"GOD IN HEAVEN LAUGHS IN THE FACE OF HUMAN RESISTANCE ON EARTH."

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Ps 44:1,2
Ps 103:6
Ps 37:5
Ps 2:1,2,3,4
Hy 42:1,2,3

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Sixty years ago today the allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin the assault that ultimately destroyed Hitler and godless regime. Well does the western world pause today to reflect on the consequence of the mighty struggle symbolized by D-Day – for the freedom we enjoy in the western world is the direct product of that effort begun 60 years ago today. Men and women than had backbone, were willing to give their lives so that coming generations need not live in the darkness of Nazism but in the light that at that time still characterized the western world.

In 60 years, though, so much can change. The Christianity that spawned today’s freedom and prosperity is under concerted attack, both by aggressive forces outside our culture (I refer to the Muslim world) as well as by dry rot from within (I refer to hedonism, materialism, the idolatry of Self). The dry rot within makes the western world so very vulnerable to the assaults of the east. Will, then, the freedoms obtained through the blood of those who gave their lives on D-Day and the struggle that followed prevail for another 60 years? Or will our culture perish because the rot within can muster no opposition to the attacks from without? Who shall say?

As our world pauses to recall D-Day, it is fitting that we listen to heaven’s thoughts about earth’s follies. While the rulers of the world utter serious speeches, the God of heaven … laughs. It’s a laughter of derision, a laughter borne of victory, a laughter to which we may add our own chortles of faith.

I summarize the sermon today with this theme:

"He who sits in the heavens shall laugh," says our text, "the Lord shall hold them in derision." Our translation puts the matter into the future tense, from which we may conclude that this laughter is something for tomorrow but not of today. Yet that’s not the author’s intent. Rather, the author of our psalm pictures God as laughing and continuing to laugh.

God laughs. It’s not the laughter of delight and pleasure, but a holy derision. The same word is used in Ezekiel 23 to describe what shall happen to Jerusalem on account of her sins. Says Ezekiel: "You shall be laughed to scorn and held in derision" (vs 31).

It strikes us as strange. God has someone in derision? The concept does not really fit in our mental picture of our holy God. Yet that, congregation, is what the text says. God laughs, has particular persons in derision, holds them in scorn.

We wonder why. What does God’s laughter mean? And why does God have someone in derision? To understand this divine laugh we shall have to understand first of all the context in which this statement is made. So we are to note that it is specifically in Psalm 2 that we find this reference to divine laughter.

Psalm 2. It’s frequently understood to be a Messianic Psalm, one that speaks directly of the coming of the Messiah. In that understanding, the ‘anointed one’ mentioned in vs 2 can only be Jesus Christ. And the ‘Son’ of vs 7 must also be none other than Jesus Christ. And the one who shall inherit the ends of the earth (vs 8) is also Jesus Christ and Him alone. The divine laugh of our text must then also be understood in light of Christ’s triumph on Calvary; it is because He will triumph on the cross that heaven will laugh.

Now it is true that the laughter of heaven revolves ultimately around the triumph of Jesus Christ. And it is true too that this psalm points forward to Jesus Christ. (The apostle Paul, for example, inspired by the Spirit of God, quotes this psalm as a direct prophecy of Christ and His triumph; cf Act 13:33). Yet as it is, congregation, Ps 2 surely had a meaning for the initial author. If we wish to understand the psalm properly and be comforted today by its instruction, we shall have to grasp first of all what the human author meant when he wrote this psalm.

According to the apostle Peter in Acts 4, the author of Ps 2 is David. From particular details in the psalm we receive a fair indication as to when David wrote this psalm. For the psalm relates that nations are conspiring, peoples are plotting against the LORD and His anointed, because they want to break the bonds which the Lord has placed on them, they want to be free. That’s what we may conclude from vss 2 & 3.

Furthermore, David says that someone has been anointed (vs 2), says there is someone of whom the Lord has said that he was God’s son (vs 7) and that he would receive the ends of the earth as his possession (vs 8). We ask first of all about who this anointed person might be. Did David know of anyone who had been anointed?

The answer to that question is Yes. In fact, there were two people anointed, and those two were Saul and David himself. There is also that reference to the decree of the Lord in which God had adopted someone as His son and given him the ends of the earth as his possession (vs 7f). That is a reference to God’s promise David in 2 Sam 7. We read it: God told David through Nathan the prophet that He would make his name great, would give him supremacy over the nations around him (vs 9f); moreover, David would receive a son whose Kingdom God would establish forever, yes, that son would even be God’s Son (vs 13f). More, God even promised that He would not take His love away from this son at all; this son would receive an eternal kingdom. Then it’s true that God may not have said of David himself that he was God’s son, and David himself may never have been promised the ends of the earth as his heritage. But we understand too that if David’s son would receive an eternal throne over the entire world, then it is evident too that David’s own throne is also secure. God has set David as king in Jerusalem, king on Zion, and David shall remain king until he dies in old age and then his son shall succeed him.

When David, then, congregation, refers in our Psalm to an ‘anointed’ one (vs 2), he is referring in first place to himself. Similarly, the king God set on Zion (vs 6) is first of all David himself; he reigned in Jerusalem. And because the son of David will be made Son of God does David also have a unique relation with God; it is to David that the decree of God mentioned in vs 7 was first spoken; "You are My son…; I will make the nations your heritage…." O yes, the Son mentioned in this verse is ultimately Christ; that’s true beyond a doubt. But in light of 2 Sam 7 it’s evident that these words have meaning also for David himself.

Now, David says that the nations were raging and the people plotting, yes, the kings and rulers of the earth were taking counsel together against the Lord and His anointed, against David. Our thoughts, it would appear, ought to go to the rebellion of the nations recorded in Scripture shortly after Nathan gave David the glorious promises of 2 Sam 7. We read from 2 Sam 10, how the Ammonites attempted to get away from under David’s control. To provoke a conflict they treated David’s ambassadors shamefully, shaved off half their beards from each of them, cut their garments off in the middle, and sent them home in disgrace. That insult was followed by an alliance with other nations around Israel, so that they might gang up on David and regain their autonomy; the Syrians of Bethrehob, the Syrians of Zobah, the king of Maacah and the men of Tob all join the rebellion.

Now, we might find the wish of the Ammonites and the surrounding kings to rebel against David quite understandable, even justified. After all, why should they be content to dwell under Israelite oppression, Israelite imperialism!? And indeed, congregation, that may very well have been the motivation of the Ammonites and the Syrians: Down with Israelite imperialism, down with foreign dominance! And though they lost the battle, the story may well have been recorded in Ammonite history textbooks as a war against foreign oppression.

But David, we must note, speaks in rather different language. David does not see the Ammonite revolt as a bucking against foreign oppression as such. No, David recalls what God has said to him through Nathan the prophet, recalls the promise of God to make David’s name great, to give him dominance over the nations around him. More, David recalls that he has himself been anointed by God to be king over Israel and that in Israel God would bless the nations (cf Gen 12:3). David recalls that his dynasty would last forever, that God would make David’s son to be God’s Son. In a word, God has given to Israel, and so to David, a special position over the nations; through Israel God was ruling over the peoples of the earth, was even seeking to provide a blessing to the nations.

It’s all these things that David has in mind as reports come in of the uprising of the Ammonites. David does not see this revolt simply as an expression of political or economic or cultural or religious dissatisfaction; David sees this revolt for what it really is: a revolt against God. That’s why he says what he says in vs 2: "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 bonds in pieces, and cast their cords from us.’" David understands very well: this rebellion was not just against the man David, nor against the people Israel; this was a revolt against the God of Israel. Hence his accurate analysis: "the kings of the earth set themselves … against the Lord" (vs 2).

That is also why, congregation, the revolt David alludes to in this Psalm was not just a separate event in the history of mankind. This revolt, being as it is a revolt against God and His anointed, lies on a line with the revolt of Paradise. Adam and Eve - and in them the human race- had rebelled against God, had sought to be independent of God, had endeavored to burst asunder what they then considered to be God’s bonds. And that revolt of Paradise was in turn instigated by the earlier revolt in heaven, when a number of angels left their God-given place and determined to cast off God’s sovereignty. Indeed, this revolt of which David writes in Ps 2 has its roots in that revolt of Satan and his angels, a revolt brought to earth in the fall in Paradise. It’s all on one line; this revolt of the kings described in Ps 2 is part and parcel of the antithesis, of the struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Of that David is convinced, and that’s why he has no trouble in describing this political revolt in terms of rebellion against none less than the God of heaven and earth.

It is in the light of that understanding of the revolt of the kings of the earth that we also have to read the words of our text. For in vs 4 David –under the guidance of the Holy Spirit!- describes God’s response to this revolt of the kings. What God in heaven does is laugh, laugh these Ammonite kings and their allies to scorn, deride the hosts of hell as they rise up against the Lord and His anointed.

And why? Why is derision the response of heaven? The answer to that is told us in the description given of God. The One who laughs at "the kings of the earth" is "He who sits in the heavens." Notice the contrast between heaven and earth. Those who rebel may be kings, but they are only earthlings, and the One against whom they rebel is none other than the God of heaven. And earthlings are but creatures, while He who sits in the heavens is the Creator, is God, is the Almighty. Notice too that God is not just described as being "in heaven"; rather, God is described as "sitting". And "sitting" is a Scriptural designation of power, of governing; it is when the king sits on his throne that he is carrying out his royal task. Then the Ammonite and Syrian kings may plot together against David and against the God behind David, but in so doing they are plotting against a God who governs, a God who both has power and carries out His power. These kings may pretend to be so important and so powerful, but in actual fact these kings are nothing compared to the God behind David. And that is why the God of heaven laughs. For the whole idea of earthly kings rising in revolt against the God of heaven is ludicrous, is preposterous. Fancy mice confidently revolting against a lion! Small wonder that God has them in derision….

Still, there is more to this revolt of the Ammonite and Syrian kings than a simple revolt against God. These kings of the nations revolted against the king of Israel. But that king of Israel was not only a representative of God; he also foreshadowed Jesus Christ, foreshadowed Him who is elsewhere in Scripture called "Mighty God" and "Prince of Peace" (Is 9:6). In rebelling against David the kings of the earth rebelled also against the throne of David, against the lineage of David, against the great Son of David. David’s throne and kingship has no value in itself; David’s throne foreshadows and is fulfilled by the throne of Jesus Christ; ultimately He is the King whom God has set on His holy hill. King Jesus was indeed the Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, publicly anointed by God in the sight of men on the day of His baptism at the Jordan. King over creation He was, and therefore able to still storms, to multiply bread, to heal sick, to cast out demons; all creation, all the earth, lay at His disposal.

When the kings of the earth set themselves against David, and so against the God of David, they ultimately rose up against the coming Christ! Do you see, then, beloved, how their revolt lay on a line not just with the revolt of Paradise, but also with the revolt of those mighty men in the days of Christ’s earthly sojourn - these kings and rulers who counseled together, plotted their strategy to destroy the Son of God, to put Him to death? For so read the Scriptures; the priests and the elders of Israel - men of influence and power all- together with Pilate and Herod conspired together to destroy the King God had set on Zion, the King to whom God had promised the ends of the earth (cf Acts 4:27). They conspired, and seemed indeed able to break in pieces the bonds of God and Christ His anointed, to cast divine cords from them. For altogether they decided that Jesus of Nazareth ought to the crucified, enthroned on a pole - king of the Jews that He claimed to be….

Yes, on Calvary they conspired together, "Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel." But behind the conspiracy of these earthly kings, these rulers made of dust, was Satan and his hosts, was the same force as motivated the kings of the Ammonites and the Syrians; on Calvary climaxed the revolt of the demons against God. And when God, in awesome wrath against sin, turned His face from His Son in those three hours of darkness, it was the hosts of hell that attacked Jesus, that conspired against Him in an effort to destroy once and for all the power of Him who sits in the heavens.

And make no mistake, beloved: Satan did his utmost to break God’s anointed. With a rod of iron Satan chastised Jesus on the cross, endeavored to dash Him to pieces like a potter’s vessel. He hung there, a broken man, rejected by the God who anointed Him, having nothing royal, nothing authoritative about Him. And the henchmen of hell jeered at Him, they laughed Him to scorn; "Come on, you who say you are the King of the Jews, save yourself." And hell sat in stitches when on top of the pole that sign was nailed; "Jesus, King of the Jews." "I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.’ Yes, O Israel, behold your king! He’s on his hill, alright. Crucified. Behold your king!

Hell laughed, laughed while the Son of God hung so dejectedly on the cross. But, beloved, make no mistake here either: heaven laughed too! O certainly, the awful anger of holy God was poured out upon the Son, this king on Zion. But while the kings of the earth, instigated as they were by the devil, nailed Christ to the cross, while Satan pulled out all the stops in his effort to destroy this king, God in heaven had Satan and his henchmen in derision. For here is the folly of hell. Satan, and Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel with him, was doing exactly what God had predestined should take place (cf Acts 4:28). They conspired, revolted against God. And yet did not conspire without God. In fact, their very revolt was proof that God remained sovereign; they were doing what God had determined that they should do.

More. What was the purpose of Calvary? Satan and the rulers of the earth determined that Calvary should be the end of this would-be king of the Jews. But God had not so planned it. What was Calvary actually? Calvary, brothers and sisters, was nothing else than the destruction of Satan. That sin of Paradise, once instigated by the devil, was paid for on Calvary. So on Calvary the revolt of the beginning was undone! Calvary meant that Satan and those with him were broken with a rod of iron, dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel, crushed by the seed of the woman! And the result was, yes, was the ascension, was that Christ could be elevated by God to that throne at God’s right hand, there to sit sovereignly in the heavens as king over all the earth (Phil 2; Acts 2:36). And Satan? Satan is forbidden access to heaven, shall one day also be forbidden access to earth, for his destiny is to be cast into the bottomless pit and sealed therein…. Satan and the kings of the earth tried so hard to break Jesus Christ, but their very effort was used by God to make Jesus Lord of the Universe!

Here, indeed, beloved, is humor, is cause for laughter in heaven – and therefore on earth. The efforts of Satan, of the kings of the earth, they backfire, blow up in their own faces. Hell may plan, the powerful of the earth may plot, but all the while God laughs. Despite all the devil’s bullying, the efforts of hell are vain, in fact, God uses them to accomplish His own ends. "Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing?" Any such conspiracy is foolish, makes no sense. He who sits in the heavens laughs, has them in derision. For glory is His, triumph is His. And Calvary is all the evidence one want of that fact! Therefore, O kings and rulers of the earth, be wise. And Satan, be warned. You were told that the victory could not be yours. Did you not hear heaven laugh at your futile efforts? Come, O Satan, serve the Lord with fear. Kiss His feet. Your fight is vain anyway!

Those, congregation, are the realities of today too. He who sits in the heavens laughs, also today, at the folly of the kings of the earth. It is true that since the ascension of Christ into heaven, Satan has gone forth in great wrath, seeking to destroy the church of Christ. He has set kings up against the church, to persecute and oppress. Men of influence have arisen to conspire with the godless to lull the church to sleep. Liberal thinkers and media alike, terrorists and religious fanatics together, people of power and influence conspire together against the Lord. The Muslim world sees the west as Christian, and hates the Christ they see in the west. The western world in reality is no longer Christian, also hates the Christ and His sovereignty. East and west alike, though locked in a battle of wills and of culture today, are both seeking to dethrone the King of kings, conspiring to break loose any submission to the Sovereign of heaven. That’s the reality of the world in which we live. That is why, congregation, we need to hear well what is happening in heaven. "He who sits on the throne laughs, He has them all in derision." For God has set His King on His holy hill, and no one, no one can dislodge Him! That is what the church believes, and that is why the church calls the big men and the little of this world to bow down before the King of kings. Mr Howard and Mr Bush: be wise, be instructed, and serve the Lord with fear. Mr Chirac and Mr Schroeder: kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish! Osama bin Laden and Kim il Jung also: kiss the Son, acknowledge what is happening today above the clouds, listen to heaven’s derision at your impish efforts to dethrone the Lord of lords! Kings of the earth and media moguls too: get it together, be real, face the facts! Open your ears and your eyes to the reality as it is, and repent with fear.

Will the future hold another world war, more tension, more bombs, more sarin gas, more oppression and cruelty and bloodshed? Who dares to say, beloved? But this stands fixed: the kings of the earth, people big and small, will continue to rebel against the Lord and His anointed. The pattern of Paradise will continue till the last day. But always our God shall continue to laugh, shall have the nations in derision. So we may laugh along, confident in the sovereignty and victory of our Lord and Savior.

Then, when newspapers report more rebellion against the Lord –be it in the form of war or terrorist attacks or persecution- the Christ who ascended to heaven’s throne will suddenly appear on the clouds of heaven. On that day there shall be laughter too, derisive laughter, because the kings of the earth with their big mouths and sinister plans shall plea for the mountains to fall on them and for the hills to cover them so that they might escape the wrath of the King of the world. But escape they shall not. They shall bow the knee to King Jesus, shall acknowledge that He is Lord and they were wrong in revolting against Him, and then they shall be cast into that bottomless pit to receive their just reward – hell everlasting. And all that happens today works together to hasten that day of glory….

Yes, God laughs. In faith, we laugh along. And true, the world laughs at our laughter, laughs us to scorn because we have confidence to laugh at the world. But the proverb is so true: "He laughs best who laughs last." Amen.