Introduction — Conspiracies in governments past and present

I don't need to tell you that today is July 4, or even that I don't usually preach on Hallmark or national holidays. But I have made an exception today because the State of the Union is in such dire straights that it warrants a sermon. We need to know how to navigate the present and the future. And we have fallen so far from our original July 4 that July 4 is generally a day of mourning for me as much as it is a day of thanksgiving for the courage of our founding fathers. And I think you can do both at the same time. At great risk to their lives and fortunes, our founding fathers interposed themselves between the King of England and their people and declared independence. We need people willing to make those kinds of sacrifices. And I'll give some ideas on how that can be done, later.

Their resistance to tyranny was not an anarchistic, secularistic, or revolutionary move. It was duly elected representatives doing their duty before God (and it was explicitly said to be before God) to protect their citizens from the conspiracy of a king and a Parliament who had arrogated powers that did not belong to them. In every age men are tempted to wait and wait and wait and to put up with conspiracy well beyond the time that we should. Patrick Henry's eloquent speech tipped the tide. And if you have not read much in Patrick Henry's collected writings, you ought to do so. He really was an amazing man. Anyway, in his speech at the convention he said that they had tried every other avenue, and "An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us." He ended his impassioned speech with these words:

Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

In August, a fancier version of the declaration was re-signed, and in a speech before the signing, Samuel Adams said, “We have this day restored the Sovereign [and it was "Sovereign" with a capital "S," referring to God] to Whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and… from the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come.”¹

Amen. These founding fathers recognized the conspiracy, exposed it, and resisted it. Of course, conspiracies didn't begin with the British and they didn't end with the British. We will be seeing that this whole Psalm gives us a theology of conspiracies and shows Christ to be the conspiracy buster. It gives us a great deal of information of what to expect in the midst of conspiracies. It tells us that God believes in conspiracies - that is, that they exist. He has had to deal with them from the beginning. At the beginning of time, Satan conspired against God and managed to lure 1/3 of the angels into a rebellion against God's kingdom. Satan encouraged Adam and Eve to also conspire against God. And the Bible is a long history of conspiracies to wipe out the line of the Messiah and to throw off the bonds of God's law. Prior to the flood the Satanic conspiracies seemed to triumph - until God judged the world. After the flood there are repeated conspiracies against God's kingdom - the Tower of Babel being one of the notable ones. At the time of Moses, Pharaoh conspired against God's purposes by attempting to kill all male babies. Etc., etc.

And to those of you who tend to scoff at conspiracy theories, know that the Hebrew word for conspiracy (kashar - קָשַׁר) occurs 60 times in the Bible. God Himself declares that there are conspiracies - lots of them. And there are synonyms of the Hebrew word kashar that also describe various conspiracies. God says that conspiracies are a thing. And the reason there are so many conspiracies against Christianity, against Christ's law, against liberty, against family, and against other things that God has ordained is because Satan influences those leaders. Jesus told the Pharisees, who were one faction of the political leaders in Israel,

44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

He is a liar and the father of it. Satan and his hosts beget lies in others wherever they can. This is their MO. When unbelievers control the media, we should not be surprised that it is filled with lies and half-truths and misdirection. You really should not be getting your main source of news from the mainstream media. We should not be surprised that the media has for the most part become a political tool of statists, the LGBTQ, Critical Race Theory, and the United Nations Programs. It's not simply an issue of leftist ideology. There is the demonic that is moving at least some media people.

But it is not just the media that is involved in conspiracies small and great. Lies, blackmail, and bribery seem to be pervasive in Washington, DC. If you want to get a tiny taste of it, watch the short swamp movies put out by various Congressmen.

I have talked to doctors who have trusted the Center for Disease Control to be accurate for most of their lives, but who in the last decade have come to recognize that the CDC has so much conflict of interest, has had so many coverups, so many lies, so much misuse of money, and has been caught in so many other ethical scandals they they cannot believe anything that is put out by the CDC anymore. These are doctors telling me that. It is time to put off naivete about the objectivity of government agencies. They don't have your best interests in mind. Of that I am 100% sure.

It's hard anymore to distinguish between truth and error in what is put out from these centralizes organizations. Conspiracies are rife in almost every department and agency in the United States. Dr. Gary Kohls, MD, wrote an essay that is titled, "Why You Can't Trust the FDA, the WHO, the CDC, the AAP, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi or Pfizer." In that essay he documents flagrant conflicts of interests that have driven policies of these various agencies and companies - like Julie Gerberding, the head of CDC from 2002 to 2009 who basically helped Merck while in the CDC and then took a lucrative job with Merck as (get a load of this long title) "Executive Vice President & Chief Patent Officer, Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy and Pupulation Health" position - which really amounts to Merck's propaganda and interface with government agencies. What the article didn't get into was the demonic that plagues some of these agencies. Study what some of these people write and say - especially about Christianity, and you will see the demonic all over it. Pastor Allison is with us and he could tell you of even more.

The Conspiracies of other agencies are well-documented. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. states,

The FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly 50% of its budget from private sources, including Big Pharma and its allied foundations. And the CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and (very profitably) distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which represents over 40% of its total budget.²

Conflict of interest? I would say so.

When 97% of the contributions from the IRS union goes to support Democrats, is it any wonder that a recent scandal has emerged where the IRS is being weaponized against Republicans and even against fundamentalist churches. Of course, there has been a long history of using the IRS as a weapon going back to FDR. Most of these things are really not new. They are being exposed more, but they are not new.

And most of you are aware of a longstanding conspiracy in education. Epoch Times has documented the brainwashing going on and the coverups and secrecy to not let others know what is being taught to the children. Of course, the schools have been pumping out Critical Race Theory propaganda for a long time. Our governor has been trying to get citizens to oppose the horrific sex education materials being pushed onto young children in our schools, but very few are rising up. This amounts to officially sponsored child abuse (sexual abuse), yet very few are rising up. A few years ago, Dr. Paul Vitz, professor of psychology at New York University, worked with a committee that examined sixty social studies and history textbooks used in government schools across the United States. They were amazed to discover that every reference to Christian influence had been systematically removed from the curriculum. Critical Race theory has permeated every subject. Two weeks ago I read through the new policies for the math curriculum in Oregon and was amazed to see Critical Race Theory on every page, and denials of any absolutes in Math. If you believe that 2+2=4 is an absolute rather than a convention, they consider you a racist. The education conspiracy to throw off the bonds of Christ started before I was born and has been very successful. And yes, throwing off 2+2=4 as an absolute is throwing off the bonds of Christ since God gave the axioms of math and other disciplines in the Bible. They are true.

I've got a list of the headquarters of over 100 organizations in America (and I ran out of time - I only got to a handful of states) whose main goal seems to be to cast off the bonds of Christ.³ And this list does not even contain the mainstream media, the educational establishment, pro-lgbtq businesses, local human rights commissions, etc. No, these are organizations with a determined hatred against God's law. That's their main agenda.

When you look at all the agencies in the United Nations, it represents hundreds of conspiracies to remove every vestige of Christianity from every nation. It was horrifying to see the hypocritical and ungodly stands they took against South Africa and Rhodesia back in the day and the murderous attempted genocide against Christians in Rwanda. Peter Hammond documents the Rwanda situation quite well. But things have gotten much worse on who they side with. Their religious department is occult through and through. The agendas WHO pushes are breathtaking - Child Sex Education guidelines starting from age zero being almost unbelievable.⁴ The United States should not even be a part of the United Nations. The United Nations is a tower of Babel conspiracy machine.

And I haven't even gotten into the typical conspiracies that people talk about, but which do indeed seem to hugely influence governments, budgets, banks, and international corporations. Oh, my, the money-flow from the Fed to European banks is astounding. But our passage will inform you that though there are a plethora of conspiracies today, conspiracies are nothing new, and they are not Almighty.

There is something astonishing about conspiracies (v. 1 - "Why?")

David begins this Psalm that looks through a prophetic telescope to New Testament times and is astonished at what he sees.

Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing?

Why? It's not just the nations; its also the people. But why? Jesus (whom this Psalm is about) does nothing but good; why would they plot against Him? Why would they conspire to crucify Jesus? Acts 4 quotes this Psalm and applies it to the irrational hatred that the Jewish leaders had when they manipulated Pilate into crucifying Jesus. But we have already hinted at the answer to the "Why?" Satan with his millions of demons is always working every angle in civics, in church, and with individuals to try to undo the influence of Jesus. The conspiracy to get Him crucified was the greatest conspiracy in world history. Yet it was no match for a tiny church filled with the Holy Spirit. Let me read Acts 4:23-31 because that early church's take on this Psalm is very encouraging. Peter and John had been arrested and prohibited from preaching and threatened with punishment if they did. But they are not discouraged in the least. They know for whom they work - the Almighty. Picking up at verse 23:

Acts 4:23 And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24 So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, 25 who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: “Why did the nations rage, And the people plot vain things? 26 The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the LORD and against His Christ.’

Acts 4:27 “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. 29 Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 30 by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

Acts 4:31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

What is the solution to modern conspiracies? It isn't rational arguments, believe it or not (even though those are needed). But rational arguments don't get you very far with demonically deceived individuals whose irrationalism responds with rage when they can't win the argument. Nor is the solution revolution. It isn't hot-heads marching on DC with guns. It isn't having our own counter-conspiracy. The true solution is for citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven to be firmly convinced that Jesus is seated on His throne and that He really does have universal authority, and to begin asking for the resources of heaven to fill us. Thy Kingdom Come! Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven! We must have faith that Christ is greater than any conspiracy. Hebrews 11 says that without faith it is impossible to please God, which automatically means that it is impossible to advance the mediatorial kingdom of His Son. These early Christians turned the world upside down because they were filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with faith, engaged in spiritual warfare, and preached the whole Bible faithfully. When a candle is lit in the darkness, the darkness has a setback - automatically. And the only light we have is the light of Christ's kingdom - especially His Word. May we speak the word of God with boldness as the early church did.

God assures us that conspiracies are common (vv. 1-3)

But verses 1-3 of Psalm 2 show that God Himself is not surprised by conspiracies. That's exactly what we should expect will happen. If we are faithful to God, we are dangerous to Satan, and Satan or his demons will try to move men to thwart our efforts. It totally makes sense. Verses 1-3:

Psa. 2:1 Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”

Why does the world hate Christ's cords and consider them unduly binding? What are those cords? They are the laws of God. You throw off King Jesus by throwing of the laws of His kingdom. Which in my books means that the Radical Two Kingdom Christians are throwing off the King by throwing out His law. You don't have a kingdom without the laws of the kingdom. Demons are joyful over the radical two kingdom and other secularizing theories.

But I want to point out that the conspiracies to remove God's law from America started right away. Shortly after the first settlements of Christians from England took root, the Rosicrucians were sent to start a movement to counteract the radical Christianity of the Puritans. A lot of people don’t realize this. Sir Francis Bacon was appointed by the British Crown to protect its interests in the colonies. Bacon was a Rosicrucian who directed the order both in England and the Continent, but he also sought to promote Rosicrucianism in the Americas. A group of Rosicrucians under the leadership of Johannes Kelpius landed in Philadelphia in 1694 and immediately set to work in areas of printing, sciences, arts, architecture, and other areas. They actually contributed a lot of helpful things - but they did so by bypassing Christianity and introducing subtle occultism. Many people believe that Free Masonry was an order that arose out of the Rosicrucians, though that is hotly debated by Albert Mackey in his history of freemasonry. But on pages 351 and following even Mackey agrees that in the 1700’s Rosicrucians were a major part of the higher degrees of Masonry. I really think there is a connection. And a number of our founding fathers were Free Masons. The Constitution, good as it was, had two glaring weaknesses - it left out the Bible as the standard for the nation and refused to declare Jesus to be Sovereign. Some of the delegates argued that the State Constitutions showed that we are a Christian nation and that God's laws were the highest laws, so it didn't need to be stated in the Constitution. They said this is a limiting document. But I think those delegates were duped by a handful of people at the Convention who did all that they could to keep God and the Bible out of it. They couldn't do it entirely, and Common Law is in the Constitution, and certainly in the Bill of Limitations, sometimes called the Bill of Rights. Gary North speaks of a Conspiracy in Philadelphia. I think he overstates his case. I'm somewhere between North and Rushdoony on this issue, but there do appear to be at least some in that Convention that had a secularizing conspiracy. The results have been disastrous.

But let me comment on a few phrases in these first three verses that show why we need counties and states to stand up against tyranny once again - a new July 4, so to speak. July 4 calls for interposition by counties and states. That's good.

One phrase in verse 2 says, "rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed..." In the first century, Acts 4 says that these rulers constituted Herod, Pilate, and the political leaders of Israel. Though enemies of each other, their hatred for Christ made them take counsel together and to come to agreements with each other. By AD 62 this taking counsel resulted in Jews being in every level of Nero's government and Nero making a treaty with the Jews to exterminate Christians. Yes, it later was broken and Rome came against Israel. Conspiracies frequently fall apart in God's providence (praise God), but demons are constantly trying to get power-brokers into churches and into states to conspire together.

I won't get into the backroom deals that have happened over the past decades at the Southern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in America, and in other large evangelical church groups. Actually some good things happened this past week for which I praise the Lord. People are maybe waking up. But the politics of these church assemblies often mimic the politics of the Gentiles - and I believe for the same reasons - demonic influence. You cannot read Revelation chapters 3-4 without realizing that Satan is always at work to try to infiltrate churches. And Christians must constantly be on guard. The aphorism attributed to Wendell Phillips, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," is still true. It's true in the church, in the state, and even in businesses. It's sad to see even Christian businesses beginning to buckle under the pressure of the Woke movement and the LGBTQ crowd.

The point is that you don't have to dig very deep to see leaders in every area of life taking secret counsel together and either using or receiving bribery, threats, and even blackmail to get their agendas passed. Apparently it is even worse at the United Nations. The conspiracies against orthodox Christianity, conservative states, and even families are astounding. If you start reading some of the United Nations documents on their plans for your children (educational, medical, sexual, and religious plans), it will turn your stomach. And they don't consider your children to be your children. One of their mottoes that I have seen sprinkled through numerous United Nations documents is "every child is our child." You see that phrase in UNICEF documents, UNESCO documents, and UN discussions on education and sexual rights of children. It's hard to keep up with all of their conspiracies.

But destroying the integrity of the family is not unique to the United Nations. In the past we have seen the same invasion of the family in communist countries and in the French Revolution. You can see it now in Washington, DC. Leaders there are taking counsel together to impose a new world order into the minds of our children. God guarantees that where grace is not present, conspiring together against Christ will take place. It's impossible for it to be otherwise when demons are behind the scenes. Yeah, there are some nutso conspiracies out there that we don't believe in. That kind of fake news is no doubt invented to discredit belief in any conspiracy. But Psalm 2 calls you to believe that conspiracies are all around us. This is why it is so foolish to send your children to government schools where you have no control over the influences in their lives.

A second word I want to comment on is the word "rage." Why do they rage against Christ - especially since He was so righteous? Since Acts 4 says that the focus of this was when Christ was on earth, we can look at Christ's life and notice the rage of His enemies. One of the reasons they got mad at Jesus was because His presuppositional apologetics was so powerful that it stopped their mouths; it tore their arguments to shreds. He was constantly demolishing their reasons. And a reprobate man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. Even when Jesus performed obvious miracles, it just made them more mad. John 12:10 says that when Lazarus was raised from the dead, he was such a powerful testimony to Christ that the leaders conspired to kill Lazarus to get rid of the evidence. It's not about truth for them; its about preserving their power, money, lifestyle, and their agendas.

And the same is true today. Scientists that expose the lies of global warming have often lost their jobs, can no longer get their research published, and are hounded and persecuted. They experience the rage of the establishment. There is no open exchange of ideas. The leadership of these science organizations make it clear to researchers that they must conform or the establishment will ruin them. The same has been true of scientists who disagreed with the CDC on the origin and spread of AIDS decades ago. The same is true of scientists who disagree with the CDC and FDA narrative on vaccines and masks recently. I have read the testimonies of some of these scientists, some of whom have been recognized as geniuses and won awards in the past, but when they disagreed with the COVID-19 narrative or with the wisdom of the COVID-19 vaccines, they have been ground into the dust in persecution. It is a blind rage that defies reason. Anytime you see irrational rage, you might at least consider that there may be demonic involved. And when the demonic is involved, reasons don't matter. That is illustrated in Acts 7 where Steven gives a brilliant Biblical defense of himself, and that should have been the end of it. His accusers should have just said, "OK. You've made a good point." But verse 54 gives the result:

When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.

Irrational rage. He won the argument. They were convinced. That's why they were cut to the heart, right? But they hated him for it. And they raged against him.

The last phrase I want to comment on in this first section is "Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us." Hindson and Kroll's commentary says,

The heathen rage and constantly devise ways to thwart the purpose of God because they do not like the constraints of God’s law, Bible morality, or Christian conduct. They prefer to be a law unto themselves, to establish their own conduct by what feels right to them.⁵

That's America. It hates God's law. And the idea of breaking to pieces Christ's restrictive rules shows a definitive attempt to keep God's law out of the public sphere. And this is exactly what America has done. In the 1800s I have read Supreme Court cases from various states that upheld Biblical Sabbath laws, and blasphemy laws, and that referenced the Bible as the highest law in the nation. There were a couple of states where that happened even into the early 1900s. That is now a thing of the past. Let me tell you about a Nebraska court case that shows how thoroughly God's laws have been broken to pieces in our court system and why we have justices in Nebraska that need to be impeached.

Some of you may remember the case of Aaron Patno in Sarpy county. He was a child molester who had repeatedly sodomized a child and was caught. He pleaded guilty to the evidence, and was convicted. It was a water tight case. There were no complications or technicalities that could later ruin the case – or so it looked. But when the sentencing was read by the Judge, the judge read a Bible verse to underscore the heinousness of the crime. A complaint was made that he had read a Bible verse. Now remember, Patno pled guilty, right? But a complaint was made about the Bible being quoted. The Nebraska Supreme Court (may God curse the guilty justices) stuck its nose in, reviewed the situation, and overturned the conviction, not based on any technicalities, not based on the evidence, and not based on a “not guilty” plea. Aaron pleaded guilty. The sentence was overturned solely on the basis that the Bible had been alluded to. Attorney General Don Stenberg appealed to the Supreme Court. And let me read you an old clipping of the Supreme Court’s refusal to overturn the Nebraska Supreme Court. It said,

The Supreme Court refused yesterday to review a Nebraska high court decision that overturned a child molester's prison sentence because the trial judge quoted Bible verses when imposing the man's punishment. The justices let stand the Nebraska Supreme Court's ruling ... because reasonable people might question the judge's impartiality.

Wow! If you believe in the bible, you are not impartial!!! You might be prejudiced against criminals!!! And this is not the only time that the Nebraska Supreme Court has overturned a case because of a reference to the bible.⁶ Let me give you another clipping, this one from Pennsylvania:

Convicted and sentenced by a jury for brutally clubbing to death a 71-year-old woman with an axe handle so he could steal her Social Security check, the perpetrator got his sentence overturned. Why? Because the prosecuting attorney, in a statement lasting less than 5 seconds, mentioned a Bible verse in the courtroom.

Don't tell me that we are One Nation Under God. That is a lie. We are conspirators who have completely cast off the bonds of Christ. The fury that was poured out upon Chief Justice Roy Moore for having the ten commandments on court property was the fury of people who knew the danger of his court case to those kinds of humanistic decisions. With state’s rights issues involved, it had the potential of overturning 50 years of judicial activism. And that could not stand. It's really sad that the State Governor did not stand behind him as he had promised. It would have been a beautiful states rights case of nullification. In any case, the powers that be gave an injustice to Judge Moore to make sure that God's laws remained permanently broken to pieces and cast away. Brothers and sisters - this is the state of America. This is why that yo-yo on an escalator graph that was given in the financial class is no longer valid. I love that man, and I love most of what he teaches, but he is not taking the judgments of Psalm 2 into consideration. We are close to receiving the fury of Almighty God and of His Son. How far we have fallen from that first July 4!

God thinks conspiracies are foolish (vv. 4-5)

However, while it is easy to get discouraged by this kind of thing, verses 4-5 assure us that God thinks such conspiracies are foolish - and more than foolish; they are futile in holding back Christ's kingdom.

Psa. 2:4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. 5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure:

God does not honor such conspirators with fear, and neither should we. They are not worthy of fear. God laughs at their attempts to play God and holds them in derision. In His perfect timing He makes them fail. But (and this "But" is very, very, very important - "But") He will not make them fail until the church begins to act like the church in Acts 4 - a church filled with the Holy Spirit and bold to speak the Word of God into the public sphere and faith in Christ as King. We are not there yet. The church needs changing. The church of the first century overcame the world and turned the world upside down. And when the modern church is willing to have the consistent faith of the church of Acts 4, we can do so again.

These conspirators are no match for Jesus. Who won, Herod Antipas or Jesus? Herod Antipas was banished by Caligula. Who won, Herod Agrippa, or the church he persecuted? Acts 12 says that an angel of the Lord struck Herod Agrippa down because he failed to give God the glory and he was eaten alive by worms. Who won, the Jewish leaders, or Jesus? Most of those Jewish leaders died a grisly death. God afflicted them in His displeasure. He can do the same thing to the deceiving tyrants in these United States of America.

And we can have confidence that any tyrants who are allowed by God to continue to reign or be heads over agencies today are there as God's tools for the discipline, purification, and advancement of the church. They serve at God's will, not their own. God laughs at their futile attempts to cast off the bonds of Christ, and so should we. They are actually pawns in God's hands. We can laugh the laugh of faith.

God commissioned Christ to be a conspiracy buster (vv. 6-9)

But verses 6-9 are a prophecy that God would set Jesus on His throne to be the greatest conspiracy exposer and conspiracy buster of all history.

6 “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.” 7 “I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. 8 Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”

There are six fairly straightforward deductions we can make from this section and the New Testament passages that quote it.

First, based on Hebrews 1:5 we can say that this is talking about Jesus. This whole Psalm was a prophecy about Jesus according to that passage.

Second, based on Hebrews 5:5, which says that this installation of Jesus on God's holy hill has already taken place, we can see that Jesus is already King. We are not waiting for Him to become a King. The church of Jesus Christ has got to get that figured out if they are to once again have faith to expect great things from His throne and to attempt great things for His throne. Hebrews 5:5 is quite clear on that point.

Third, based on Acts 13:33 we can say that this begetting is not the Son's eternal generation, and it is not Jesus's conception. Nor is it His birth. Rather, Acts refers this verse to Christ's resurrection when He was acknowledged to be king. Collins⁷ and other commentators point out that this is almost identical to the clause that would be said whenever a king would have a coronation ceremony for a son or anyone else (like Samuel and Saul’s co-regency, but often a Son) who had been chosen to be his successor king in a co-regency - today I have begotten you to this throne. Of course, we don't need that extra-biblical material to know that this is exactly what it means. Acts 13:32-33 says,

32 And we declare to you glad tidings—that promise which was made to the fathers. 33 God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second Psalm: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’

Fourth, since the previous three points are true, this makes total sense of Jesus' declaration in Matthew 28 that He had already been given all authority over the entire earth - not at His ascension, but at His resurrection. At His resurrection He is given the authority and at His ascension He sits on His throne. After His resurrection (but before His ascension), in Matthew 28:18, Jesus said, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." All authority. We are not waiting for Him to inherit the nations. God gave all the nations to Him at His resurrection, just like the nations of Canaan were given to Joshua after the crossing of the Jordan River.

But fifth, Jesus is called upon to make those nations His possession. Just as Joshua had to conquer the nations of Canaan that had been given to him, Jesus (the Greater Joshua) through His disciples needs to conquer the nations that are conspiring against Him. And that is why there is a "therefore" in the Great Commission:

Matt. 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Sixth, until all nations become disciples (in other words, until they become Christian nations - that's the goal), and until those Christian nations begin observing all of His laws, Christ will engage in a series of judgments over nations that continue to rebel. And He has been doing that over the past 1900+ years The Father says to Jesus,

You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”

What does that tell you about the future of America - including not just its politics but all its institutions and its stock market. It tells me that if America persists in casting off the bonds of Christ, it is facing a day of reckoning from King Jesus. And to say that the stock market will always do what it has always done is ignoring this fact. We ignore God's instructions here to our own peril. Don't think things will continue on a path of prosperity in America without some spiritual reversals happening.

Why conspiracies will ultimately fail (vv. 10-12)

But the last verses tell us why conspiracies will ultimately fail. Jesus is not just fooling around in his kingship. This is not just a nice theory that has no application to our lives. He is King. He is ruling. And thus the Father warns nations and kings:

10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 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.

God leaves only two options before nations. While He is very patient, God tells these conspirators, submit to Jesus or perish. The goal of all of history is the Great Commission - Christian nations obeying all God's law in all of life. That's the goal of Christ's kingdom in this Psalm as well. While He declares war on all kings and nations that refuse His kingship and His laws, He blesses nations that put their trust in Him. "Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him." There was a time when America trusted God. Our money still states that - "In God We Trust" - and that became the official motto of the United States and put on our money in 1956 - not that long ago. And if there is repentance, there is always hope that our 50 nations that constitute the federation known as these United States of America will be blessed once again.

But notice that this section doesn't just address kings or presidents. It also addresses lesser magistrates, or judges. And this is very key to me. The Hebrew word shapat can refer to either a judge or a lesser magistrate who rules (see especially the book of Judges; Ruth 1:1; Prov. 8:15-16; Hos. 3:10; Mic 3:9-11). It sometimes refers to the equivalent of governors or mayors. So let's say that a lesser magistrate has become an enemy of Christ and the higher magistrate or king is a servant of Christ: what should happen? Downward interposition should happen. The higher magistrate should resist the lower magistrate and get the people to impeach him. What about the reverse? There is actually much more that can be done by a lower magistrate - especially the way America was set up. The lower magistrate shouldn't just roll over and go along with tyranny. In fact, if he does that, he no longer kissing the Son. Instead, the lower magistrate, in obedience to his Sovereign Jesus, should nullify the dictatorial decrees of the higher magistrate as being invalid, null, and void, and do all in his power to protect his citizens from the higher magistrate. We call this interposition. That is one of the practical outworkings of loyalty to Christ or kissing the Son. This was in effect what the godly magistrates of the colonies had been trying to do for years. Only after every other effort failed did they declare independence in 1776. But secession is always an option for lower magistrates.

I am grateful that so many counties in Nebraska have declared themselves to be sanctuary counties for the second amendment should the feds try to confiscate guns. I think it is over 80 counties now. They should take the next step and become sanctuary counties for the life of the unborn. But I will really get excited when the ruling officials in county after county confess the sins that have defiled the land (such as abortion and other murders, fornication, and witchcraft), ask Christ to cleanse the land that they have jurisdiction over, declare God's laws to be the laws of the land, Jesus to be King, criminalize what Scripture criminalizes, and formally kiss the Son by covenanting to be a Christian county. When more and more counties do that, maybe states will have courage to do the same. We need a new July 4 in our nation - a July 4 standing up for the crown rights of King Jesus. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen.