Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain” (Psalm 2:1)? North Korea; Somalia; Yemen; Libya; Sudan; Eritrea; Nigeria; Pakistan; Iran; Afghanistan; India; Saudi Arabia; and Myanmar are the countries on the 2025 World Watch List where Christians face extreme levels of persecution. They have two other categories on the Watch List: countries with very high levels of persecution; and countries with high levels of persecution. But since they only list the top fifty, they all fall into the “very high” or “extreme” categories. I think we are going to need a bigger list.

 

Today’s psalm asks, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His anointed” (vv. 1-2). The animosity of the rulers of the above mentioned countries is not against the people who worship the LORD God. It is against God Himself. They set themselves against the LORD and against His anointed, the Christ, Jesus. But since they cannot attack God directly they attack His people, those who worship Him by following the decrees that God has given for us to live by.

 

And that is the answer given from the mouth of those kings and rulers themselves: “Let us break their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us” (v. 3). They don’t want to be restrained by God, by His rules for life, and those troublesome Christians who keep reminding them of that. They want to be able to do their own thing, to set their own rules both for themselves and for others. Some of those rules are the same as those given by the LORD. They recognize that the Bible outlines good regulations for an ordered society. But they want to be the ones who get to say which of those rules apply and to what extent and in what situations and to whom. “Let us break their bonds” so that we may decide who may be killed and when. “Let us cast away their cords” so that we may decide what they can keep for themselves and what they must surrender to us.

 

All of this is rather obvious when the LORD’s people are arrested and beaten and imprisoned and put to death. Yes, we can see. There are nations and kings raging against the LORD and His Christ. They deserve to be on that list and categorized as extreme and very high levels of rebellion against God and persecution of His people. But many kings and rulers rage against the LORD in the same effort to break the bonds of His holy Law through much more subtle means: through permissive legislation and bringing the law of the land to bear not on those who transgress God’s Law but on those who would speak against the freedom to break that law.

 

In this way the cords of godly morality are cast away and people are granted the freedom to engage in all manner of sexual misconduct, and even to kill their fellow human beings. They all confess that it is wrong to kill indiscriminately, but then they start to change the rules in order to kill those they don’t want to have to care for (i.e., babies conceived unintentionally through free sexual misconduct; the elderly who have nothing more to give; anyone who would be a cost to the healthcare system or who are otherwise unable to look after themselves and pay their fair share to the community and country).

 

It is mostly countries not on the 2025 Watch List that have tried to break the bonds of God’s holy Law so that they may have these freedoms to kill babies and to die rather than suffer and to choose which wars they want to get involved with; and things like that. This is not only an erosion of human morality and transgression against God’s holy Law, it also results in the persecution of God’s people who would speak out against such horrors and try to move the countries and their rulers to live by laws which protect human life and dignity.

 

At the end of 2024 the Finance Committee of the Government of Canada filed a report with recommendations for next year’s national budget. Recommendations 429 and 430 recommend respectively that the government “No longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations,” and that it “Amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.”

 

The advancement of godly religions is what ensures that godly laws are in place to protect the vulnerable members of society and to raise up charitable people to care for them. We have already seen in the last few years that the Government of Canada removed its Summer Employment Opportunity grants from such charities, who could then no longer afford to employ youth to work in their many summer programs. This shut down a lot of summer camps and day programs aimed at serving physically and mentally challenged members of society and providing periods of respite for their families.

 

The new recommendations for next year’s budget would remove about 40% of all charitable organizations in Canada, putting many of them out of operation, seizing all of their assets if they are not able to pay the taxes from which they are currently exempt. Charity is one of those “bonds” and “cords” of the LORD and His anointed. He commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves and that means that we reach out in charitable love toward those in need in our communities.

 

If the Government seeks to put an end to the charitable work of Christians in Canada, it will take away the charitable work of soup kitchens and food pantries and homeless shelters and orphanages and disaster relief and refugee sponsorship and care for the elderly and single mothers. It will make things worse for the country, all those who live in it, and even for those who govern it.

 

“He who sits in the heavens laughs.” It is laughable, at least to Him, for He will not let His ways and His works be curtailed by those who seek to break free from His laws of love. It is unmistakable that this is a proposed act against the LORD and His anointed, seeking to put an end to His works through the hands of His people.

 

The BC Humanist Association has taken credit for submitting these recommendations to the Finance Committee last July. This is a charitable organization that exists to advance the goals of atheists and agnostics. Those are people who believe that there is no god or that it is impossible to know if there is a god or not. If the benefits of a registered charitable organization in Canada are removed from 40% of existing charities (the religious organizations), who will reap the benefits? The Government will get an increase in tax revenue and the only place where it could give grant money would be to organizations like the BC Humanist Association, which claims not to be a religious organization.

 

“He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision.” He laughs at their futile efforts to undo the works of His love and salvation for mankind. He laughs at their attempts to silence the good news of such a loving God who sent His own Son into the jaws of death in order to rescue a people who have rebelled against Him and turned away from the needs of their fellow man.

 

“He who sits in the heavens laughs” as His people were once held captive in Egypt and Pharaoh refused to let them go to worship the LORD and receive His holy Law. The LORD defeated the most powerful nation in the world by turning a stuttering murderer named Moses into His mouthpiece and the hand of His salvation. The LORD sent ten horrible plagues against the nation of Egypt until they begged the children of Israel to leave. Then the LORD drowned Pharaoh’s pursuing army in the Red Sea, after His people had crossed safely through on dry ground.

 

“The LORD holds them in derision” as King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel tried to lead His people into idolatry, sexual immorality, murder, and theft. The prophet Elijah thought he was all alone in speaking out, but the LORD had just 7000 faithful people left in Israel. Through Elijah, the LORD mocked the Queen’s false prophets of Baal. He publicly humiliated them in front of the people and brought about the overthrow and gruesome deaths of the King and Queen.

 

While we might rightly be concerned about the above mentioned recommendations for our nation’s financial budget, and the impact it might have not only on the Christian Churches in Canada but also upon all charitable efforts in our country (a country which has been well-known for its humanitarian contributions throughout the world), perhaps we too can join in the laughter of the LORD. While we are horrified by the accounts of persecution against Christians which we hear coming out of those countries on the Watch List, perhaps there is place also to hold them in derision, to mock their attempts to undo the merciful acts of God through His Church in the world.

 

Egypt could not keep God’s people captive. The wicked kings and queens of Israel could not eradicate the faithful from their nation. The Babylonians could not exile the LORD’s people against His will. None of them could stop the LORD’s anointed from coming at His appointed time. Neither the occupying Romans nor the wayward religious elite of the day could do anything to stop Jesus Christ from coming into the world, from proclaiming the LORD’s holy Law, from pouring out grace and mercy on the poor and the sick and the outcast.

 

Even when Jesus Himself proclaimed that He would “go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and after three days rise again” (Matthew 16:21), He was not stopped. He revealed Himself transfigured to Peter, James, and John in order to show that He is the LORD’s anointed, the only-begotten Son of God, standing upon the mountain with Moses and Elijah (17:1-8), to declare yet again that the LORD’s purposes would not be thwarted. He Himself had come to carry out His loving purpose for mankind.

 

Even at the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, the LORD was laughing from heaven. While the people passing by mocked the suffering and bleeding Son of God, the LORD held them in derision, saying, “As for Me, I have set My King on Zion, My holy hill” (Psalm 2:6). And after giving His life for the sins of the whole world, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He ascended to God’s right hand in heaven where He is promised that the nations are given to Him and the peoples of the earth are His possession (v. 8).

 

He will come again to judge the living and the dead. And those who have tried to “break His bonds apart,” He will “break” with a rod of iron (v. 9). Those who have tried to cast away the cords of His holy Law, He will “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” This is not because He needs to show off that He is the winner or rub in their faces His triumph over them. It is because He will not allow them to restrict His loving purpose to save mankind through the death and resurrection of His King, His anointed, Jesus Christ.

 

The LORD desires all people to be saved, and it is for that reason that He will punish forever all who try to prevent that from coming about. So, an important question for reflection might be: To what extent have you raged and plotted against the LORD and His anointed? Where have you found His holy Law to be restricting your freedoms and the decisions that you want to make for yourself? Decisions about your sexual freedom and who deserves to receive your care and how you will get what you want into your hands? How are you silencing the Law of God and persecuting those who would remind you of what it says—your pastor, your church, your parents, your friends?

 

Do you think that you can do what the nation of Egypt could not? Do you think you have more power and influence over the nation than King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel? Do you think that you are wiser than the Apostle Peter whose idea to build three tabernacles upon the mountain would have kept Jesus from going to the cross? Do you not know that your sins against God’s Law of love toward your neighbour are what enthroned the Son of God upon the holy mountain of Calvary with a crown of thorns upon His head? He died for your sins there and He has risen from the dead. He is coming with a rod of iron to shatter such sinners in pieces.

 

But out of His love and in line with His holy Law of love, He offers another way to you. “Kiss the Son” (Psalm 2:12). Embrace His outpouring of sacrificial love for you. Let it flow through you in your love for your fellow citizens. Take refuge in His forgiving grace and mercy that is poured out for you in His Church on earth, a Church that has spread throughout every nation of the world. Not one has been able to keep itself outside of His reach. The LORD has given Him the nations as His possession.

 

Be warned, and be wise. This great God and Saviour Jesus Christ is filled with the power and majesty of the eternal and almighty God. And yet He reaches out with that glory and majesty to touch Peter and James and John when they were thrown down to the ground in fear before Him. He raised them up in His merciful love and He will raise you, too. He will open your eyes to see His love at work in you, in your nation, and throughout the world. No nation can stop it. No ruler can expel it. And that means that no power on earth can take His forgiving grace and love from you.