“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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“UNGODLY FREE-FOR-ALL”

The nation has been presented with an appalling pantomime this week. A large number of significant figures in all walks of life have been covering up their adulterous activities with legal injunctions and super-injunctions on the basis of their right to privacy. The media, and even the general public on Twitter, have been trying to rip off this legal cloak and indulge in scandal on the basis of the right of freedom of speech. What a commentary on the state of our society!


That there should be such widespread “affairs” is a shame on any society. Historically infidelity has, of course, always been there, a privilege for the rich, a squalid curse for the poor. One has to think only of the Restoration under Charles 11. Riches and fame seem only to encourage it, and the celebrity culture appears to prove that in our own day. What a mockery! “Sin is a reproach to any nation”. Ours is widespread and blatant.


That the legal system should be used to cover up such behaviour is, it seems to me, an abuse of law and justice. That cannot be right. It is there to expose and correct destructive behaviour. It’s almost as though the law is being bought. (How much does an injunction cost anyway, I wonder?). The exposure of unfaithfulness in society is one of the ways in which society can keep a restraint on those who undermine society by behaving in such a manner. We are all susceptible to the reproof of our fellows, and rightly so.


Scandal makes news and sells newspapers. It’s a money spinner. It does so because it panders to a very unwholesome streak in human nature – the love of gossip and the delight in seeing someone being brought down or humiliated. It has a nasty fascination. At one time scandal was actually frowned upon as indecent – not today – it’s now the real stuff of news! It can be nationwide, overnight.


One wonders which is the worse sin, the affair itself or the widespread indulgence, especially by the media, in the sordidness of the story of the affair. Every detail, of course, has to be minutely examined, every headline has to be a loud megaphone. Perhaps the greatest irony of the situation is that the media and the literary culture of our day are themselves the greatest influence for the encouragement of such affairs. They provide a never ending torrent of visual and verbal sexual aberration that is bound to encourage degradation.

There are sections of the press which maintain they do not want to scandalise in their pages but sincerely just want to report truth. I shall be ready to believe the sincerity of that only when I see a discreet report of a divorce reluctantly reported in low key in a remote part of the publication!

So what do the judges and Parliament do now about a Privacy Law? The cry is for a new one. But there are some things that you simply cannot legislate for. There is no law that can function without certain boundaries in moral behaviour. "You don’t kill, you don’t steal" – we can legislate for that. "You can’t gossip in public" – we certainly can’t legislate for that, if the gossip is true. We can only legislate for defamation of character where gossip is based on a lie.

We certainly don’t need a law that will cover up unpleasant activity; what we really need is a national resurgence of moral decency. We need a return to decency and to restraint. Moral resurgence calls for spiritual resurgence, but we have set our faces against that!



Bob




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CRUMBLING FOUNDATIONS

In Psalm 12:3 David asks a searching question; “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” There could not be a more appropriate question for the times in which we live.


I do not think for a moment that he had economic or political problems in his mind. He was not primarily looking for answers to an economic collapse or a dangerous political impasse, though both may well have been present in the nation. The foundations he was concerned about were much deeper than economics or political concepts. He was looking at the moral foundations of society. It was those that were being destroyed, destroyed by wilful self interest, lustful behaviour and gross acquisitiveness. He knew perfectly well that if these foundations were crumbling there could be no sound economic or political life anyway. Sound economics.demand human trust and where this was undermined by power, deceit and greed economic life went “pear shaped”. It was the same with politics. Human behaviour is the ultimate foundation of society.


No, the problem was a moral problem, a problem of ordinary human behaviour, the sort of behaviour that destrpys positive human relationships. It’s a problem that springs out of lying and deceiving, stealing, acting aggressively and violently, indulging in permissive and adulterous behaviour. David was watching the real foundations of society being destroyed by an increase of this kind of behaviour. So are we, in our generation, and especially by the behaviour of the rich, the clever, the famous and the media who instead of giving a good example, lead the degenerate parade.


“What can the righteous do?” in the face of such a godless flood. The answer to that is primarily to “flee to the LORD”. It is to seek personal righteousness and godliness in a very definite manner. It is to seek to be a strong stake that can hold things together in our own corner. It’s a call to real holiness. It’s a call to seek God for wisdom, courage and sheer grace.


There is actually another way of rendering Ps 12:3; “When the foundations are being destroyed, what is the Righteous One doing?” In other words, “What is God doing?” David is quite clear about one thing here; “He, God, observes the sons of men, his eyes examine them” Ps.12:4. He keeps a close watch on it all. People may well say “There is no God; we will throw off the shackles of restraint”, but every deed is noted on High. He loves the righteous person, the one who trusts in him and fears his ways; he hates evil and reluctantly but surely moves toward a day of reckoning.

Be strong in godliness!


Bob




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