I am well into the Psalms at this point of my second time through the Bible this year. Reading the news and then the Psalms is quite the adventure, especially these days when so much is going on all over the place. I read a story about a NC candidate running for their House recently. Shelley Headen is running on the idea of “restoring human decency.” Ironically, she also posted a picture of her in Dachau standing in front of the ovens used in the Holocaust and wrote that “This is where Trump supporters belong.” So much for human decency. The Lindsay Clancy trial is also in the headlines and it is coming out that many of the jurors came into the trial with an agenda to make the system “better for other women in the future” by finding Clancy not guilty.
With this, I was reading in the Psalms, and saw what God has to say about these attitudes.
Psalm 52:1-5 says,
“Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?
The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Your tongue plots destruction,
like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking what is right.
You love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.
But God will break you down forever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living.”
And Psalm 59:8-13 says,
“But you, O Lord, laugh at them;
you hold all the nations in derision.
O my Strength, I will watch for you,
for you, O God, are my fortress.
My God in his steadfast love will meet me;
God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.
Kill them not, lest my people forget;
make them totter by your power and bring them down,
O Lord, our shield!
For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips,
let them be trapped in their pride.
For the cursing and lies that they utter,
consume them in wrath;
consume them till they are no more,
that they may know that God rules over Jacob
to the ends of the earth.”
Psalm 73 puts things in perspective when it says,
“But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.”
I know these are a bit long, but all this to say, God has a handle on it. It is okay to pray against the wicked and prat that their plans fail. But it is God who judges, and it is Him who bring vengeance. He is the only true judge, and He may actually save some of them through trials He brings on them. So we can pray for their plans to fail, and also pray that they find salvation in Christ all at the same time. And this comes down to truly trusting God, which can be hard for us.
But as I have been reading through the Psalms, I am finding that the writers DID ultimately trust God. They poured out their emotions to Him unashamedly, but then they would always acknowledge that He alone knows what is right and what to do. And in the end, NO ONE gets away with anything. ALL will be made right. Justice will totally be served. Those who plan evil may look like they are winning, but God has already won.
Therefore, DO pray against the evil plans and schemes of the wicked. DO trust that vengeance is the LORDS and He will repay. HE will make all things right.
And know that there is a plan and purpose for all things and only God knows all things. Be always ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you with gentleness and respect. DO what you can legally under the current system as well as what is right from a Biblical perspective, which means you need to read the Bible.
And as Jesus said in John, you will have troubles in this world. But take heart, He HAS overcome the world. And THAT is good news.
Amen
If you enjoyed this content, you can sign up to receive this and more to your inbox every Monday by becoming a Monument Member. Learn more here.
