In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes that God's actions are sovereign and cannot be changed by human advice. He highlights the grand fact that God has set his king on the holy hill and owns everything in the world. The preacher warns that one cannot escape the demands of the gospel and must submit to God's authority. He also mentions a conspiracy against God, but assures that God will ultimately prevail and break those who oppose him with a rod of iron. The sermon concludes with an exhortation to cease rebellion and be wise, addressing kings and judges of the earth.

We open the word to the second psalm, psalm 2. Here is a passage of scripture, psalm 2, that is descriptive of the actions of mankind and the answer of Almighty God in whatever generation or day one may live. Here is a chapter that describes a conspiracy, a union to get rid of God. And this chapter also gives us God's answer to that union, that effort, that desire, that conspiracy. It is utterly impossible since New Testament days to read the writings of any of the saints of God in any generation that they did not bemoan the terrible lawlessness of their hour. But this chapter appears to many of us to be true increasingly of our day. And this chapter brings to our attention again the fact that the invitation to Christ is an invitation to join a war, not to come to a feast. Let's read the chapter. I'll read it and you follow me. There are just two things in the chapter and we'll look for them. Why do the heathen rage? And the people imagine a vain thing. And the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together. And they're all ganged up against Jehovah and against his anointed. And what they're trying to do is they say, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh and Jehovah shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. This is how he shall speak and vex them. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. Thy will declare the decree. Jehovah has 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 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. Happy are all that put their trust in him. There has never been a generation of time when men approved of God's law. We had a man over in High Point, North Carolina, a few miles from where I live, that got in some sort of a ham radio or some kind of a radio where he could give out signals and talk. I forget which it was, but anyhow, he had to have a license in that state to operate such a station. And he operated without going to the trouble of doing what the law required. Well, the state of North Carolina sent one of its representatives down and arrested him for operating a station without a license. They brought him up for the judge, and the man's plea was that he didn't approve of the law that said you had to have a license in order to operate that kind of a station. And the judge found him guilty and sentenced him and said the laws of the state of North Carolina were not subject to men's approval. They were subject to men's obedience. And the holy law of God, which is nothing more than a reflection of the thrice holy God himself, is not subject to men's approval. God doesn't say, now, here's my law, and I think it would be kind of nice if you like it, and if you approve of my law, we should keep it. No. Now, we can get us a plug of Star Navy tobacco and put it in our jaw and spit in the face of God and tell him to go to hell, if we want to. But we cannot get rid of the fact that the God of the Bible demands of every human being that he keep his holy law, whether he likes it or not. And this holy law of God that's summed up, said the Lord, in two things, thou shalt, not it be advisable, but thou shalt, not that it might be a nice thing, but thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Not with a hop again, flan again, up again, come again, sometimes stuff halts in between two opinions, but thou shalt love the Lord thy God, not if it's convenient, but thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all of thy heart. And thy neighbor, as I said, and that'll damn everybody here, because none of you do that. Me, like you all, going to have to go to hell? Or are you going to have to get God to change his law? Or are you going to have to get married to the Lord Jesus Christ? Men have never had any objection to God, except that they do not want to be under his government. If God would resign as lawgiver, this world would think mighty highly of him. And this is the conspiracy that seems to be so crystallizing in this our day. A conspiracy where the heathen, the nations, the people, rage, the hostility to the moral governorship of almighty God was never quite so intense as today. Mr. Finney was being used of gut those nine years to turn half of America into a prayer meeting. The saloon keeper in town had a bottle of whiskey and a Bible on the bar. When he wasn't drinking, he was reading the Bible. Everybody in America, they weren't church members, but they had respect for the Bible. Today, there is the most intense all our effort from every direction, political, educational, religious, social, name it. All of it's aimed against one thing. That's the law of God. The kings of the earth take counsel, get their heads together. And when that is true of a nation as it is in a world, one is reminded of Psalms 11, where some of the friends of David, when Saul sat as king and had no moral principle whatsoever, and the friends of David came, said when the foundation is destroyed, the only thing you can do is ski-dattle, flee. Get away, get out of here. When the conspiracy begins at the top as it does in every nation on earth, when the League of Nations is not allowed to mention the name of Jesus, you can put it down that Psalms 2 is pretty well front page, AP Associated, fresh news. You are living in a generation when the hostility from top to bottom in homes, in churches, in schools, in society, just name it, set it up in one direction. We're going to get rid of that. Let us break the bands asunder. Let us cast away the cords, their cords of Jehovah and his anointed one. Promise they take one another's ways, take counsel with themselves together, and they will all aim in the guns against Jehovah and his anointed, and what they got against Jehovah and his anointed is they want to break loose, be free from all restraint in all government. We need in this generation especially, I think, to recall to memory the fact that the first exercise of Christ and his sovereignty is the law, the law of God, the law. And we need to reflect the first on the utter straightness of that exercise of Christ and his sovereign rule. Utterly strict, so strict as to take like Samson did the lion and rid it. Utterly destroy the best man that ever lived. We need in these terrible days to reflect again on the awesome severity of the first exercise of the sovereign redeemer. The utter severity, utter, oh, so terrible that the guns now are shooting right here. That's what's at the back of all of this denial of hell. For the utter severity of God's holy law, you know how to spell it, H-E-L-L-A, that's how severe it is. C.S. Lewis, the provocative professor of literature in Oxford who's dead now, provocative writer, who used to speak nightly over the BBC, interpret the Bible to England, greatly used of God, was wont to wonder if in all of the British Isles there lived a single person who actually believed that there is an eternal hell. One wonders, in this my religion that's fixing to close our churches up, if there lives in America anybody who actually believes in the severity of God's law, men and women shall be C-A-S-T cast into the lake that furnish the fire and brimstone. The law is not subject to our approval. And so when men oppose God's holy law, they're shooting at the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the author of the law. He's the expression of the law. And all rebellion, whether it be in the club fist of a little two-year-old baby or the fellow speeding on the highway if you don't think a cop's there, all rebellion, using God's holy day as a holiday, lost men and women putting their hand on that which God says is holy and His. I wonder what would happen if we could get America still long enough to face this Sabbath-breaking, tithe-robbing generation of people and tell them that the law is not subject to whether they like it. It's subject to obedience. Since when did we start preaching that Christians ought to do right? God demands that all men do right. Since when did we start saying Christians ought to keep God's holy day holy? That's an obligation of every human being. Since when did we start saying Christians ought to love the Lord God with all their heart? That's what God demands of everybody. Since when did we start saying Christians ought to tithe? Everybody ought to tithe. If they don't, he's going to split hell wide open. He's breaking God's law. And the law will kill you, brother. The law will kill you. It's high time we began in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to press the first exercise of my Lord's sovereign rule. And that's all men are under obligation under the pain of death to keep that holy law perfectly or be sent to hell if that's all there is to it. I don't much blame people who want to be free because men can be free. They can be free from God's rule. They think they can. But they can also be free from God's heaven. Men have choices along here. And I wonder if I may tonight in this generation where salvation is a joke and Christianity is a dirt and the churches are laughingstocks and defeated and nobody is afraid of us anymore. We haven't got enough on the ball to scare anybody. One professor says that the preaching of us preachers and the witness of church members today hadn't got enough in it to bother anybody. God help us. In this day, when all of this terrible outbreak seemed like breakthrough, it looks like this generation is pretty close to getting rid of God. And I'm looking you in the face now and telling you that a stuff that we call salvation that doesn't fix you to wear U-D-E-L-I-G-H-T-D lies in the law of God and meditate on it day and night. That ain't the salvation Christ purchased on the cross. I'm telling you that this stuff that passes for salvation now that leads you to decide your conduct, that ain't worth a pound of lead it'd take to get. I'm telling you it's a choice in every age and especially today between Caesar or Christ, but you can't have them both. You can't have the spirit of this age and the spirit of Christ both. Oh, my soul, I tremble in my own bosom as I think of the implications of what it means to dare to claim to be a trophy of God's saving grace in this lawless age. Our churches are being torn to shreds by spiritual outlaws who know nothing of being under authority. Our society is just broken loose like an old T-model Ford. The axles are broken down. The crankcase is dragging. The tires are flat and four of the six cylinders are missing and the oil is leaking and now the gasoline. Everything is broken loose. Now why this conspiracy to break out from under the moral governorship of almighty God take everything that binds us and throw it away. This is the day that you are privileged to live in. This is the day when I'm telling you my religion is on the way out. It's going to be all or nothing and every person has to make choice these days of whether you join the rebellion and blow the smoke of your unbelief in the Gospels of a holy God or whether you bow to Jesus Christ. There's no in-between. It's one or the other now. I have a holy hollow of this decisionism and easy-believism and everybody have to say amen and taking Jesus and switching your chewing gum from one yard to the other and having the profession of faith under the hood. There's a war going on and this conspiracy from top to bottom is hot today. I want you to look at Jesus' answer, God's answer. It's the same in every day and it's still the same today. It's the same that no flesh can take it. If I don't say every time I preach it's not because I forget it and I ought to be ashamed myself. Take a chance on life before you get saved without dying. You're going to die for everything you've been taught. You're going to die for everything you wanted. You're going to die for everything you believe or you're going to split hell wide open. You can't take the demands of the gospel in the flesh. Every time you're presented with them they demand your total signing of your life away into the keeping of God's Son. You ain't fixing to do that. You're going to settle for something that will allow you to still be God and call it salvation. But you can't have it both ways. There's a conspiracy going on. It's getting awful hot now. That's right. And you're on one side or the other. Here's God's answer. First, according to Almighty God this gang ain't going to win. Man just can't get rid of God's law. He just can't get rid of God. He just will break himself. You know what God says? Verse 4. What are you going to do about this conspiracy? Well, I'll tell you what I'm doing. He that sits in heaven shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. And verse 10. Thou shalt break them with a rod of armor. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a poplar. Oh, my dear man, you're not going to win the war. No man's ever going to win this war. The kings of the earth can take counsel together but they're not going to win. They're going to be destroyed. God's not trembling. The God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He's not trembling for fear that the world is going to break his band and cast the cords away. Men cannot win. I have asked God and I'm asking him more than I have asked him and I ask him for his churches today. I wish we could apologize. Oh, God, put some iron in our blood. Tell this generation of hell raisers wherever we get them still long enough to speak to them that they ain't going to get the job done right. All they're going to do is be dashed to pieces. Men cannot win in this battle against God. How come they can't? Well, here's God's answer. Verse 5, 6, and 7. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. And here's what he's done. This is the grandest fact between the eternities. This is something God did. This is something he did without any advice from men. This is something that's so whether we like it or not. This is God's act. This is God's action. This is the gospel we preach. This is the grand good news. This makes me know that I can run over to the back of the book and get the answer. Nevertheless, we look according to his promise for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. I know that verse of Scripture can be counted on. I'll tell you what. One thing is set set. God almighty has set the Lord Jesus Christ his king on the holy hill of Zion and all hell can't undo that. You can live in a world that God says his son is king over and he owns every bit of the ground and all of the air and all of the water and you and me. And you can live in rebellion against him if you choose. But you can't change the fact that you belong to him. You can't change the fact that he's got you in his hands. God's done this. I haven't preached in a while and I never got to where I can do justice to this. This is shabby of mine. What on earth has God done about this terrible thing that creeps up in every generation? It started gondering Adam. He said, I ain't going to be under your rule. And it's been going on ever since. And it sure is hot now. Well, I'll tell you what God's done about it. He's turned this world over to his son. And that includes you. Yet have I set my key there. There's a fellow in Louisville talking about another preacher there. And he said the trouble with that fellow is he thinks Jesus Christ is king of Louisville, Kentucky. Well, he is. The reason we flounder and flop so much in evangelism and missions is we're going to try to beg somebody to do something. But the heart of missions is that those over there, those folks over there, Jesus Christ has been made their Lord and King. We're going to go back and tell them about it. We ain't begging nobody to do nothing. We've got an announcement, brother. We've got a statement or something. Go over into enemy territory and put up the plague of heaven and say this. In the name of the rightful owner of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And then get a shotgun and go shooting the demons that have been robbing Christ of his inheritance. For the next verse tells us something about this decree. I'll declare the decree. God declared it. He didn't ask our advice or approval. Jesus has been made Lord whether we like it or not. He owns us like stock and barrel. He bought this world for a purpose. And he was given a commission to save his people and deal with everybody else. And he's going to get the job done. I'll declare the decree. The Lord Jehovah said to me, Thou art my son. This day life has got me. And I'll tell you, how far does this dominion run? It runs everywhere. Ask of me, and I shall give thee who? The heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. How far does this dominion run everywhere? The blacks in Africa, the communists in Russia, the hippies in Houston, the college professors' poison, the lying prophets speaking lies in the name of the Lord, the on-again, half-again, hope-again church members of this day, they all belong to Jesus. You haven't fixed to understand the Bible if you do not understand that his dominion spans the seas and crosses the oceans and is over everything that rises and wriggles. That's right, brother. You can't win. He'll be the stone that crushes you or the one who's precious to your heart. But he's going to be one of them. He'll be your savior or your judge. He'll take you to glory or he'll cast you into hell. Every man's going to be dealt with by this one whom God says he's my king. And I'll give you the whole outfit. I'll give you the whole outfit. It's a solemn thing that the Lord Jesus Christ, he didn't run for office, he was appointed. And he is given a job to do. And his job is to save and damn. He's no one can save you, he's no one can damn you. But the Father gave him the job of saving you or damaging you. God knows old Adolf Hitler's in the hands of God's king. The kings of the earth are in the hands of God's king. You are in the hands of God's king. He's been given a commission to deal with you. What a Savior. What's the application of his universal dominion? Well, he has some advice from heaven. It's good for any generation. Remember, God's just got one answer to the strivings of men to break out from under his rule, do away with his law, cast off all restraints. That answer is, yet have I set my king on the holy hill of Zion. I have declared the decree. Didn't take anybody's advice, ask anybody's counsel. I did this, God said, Thou art my son. This day I have forgotten thee. And his kingship extends to the heathen and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Pasadena belongs to Jesus Christ. He created it and bought it on a gory cross. My Lord had to earn the right as a man to be the Savior and the judge. And he was made perfect through suffering. He earned the right. God gave him the responsibility of saving the people God gave him and damning the rest. You never faced a more crucial question in your life than the question, what will he do with me? What will he do with me? Somebody said, I don't believe God ought to do that way. Somebody said, I believe God do that way. He's a monster. Well, monster, you can't change him. Can't change him. What's the application of the fact that God Almighty has turned this outfit over to his son and promised him that men who had to break through and cast him aside shall themselves be broken with a rod of iron, dashed into pieces like a bunch of pottery when you drop it on the floor. Yes, the application says the same thing three different ways. First, cease your rebellion, verse 10. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Throw down your shotguns, you ain't going. There could be possibly two reasons why anybody listening to the sound of my voice tonight is not a devoted lover of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll tell you the only two reasons. You never heard the good news of what God's done, but you've heard that. Or there's a rotten spot in your life. You say, Jesus ain't going to have that. That's the only reason on earth anybody falls. That's the only reason. It ain't because the hypocrites in the church. It's because of something that you have got to sign at and say, God, don't touch. Don't touch. And every time the totalitarian claims of God Almighty for his blessed son are presented to you, you lie like a yellow dog and make alibis. But the reason you don't drop your shotgun right there is there's something you're not willing to be brought under the will of God. And you ought to go to hell, you old rebel, spitting in the face of God, holding out in treason against your Creator and Redeemer. Got your shotgun pointed at his heart, and if you could get to him, you'd shoot him and get rid of him in order to be the Lord of your own life. Oh, cease your rebellion. You can't win. You're butting your head against a stone wall. Nobody going to lose but you. Cease your rebellion. Fear the Lord. Fear the Lord. This familiarity that passes for Christianity now, hysteria if you think about that, slaves driven, but they that gladly receive the Word. God has made his son to be utter law. Make up with him. Quit being mad that God demands that your thoughts be under his control, your body be under his control, your mind be under his control, you under him. Quit telling yourself, Christians, you're not happy about that. Quit giving the little money that God makes you, whether you're saved or not, demands. Quit giving it because you have to and calling yourself a Christian. Quit assembling yourselves together, means of grace and fellowship to encourage one another. Keep on calling yourself a Christian. No, no, kiss the son. They that gladly receive this kind of Word, they get saved. They find that he told the truth when he said, my yoke's easy. Wouldn't it be terrible to be a Christian? Oh, he's got to do this. I can't have no fun. I left my new car that morning. We were going to go see Aunt Susie on the Lord's Day. Oh, wouldn't it be terrible? Couldn't move. Wouldn't it be awful to be a Christian? You don't have to be. You can go on to hell. But you ain't fixing to go to heaven unless the will of God becomes sweet to you down here. Unless you can worship him down here on the throne. Be glad he's there. Kiss the son. Kiss the son. And then I got told that I wouldn't take a dollar for the rest of that verse. Happy are all them that put their trust in him. That's the happy game. The old Union Pacific was hurtling across the United States going about 90 miles an hour. And the road just a little ways was a big old chasm with a trestle on top of it. The engineer always made the heat slow up just a little bit. 500 feet drop. Brakeman. Looking out the window and told the engineer it's about time to start slowing up a little bit. The engineer said, well, just a minute. And then the brakeman said, my God, there's something on the track, on the trestle. And the engineer looked out and there was a little 13-year-old girl. How on earth she got there? Nobody ever knew. And a little boy about five years old. Somehow or another, little kids were playing on that trestle. 500 feet to the rocks beneath. The engineer saw them. Jammed on his brakes as much as he could. But he couldn't stop. Finally when the train stopped the other side of the trestle, they got out expecting to go back and try to find the mangled bodies of the little girl and the boy. They couldn't find any blood or any torn clothing. No sign. They began to look. Then they heard a little girl's voice say, Hold on to the rock, brother. Hold on to the rock, brother. With a little mother's intuition she heard that whistle and screech of the brakes. And without calling the committee, she did the only thing on earth there's any chance. She grabbed her little brother and jumped for a ledge. And she was hanging on to that ledge with one hand, holding her little brother with the other. And his little hands were on that ledge. And the little girl was saying, Hold on to the rock, brother. Finally they got to them. This whole generation's rocking and rolling its way to hell. Everything's tearing up. Get rid of God and His law and everything that's high and holy. Let's go through the motions. Oh, bless God. Thank God for the rock. Thank God there is a rock in the weary land. Praise the Lord for this son, who has the right to be my Savior by His sufferings. And the damn men by the job God made him, gave him to do. Hallelujah! Then in a generation that seems like it's hell bent to destroy itself, begin pointing men and women to the rock Christ Jesus. And say, Come hell or high water, good times or bad, get to Him, drop your shotgun, think of Him, find Him precious, and hold on to Him until He calls us home. And that's the gospel for this hour. Let us pray. Father, by the Holy Spirit, do what this poor little old preacher can't do. Take truth and pierce hearts with it as it pleases You.