Why the heathen rage:

David is the king of Israel and his nation, his people are failing to be who they were designed to be. He writes in Psalm 2, [1] Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine 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 bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

"He’s asking not so much that he doesn’t know what causes the heathen to rage because he tells you in verse 2 and 3 what it is," explains Jordan. "He’s really saying, ‘Lord, why are you allowing this kind of thing to continue?’

"One answer is the longsuffering of God, which you can see in the inner part of the psalm. Another has to do with the fact sin has to run its course; it has to become full before the judgment of God comes on it. You’ll see that in verses 4-6. The other thing is, verses 6-8, God knows what He’s doing.

"In I Peter 4, when Peter’s instructing the future believing remnant in Israel and they’re looking toward the last days in the tribulation period, you’ll notice: [17] For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

[18] And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

[19] Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

"They see all this turmoil going on, the fighting and raging, opposing, and he says, ‘Commit yourself, trust your souls to Him as a faithful Creator.’ He’s talking about how He’s the God that created everything. He knew what He was doing when He did it. He will execute His cosmic plan for the universe and you can trust Him to faithfully accomplish it. That’s what the end of the Book of Job is about.

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"David asks, ‘Lord, why do you let it go?’ When it says the heathen rage, that’s the fierce anger in it, the rebellion associated with it. The heathen are the Gentiles and the people, well, that’s Israel.

"As Psalm 2: 2 says, Israel has joined them. They get together and join up in the conflict, the conspiracy, the counsel, to conspire together. You think about it, what should the nation Israel be doing for the nations?

"God said to Israel, ‘I’ll bless you, make you a great nation, and I’ll bless all the nations of the earth through you.’ The reason that nation was created by God as His special nation in the earth was so that through them all the nations of the earth could have the salvation, the forgiveness, the tranquility that comes from trusting a faithful Creator.

"But instead of being that channel of blessing to the nations, teaching them the wisdom of God, Israel has joined the nations in rebellion against the God of Israel. She failed completely to be who she was designed to be for the world and because she failed, the world’s in this uncontrollable rebellion and unreasonable thrashing out.

"Proverbs 14:16 says, '[16] A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident. Wisdom teaches to fear God and depart from evil. Romans 3 says there’s no fear of God before their eyes. They trust themselves, not God.

"In fact, as you see in Psalms, they hate God. They’re mad at Him. He’s the object of their ire and that’s where the rage comes from. It’s a raging against His Word, His Son and all the rest of it.

"What’s the goal? Verse 2 says 'the kings of the earth set themselves.' When you set yourself you get ready. In a professional baseball game, there’s one moment when the whole team becomes set, total concentration, and that moment is when the pitcher steps on the rubber, on the mound, because he can’t pitch the ball until he stands there and nothing can happen until he pitches the ball.

"The kings put determined, concentrated attention to it. This is the thing that had their mindset; the thing they’re determined to do. The rulers take counsel together. Notice the togetherness, unity: ‘Let’s do this together.’

"Today, you hear the preachers and politicians say about the strife going on, ‘We just need to learn how to love each other.’ Okay, but you don’t. 'We need to be united.' But we aren’t.

"If people were doing it, you wouldn’t have riots, injustice. The problem is we’re sinners, we’re broken, we have a broken world in which our brokenness manifests itself and all the platitudes don’t do any good.

"You need solutions that don’t ignore the fact you aren’t given answers and they make it worse. These guys are, ‘Let’s just all get together,’ and when they try to do that, what they’re trying to do is get the nations together so they can control and that’s what’s going on in Psalm 2.

"Verse 2 says it's 'against his anointed.' You see the object of their ire? This is an open rebellion against Jehovah the Creator and His anointed (that’s a word for the Messiah). That’s talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. They’re mad at God, God’s Word and the people of God. They’re angry with what God’s doing.

"Verse 3 is the goal of it all. This is quoted in Acts 4. In relationship to the persecution of the followers of the Messiah, verses 23-26 say, [23] And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them.
[24] And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is:
[25] Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?
[26] The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.

"Now Luke, the writer of Acts, is going to quote Psalm 2. They take that passage in Psalm 2 and say, ‘That’s exactly where we are right now.’ The first three verses of the psalm are quoted here as being fulfilled in Acts 1-7.

"The Messiah is going to come and take over the government of the earth, establishing righteousness in it, and the lost heathen don’t want it. They fight against it.

"Psalm 2:3. The band is what you bind yourself with. The bands are rules and regulations that control their activities and they don’t want that. The very things that get Israel cast into the cauldrons of the Gentile world and the captivity is God.

"Jeremiah 27 picks up on the terminology of the illustration. The bands, the yoke that he put on them, the whole point of the thing is, ‘You’re going into captivity.’ The nations say, ‘We don’t want God telling us what to do; we want to do what we want to do.’

"Israel imagines a vain thing. If you want to know how the heathen became heathen, here it is. Romans 1:18: [18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

"That’s where the rage comes from; when you hold the truth in unrighteousness all you can do is rebel against reality. It doesn’t work and the sinful heart is angered by it not getting its way."