Fellowship in the Word

Bill Gebhardt: So he says there’s a choice. You can go one way or the other. But if you choose this way, not only will you be happy or joyful in your life, you'll bear fruit, your life will have meaning, and you'll be able, he said, to continue to bear fruit no matter how dry the culture becomes in your life.

But notice verse four: “But the wicked are not so.” He said, “They are like chaff, which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor the sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” That's what he's saying. There's a choice for every individual.

Jason Gebhardt: Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bill Gebhardt: The scene is 1982. The Wisconsin Badgers are playing the Michigan State Spartans at Badger Field in Wisconsin. As the game progressed, it became abundantly clear to everybody there that Michigan State was a much better football team than the Wisconsin Badgers.

However, at very inappropriate times during the game, the Wisconsin fans would erupt with loud cheering during the game. You see, there was something going on here. At the same time they were watching that game, they were listening on their radios to the Milwaukee Brewers playing the St. Louis Cardinals in game four of the World Series.

What they could see with their eyes was disappointing and disturbing, but what they were hearing with their ears gave them a wonderful sense of joy and hope. You see, this story is a lot like being a Christian in the last days. We're in a series called Living in the Last Days.

And what I mean by that is there is a game out there, there is a culture out there that we're watching. And if you've been watching it closely, it's extraordinarily disappointing. And for many of us, it's disturbing. Even in our country, you can see things like the courts, the workplace, the schools, even the halls of government are becoming more antagonistic to Jesus Christ and His church.

So, if you were to believe only what you're seeing and allow your eyes to see, you could be filled with despair. This could be a very discouraging time for you. But there's another game going on. And it's the ultimate game. It may be invisible to you and I at this stage, but it's very real. And in that game, we can find out that if we listen to that game, it'll drive the despair and discouragement out of our lives and fill our lives with hope.

The great question of our day or any day is this: what is the world coming to? Where is our world headed? And that's what I want to look at today. I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Psalms, Psalm one and two. The first two Psalms. I don't know if you study the Psalms very often, but the first two Psalms are placed there strategically because the first two Psalms answer the two great questions of life.

And all the other Psalms in a sense fall under that umbrella of the meaning of the first two Psalms. And the first two Psalms are related to one another in interesting ways. For instance, the first Psalm starts out with how blessed is the man. The second Psalm ends with how blessed are those who take refuge in Him.

In other words, one starts one way and the other one ends that way. In one, it begins with this whole idea that man can meditate on the laws of God and be blessed. In two, men aren't meditating; they're scheming and devising something against God.

The contrast between one and two is quite profound. One is exactly half the size of two. Same kind of poetry; one's just twice as long as the other. Psalm one deals with the important question: where am I going? That's the question. It's a question for every human on earth: where am I going? Where do I stand?

Psalm two is: where is the world going? And it deals with it in a very specific and clear way. Look at Psalm one with me for a moment. “How happy (blessed) is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.” There's a way to happiness, but it's not the way of our culture and its values.

He said, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.” And when he means law, he means the Old Testament. He said, “He will be like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season. Its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers.”

So he says there’s a choice. You can go one way or the other. But if you choose this way, not only will you be happy or joyful in your life, you'll bear fruit, your life will have meaning, and you'll be able, he said, to continue to bear fruit no matter how dry the culture becomes in your life.

But notice verse four: “But the wicked are not so.” He said, “They are like chaff, which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor the sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” That's what he's saying. There's a choice for every individual.

But Psalm two, God gives a decisive declaration of the outcome of all human history and all world events. A thousand years before Christ was born, this was written. Now notice in Psalm two, the first three verses are a little bit like watching the Wisconsin-Michigan State football game. It's what you see with your eyes.

It 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 away their cords from us.’”

Notice the first word in English says why. Why is this the case? Hebrew's a little bit different. The Hebrew doesn't really say why. I guess if I was translating it in English, I'd say this: how could they? That'd be the way to translate the Hebrew into English. How could they be in an uproar? How could they do this?

And he says, notice what the people are devising: a vain thing. Another way of looking at that word devising in Hebrew means wasting your time. How could they be wasting their time? How can this be? You see, it's interesting when you think about what they're saying.

He goes on then and he says, “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 away their cords from us.’” Now this is universal. That word nation is goyim. From a Hebrew point of view, it simply means Gentiles. It means all the nations of the world. It's a universal thing.

But notice the term that he uses in verse three: let us tear their fetters apart. That's not too good English. I don't know when's the last time you used the word fetter, but I don't think I've used it very often. Let's break the chains. Let's break their chains. You see, let us break our chains and cast away their cords from us. Let us free ourselves from God.

That's the history of man so far. That's exactly what man wants to do. And man has always been like that. And as man has advanced, he's always used different methods. In the olden days, what they would do so often is just invent a false religion and follow it. And it was usually a religion like all religions of human works, and you get the credit for living a certain way, but you get to ignore the God who is.

But as man progressed, especially after the Reformation and you get into the point of the Enlightenment and things like that, man became more intellectually sophisticated, so he found out a different way to get rid of God. And one of the ways—there's so many—but one of the ways that man would get rid of God is when they started to understand the scope of the creation.

Okay, they knew it was big. Now not nearly as big then as they know now, but they knew that it was big. And so here's how they described it: it was always there. What do you mean? It's always been there. It's eternal. And that's what they said. So if it's eternal, we don't need a God. The creation itself is eternal.

And then they find out that's a lie. There's no truth to that. There's no truth at all because the creation's expanding. So if it's expanding, it means it started at some point and expanded. Well, they knew that now. And so they said, "Well, okay, it is expanding, but that point, that small point, it started on its own, the expansion."

And they believed it for a while. Then someone like Einstein came along and said, "Not possible. That's not possible." He said the only thing that could have started it is something outside of it. Only something outside of creation could have started creation. Now they're stuck. You see, okay, it was something else; I don't like this at all.

And so they’ve come up with one thing after another. I can still remember reading one of the astrophysicists talking, and he said, "Well, I don’t think we understand it because I don’t think there’s only one universe. I think there are billions upon billions upon billions of universes. And in one of them, at least ours, things happen differently."

So he said if we had enough time and enough universes, it still could happen, couldn't it? And of course all the other astrophysicists said, "No, that really can’t happen." So then as man keeps progressing with this, take then what about human life? Well then Darwin came along and said it just happened. Get one cell and then it became two, and the next thing you have you and me.

It just works that easily. That’s just the way it works. There’s no creation; it was just one cell doing it. Now since then, all of the science that is with it behind it finds out there are so many questions with that scientifically. You know, I remember reading a whole book by a microbiologist named Behe. And he spent 300 pages writing probably good material, of which I understood about 100.

But the point was, he said no animal of any sort without an eye could have ever evolved an eye. It can’t happen. And he gave all the reasons for it, but it couldn’t happen. The other thing that you sort of know is if this is this long process—and notice it’s always a long process, millions and millions of years or whatever you want to use—then that would tell me that in the fossil record, there would be hundreds of thousands of in-between species.

You’d find all of these other species as they were evolving. None of them exist. So that becomes a problem. The whole idea behind all of this is to get rid of God. You see, that’s the way it works. In every form. I studied philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, and you read the existentialists, and you read people like Bertrand Russell and others, and their whole philosophy of life is how can we get rid of God? We want rid of Him.

And so what ends up happening? You’re starting to see the fruition of this in our culture. You see, can we get rid of God? Romans one, Paul said, “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” And God gave them over. And he said one of the ways you’ll notice how foolish they are is just look at the way they conduct themselves morally. It’ll get worse and worse and worse and worse.

Well, think of our culture now. How’s it doing? You see, and it’s an amazing thing when you think about it. Our culture basically has no moral bearings at all and has no desire to. None at all. It’s the freedom of expression. And for the first time in our culture, not only do they say, "Look, I have this freedom of expressing myself any way I want," and I know it’s not enough that you accept me for this; you have to celebrate with me.

And if you don’t celebrate this, then you’re a hater. You see, and so they—all of this is to get rid of God. I’ll just get rid of Him. One way or another, we’ll find a way to get rid of Him. Near the end of the last century, Carl Henry said this: “The modern generation is intellectually uncapped, morally unzipped, and volitionally uncurbed.” That’s pretty much America. Lost humanity wants spiritual and moral freedom from God.

That’s all that that Psalm says. We’ve got to get away from Him. Hold your place here. Go with me to the book of Acts chapter four and verse 23. And the reason I say that is this parallels sort of what’s going to be happening in the last days. I think you’re going to find in the next 20, 30, 40 years in America, the American value system will be you can believe whatever you want, but you are not allowed to tell other people what you believe.

You see, you’re not allowed. There’ll be no proselytizing, nothing like that. You’re not allowed to tell somebody else what it is you believe. Go ahead and have your belief. There’s nothing new with this. Peter and John in chapter four went out and started preaching Jesus Christ. So the religious leaders of Judaism got them together and said, "Okay, here's—we're the leaders. Here's what we're telling you to do: stop it. No more of that."

So we pick it up in verse 23. They get released from jail. It says, “When they had been released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord and said, ‘O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them; who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David Your servant said...’”

Now notice who they quote: David. Guess what they quote? Psalm two. Now when you read the Psalms, does it tell you the author in the inscription? No. But now we know David wrote Psalm two because the book of Acts tells us David wrote it. He said, “Why do the Gentiles rage? Why are the goyim in an uproar? And the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.”

“For truly in this city there were gathered together against the holy servant Jesus, whom You,” he said, “anointed, both Herod, Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel.” Now that’s an interesting thought. They said, "Look, people have always been against Jesus." By the way, there's a verse you should read almost every day living in our culture: Jesus said, “The world will hate you because it hated Me.”

Now if they hated Jesus, why wouldn't they like me? You see, that’s the point. But notice what they talk about. We sort of vilify these people: Herod, Pilate, the Romans, the Gentiles, and the Jews, and that terrible thing they did to Jesus, right? But notice: “...along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” Wow. That was predestined.

Everything is from God's point of view. He's sovereign. You see, "Look what they did." He said they did exactly what they were going to do. Now it’s their choices. They made them. But God says, "Look, I’m—this wasn’t an accident. God didn’t go in heaven, ‘Oh no, what are they doing? Oh, they’re crucifying him! Now what am I going to do?’"

That’s not the case. Scripture tells us He was crucified before the foundation of the world in God's mind. And so he says, “For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and Israel, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur. And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence.”

What their view is: look, you can threaten me. You can do what you want with me. You did that with Jesus. But you can’t stop me. I’m going to speak. That’s what Peter and John said. We’re just going to speak. It doesn’t matter what happens. It’s going to occur this way. You see, they had tremendous confidence in a culture that was extremely anti-Christian to say the least.

Now back to the Psalm. First three verses: what our eyes see. This is the football game that the Wisconsin people are watching. Next three verses or six verses: the voice we hear. The eyes see one thing; the voice hears something else. And in these verses to the end, you have the Father speaking, the Son speaking, and at least applicationally, the Holy Spirit speaks. All three speak in this case.

So here comes the Father to speak first. “He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord scoffs at them.” That’s odd. God laughs at them. These are the great men of earth. These are the kings of the people. These are the ones that devise all the schemes against God, and God’s laughing.

By the way, one writer that I respect a lot said that’s the only place in the Bible where God laughs. If he’d have had my concordance, he would’ve found out that wasn't true because He laughs two other times in the book of Psalms. And it’s interesting the context. Psalm 37:12 and 13: listen. “The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, for He sees his day is coming.”

Psalm 59:7 and 8: “Behold, they belch forth with their mouth; swords are on their lips, for they say, ‘Who hears?’ But You, O Lord, laugh at them; You scoff at,” he said, “all the nations.” Every time the wicked say, "God doesn't speak. There’s no—I don’t hear Him. There is no God," God laughs. Why does He laugh?

Because He’s God. I mean, think about this. We don’t make birds and acts of nature gods to worship anymore, but according to Romans one, we’ve evolved past that. We make ourselves the measure of all things. We’re God. That’s what man does now. I make—we measure everything; it’s us.

Now if you were the real God—and think of this, we don’t even know how to describe Him. He’s infinite in everything He does. So you ask me, what is infinite power? I have no idea. Infinite presence? No idea. He’s not long-living; he’s without time. He’s timeless. He’s eternal. I can’t even think of that.

Now if you’re that God, and then you say people like me and you—I don’t need him. We’ve got this whole thing under control. We know what we’re doing. Why wouldn’t God laugh? You see, why wouldn’t that be the case? We’re nothing. You see, compared to God, He just laughs at that. It’s a scoffing laugh because that’s the way God feels about it.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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