most confused desire of them that are in trouble; who say that there was none to govern us, but rulers who led us through tyranny to destruction; He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was none to come between us and those who had us at their will, and therefore His arm brought salvation. He saw that by His government alone could we be rescued and raised, and He determined, through His own humiliation, to exalt us. He became one of us, that He might be our King; He clothed Himself in our dust, that we might wear His royal robe; He lay in our grave, that we might sit on His throne; He founded our joy in the deep bitterness of His own soul, our kingdom in His own obedience and subjection. Has He not claim to reign over us?” [Marcus Dods, The Prayer That Teaches to Pray]

 

Psa 2

Why are the nations in an uproar,

And the peoples devising a vain thing?

2 The kings of the earth take their stand,

And the rulers take counsel together

Against the Lord and against His

Anointed:

3 "Let us tear their fetters apart,

And cast away their cords from us!"

 

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs,

The Lord scoffs at them.

5 Then He will speak to them in His anger

And terrify them in His fury:

6 "But as for Me, I have installed My King

Upon Zion, My holy mountain."

 

7 "I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord:

He said to Me, 'Thou art My Son,

Today I have begotten Thee.

8 'Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Thine inheritance,

And the very ends of the earth as Thy possession.

9 'Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron,

Thou shalt shatter them like earthenware.'"

 

10 Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;

Take warning, O judges of the earth.

11 Worship the Lord with reverence,

And rejoice with trembling.

12 Do homage to [Kiss] the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way,

For His wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!

 

The first stanza is an expression of amazement and even indignation at the rage of the peoples. The word “rage” can be used to describe something like the raging sea, but here it is the tumultuous meeting of rebels who plan an attack. The present tense tells us that it is going on at the time of the coronation of the king.

 

Map of the surrounding nations

 

The rebels are called “nations” and “peoples” terms that often refer to the tribes around Israel; Aramaeans, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Phoenicians, and Philistines - who were constantly fighting Israel. They are a picture of a world that hates the truth and will perennially fight against the truth and the people who love it.