“BE WARNED, YOU RULERS OF THE EARTH”

A Thought from Psalm 2



Thursday of this week is Ascension Day, the Day when Jesus assumed his rightful place at the right hand of His Father on the throne of God. Psalm 2, prophetically pointing to the ascension of Jesus, proclaims, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill”. Before and after this proclamation, the psalm powerfully admonishes the nations: “Be warned you rulers of the earth”; “serve the LORD with fear”; “Kiss the Son lest he be angry”. Thus God speaks to the nations to respect Him and his Son “lest they be destroyed in their own self chosen paths”. The whole psalm relates the ascension to the nations of the world.


The Ascension underlines a vital truth we need to grasp firmly in this generation of ours; the nations and their leaders are ultimately ruled from a throne in heaven, not from any throne(s) on earth. They are held accountable at a heavenly court. The standard He requires of them is the standard of righteousness, and that is a righteousness that can only be learned from obedience to Him. The reward for trying to break the “bonds” of righteousness and turning their back on him to pursue their own selfish interests is to feel his wrath.


We are also reminded that God watches the conspiring and the plotting that goes on among the nations in their striving and scrambling for power, for hegemony and for control, and “He laughs,” one might say in paraphrase, “in utter disbelief at the futility of their efforts”. The rulers do not mock God, whatever their comments of unbelief; God mocks them.


The secular sophisticated intelligentsia of the 21st century dismiss such a view with impatient and utter contempt. They have no intention of letting God into any discussion about the state of the nations. To them He is dead. He cannot have anything to offer. They are, therefore, exactly the sort of persons to whom the admonitions of the psalm are made! And yet around them, piled high on every side, is massive evidence of the unspeakable deceit, hypocrisy, ambition, naked greed and violence of so many of those who rule the world around us, who have no fear of God, and who are in fact presiding over a world torn with tragedy, war, famine, disease, terror and brutality. They watch as the human self-destruct button is being pushed every day in this world of ours, with the main motivation of its leaders being personal aggrandisement. And still they refuse to acknowledge the majestic simplicity of the truth that God and His Son rule with judgement amongst the human beings he has created.


In the midst of this carnage, however, God moves toward an ultimate purpose when the nations will be given to the Son as an inheritance (Ps2,v.8). This is also a major theme underlying the Ascension. Each day, even in the midst of his judgements, thousands of people are in fact acknowledging Jesus as Lord and King, people who will become part of that totally new scenario when the nations are redeemed, and the ascended King brings his rule in all its fullness to the earth.

There are, of course, many other magnificent themes to the Ascension (just as there are so many magnificent Ascension hymns). But the Ascension vision of Jesus as Lord of the nations, as the enthroned “Lamb” who alone has the seals which open the future of this world (Rev. 6) is such a welcome vista in this increasingly tormented world of ours.

It assures us of an ear to our praying and of merciful intervention.

Bob




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