Among the insights the Psalms convey, some of the most penetrating deal with the nature of wickedness and of wicked people. Rarely are these put into abstract categories. They are almost always functional and relational.
What lies at the heart of the “sinfulness of the wicked”? “There is no fear of God before his eyes” (Ps. 36:1). This means something more than that the wicked person is foolishly unafraid of the punishment that God will finally mete out (though it does not mean less than that). It means that the wicked are so blind that they do not see the ultimate realities. They either do not see God at all, or, scarcely less horribly, they do not see God as he is.
All appropriate behavior and outlook for human beings made in the image of God find their reference point and measure in God himself. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of both knowledge (Prov. 1:7) and wisdom (Prov. 9:10), for “knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov. 9:10). The converse is utter folly: “fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Prov. 1:7). Small wonder the psalmist insists that it is the fool who says, “There is no God” (Ps. 14:1). Scarcely less foolish is the conjuring up of domesticated gods we can manage, or of savage gods that are brutal and immoral, or of impersonal gods that depersonalize God’s image-bearers. When one is blind to the true God, including his glorious holiness that must rightly instill fear in image-bearers as rebellious as we, there is no stopping place in our descent into the abyss of folly.
The blindness of the wicked extends to their assessment of themselves. “For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin” (Ps. 36:2). If he could see well enough to detect his sin, to see it for what it is—rebellion against the living God—and hate it for its sheer vileness and utter arrogance before the majestic holiness of his Maker, inevitably he would also fear God. The twin blindnesses are one.
This, of course, is why philosophical debates about the existence of God can never be resolved by reason alone. It is not that God is unreasonable, still less that he has left himself without witness. Rather, the tragedy and ignominy of human sin leave us, apart from God’s grace, horribly blind. Yet this blindness is culpable blindness: the wicked have no fear of God before their eyes. Paul understands the point so well that he makes this the culminating proof-text in his proof of human lostness (Rom. 3:18). Thank God for the next thirteen verses the apostle pens.
- Carson, D. A. (1998). For the love of God : A daily companion for discovering the riches of God’s Word. Volume 1. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
The history of Israelites is a powerful lesson of all that can happen on the spiritual journey. We see the glory of the great deliverance in the Exodus, the giving of the tabernacle and the Law in the wilderness. The people were formed by God and called to serve. They entered the land and conquered it in order to obtain the promise. But, as we know, all did not go well. They did not follow the Lord fully or faithfully. They formed alliances with the local people and steadily adopted foreign customs, ways, and worst of all, foreign gods. In the history of the people of Israel, we see the pendulum swing back and forth from faithfulness to rampant rejection of God.
As an illustration of how thankfulness promotes a God-honoring lifestyle we may turn to the following quote from the pen of John Milton, the celebrated English poet: “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” If we thank God, we will revere Him, and such reverence will help us look at all of life as that which we are to live coram Deo – before the Lord’s face in a way that pleases Him, with no reason to be ashamed.
All people are naturally inclined to some form of religion, yet they fail to worship their Creator, whose general revelation makes Him universally known. Sinful egoism and aversion to our Creator’s claims have driven humanity into idolatry, the error of giving worship and homage to any power or object other than God (Is. 44:9–20; Rom. 1:21–23; Col. 3:5). In their idolatry, apostate humans “suppress the truth” and have “changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things” (Rom. 1:18, 23). They smother and quench, as far as they can, the awareness that general revelation provides of the transcendent Judge and Creator, and they transfer the ineradicable sense of deity to unworthy objects. This in turn leads to drastic moral decline and misery, as a first manifestation of God’s wrath against apostasy (Rom. 1:18, 24–32).
One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.
. . . Genesis 12, marks a turning point in God’s unfolding plan of redemption. From now on, the focus of God’s dealings is not scattered individuals, but a race, a nation. This is the turning point that makes the Old Testament documents so profoundly Jewish. And ultimately, out of this race come law, priests, wisdom, patterns of relationships between God and his covenant people, oracles, prophecies, laments, psalms—a rich array of institutions and texts that point forward, in ways that become increasingly clear, to a new covenant foretold by Israel’s prophets.
GENESIS 2:1-16; 3:22-24 “Out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden” (2:9).
Hands down, Matthew 7:1 is the most frequently quoted Bible verse today: “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” It’s been twisted to mean we can’t say someone’s action or lifestyle is wrong. However, when someone says, “Don’t judge,” he’s judging you for judging someone else. You’ve done wrong by saying someone else has done wrong! Clearly, we can’t escape making moral judgments. Furthermore, in the same context of the oft-quoted verse, Jesus made a moral judgment about certain persons, using metaphors about “dogs” and “pigs” (Mt 7:6), stressing that we shouldn’t continue to present God’s grace to those who persistently scoff and ridicule. At some point we must shake the dust off our feet and move on to the more receptive (Mt 10:14; Ac 13:51). On the other hand, Jesus commanded, “Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment” (Jn 7:24, emphasis added).
“Assurance is having a confidence of eternal life which is rested upon the sure foundation of Jesus Chris, but presumption is presuming ourselves to have eternal life when, in fact, our confidence is based on nothing more than the flimsy foundation of our own self-righteousness.”
For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that “nothing happens” when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. 
The Life God has given each of us is short, and it will be measured in the heavenly rewards He has promised us. We should therefore make the most of it that He might find us to be good and faithful servants. Our goal is not to make ourselves busy with programs just for the sake of programs but to allocate our time wisely that we might serve our families and the people of God, and thus the Lord. Do you manage your time well in service to our Father?
THE LORD HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR US; WE ARE GLAD. – PSALM 126:3
