1 "Why do the heathen so furiously rage together: and why do the people imagine a vain thing?

2 The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together: against the Lord, and against His Anointed.

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3 Let us break their bonds asunder: and cast away their cords from us.

4 He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn: the Lord shall have them in derision.

5 Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath: and vex them in His sore displeasure.

6 Yet have I set my King: upon My holy hill of Zion.

7 I will preach the law whereof the Lord hath said unto me: Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.

8 Desire of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the utmost part of the earth for Thy possession.

9 Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron : and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be learned, ye that are judges of the earth.

11 Serve the Lord in fear and rejoice unto Him with reverence.

12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and so ye perish from the right way: if His wrath be kindled (yea but a little), blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."

It was no doubt true that the heathen raged together against David, and that the kings of the earth and the rulers took counsel against him; for in this as in many other respects he was a true type of the promised Messiah, against whom the chief priests and elders of the Jews conspired together with the princes of the Roman empire, who were at that time the kings of the earth, in order to put Him to death.

'Against the Lord and against His Anointed." In one sense David was the anointed of God,

anointed by Samuel to be king over Israel; but his anointing with oil was only typical of that anointing by the Holy Spirit, whereby our Saviour was set apart to be King, not only over Israel, but over the whole earth.

What could be a vainer thing than the measure which the chief Priests took to prevent Jesus Christ from rising from His grave! For they went to Pontius Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, 'After three days I will rise again;' command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day.'

Pilate said unto them, "Ye have a watch, go your way, make it as sure as ye can."

So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

The stone that was sealed was probably a heavy slab of rock, which closed the opening of the tomb, too large and too heavy for any one person to roll away, and, moreover, a guard of soldiers was stationed round it. Yet in this as in all else, they did only what God foreknew they would do, and little as they intended it, were but fulfilling His will. Centuries before, He had declared by the mouth of David, that "He would break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from Him, and that He that dwelt in the Heavens should laugh them to scorn, the Lord should have them in derision." Accordingly, on the third day the bonds of death were burst asunder, and Jesus Christ arose from His grave, and the counsel of the wicked became foolishness, and the Lord God laughed them to

scorn.

In the fifth verse of the Psalm, David predicts the punishment which should come upon the Jews because they had denied" the Holy One and the Just," and had desired a murderer to be granted unto them, and had killed the Prince of Life whom God raised up from the dead. Therefore, for that their sin, David said, that He, that is, God, should "speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure;" which came to pass when he brought the Romans against Jerusalem, and scattered His people over the face of the earth. Indeed so great was the tribulation brought upon that city, and so severe were the sufferings of its wretched inhabitants, that our Saviour Himself made use of that siege as a type of those yet fiercer calamities which He will bring on the world in the last days.

So sore was God's displeasure, that foreseeing the coming storm, and knowing that His own words would be fulfilled to the letter, and that not one stone would be left upon another, He could not behold the city unmoved. It was the day before His Crucifixion, and He was about to enter Jerusalem to die there. In little more than four-and-twenty hours the Jews would have filled up the measure of their iniquity, and there would be no longer room for repentance. "And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes! O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gather

eth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation.”

Yet even in the midst of His wrath God remembered mercy, and our Saviour held out the hope that when they had learned to say "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," He would return. Accordingly immediately after His prediction of God's displeasure, David is instructed to declare, that in spite of the destruction of Jerusalem, it shall yet be the seat of the Most High. As in verse sixth he says, "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion." After this verse there is a slight change in the subject of the Psalm; as after declaring the eternal generation of Jesus Christ, he goes on to foretell his complete conquest of the earth and triumph over His enemies.

"Desire of Me," He says, " and I will give Thee the heathen for Thy inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession.

"Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel." In the seventy-second Psalm he yet more clearly prophecies the same events. "His dominion shall be also from the one sea to the other, and from the flood unto the world's end.

They that dwell in the wilderness shall kneel before Him. His enemies shall lick the dust."

But ere He can reign thus over the earth must come that terrible bruising with the iron rod.

King David saw it only dimly and very far off,. but to St. John in the island of Patmos the vision was shown more clearly. In the nineteenth of Revelation, he tells us that he saw our Saviour clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, and "out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations, and He shall rule them with a rod of iron; and He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and the wrath of God."

Well, therefore, may David in conclusion exhort "the kings of the earth to be wise, and the judges to be learned, to serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice unto Him with reverence. For if in the day of His coming they are found taking part with His enemies, that is, with the devil and his evil spirits, they must share the destruction which awaits them, as our Saviour Himself says, "And those My enemies who would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before Me." And I entreat you to remember, that every human being who refuses to give up his heart to Christ, who does not daily struggle against his evil nature, who proves himself in the great battle of salvation a cowardly soldier and an unfaithful servant, does reject Him as his King, and makes himself the slave and partner of Satan. He becomes His enemy, and must expect to share their miserable fate. For him Christ died and rose again in vain, and there is only in store for him the fearful judg ment and the cry of unutterable anguish.