Dr. Ed Young - God Laughs

We’re going to study a part of the book of Psalms as our preaching menu for the next few months. I’ll be honest with you: I’ve been reticent to do this. Not that I haven’t spoken on Psalms or taught on Psalms; it’s just one of those books that’s sort of overwhelming. It’s all-encompassing. Just look at the vastness of the book. The thesis of the book is that it is a book of praise. It is a hymn book for prayer, and it is a book of prophecy. So many people do not know that, in fact, there are probably more prophetic words in the Book of Psalms than in the Book of Revelation and Daniel put together.

In Psalms, first of all, it encompasses Genesis to Malachi. It contains the major voices and themes of the New Testament. Psalms is the most quoted book in the New Testament. Take the life of Jesus: in Psalms, you find his pre-existence, his birth, his life, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and his second coming-all encompassed in Psalms. It’s not that Psalms was written as history; it’s not written in a historical pattern. Many people have tried to put all sorts of meanings into the Psalms to understand it.

There are so many ways to try to understand Psalms. It teaches us how to pray, how to speak with God, how to listen to God, and how to respond to biblical truth in his revelation, as we live this life and discover his will for each and every one of us. Discovering God’s will doesn’t require us to say, «Oh Lord, tell me what to do.» It’s very simple: trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and just what it says: he will direct your path and lead you into wise, godly, biblical decisions-not on the basis of emotion or what you think God has said to you.

It’s so important, as we study all the Bible, particularly the Book of Psalms. We’re going to look at Psalm chapter 1, which we’ve already taught a few weeks back, and we' ll go all the way through Psalms 23. There will be a study of those psalms; a couple of them I’ve put together. It will be perhaps the climax of this little section of Psalms that we’re going to deal with.

Ladies and gentlemen, my brothers and my sisters, I pray that God will teach us to pray as those early disciples said to Jesus when they saw him pray. It was a whole different experience from what they understood: «Teach us to pray.» In the Book of Psalms, the prayers are raw. You read it; they’re rough. They’re not generally nice little prayers prayed by nice little people who are seeped in all kinds of biblical and theological truth.

Some people pray, and I’ve been in groups where somebody stands up and prays, «Oh mighty God, Thou who art there in thine awesome fear, and beloved, I beseech you,» and they quote three or four verses of Scripture to God who wrote it. We say, «Boy, Bill can sure pray, can’t he?» Then we call on someone to pray, and they say, «You know, I just can’t pray. I can’t pray like that.»

Let me tell you something: Psalms is not an inside story of how we talk to God in some kind of whining little pious voice filled with biblical terminology. Oh no! You read Psalms; it is tough, straightforward, passionate-a reflection of every kind of situation in life: in celebration and depression, in success and failure, in family challenges, brokenness, a time of exaltation and coronation. It’s all in Psalms, but it’s not seeped in all kinds of superstitious King James language. You got that?

I’ve heard privately and publicly from some of the great, godly biblical teachers of the past 50 years. I’ve been with them privately and heard them pray publicly, and I can tell you not one of them prayed as effectively as the first prayer I ever heard my daddy pray. He prayed something like the psalmist. He was 44 years old, had never known Jesus Christ, knew a little bit-almost nothing-about the Bible, and never prayed with his family.

My mother and two brothers and I prayed every night, no matter when, where, or how. We spent time in my home on their bed, reading the Bible by the open window and praying for missionaries. My brother and I would have to pray, and my mother would pray. All those years-15 years-I never heard my daddy pray until a man took him aside and introduced him to Christ. It was amazing to the family and many people when he walked down the aisle of our little church there in LA, Mississippi and got baptized.

Then we gathered on the bed where my mom and dad slept every night. My mother opened the Bible as she had done every night of my life. Even when I came in late for a date, she’d wake up, and there she’d be, saying we had to have our devotional. Let me tell you something: that’s tough. But on this particular night, my dad had been baptized. He came and sat down with us. I didn’t know if he would pray, but he did. He prayed like one of the psalmists-a powerful prayer I’ve ever heard.

We learn how to pray straightforwardly and candidly as we study the Great Book of Psalms. We’ll quit all the shills and all the phrases and all the piousness that may be real or pseudo, and we’ll get on praying ground and talk to God and have him talk to us through his book and through our hearts.

Let’s pray. Father, forgive me, forgive us when we’ve just spoken some words and just mumbled some things that we think will be acceptable to those who may be around. Lord, teach us to pray as these old psalmists prayed when the light was shining and success was all around, and when there was fear of death, family disruption, and immorality. Lord, teach all of us as your sons and daughters how to pray.

In the name of Jesus, we pray to you, Lord, because we know we can’t get through any other way except in the name of Jesus. Amen.

We’ve studied Psalm 1. Remember it? We should all know it. It’s a Psalm that says if you walk with ungodly folks, stand around with ungodly folks, and sit down with ungodly folks, you’re going to end up with a life that’s messed up. It’s contagious, and you’re going to be like chaff — no foundation, no content. Chaff, if that’s the kind of life we live-that’s what we learn in Psalm 1.

In Psalm 2, it is an intellectual psalm. Psalm 1 talks about godliness; Psalm 2 talks about ungodliness. Psalm 1 says we won’t be chaff if we stay with God; we’ll be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, solid. Psalm 2 says not a word about morality. Psalm 2 asks the question why. It’s almost an intellectual psalm. By the way, most of the psalmists who study it carefully say that Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 were originally one psalm. Therefore, we come to Psalm 2, and it’s a lesson in ungodliness. Psalm 1 is a lesson in godliness. Psalm 1 is the Christ-honoring psalm; Psalm 2 is the Antichrist-honoring psalm.

So let’s begin with Psalm 2. Open your Bibles; I hope you brought them. New American Standard. If you didn’t have one with you, look at the pew in front of you. We have a Bible disguised there; you may think it’s a hymn book. Psalm chapter number two.

Now let me tell you a little background. Everybody says, «Well, David wrote Psalms.» No, David wrote 73 psalms of the 150. A guy named Asaph, who was probably the musician or someone in the choir who wrote music for worship, wrote 12 psalms. The sons of Korah, probably other musical godly people of that era, wrote nine of them. There are 51 psalms that nobody knows who the author is; they’re called «orphan psalms.» Nobody knows who the authors are. Two females wrote psalms: Hannah and Deborah. Solomon wrote a psalm. Various other authors wrote psalms, and they were put together to cover over a thousand years of history. They go all the way back to 1440 BC in the time of Moses; by the way, Moses wrote one of the psalms. They go over a thousand years, all the way to 586 BC in the time of Ezra and the Babylonian captivity.

So it covers a thousand years of prayer, praise, worship, and prophecy-prophecy there in the Scripture. Now we come to Psalm 2. Let’s look at it. The verse says, «Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast their cords from us.'»

So there we have: why do the nations gather? Why do they plan? Why do they plot? Because they want a new world made in the image of secularism and humanism, and that’s what it’s all about. This is what we’re seeing here.

You have, first of all, in the first three verses, the voice of the narrator, David, who is saying, «This is what I see in my world.» By the way, you can go right back to Acts chapter 4, and Peter is speaking. He quotes this same passage and says, «This is what I see in the world too.»

Then the second voice begins with verses four, five, and six. It’s the voice of God the Father. How does God respond to all the pride, ego, and the mentality of «I know how to do it; I’ve got more money; I’ve got more power; I’ve got more prestige»? How does God respond to all of this ostentation that we see here with the leaders of entity in our world today, just as they saw it in that day?

God responds, and then you hear from God. He has three verses in which God speaks. Finally, you hear the voice of his Son, Jesus. By the way, this is a Messianic psalm, which means there is prophecy here. When Jesus speaks, he speaks as if this has already taken place. Finally, you have the voice of the Holy Spirit; that’s the last three verses.

We don’t have time to execute this as I would love to, but let me touch over the top of this. Look what God says: «He who sits in the heavens laughs.» You know what God does? In all of our boastfulness-"Look what I’ve done! Look what I have! Look who I know! Look where I’ve been!» — God just laughs.

The only time in the Bible you find God laughing isn' t a hearty laugh; it’s kind of a cynical laugh. It’s the same kind of laugh we engage in when a three-year-old comes up and says, «Daddy, let’s arm wrestle! I think I can beat you!» You respond, «Yeah, son, let’s just try that out.» That’s the way God laughs. He who spoke and the world came into being-so the Father just laughs. He scoffs; he will speak to them in his anger, and he will speak to them in his righteousness and terrify them into fury.

But as for me, God says, «I have installed my king upon Zion, upon my holy mountain.» By the way, we know that is Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Then Jesus speaks: «I will surely tell the decree of the Lord.» He said to me, «You are my Son.» That gives us his identity. «Today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will surely give you the nations as your inheritance.» That is his destiny- the very ends of the earth as your possession, and that is his authority. What’s he saying? He is saying there will come a day, ladies and gentlemen, when we leave this earth, and if we die in Jesus Christ, there will be a new heaven and a new earth established right here on our present heaven and earth and cosmic system. God will rule as King of kings and Lord of lords, and we’ll have our resurrection bodies to live and be creative and serve Him forever and ever.

That’s what he’s saying right here in this scripture when Jesus speaks. Then we read the next part: «You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall shatter them like earthenware.» There’s going to be a payday someday. Read Matthew chapter 25; there’s the final judgment. There’s one group of sheep over here and one group of goats over there. Jesus stands up, as this scripture says way back in the prophets, and says, «I’ve got a word for those of you who are sheep. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was naked, and you gave me clothes. I was sick, and you came and visited me. I was in prison, and you came to see about me.»

The sheep said, «Lord Jesus, we don’t remember when we did that.» Then Jesus says, «If you’ve done it to one of the nobodies in the world, did you get that? When you’ve done it to one of the people that don’t count in the world, he said if you’ve done it to one of these, the least, the last, the lost, Jesus said you’ve done it to me.»

And he goes over to the goats. Forgive me, but it may have some accuracy as I look around and some inaccuracies as I look over here. He says to the goats, «I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was naked. I was in prison. I was sick, and you didn’t come to see me.» They said, «Lord, in other words, we would have come if we’d known it.» He said, «If you have not done it to one of these nobodies, he said, it’s like you didn’t do it for me.»

And this is where the words of judgment come in here. You see, the idea here is that they’re saying that we’re in chains; we’re saying no, we’re free. Those who are living in what is called total freedom end up living in license; you were to see the results of those who are living in license. You see the addictions and the bottoming-out of so many lives in the world today. Make me a captive, Lord, so I can be free. That’s what the Christian says.

Then the Holy Spirit speaks in verse 10: «Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning, O judges of the earth. Shout this out to the leadership: Worship the Lord with reverence; rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son that he will not become angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled.» How blessed are all they who take refuge in him!

Ladies and gentlemen, you and I must learn how to worship, how to pray, how to communicate with God. Because the problem most of us have-the problem that the world is caught up in-is wrapped up in one operative word, one little operative word. It’s «taken.» What does it mean to be taken? To be taken means that, well, I’ve been fleeced. I’ve been conned. I believed in you, and boy, you just took advantage of me. I confided in you, and you just went public on me. I asked you to pray for me, and you exploited me.

All of us know how it feels to be taken-that’s one definition of the word, is it not? Flimflam man, con artist, slick and clean with the right words. But there’s another kind: we can be taken physically, morally, and spiritually.

There’s a movie that’s been out, I don’t know, for 15 years; it’s entitled «Taken.» How many of you have ever seen it? Let’s confess; lift your hand-a lot of us. There have been three sequels to it.

The theme is overwhelming: a father who goes to the end of the earth to get his daughter back who has been taken. The story is very simple: divorce. The father had been a secret agent, SWAT — highly trained in all kinds of weaponry and physical combat. He was divorced; his wife had married a very wealthy person, and they were bringing up his daughter.

For the daughter’s 17th birthday, they gave her a trip to Paris for her and her 17-year- old girlfriend to see one of their favorite bands performing — all the expenses paid. But because she was 17, her father, this secret agent man, had to give permission, as well as the mother, for them to go. He did not give permission because he knew the world; he knew the climate; he knew the deadliness that was out there for two innocent, naive 17-year-old girls.

The mother said, «Man, you’ve always been so limited; you’ve always been so judgmental. They’ve got to grow up and get out on their own.» The stepfather jumped in and finally said, «I’ll sign and give permission,» and said, «I’ll go with them; I’ll just be behind the scenes. They won’t know I’m there to protect them.»

You know what the teenage girl said about that? Finally, with all the harping, claiming he was super pious, he was too judgmental, wouldn’t let his 17-year- old girl grow up, he relented. The story is one of tragedy: she lands in Paris with her friends, there’s a sharp young Parisian guy there who supports the sex trafficking that was going on, and immediately they find themselves in an apartment. The bad guys come in, and she calls her daddy hiding under the bed.

Her cell phone says, «Daddy, come help me,» but they came and dragged her out. The rest of the story is brutality-vicious, cold, hard-and how this dad gets up and goes there and just wipes out everybody in the process. Finally, she is chained to a bed on a yacht where she has been purchased by a Sheik. He’s wiped out a lot of them, and the Sheik’s number one protective guy is there.

They hear shooting, and on the deck, the Sheik says, «What is that?» The guy said, «That’s her father; he’s come to get her.» They begin to shake, and he does go and gets her. She runs and hugs him and says, «Dad, I knew you’d come.»

Is anyone here trapped in chains as so much of our society is? Oh, we know that our heavenly Father in Jesus Christ wants to come and save us and give us new life and bring us back into a relationship with life at its best.