So Acts chapter 4 and verse 23. And being let go, they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which has made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is. Who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, why did the heathen rage? And the people imagined vain things. The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For our truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word. by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. Amen. This little section in Acts is absolutely packed full of wonderful teaching. Now I say that, not that And there's any part that has not got teaching. But if you know what I mean, it's kind of concentrated in these verses. Lots of parts of angst are narrative. They tell you who went where, and where they went, and what happened, and so forth. It's narrative. Now, of course, there are principles there, and that's fine. But there's a concentration in these verses. And the more you look at them, the more you realize There's so much here, so much here, almost too much for us. But anyway, we look at it, I hope not too superficially, but we will look at it and of course the context again is all important. We won't go through it again because by now I'm sure you realize And here are the apostles who was the first persecution in chapter 4. They had a good time thus far. They've been preaching, and people have been saved, and thousands have been brought to faith. And now the authorities, the religious authorities, are hearing about it. And they're not very happy about it. And they call Peter and the apostles to account. And you know the story. They tell him, you shouldn't be going around preaching and teaching about this person, Jesus of Nazareth. And Peter responds and said, no. we we can't stop in effect all right and explain the gospel explain what they believe about Jesus and Nazareth and say that they can't stop whether it's right to hearken to God or to you judge you we cannot verse 20 for we cannot but speak the things we have heard Now, they've got a problem, these religious authorities, as oft they did, and it's a political problem in the sense of they don't know what to do, they know what they want to do, they want to put them in prison and lock them up and throw away the key. They can't deny that a miracle has taken place, and the people have seen this miracle. They've seen this man who was lame. They've seen him leaping and skipping and praising God, and they can't deny that. And they don't know what to do. They're a bit of a pickle politically, religiously, whatever. And so they decide what they'll do. They'll let him go, but tell him to behave themselves and not to do it again. I was quite saddened this week to read about the new bishop, archbishop I think he is, of York. And he's all smiley and a nice picture of him. And there's a comment that he believes in same-sex marriage and all the usual. I thought, how appalling that the second most highest person in the history of England is now taking this stance. And things would follow from that. And all the homosexual vicars and bishops, and there are sadly too many of them, they will say, well, if he believes in it, he agrees with it. And they've done this deliberately. This has been a political, in my humble opinion, a political appointment. And how sad it is. And you've seen it all over the place. So what they do, tell them off, keep quiet. And verse 23, I'm being let go. So we know the background, let go, what do they do? They went back to their own company. They go back to the folk with whom they'd been previously, and reported all the chief priests and elders said unto them. It's good to have reports from folk who've been there, been involved in something, and come back and tell us. It's nice to have Gary when he comes back to us and tells us about his exploits in Sri Lanka. And so we're in the picture, and we can pray meaningfully for the situation and so on. So you go back, and it's not just them. It's the people behind the scenes who have supported them, who've been praying for them, whilst they've been up front on the cold face, as we used to say, in front of the battle. So they come back, and then we have a prayer meeting that is a result of this persecution and their being before the chief priests and so forth. And my, what a prayer meeting it is. The prayer that's uttered from 23 down to 30 is an amazing prayer. And I love the way it starts off. Now, I mentioned this, I think, much previously. The first thing they say, verse 24, and when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. They don't start by saying, oh, thank you, we've been delivered. Their first consideration is not themselves. How difficult it is for us to grasp this principle, this precept, this highest of principles. We must not start with ourselves. Now it's difficult. I find it difficult. You find it difficult. It's difficult in the prayer meeting. We want to just rush in and say, Lord, Thank you for deliverance. Now we need more deliverance. We need this. We need that. This person needs this. And it's sad, really, because that's not how people prayed. Sometimes they cried, Lord, save me, OK? But in this context, it reminds me of another situation where a similar prayer is offered. And if I just read the verses to you and then explain the context, and you may guess it from the verse. Hezekiah is praying, and he's praying, and this is what he says in Isaiah 37. Let me just read it to you, just two verses. And it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it that he rent his clothes and covered himself in sackcloth and went to the house of the Lord. Sorry. That's right, he went to the house of God, and then this is what he said. Now here's a man, the situation is, he's surrounded by enemies. He's surrounded by the armies of Syria. And there seems no hope for him. And the enemies have boasted against not just Israel and Jerusalem, but against Jehovah, against their God. And they've said such blasphemous things. Don't trust your king. Don't trust Hezekiah, who tells you to believe and trust in Jehovah. What have we done to the other gods? Other peoples have trusted in their gods, and we've smashed them. And we are about to do the same to you. So don't let that king say, oh, trust in the Lord. He'll look after us. He delivers. Because he won't. We are indestructible. No one can defeat us. Not Israel or Israel's little God. What terrible things they said. So, you would think Hezekiah would come into the house of the Lord and he has this communication, he lays you, and he says, Lord, save us! Lord, deliver us! Lord, have mercy upon us! He would rush in with his petitions. Of course, I don't know how he said these things, I can't read the words, but I'd like to think he's completely calm about this. And he starts by worshipping God. Oh, Lord of hosts, God of Israel. You dwell between the cherubim and the seraphim. Thou art God, even thou alone, and all the kingdoms of the earth. Thou hast made heaven and earth, and so on. He's worshipping God. He's not rushing. He's just worshipping God. He's almost poetic, eloquent in his words. He's reminding God of who God is and thereby reminding himself he was the sovereign God. He was the God who created all things and in whose hands everything is. Kingdoms of the world, the stars, the sun, the moon, the angels, every situation is in God's hands. And there's no need to panic. There's no need to panic. Now, the context of that is not dissimilar to the context of Acts 4. Here are these rulers, and these chief priests, and all the rest of it. And they're seeking to keep these people quiet. They're seeking to make sure that they don't propagate this gospel about this Jesus of Nazareth being crucified. They knew that was a fact. But being risen, they didn't like that bit, and that he was the Messiah. And so they start praying. They lifted up the voice of God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God. Thou hast made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. You are God. You haven't changed from Hezekiah's day. You haven't changed from all the events of history, biblical history. You've not changed. You're still God. You're still almighty. The force of change. It's not now the king of Syria. It's others. But the fact of opposition has not changed your people. The fact of hatred for the gospel, for the good news, hasn't changed. But you are still God. You are still almighty. And you're still sovereign. We need to pray like that. We need to pray like that. And you see, by doing so, you're reminding yourself of who and what God is. I mean, sometimes, if you're like me, you look at the world and you're very tempted to be despairing. And you think, what can happen? Can anything happen to stop this tide? It's almost overwhelming us. God is God. God is sovereign, and we can trust him to do as he wills. Anyway, they go on then, and then they quote a psalm. Who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said? And they quote Psalm 2. Now what I'm going to do, and you may like to join me if you can, is turn to Psalm 2. This is the psalm they quote. Now, another little lesson I trust for us is that the New Testament people of God quoted oftentimes the Psalms in their prayers. Now, sometimes it's obvious, all right? Sometimes it's not so obvious. Sometimes it's explicit. Sometimes it's implicit. And I've always said and feel it's a good thing to do. It's a good place to start to quote God's own words to him. Lord, you have said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I am concerned. Let me be a bit personal tonight. I am concerned that we don't do this enough. And we ought to be doing it all the time, but particularly when we're studying the Psalms. I mean, we had Gary Deal with the Psalm, was it 61, 62, and about the rock that is higher than I. Now, that's a great verse, and the verses around, to go to God in prayer. That should be the immediate response. In my humble opinion, that should be the immediate response. Lord, we thank you that you are this rock. Our savior is this rock. Higher than I. That's what we need. A rock that is higher than I. A rock upon which we can run to free to fall upon. And then other verses that you can quote in worship and prayer. Now, this is not too difficult. I don't know why it is, but it's almost, there's an adverse reaction somehow, someway, and I don't know why it should be. It wasn't always the case. Many of us will remember being in prayer meetings, particularly with the old saints, as they say, and often they would start with a psalm or with another part of scripture, and they'd bring that before God. We need to recover that. We need to recover that. So, they pray this psalm. They pray particular verses in this psalm. Now, is that significant? Why didn't they take Psalm 61 or 62? Why did they particularly choose Psalm 2? I think they were led of the Spirit to do that, and the Spirit led them to record that in Acts, and it must be significant. Let me just remind you of Psalm 2. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves together and rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in delusion. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sole displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, and yet it was parts of the earth for thy possession. I shall break them with a rod of iron. I shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be hungry, and he perish from the way. And his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Now, why do they quote that? I'm sure because it has to do with opposition and the heathen raging. People imagine vain thing. The kings of the earth set themselves together and rulers. There's a conspiracy against God. But it's not just against God in general. It's against God in particular because it's against the Lord and his anointing. You see, these chief priests and others in acts, they're not just against the apostles as servants of the Lord. They're not just against God in a sense they wouldn't say they were against God because they claim to worship God, worship Jehovah. They're against the one who claims to be his son. They're against the one who claims to be the anointed. They're against the one who claims to be the Messiah. That's their problem. That's their problem. and the New Testament writers interpret this psalm as particularly, as we would, particularly and especially referring to the Lord Jesus Christ as Messiah. And the opposition that is coming against the Messiah, now it's not just against the Messiah in the context of Psalm 2, it's against the Lord himself. I confess, I listened to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Wednesday on Acts 4, and he spends 50 minutes of his 60 on Psalm 2, because obviously Peter votes, and so the good doctor deals with Psalm 2. And it was an amazing message, absolutely amazing. And it was preached in 1965. And the things he said there could have been said last Sunday. about this world and raging. And people imagine vain thing. And they think they can take over. They control everything they can do to bring about social reform and peace and all the rest of it. And of course, he points out in his own inimitable way how that's failed miserably. He mentions, for example, the First World War. Many of us know what the First World War was. We're born much later than that. But the First World War, the war to end all wars. There never again will be a war like this. We must get together. Nations must come and must talk and communicate. And men, men organize this. And men organize the League of Nations, all the rest of it. And then, bang, 1935 or whatever, the Second World War. And you'd think, after all that we went through, or some folk went through the Second World War, there'd never be any other wars, whether World Wars or any other. And since then, there'd be a succession of wars all over the world. Wars and rumors of wars. And still, there's conflict in many parts of the world. Man has not got the answer. Because man is in sin. And man is, at heart, rebellious against God. It's not that he just doesn't want to follow God's law. He hates God at the root of man. And but for the grace of God in his common grace, and then in his sovereign grace, we will be like the same. We will be the same. Oh, I never hated God. What if you never hated God? It wasn't because you were particularly good or nice, but God in his preventative grace had his hand upon you, even in the days before you were converted. Kings of the earth set themselves together, rulers take counsel against the Lord, against His anointing. What are they saying? Let us break the bands of sundown and cast the cords from us. We don't want to be bound by a God whom we can't see. We don't want to be bound by the old-fashioned rule, the Ten Commandments, and all these kinds of things. We want to establish our own morality. We want to establish our own laws. We want to decide what we do and with whom we do it. We want to be in charge. You want some god to tell us what to do, what not to do. We want to be free. Now, it's a supreme irony, isn't it? In their desire to be free, the world is in bondage to sin and self and Satan. They're in bondage. The man says, I'm free. I can do as I please. All right, stop doing things which are wrong. Stop sinning. Oh, I can't. I won't. I don't want to. freedom. And then God's reaction. Oh, we love this. I mean, we've got to be careful, right? I know we've got to be careful. He that sitteth in the heavens Be careful, because it's a human anthropomorphism describing laughter to God. He's not sitting in the heavenly chair and a good chuckle. Be careful of that. But the idea we need to be that God looks at them and says, you silly people. You are so silly. You're so foolish. You don't know what you're doing. And you don't realize that the further you get away from me, the deeper you are going to be in bondage and chaos. The Lord shall have them in derision. But you see, the Lord is not indifferent to their rebellion and to their conspiracy. He doesn't say, oh, well, I don't care less. You do what you like. I'll do what I want, and that'll be the end of it. God visits these people in wrath and he vexes them in sore displeasure. I think we rarely speak about God's wrath today, God's displeasure. Who is God to be wrathful? Who is God to be displeased? Who is God to judge? And we hesitate to talk about judgment in this world. We hesitate to talk about judgment of individuals or of nations. And yet the Bible talks about a God who judges nations, who brings his wrath upon nations, who destroys nations. Now, we have to go carefully. I'll give you a little illustration, all right? You make of it what you will. But then I will give you what I think and then a proper biblical response. I mentioned some months ago what happened in Australia, where a rugby player said, a national rugby player from Australia, that he believed that marriage was for a man and a woman. He also said that he believed that homosexual practice was a sin. Well, you just say what the Bible says. Nothing particularly spectacular about that or revelationary about that. That's just what most of us have always said and believed. Now he was taken to task, firstly by his club, then by the International Rugby Board, and then the whole of Australia turned against him. People who had nothing to do with rugby, nothing to do with sport, all turned against him. Not because he'd been out there beating up homosexuals, or suffered from some homophobic attacks, or had caused them attacks, because of what he said. Just what he said in his church. and lost his job, and all kinds of things. Now, Australia has suffered the worst fires in a generation. There will be some people who will link the two. In fact, he himself said it. He wonders if this is God's judgment. Now, if it had just been a little club, or even the International Rugby Board in Australia, well, that's not much. But it seemed that the whole country, even to the government, against this poor little fellow Israel. And they've had the worst fight. Now, I am not saying this is a direct result of that particular persecution of that Christian and of their stance on homosexual practice. I'm not saying that. It might be, but I'm not saying it. Why am I not saying it? Because Jesus said this. The Lord Jesus, in answer to a question, And the question was, a folk came to him and said, the people who were killed by Pilate when he sacrificed pigs on the altar, all right, and there was a riot, and he slaughtered them all, were they great sinners? Because of something they did. And the other question they asked, they were building this tall tower, and it fell on them. I don't know how or why it's not recorded in the Bible. These two events are not recorded, but they did happen historically. And this tower falls, and lots are killed. Now, were they bad people because this tower fell down? It was the mentality in those days. If something bad happens to you, you're a bad person. So were these people who were slain by a pilot? Well, there must have been something wrong with them. These people who were killed by the tower, there must have been something wrong with them. They were sinners. And Jesus says this, do you think they were worse sinners than anybody else? No. The biggest problem is your sin. Except you repent, you shall perish. In other words, it's not a particular thing that's brought about this particular judgment. It may be, but we cannot tell. And you wonder, I wonder, and you can't say this publicly, can you? If I or some politician or somebody high up, if the Archbishop of Canterbury, I doubt he'd ever say something like this. But if he dared even to suggest that, they'd be up in arms. When AIDS was prevalent amongst the homosexual community, and people say this is a judgment of God. I don't think you could say that. Albeit, I think the Lord has built into the system an effect whereby certain things occur as a result of a bad lifestyle. But that's another medical thing. But God is a God of wrath. God is a God of vengeance. And that's real. And I just, I'm uneasy, because we're afraid to think about this, because what would people say? Now, amazingly, but perhaps not so amazingly, because he was a real evangelist at heart, Lloyd-Jones, at the end of the message I've just told you about, he comes on to, as bad as we are, there is a savior, and there's good news, and so on. And it's a great application at the end. I watched a little program last night, Michael Petillo. I enjoy Michael and his train journeys. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then forgive me. But he goes on a train, and he's got a good little travel book, and he goes out places. He does the British Isles, and at the moment, he's in Thailand. Well, not at the moment, but when this was filmed. And he went to Thailand. And he said there, I think it was 80% or perhaps 90% of people in Thailand are Buddhists. And he didn't say, this is paganism. Of course, he couldn't say that, could he? This is paganism. Absolute superstition. And he went into this big shrine. There was a great statue of the Buddha, and it's all covered with gold. And all these people who worship the Buddha and all the rest of it, and they chant and do these things, and they believe in reincarnation, as you know, and all that kind of stuff. And I think, this is dreadful, this whole country in paganism. what is God going to do about it? I don't know. And I read that Thailand is one of the worst places for drugs and child prostitution and various other horrendous things. And I think we're entitled to say Buddhism hasn't done much for them, has it? Now, all these applications you can use all throughout the world. Now, I'm not saying a particular. You can't say that. You can't say there's a man in Halesham and he's having a terrible time. Well, he's a great sinner. He may be, but it may not be. What he's suffering is because of his sin. If God visited the sinners of Halesham as he deserved, there'd be a plague throughout Halesham. But God is gracious. He's still gracious. Now, there's so much we could say about this. I don't want to be overlong, because we can only kind of keep till next week. But we need to think about some of these things. Because if we don't, we're not being faithful to the Bible. I'd rather talk about the love of God. And in a sense, God is love against the background of all this sin and degradation. I'm sorry to go on about this. I heard that in Northern Ireland this week, a holocaust, celebrated it. The mayor of Ireland, Belfast, stood up and said all the things that you would expect him to say about the holocaust. And then he added, and of course the same is happening today to homosexuals and lesbians and trans people. They're being persecuted. And I thought, what on earth are you bringing this into this holocaust? It was just, and I'm afraid it was therefore commented, we have sunk to such depths. And you think, well, but if I read Romans 1 right, this is part of the judgment. God is saying, you go with it, you have it, you do all that you want, and see where it will lead you. And something will happen, I don't know what it will be, but something will happen. They'll reach a point and they'll say, this has got to stop. You can't keep teaching our children this horrendous heresy and behavior. I don't want my granddaughter in a school with a loo and a little boy comes in because today he wants to identify as a little girl. I don't want my granddaughter to go through that, and neither do you. There seems to be a power that's to stop it. But God, God will intervene somehow, someway. And the very people who now were advocating freedom will realize that it's not freedom. It's bondage to a very, very small minority who are very vocal. And I would dare to say a true esteem and possess. Well, we'll stop there for tonight. There's so much in this, and thank God that God brought them and delivered them. But the focus was on this Messiah, and we'll come back to that next week, the king on Mount Zion. That's just bow our heads. Father, we've looked at this passage, and it's quite a dire passage in a sense. The reference to Psalm 2 and the king's raging, Rulers coming together against God and against His Anointed. And we feel we're in that world today. Peter and the Apostles felt a little of it, but we're in it worldwide, where the opposition to the Gospel is increasing. But not just to the Gospel, to creational values, to foundations, the very foundations of life and of family and society have been not just corroded, but spoken against. And there's no proof that things are any better. It's not working. It's not working. Oh, Father, the God of this world is blind in the eyes of those that believe not. Lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine into their hearts, and they be saved. Father, our prayer is in wrath. Remember mercy. We don't know what else to say. We pray and plead with Thee, Father, in spite of our great sins, as a nation, have mercy upon us. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen. We're going to sing another hymn in the same line as to the first. 712 or 714? 715. Soldiers of Christ arise and put your armor on, strong in the strength which God supplies.