Psalms 2
RileyPsalms 2:1-12
THE KING AND HIS KINGDOM Psalms 2, 72 Preached on the 27th anniversary of his Pastorate in the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis, March, 1924. THIS day, marking as it does our twenty-seventh anniversary, means more to our membership than any anniversary we have yet celebrated together, The completion, during the past year, of our great building projects, giving us what is perhaps the most complete church plants, in the world, has placed us as a pastor and people in an entirely new relation, both as to responsibility and privilege. Ours is indeed a goodly heritage and our obligations are as great as our opportunities.A recent sympathetic visitor remarked upon the profoundest impression received during his stay with this church, namely, its forward look. He said, “I have never seen a church of such proportions that did not dote upon its glorious past and almost live in days that were done, but the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis has little or nothing to say upon that subject.” In fact, the past is only valuable to us as an experience—teacher, and its review is intended to remind, not so much of how far we have come, as of what remains of the task or journey.A brief word therefore relating to the twenty-seven years we have known together is sufficient. In this time the church has received into its fellowship 4,814 people. Of these 2,522 were received on profession of faith and by baptism; the remainder on letter or previous experience. Our present membership Isaiah 2,751, not including these receiving the ordinance this day.
Twenty-seven years ago we were giving $14,700 annually. A year ago our annual gifts exceeded $200,000 for church and school, and it is hoped it will never again drop below that sum. (In 1928 it was keeping above $200,000, annually.)Twenty-seven years ago our property value was something like $160,000.
Today the church value, alone, is easily $1,000,000, not including the six buildings owned by the Northwestern Bible School.But the future considered, we can well afford to say with the Apostle, “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before”, we “press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. It is doubtful if any single element of our work has exceeded, in its building value, the expository study of the Book. As a church we are uniformly convinced that our buildings are the fruit of our loyalty to the Bible, our study of the Bible, and our attempted practice of its precepts.I turn, therefore, without apology, even, on this our most important anniversary day, to the continued and consecutive study of the Book, bringing to your thought the 2nd and 72nd Psalms, Psalms which have such kinship, yea, even continuity of thought as to justify their being thus brought together.In these Psalms the great subjects are The King, His Kingship, and His Kingdom.If there is any one theme that interests the members of the First Baptist Church, it is that of our Coming King. Let us see then what David, writing with the pen of inspiration, had to say about His blessed Person, His world province, and His eternal potency.THE KINGTurning to the 2nd Psalm, we have three significant statements concerning Him, namely, His appointment is provocative, His position is permanent, and His possessions and power are promised.His appointment is provocative. “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”.“Nations”, “peoples”, “kings”, “rulers”! What have they against Christ?
Why set themselves against Him and take counsel together against the Lord? The reason is given—they would break the Lord’s bands asunder.
They would cast the Lord’s cords from them. “The carnal mind * * is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be”. The whole nature of the natural man revolts. Unregenerate nations rage against God. Non-redeemed peoples imagine vain things. Godless kings set themselves against Him. Unrighteous rulers take counsel together, and that is all because they are unregenerate, because they are non-redeemed, because they are godless, because they are unrighteous.One hesitates to believe it, since it involves his professed brethren, but what other explanation is there of the opposition of Modernism to the Lord and His Christ? Rationalism characterizes the nations today. The people are the subjects of wild imaginings.
The kings of the earth have no desire for the Coming Christ, and the rulers, yea even the ecclesiastical rulers, take counsel together against our Lord. They deny His Virgin Birth; they repudiate His miracle working; they call into question His atoning death; they scorn the idea that He ever rose from the grave; they will not have it that He ascended on high and they scoff His promised Second Coming. These same ecclesiastical rulers tell us that the Decalog is not Divine in its origin, but merely human, that the Law originated not in Heaven and was never given by God to Moses, but is a mere code of morals developed by the customs of man, and is not necessarily binding. What is this but an attempt to ‘‘break the bands,” “to cast away their cords from us”?A few nights ago I lectured in Ithaca, N. Y. A number of professors of Cornell University and students from the same school were present, together with a half dozen of the leading preachers of the city.
When the meeting was over I met among others, one of God’s great laymen, two of whose sons are prominent Modernists, but this father is absolutely unshaken in his faith, beautiful in his fidelity to God and His Word. He said to me, “How glad I was to have you burn in the fact tonight that evolution is anti-Genesis, and anti-Scripture.
One of our professors in Cornell a little while ago made a statement that there need be no inharmony between Science and Scripture, that if we only interpreted them independently, letting each work in its own realm, such a conflict need never be. Whereupon another professor, a German, sprang to his feet and said, ‘Nonsense, Professor! Why do we go on trying forever to harmonize these two?Out with that old, worn-out Book, the Bible. We have no further use for it! Let science speak!That is the meaning of the Psalm. “Cast away their cords from us”. But “Let us break their bands asunder”, and let not the professor be disturbed.His position is permanent. “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”. How complacent! How conscious of permanent position and power and of the Divine appointment!The picture is of One so mighty that the puny attempts of His opponents starts His laughter. “He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh”. That phrase may not seem dignified to some. Men are not accustomed to think of God as laughing. Alas, too many think of Him as frowning. God is a God of laughter. He must often laugh at the nonsensical, inexplicable efforts of puny man.
Some one has said He must have a sense of humor or He never would have made so many monkeys—mimic men. And how could He keep from laughing when men make monkeys of themselves? “The Lord shall have them in derision”.But like a true father, He will not always laugh. If men continue in evil ways, He will “speak unto them in wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure”. In other words, He will judge. That is the proof that He is a father. The man who never corrects his child, never chastises his child, is unfit to be a father.We have had fathers of our flesh who corrected, and we give them reverence!
Wrath is sometimes the highest expression of love, and even judgment against sin is only another way of voicing love for holiness. When it is written, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel”, it is not a reference to the anger of God; to the ruthless work of destruction, but rather the righteous annihilation of heathenism, and demolition of immorality, and destruction of iniquity.Who will object?
Who can take issue with such a God? And who would save the moral reprobate if he could? “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right”? Yea, He does do right. When He speaks in wrath, wrath is justified. When He breaks with a rod of iron, no softer instrument is sufficient. When He dashes in pieces like a potter’s vessel, it is because the bowl is full of iniquity and to break it were better than to let men drink its poison contents.Such is the King of Glory!His possessions and power are promised. The nations that rage against Him are to be given Him as an inheritance for the asking. “The people that imagine a vain thing” are to become His possession. Listen to the plea of God Himself, “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings! be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling”.In other words, turn your feet about; set your faces unto the Lord; become His willing subjects instead of His adjudged opponents. “Kiss the Son” —another way of suggesting that He be accepted as Saviour, and that His judgment against the ungodly be escaped. “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him”. How like God who is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever”—the God who expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden because they sinned, and yet put up a flaming sword to keep them from eating of the tree of Life, and confirming themselves in sin forever; the God who judged in wrath the antedeluvians and yet compelled the building of an ark for the salvation of any who would accept the open door of the same; the God who declared, “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown”, and yet at the same time waited, hoping that the forty days would be utilized and Nineveh would repent in sackcloth and ashes and be saved; in other words, the God who in His wrath always remembers mercy. He is our God!HIS Turn with me now to the 72nd Psalm. It is as if we read without a break. “Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness unto the King’s Son. He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness”.
Think with me of His kingship. If you push this chapter to its end, you will learn in passing that His realm shall be in absolute righteousness.
His reign shall produce perfect peace. His praises shall be in the lips of all men (Micah 4:1-7).His reign shall be in absolute righteousness. “Thy righteousness”, “with righteousness”, “by righteousness”. How phrases are multiplied to make the righteousness of His reign known to men. In times past we have had kings whose reigns were partially righteous. Immortal is the history of Josiah because of that fact. He is called to this day “the good king”. He reigned with partial righteousness. Men are always hoping for a king whose reign will be in perfect righteousness.
Ten thousand times they have thought they had such a king, but time and events corrected that false impression. Faults of judgment, failures in will, imperfection in power, evils in action—these have all marred the mightiest potentates! There was a time when the late Mr. Wilson was the idol of America, but before his health broke, hundreds of thousands of our people had seen what they thought, at least, to be sad deficiencies and had revolted from him, yea, even against him. Some of these deficiencies were imaginary. Alas, others of them were real.There was a time when England looked upon Lloyd George as the world’s one and incomparable statesman.
It may be accepted, I think, without controversy, as a proof of man’s infidelity to man that when the tide turned, thousands who had been his friends became his political enemies, and position and power were taken from him. But who will say that Lloyd George was righteous in all his ideals, and in all his conduct?
Not he, himself; he would disown it!Such is the deficiency of the mortal king; such the inherent weakness of the wisest human potentates. The cry for a perfect king is not in vain, but that travail of soul will never be satisfied until He comes whose reign is in righteousness, whose judgment of the people is with righteousness, and whose proclamations of peace are by righteousness; whose decisions shall defend the poor, and save the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor.That reign when it arrives, shall be in perfect peace. “The mountains shall bring peace to the people”. That is a significant statement. In all ages and in all countries, the mountains have been the places of bloody battle. In their fastnesses rebels against government have found defense, and from their hiding places, men have fought desperately and in their height sometimes determined the destiny of government itself.“And the little hills”—how these also have always been utilized in time of war! Who can think of American battles apart from Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and who can travel over those entire Eastern ranges and forget that they were the blood-soaked portions of the land in the days of the Civil War, and that New England hills ran red in the days of the War of the Revolution?
How remarkable then to have a promise that the mountains and the hills shall contribute to peace, being no longer infested with warlike forces, nor made the scene of men, turned bestial in battle!There are preachers who are telling the people that the leaven of the Gospel is rapidly bringing about this blessed era, forgetting that leaven itself is a symbol of evil. There are statesmen who are promising the people peace as a result of political maneuver and organization.
Alas for the credulity of them who accept such prospects! A Southern Baptist paper has real occasion for its strictures upon the Bok Award Peace essay. It calls attention to the fact that the essay itself is an insult to Almighty God. It makes no reference to Him; gives no promise of the Return of His Son; it holds no hint of His righteous sovereignty. It ignores multiplied passages of Scripture that unite their tongues to testify to the coming of the Prince of Peace.Nothing could prove more effectually the remote remove of modern ministers from the divinely inspired message than that they should applaud this prize essay and ask the churches throughout the land to approve the same. History holds no such prospect; is able to give no such promise.G.
Campbell Morgan, admits that there is a dream, popular now, of an ideal government, but he says it is ideal and it is a dream, and he shows clearly the difficulties of its realization by remarking, “At present there is a great disintegration of humanity. We are broken up; we are split.
We are divided. Look where you will, you see that the Divine ideal of the human race is lost.” He further asserts, “Nationality is a poor business. That patriotism is something that perhaps is necessary for today in the midst of the chaos and break-up of the great ideal of God for humanity, but that in the day when the King shall reign we will talk no more about ‘my nationality’ as against ‘yours’ “. Then he might have added, “Until then we shall not enter into the larger ideal that we are one, the round world over; that every man with the image of God upon him, the breath of God in him, is a brother man to be loved and served and cared for.”We will never have such an ideal until “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth”; until “in His days shall the righteous flourish” in “abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth”. For as Morgan says, “If you want to know something about the disintegration of humanity, study the civilized, the Christianized (God forgive us for abusing the word) nations of Europe, watching each other with a suspicion that is devilish and horrible,” and the look isn’t softening; the future isn’t brightening from the standpoint of human conduct, from the standpoint of internationalism, from the standpoint of civilization; not even from the standpoint of churchianity. The only prospect is in the promise of God.
He shall come; He shall reign; He shall bring peace!His praise shall be in all lips. “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him; and His enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him”. What a strange contrast here with what we saw and heard when we set out on this discourse! Then kings of earth were setting themselves against Him and the rulers of the earth were taking counsel together against Him, and both were saying, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us”. Not now! Rebellion is over, the opposition time is past; the potentates of the world have measured themselves beside the King of kings and have seen their pigmied proportions and are humbled to dust. His very enemies have no longer any disposition to fight.
They have recognized its futility. Presents are in the hands of potentates, and humble hearts mark those who once regarded themselves as exalted. “All nations shall serve Him”.Go over to Micah, the fourth chapter, and read into it the Rotherham translation.
You get, “All peoples now walk every one in the name of his god, and we mil then walk in the Name of the Lord our God for ever”, and you have a proper explanation of what will take place when the King comes. I have been reading again this week from Papini’s “Life of Christ,” racily written. Sounds a bit like the author were a saved man, and had been lifted out of a portion of the superstitions of his papal training. But also, how little he comprehends the Kingdom of God. His opinion is based upon a false interpretation, leaven leavening the lump, a figure used of God to show how evil will work its way into the Church and practically destroy its utility and power, an interpretation in perfect accord with the history of our times. One who knows the Book feels as he tries to follow this author through intellectual turns and mental twists how impossible is his interpretation—a kingdom can come without the coming of the King.
His pen portrayal of the country made finally Christian and of all people subjected to the absent Lord is as pathetic as eloquent. What are the facts?
Let a Modernist himself, and no less an authority on Modernism than R. F. Horton of the Old World, admit it, and while admitting it, see the statement of his liberal confrere in America, Harry Emerson Fosdick who, standing in the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, Minneapolis, said, “Friends, our boasted civilization is in collapse.” Of course it is. The words of Horton are these, “Today a Christian country is one in which a majority of people are absolutely indifferent to religion; a majority of those who are not indifferent are without enthusiasm, without passion, without zeal; where the most earnest are sectarian rather than religious and capable only of interest in their church or their system or their shibboleth. And why? Because we have ignored what He means by the Kingdom of Heaven.
We have allowed ourselves to be deprived of the key of His teaching and we cannot unlock the door.”Those words were truer than Horton ever dreamed, when writing them. The man who Expects kingship without a king, or the Kingdom apart from His Presence, is ignorant of the whole plan of the Bible, unlearned in the Divine program, and incapable of interpreting the Word.But to conclude:HIS KINGDOMTo at least three features of this let me call attention: It shall be universal in scope; it will be solitary and alone; it shall be forever.It shall be universal in scope. “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth”.
This has been the ambition of many men, an ambition to rule the whole world. The day was when the world saw such honors accorded, but hardly enjoyed. The Babylonish king once ruled the world. The Medo-Persian dual monarchy was once the mistress of the world. The Greeco-Macedonian potentate ruled the world, and so did the Roman Emperor, but, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, interpreted by Daniel, declared that with the passing of those four world monarchies, the sceptre of universal power should pass, and to this moment that prophecy has never failed. Napoleon Bonaparte thought to force history into another channel and dreamed of a fifth monarchy, and died facing the futility of his hope.
William of Germany was fully assured, in his own soul, that the world’s fifth monarchy was to fall out to him. But the Word of God stood fast and William was driven from the throne that he had occupied and lives in personal dishonor and national disgrace.That office awaits One to come, and the King’s Son indeed, and till His arrival the thrones of earth will be many, its potentates many, for “all dominion and authority and power” waits the fulfillment of God’s promise to Him.He shall reign solitary and alone. “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him” (Psalms 72:10-11).Herod’s dreams were disturbed with the thought of a possible rival, and every potentate of earth has known more or less anxiety lest his territory be invaded or his rights successfully disputed. But there will come One who will never know anxiety for His office, nor fear for His province. For one thousand years He shall reign—reign, as Paul said to the Corinthians, He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, * * till He hath put all enemies under His feet”, till, death itself, “the last enemy”, has been banished from His Kingdom.L. W. Munhall, in his splendid little book, “The Lord’s Return,” calls attention to the fact that four phrases are employed in the Bible to describe the coming Kingdom. It is called “the Kingdom of God”, “the Kingdom of Heaven”, “the Kingdom from the Foundation of the World”, and the “Everlasting Kingdom”.The “Kingdom of God” relates itself to the spiritual aspect; flesh and blood cannot inherit it.
It comes not with observation; it is not eating or drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; it is not in word but in power.The “Kingdom of Heaven” is a forecast of the Abrahamic covenant. It is at hand—a real King, and a visible Kingdom, “every eye shall see Him”; a real throne, David’s; a real dominion, “from the river unto the ends of the earth”, and the Lord Himself over all.
It is future, and we wait for it, arid pray, “Thy Kingdom come”.The “Kingdom from the Foundation of the World,” is that into which the nations that have treated the Jews correctly shall be brought. The “everlasting Kingdom, is that which shall have no end, the Kingdom delivered up to the Father and translated into Heaven, and enjoyed forever.And yet, the Kingdom is one, with the spirit of obedience in its subjects, with the world’s entire extent for its territory, with the Son of God on its throne, with righteousness its characterization, and eternity its time measurement.This very definition of Munhall’s leads to our last remark:It shall be forever. Listen to the Psalmist: “His Name shall endure for ever: His Name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be His glorious Name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory; Amen and Amen. The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended” (Psalms 72:17-20). It is a fitting climax! Who will attempt to write beyond His Coming, or say what the future holds?And now in conclusion, a few practical words: We belong to the world period; the anticipation of this Kingdom is for our present inspiration. Our past is fixed, its mistakes must stand forever, its successes—if such there have been—account for the place under God this church occupies.What can we do as a people toward bringing back the King? For twenty years unity of spirit has characterized us; our complainers have been few, our critics decreasing. For twenty years we have kept face forward and the plans laid, after prayer, have apparently met the Divine approval. For twenty years and more, we have marked progress, the report of each year lifting us to a little higher level than that obtained before.
For twenty years we have enjoyed an ever-increasing surprise because of His favors toward us, and His blessings upon us have been more and more abundant.Is it not ours to let the unity of the past teach us the value of united endeavor against the days to come? Is it not ours to let the answered prayers of the past impress us with the value and utility of praying more? Is it not ours to let the sacrifices of the past show us the way to sweeter fellowship still? And is it not ours to so utilize this magnificent plant, and all the powers at our command, to so advance the church as to hasten the Kingdom and the coming of our King?From this vantage point of building and organization let us face the future with the determination of greater loyalty, richer proofs of love, and more united endeavor to honor Him who is the Lord of our spirits and is to be the Lord of all?