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The timeliness, timelessness, and radical relevance of Scripture sometimes astonishes me. Update the language, and Psalm 10 could be yesterday’s headline editorial. David is complaining to God, demanding to know why the wicked continue to prosper, indulging their greed, oppressing the poor, exploiting the helpless with impunity, all the while arrogant and defiant, showing open contempt for God.
“There is no God (v.4). Nothing can touch me (v.6).”
David’s rant is insightful, impassioned, and so on target. He wants to know—red faced and teary-eyed--why God isn’t acting against such criminal self-indulgence, atheistic abuse, and insolent injustice.
“I feel you, David!” I often wonder the very same thing. So much is so wrong right now and often, it’s the innocent (or more innocent) who suffer. Injustice abounds.
“When is the cavalry showing up, Jesus?”
“When are you going to clean up this hot mess and set things straight?”
HE WILL. Oh, how He will. Woe to those who doubt it.
I was talking to a friend recently whose cousin and child were abandoned by a chronically philandering husband a few years ago, just as he was making it big in finance. Outgunned by pricey lawyers, the woman was left virtually penniless, struggling to survive. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Naturally, her grief was greatly magnified by the injustice of it all. Everyone was left to wonder how he could get away with such a thing. Where was God in all this?
Fast forward a few years and the man is facing 115 years in prison for white collar shenanigans. There’s no undoing what he done. He’s paying the piper. Think Bernie Madoff, Harvey Weinstein, or the like.
My friend said that even though they’re relieved that he’s facing some consequences, they don’t feel the vindication they’d imagined. It’s sad, scary, and sobering to see how swiftly God can dispense righteous judgment when the jig is up. I agree.
Yes, mercy is always a better posture than judgment (James 2:13) because while we may want to point fingers to those evildoers, we can all show contempt for God in less flagrant ways, forgetting who He is. Don’t I know it.
Fact is, we sometimes get to witness the justice and sometimes we don’t. But the justice happens. It does. Be sure of it. Here or in the great beyond.
And we should take heed from David and my friend’s tale: “The jig is up.”
What we’re facing as a nation today is jig-uppedness. The unbelievable assortment of concurrent challenges signals a need for change. Our accelerating and extreme contempt for God is catching up with us, and the results are swift and severe. Escalating violence, food shortages, global unrest, economic instability, persistent pandemic problems, climate craziness, stratospheric spiraling is a call to repent.
re·pent
/rəˈpent/
verb
feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin.
This repentance is not the alligator has a belly ache after eating the human, although that might give the alligator pause. This is, “Dear God, I’ve really made a mess of things and my heart aches with the weight of it. Please forgive me, help me, and set this right!”
Here’s the Good News!
The same God who dispenses judgment or lifts His gracious hand of Divine protection to allow us to feel the brunt of our errors and return to Him, loves us more than we could ever fathom. He disciplines us because He loves us (Hebrews 12:6).
He has provided a way out for us, no matter how far we’ve strayed.
Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient overpayment for our sin. He is also the almighty King of the Universe who can set all things right with a single Word. He can fix anything, redeem anything, do anything at all. He can restore you, your losses, and relationships, according to His good will. If we only re/turn to Him.
If you’re mid-mess or just troubled by the current state of affairs, fix your eyes, heart, and soul on Jesus Christ…continually.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
Amen.
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