Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
Psalm 1 speaks to individuals, inviting us to pay attention to scripture, to think about it, to meditate.
Psalm 2 speaks to nations and kings, exposing a conspiracy. It says,
Why do the nations conspire
and the people plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed (v 1-2).
It’s a conspiracy of nations that rebel against God to establish their own kingdoms. Conspiracies are everywhere. Putin invades Ukraine, China bullies Taiwan, Netanyahu reduces Gaza to ruins, Trump implements tariffs and expels immigrants to make America great.
The psalmist says these are conspiracies against God. Earthly rulers throwing off the constraints God set for nations. They sacrifice truth and justice on altars of power and wealth. They create radical and inhumane kingdoms, not knowing or caring they are accountable to God.
The psalmist’s solution? God says to the greatest ruler of all,
You are my son;
today I have become your father.
Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance. . . .
You will break them with a rod of iron;
you will dash them to pieces like pottery (v 7-9).
God’s son will destroy the world’s kingdoms, pitch them on the trash heap of history, and replace them with God’s kingdom.
But what if a nation honors God? Can it avoid God’s anger and his son’s demolition?
Remember when Israel wanted a king like other nations? A strong man to make Israel great. Watch out, warned Samuel. A king will make you pay for his extravagances. He’ll take your best workers and animals for himself. He’ll tax your income and capital gains! Are you listening? You’ll end up no better than slaves (1 Sam 8:14-18).
Samuel and the psalmist don’t believe strong leaders will drain the swamp and make a nation great. Instead, they warn that strong leaders will create their own bureaucratic swamp and run the country for the benefit of friends and family.
God’s solution is his anointed king, who will invade history and upend it.
Let’s pray.
Our father, our lives have been enriched by the nation we live in. Health care, police protection, and the freedom to worship, travel, and speak as we wish.
But we feel the same pull Israel felt. Our difficult and chaotic times, like theirs, require a strong leader to keep our country on track, to set the nation right, to restore us to greatness.
We heed the psalmist’s warning that those in power build kingdoms of this world, that conservative and liberal ideologies build human kingdoms, not your kingdom.
O father, lead us to the country whose builder and architect is God. Lead us to worship your son, the king, and take refuge in him.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
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