America, do you hear the laughter? The all powerful, all knowing, all holy Creator of the universe and all life in it…is laughing.
America rejected God. America rejected God’s Word as a mythological work of men. America rejected God’s Law as an archaic restrictive burden. America rejected God’s Gospel as irrelevant foolishness and then joined the atheist disciples of Richard Dawkins or the apostate disciples of N.T. Wright…who both call the Gospel “cosmic child abuse.” We became gods unto ourselves, deciding for ourselves what is good and evil…until nothing was evil at all…except God, His Law, and His Gospel. We silently tolerated and then we loudly celebrated fornication, adultery, abortion’s unconscionable murder of 1.6 billion babies, homosexuality, transgenderism, drag queen story time, and then drag queen kids dancing provocatively to the applause of sexual deviants with mom and dad proudly looking on. How did America get here? Friends, judgment begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17-19).
America’s Christians refused to love God and love perishing sinners by “go[ing] therefore” to preach God’s Law and Gospel in the city center, in the open air, everywhere perishing sinners are found…calling every man, woman, and child to repent and confess Christ as Lord. America’s Christians turned an apathetic, hateful, blind eye to the cruel slaughter of 125,000 babies every day and just kept getting their best life now while safely and comfortably sipping their designer coffees. America’s Christians opened their churches to the rebellion, the perversion, and the baby genocide…calling the unregenerate, unrepentant participants their liberal, then emergent, then woke Christian brothers and sisters. America’s Christians filled Christ’s church with unholy rebels who hate God, hate His Law, hate His Gospel, and delight in things God hates. Dear Christian, judgment begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17-19).
America’s churches despise the public revelation of God’s Law and Gospel. “You’re doing it wrong!” is the universal Christian protest against the public proclamation of the Gospel. America’s churches despise what the Lord Jesus and His Apostles did. We train our pastors and missionaries not to do what Jesus and the Apostles did. We train our pastors and missionaries to be safe and respectable preachers behind pulpits, not to be despised and rejected preachers like Jesus, Peter, and Paul in the open air. We train our pastors and missionaries not to obey the Great Commission by going to the world with a call to repent and confess Christ as Lord. We train our pastors and missionaries not to do what both the Divine Author and original recipients of the Great Commission did. We train our pastors and missionaries not to fill their cities with the Gospel and turn the world upside down by going boldly into the city square to preach Christ to perishing sinners. We train our pastors and missionaries not to emulate the dusty, courageous, dangerous, beaten, bloody, and often jailed preachers in the book of Acts. Instead, we train our pastors and missionaries to preach the book of Acts as a dusty history in the confines, comfort, and safety of a church building. We spice up our sermons with quotes from Gospel heroes like George Whitefield, but we won’t emulate them. Instead, we train our pastors, missionaries, and congregants to invite the unregenerate, unrepentant, God hating world to church. That’s not Christ’s Great Commission. It’s Satan’s great compromise. It’s a satanic conspiracy to shut down the ministry of the Gospel that Christ modeled and commanded. We have withheld the means of God’s mercy and grace from our cities, states, and nation. We have invited God’s judgment and His holy laughter on ourselves and our neighbors. As we watch our neighbors celebrate gross sexual perversion; slaughter 125,000 of their children a day; assault and murder each other in the streets; and vandalize, loot, and burn our cities down…we cannot forget that judgment begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17-19).
What does the Lord Jesus say to America’s criminally apathetic pastors, missionaries, churches, and individual Christians? What does the Lord Jesus say to Christians who are getting their best life now…who are busy pursuing things that are quickly passing away while babies die, sinners perish, and America burns? He says this, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels’” (Mark 8:34-38). Brothers and sisters, judgment begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17-19).
Without God’s active sustaining mercy on our nation all it takes is a microscopic virus and the death of one man in Minneapolis to bring us to our knees, rip our country apart, light our cities on fire, and end the world as we know it. Psalm 2 terrifyingly assures us that God is laughing in His justice. Psalm 2 comfortingly assures us of God’s gracious invitation to repent; to bend our knee to His Anointed; to kiss and obey His Son as our Lord, our King, and our Master…and His promised blessing upon “all those who put their trust in Him.”
Consider the sober message of Psalm 2 for American Christians, for all of post-Christian America, and for all post-Christian Western nations in this hour in which we so clearly hear God laughing at our united rage and futile rebellion:
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.”
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: 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.’”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. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
