16, 17. (a) How did nations cooperate together in a bad way nineteen centuries ago at Jerusalem? (b) How did those who prayed and mentioned this evil cooperation address God, and what did they ask Him to do?

¹⁶ We know that human creatures and nations can cooperate in a bad work as well as in a good work. It was not quite two thousand years ago that nations got together in a bad work. They cooperated together, but not in cooperation with the Most High God of heaven.

who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of David thy servant, didst say, “Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples lay their plots in vain? The kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers made common cause against the Lord and against his Messiah.”

The prophetic words of David that were included in the prayer offered by the disciples of the Messiah nineteen centuries ago in Jerusalem had only an initial or a miniature fulfillment. It had involved King Herod and Governor Pontius Pilate and the Jewish people and the Roman soldiers whom these used in nailing Jesus the Messiah to a torture stake. In our twentieth century, the world events since the outbreak of World War I in the year 1914 furnish the proof that we have reached the final and full-scale fulfillment of those words of David found in Psalm Two. Now, more than at any time in the past, the issue of divine sovereignty is up for settlement. Our personal decision on the issue will be most serious in consequences to each one of us.