24 November 2002

PSALM 2: Why do the nations rage?

Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center

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 bounds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The LORD shall hold them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure:
“Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.”
“I will declare the decree: the LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.
Ask of Me and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”
Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.

In the end, all those nations that are driven by Satan, the prince and ruler of this world, will choose against God and against His special plan that is bound up with His own people.

As is already evident today, this will begin in a political setting as these nations align themselves collectively against Israel. We already see this in the United Nations, where Israel is frequently isolated, with only a very few nation states still supporting or abstaining in votes against her. This is as has been prophesied in the scriptures: that eventually, as this age draws to a close, all nations will, to their own detriment, choose to stand against God and against His people. This opposition will lead to and culminate in a huge Armageddon as these nations militarily attack Israel and Jerusalem.

There are so many verses referring to and describing this phenomenon that it is hard to understand how Bible believers can miss this clear message and warning from Almighty God.

In essence, as is seen in this Second Psalm, this opposition is also a fight against God’s divine plan to enthrone His Sonas Kingupon His holy hill in Jerusalem.

“Yet I have set My King on my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree the Lord has said to me, ‘ you are My son…’”  (Verses 6 and 7)

It is sad and awful, and indicative of how blind most of the Church is to God’s universal plan with Israel that so many Christians who claim to believe in the God of Israel and His Word sometimes actively side with those who oppose Him.

The Bible, as I already mentioned, is replete with warnings against the nations that come against Israel.

In Zechariah 12:9:
“I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”

Also in Jeremiah 30: 10,11a
“‘Therefore do not fear, O My servant Jacob,’ says the LORD, ‘Nor be dismayed, O Israel; for behold, I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet, and no one shall make him afraid. For I am with you,’ says the LORD, ‘to save you; though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you.”

And in Isaiah 34: 1,2 and 8:
Come near, you nations, to hear; and heed, you people! Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world and all things that come forth from it. For the indignation of the LORD is against all nations, and His fury against all their armies; He has utterly destroyed them, He has given them over to the slaughter. …For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, the year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

And further in Isaiah 60:12:
“For the nation and kingdom which will not serve you (Israel) shall perish, and those nations shall be utterly ruined.”

In Ezekiel 38:18,19a:
“And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel,” says the Lord God, “that my fury will show in My face. For in My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath I have spoke.”

And in Joel 3:1-2:
“For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up My land.”

It is really difficult to understand, therefore, how people in general can miss the clear implication of these words of warning; all the more so as we see the foretold alignment against Israel increasingly fulfilled in our day and time. Today, nearly all the nations, which excuse or ignore their own failings and atrocities, consistently come down hard on little Israel  this nation gathered, as the Lord promised, from among the gentile nations and planted back in their God-given land.

How clearly this reveals the utter blindness and arrogance of even many in the church.

Even in the aforementioned Psalm 2, there is a clear reference to the dreadful consequences of stirring the wrath of  “the Son” by coming against Him and His people.

Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. (Verses 10-12)

This precise theme we find in the descriptive words of the prophet Zechariah, when he writes:

Then the Lord [Himself] will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives... (Zechariah 14:3,4)

This is a scene which the prophet Isaiah already foresaw, and which was taken up later by John the Apostle on the Isle of Patmos. Isaiah writes:Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, this One who is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength?  “I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like one who treads in the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, and trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My robes. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. I looked, but there was no one to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold; therefore My own arm brought salvation for Me; and My own fury, it sustained Me.” (Isaiah 63: 1-5)

And John, as recorded in The Revelation 14:19,20:

So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs.

This day of wrath and vengeance on the nations will be so terrible, the Bible tells us that those who will survive it among the nations will be “more rare than fine gold” (Isaiah 13:12)!

Tragically, it will only be after this day of wrath and vengeance because of the controversy over Zion (see Isaiah 34) that those that will be spared or left among the nations, (“rarer than fine gold”) will be willing to travel en masse to, and respect the supremacy of, the Lord’s city and people, as they will come up to Jerusalem each year in humility and awe to worship the King during the Feast of Tabernacles! And if they at that stage have still not learned the lesson He wants to teach them, they will receive no rain or blessinguntil they learn to respect God’s choice of Zion and His people.

As Zechariah 14:16-19 spells out:

And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.