“4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. 5 Then He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, 6 “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
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Some people take themselves far too seriously. You know the type. They like to throw their weight around. They like to talk about what they’ve done and what they could do. They let you know that they are not to be messed with. The best thing to do with such people is to take them less seriously than they take themselves. That’s really is the only thing to do with such people because you can’t take them more seriously than they take themselves.
Valclav Havel had abundant experience with people who took themselves far too seriously. Havel was a Czech playwright who later became the first president of the Czech Republic. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, Havel was in and out of prison for criticizing the government.
These communist party leaders took themselves far too seriously. They liked to throw their weight around. They liked to talk about what they had done and what they could do. They wanted Havel to know that they were not to be messed with. Havel had the joy of seeing them disgraced. He knew they were ridiculous. “Anyone who takes himself too seriously,” he said, “always runs the risk of looking ridiculous.”
This world in rebellion against God takes itself very, very seriously and God thinks it looks very, very ridiculous. The world likes to throw its weight around. The world wants us Christians to know what it has done and what it can do. This culture wants us to know that it is not to be messed with. God finds it all so ridiculous that He can’t help but laugh.
God laughs at and rebukes this pompous world. That’s the claim of this sermon: God laughs at and rebukes this pompous world.
We will see this in three points. First: God’s laughter. Second: God’s rebuke. Third: God’s king. We see God’s laughter in verse 4. We see God’s rebuke in verse 5. We see God’s king in verse 6.
First: God’s laughter. In our last study, we saw the rebellion and rage of this pompous world. We saw that the world conspires to sit on God’s throne. We saw that the world thinks that obedience to God is slavery. We also saw how utterly pointless mankind’s rebellion is. Man only winds up hurting himself by trying to change what cannot be changed. The Lord reigns over all.
In our last study, we saw how seriously the world takes itself. Now we see the Lord’s response. Verse 4, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.”
The Lord finds mankind’s pompous rebellion hilarious, and it is. The idea that humanity could overthrow God is comical. Daniel is right. “All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing [before God]. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: ‘What have you done?’”
That is reality. God does whatever He wants and nobody can stop Him from doing what He wants. The world’s attempts to take God off the throne are preposterous. The world is insane to even try.
There is a scene in 2008’s The Dark Knightthat fits well. This scene, from the second of the recent Batman films, begins with Coleman Reese, one of Wayne Enterprises’ auditors, approaching Bruce Wayne’s right hand man Lucius Fox. Reese has discovered that Lucius Fox has been building Batman’s vehicles and gadgets. Upon further investigation, Reese has concluded that his boss, Bruce Wayne, is Batman. Reese walks into Lucius Fox’s office and begins to blackmail him. He lays out his evidence and says, “To keep quiet I want ten million dollars a year for the rest of my life.” Fox waits a few moments before responding, “Let me get this straight, you think that your client, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante, who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands, and your plan is to blackmail this person?” Fox chuckles and says, “Good luck.”
God’s laughter at humanity’s plan is far more uproarious. ‘So, let me get this straight, I created you out of dust. I breathed life into you. You wouldn’t be alive without me and you will only live as long as I decide. Before me, your power is as nothing. Before me, your wisdom is as nothing. Before me, your glory is as nothing. It is all less than nothing, and your plan is to take my throne? Good luck.’ That gets more than a chuckle from God.
God finds human rebellion so laughable that He doesn’t acknowledge it as a threat. Spurgeon is right when He says of this rebellious world, “[God] has not taken the trouble to rise up and do battle with them—He despises them, He knows how absurd, how irrational, how futile are their attempts against Him—He therefore laughs at them.”
It is impossible to overstate how feeble this pompous world is compared with God. There is no battle between this world and God. There isn’t even a battle between Satan and God and Satan is far more powerful than the world. In Revelation 20, Satan assembles his forces for his epic battle with God. God gives one command, fire falls from heaven, and that’s the end of it. God doesn’t even bother to do battle with him. The idea that we mortals can force God’s hand, the idea that this world can remove God from the picture, is comical.
God laughs at people. He scoffs at our pompousness. Is your view of God as big as the Bible’s view of God? Many people prefer their own imaginations of God to the God of the Bible. They won’t accept a God who laughs at people, even arrogant people. They worship a God of their own imagination, who is, of course, no God at all.
God laughs at rebels, but He is conscientiously gentle with those who know they are weak and cry to Him for help. “A bruised reed He will not break, a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.” God doesn’t laugh at humans because we are weak. He laughs when we in our weakness think we can control Him.
It is good news for the Christian that God laughs. That gives us courage. God laughed when the Supreme Court claims the authority to redefine marriage. He laughed when Mao Tse-Tung talked about his plan to stamp out the faith in China. Humanity gives God plenty to laugh about.
The laughter of God humiliates the world. God isn’t content to simply laugh to Himself. He wants everyone laughing at the men and women who never gave up trying to be God. As John Calvin put it, “[God] purposely delays the inflictions of his wrath to the proper time, namely, until He has exposed [the world’s] infatuated rage to general derision.” One day every saint will be laughing at the ridiculous rebellion of humanity against the living God. One day the joke that is this arrogant world will be as clear to us as it is to God.
God laughs at rebels. John Goldingay is right, “YHWH does not take them with the seriousness with which they take themselves.”
Do you want God to take you seriously? Don’t try to take His throne. When you do, you make yourself a joke. If you repent, though, God will take you very seriously. If you humble yourself instead of taking yourself so dreadfully seriously, God will take you seriously. “This is the one I esteem,” says the living God, “He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”
Is that you? Do you humble yourself before God or are you foolish enough to think that you and He are anywhere near equals?
If you stand against God, you make yourself a joke. If you bow before God, He takes you far more seriously than you can imagine. He watches over you to such an extent that not even a hair can fall from Your head without His say-so. He works all things to your good. The most important thing you can say this evening is whether God takes you seriously or whether God laughs at you and your rebellion.
God not only laughs at rebellion, He also rebukes it. That’s our second point: His rebuke. God’s omnipotence makes humanity’s attempts to get rid of Him laughable, but these attempts are not only laughable; they are sin. Thinking that we can tell God what marriage is, is laughable, but it isn’t only laughable; it is a sin. Mao Tse-Tung thinking that he could keep Christ out of China was laughable, but it wasn’t only laughable; it was a sin. God deals with rebellion as sin in verse 5, “Then He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath.”
The man in rebellion has a hard time understanding God’s wrath. He says, ‘if God isn’t threatened by my so-called rebellion, why should He be offended by it? You say He laughs at my attempts to be my own god. If He finds it so funny, why should He be angry about it? If I discovered that a colony of ants was conspiring against me, I wouldn’t be filled with rage. I would laugh and move on with my life. If my power is like an ant’s before God, why does my so-called sin bother Him so much?’ The man of the world has a hard time understanding why God should be angry about his sin.
Why is God angry when people rebel against His rule? Why do both the Old and the New Testaments speak so much about His wrath? Isn’t this all a bit unworthy of God? Why He can’t just laugh at our arrogance and move on with His life?
We humans have a hard time understanding God’s wrath because we are not like God. Our wrath is not like His wrath. Our wrath is almost always sinful. His wrath is never sinful. Our wrath almost always comes from a lack of patience. His wrath never comes from a lack of patience. Our wrath almost always requires us to apologize. God’s wrath never requires Him to apologize.
We humans almost always pour our wrath on what offends us, not what offends God. We get enraged when someone’s actions violate our unwritten rules, not God’s written law. We get are incensed when someone’s actions make us uncomfortable, not when someone’s actions offend God.
We Christians have a hard time understanding God’s wrath because we imagine that His wrath is like ours. Our wrath is tainted by our own sin. God’s wrath isn’t tainted by sin. It is holy.
God’s wrath against the world’s arrogance is necessary because God is holy. What would you think of a God who just shook His head at the slavery in this nation before the Civil War but never punished it as sin? Such a God would not be holy. A holy God must punish humanity’s arrogant sin. A holy God must rebuke humanity’s attempts to build a world without Him.
Habakkuk 1:13 is right, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” Humanity’s sin is repugnant to God, not because He is naïve about the real world but because He understand how horrific sin truly is. You and I do not understand how bad sin is because we are so used to sin. We are used to excusing the inexcusable in ourselves. Sin is far worse than you or I will ever understand. Sin deserves death. Christ’s cross makes that gruesomely clear. If you and I and the world saw sin as it truly is the wrath of God would make total sense to us. If you have a problem with the wrath of God, that is not a sign there is something morally wrong with God. It is a sign there is something morally wrong with you.
God’s wrath is holy. “He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in His wrath.” God’s wrath against this world’s arrogant attempts to live without Him is the proper response of a holy God and a God who isn’t holy isn’t worthy of worship.
God’s wrath is also just. We have a hard time understanding God’s wrath because human wrath is so unpredictable. We humans are dreadfully inconsistent in regard to when we get angry and why we get angry. A father overlooks his child’s annoying behavior ten times but the eleventh sparks a volcano of rage. We humans are dreadfully inconsistent in our wrath and that’s because our wrath isn’t about sin. It is about us and how we are feeling in that moment.
God’s wrath isn’t like that. His wrath isn’t about how He is feeling in the moment. It is about the offense. God doesn’t overlook lying early in the morning because He doesn’t want to deal with it. God doesn’t gloss over defiance in the evening because it has been a long day. He doesn’t turn a blind eye to sin because He would feel awkward addressing it. He is just. He is predictable. He is faithful.
God’s wrath against this world’s pompousness is just. On the final day, when everyone stands before Christ’s seat of judgment, no one will dare argue with the verdict. There will be no back-talk. Every mouth will be silenced because the verdict will be just.
No man will dare say, ‘Christ, when you look at it from my angle, I think you will see that what I did was understandable.’ No woman will dare say, ‘Jesus, I’m not like most people. I have to live my own life. I’m not a follower of anyone, even you. I’m just asking that you respect that.’ Verse 5 is the answer, “He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in His wrath.”
If you are rebelling against God, you will have nothing to say on the last day. You won’t dare to speak back to God. You will be terrified.
The wrath of God terrifies this rebellious world. That’s why this world denies the wrath of God. No woman can promote abortion and allow her imagination to take God’s wrath seriously. She has to silence any thought that she is accountable to God. This world denies God’s wrath because it is terrified of it.
The only woman who can take God’s wrath seriously without running in terror is the woman who has been crucified with Christ. Christ’s cross saves us from the wrath of God. Romans 5:9, “Since we have now been justified by [Jesus’] blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” 1 Thessalonians 5:9, “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Are you afraid of wrath or are you saved from the wrath to come? God’s wrath will fall on this sinful world—“He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in His wrath.” Will it fall on you or has the wrath you deserved already fallen on Christ on the cross?
I am trying to persuade you to escape from wrath. I’m doing what the apostle Paul did years ago. Writing to the Corinthians, he said, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.”
Knowing the fear of the Lord, knowing the wrath of the Lord, I am trying to persuade you. Don’t throw your lot in with this pompous world. God isn’t just going to laugh at the insanity of this world’s attempts to live without Him. He is going to hold this world accountable. He will hold you and your arrogance accountable either on your head or on the thorn-ringed head of Christ.
God is holy. He is just. He is also merciful. His mercy doesn’t make Him any less holy. His mercy doesn’t make Him any less just. You have no choice about whether or not you will stand before the holiness of God. You will on the last day. You have no choice about whether or not you will stand before the justice of God. You will on the last day. You do have a choice of whether or not you stand in the mercy of God. You can do that today. You can find mercy for your arrogant rebellion today. God loved this arrogant world this way: He sent His one and only Son that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life.
This Son now takes center stage. God’s rebuke to the world takes a very specific form here in Psalm 2. God’s rebuke to this pompous world is His Son, the king. That’s our final point: God’s king.
The world has an agenda and it is a godless agenda, meaning an agenda which denies God. That was the case when this Psalm was originally written. These nations around Israel gave no thought to obeying Israel’s God. The world today gives no thought to obeying God. It has its own agenda and if God must be done away with to push that agenda through, then God must be done away with. If God’s words about greed must be done away with for me to live at a level I find comfortable, then God’s words about greed must be done away with. If God’s words about sin must be done away with for me to feel good about myself, then God’s words about sin must be done away with. The word has always had its agenda and if God gets in the way, the world doesn’t change its agenda. It tries to do away with God.
God rebukes this agenda. His wrath is ignited by the world’s agenda, in part, because He has an agenda of His own. His agenda takes the form of a king, ‘Then He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.”’
The world and its kings have their own agenda. ‘The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One. ‘Let us break their chains” they say.’ The world thinks it is in charge. The Lord’s anointed, His “Messiah” in the Hebrew, His “Christ” in the Greek, is a clear declaration that God is in charge.
God’s agenda is to rule the world through a son of David. “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” Imagine hearing that as a Babylonian. ‘The only God, and by the way your Babylonian gods are at best just figments of your imagination and at worst demons, the only God plans to rule you and everyone through a son of David. The king of Israel is God’s agenda for this world and for your life.’
That is no less offensive today. The world isn’t offended by spiritual principles. The world isn’t even offended by what it calls the so called ‘spirit of Jesus,’ which is seeking to do good to others. The world is offended by the fact that God has an agenda for it and that this agenda takes the form of someone ruling over them. They are offended by the Christ.
That is a rebuke because look at the Christ who offends them. Who is this king that the arrogant world refuses to obey? Who is this Anointed One who must be defied at all costs?
He is the one who was very rich, yet for our sake became very poor. He is the one who although being God Himself did not consider that something to be used for his own advantage. Instead, he made himself nothing taking on the very nature of a servant. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. He is the king who didn’t consider himself above spending time with prostitutes and tax-collectors not for his own seedy enjoyment but so they might repent and be saved. He is gentle and humble in heart. A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. When he saw the people, he was full of compassion for them because he saw how harassed they were, they were like sheep without a shepherd. They needed someone to guide them. They needed a king.
He was willing to be mocked and humiliated for their sake. He allowed the Romans to dress him in royal purple and spit in his face and drive a crown of thorns into his skull. He is the king who died for the sins of his people. He came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
He is God’s rebuke to this pompous world seeking to cast of His so-called chains. The world is seeking to dethrone a God of love. Do you see how self-important this world must be to demand its own way when God has given Christ? Do you see how pompous the world must be to prefer its own way after seeing the humility of God’s way?
If you are standing against Christ, I beg you to be sensible. Look at the king you are rejecting. You won’t find a better one. You certainly wouldn’t be a better one. Don’t spit in the king’s face like those Roman soldiers did. Bow before him. Don’t be too arrogant. Don’t take yourself too seriously. This is God’s world. Amen.