Rev Dr Quek Suan Yew

Psalm 36 – When the Wicked Attack (Part 2 of 4)

Introduction – After depicting the greatness of sinful man’s wicked deeds, David contrasted it with the goodness and mercies of the great God almighty. Thank God for His promise to protect all His children as they witness for Christ on earth. God knows the world is a dangerous place to their faith and holiness. The god of this world is the Devil. He rules in sin and wickedness. He lies and deceives so well that millions of sinners have their minds blinded by him so that they will reject the gospel of Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4). This is the battle of every child of God. It is always uphill. They have to fight against enemies who have no rules and would stoop to all levels to bring down God’s children's holy witness for Christ. Thank God for His abiding presence to help in time of need.

IV. The LORD Preserves (Psalm 36:5-6) – “Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.” – When God's children fall into sin and succumb to temptation, the LORD is always merciful to forgive in Christ. The believer must repent and turn away from sin and back to God in holiness with all his heart and in all sincerity. Mercy refers to the punishment we deserve that God took away. That punishment is to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. The mercies of God must not be confused with the temporal earthly consequences of sin. For example, a sinner who contracted AIDS when he lived in sin without Christ, or is on death row because he committed murder, will not be healed or be spared the death penalty just because he became a believer. He will still die from AIDS or by hanging. God’s mercy originates from heaven. It comes down to man, declares David. Man experiences God's mercies when they repent of their sin at the time of their salvation. They continue to enjoy God's mercies which are new every morning as they witness for Christ on earth every time they repent of their sin.

Using synthetic parallelism, David adds that God's faithfulness, i.e. all that He declares in His holy Word, His Truth, reaches unto the clouds. All that God has promised and said in Holy Scriptures, past, present and future will definitely come to pass. Not one jot or tittle of His holy and perfect Word will be lost or remain unfulfilled. All mankind can believe in all that God has said, that those who die in their sin will end up in hell and those who die in Christ will enter heaven, and they are eternal truths that originate from God almighty. They are realities. All that God says concerning heaven, earth and hell are true. All man needs to do is to believe in God and in His holy Word and he will be able to resist and retard the wicked deeds and evil men who attack God's faithful servants.

Verse 6 (synthetic parallelism) – “Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.” – God will always do what is right. He never respects faces in judgement, not even for His most faithful servants. No matter what they have done in their service for Him, He will deal with each and every one of them according to righteousness! God does not deal with us favourably just because we are His children, as David learned and testified here in this verse. He acknowledged that God’s righteousness is like the great mountain that will not be moved. It is constant and always remains constant. The fact that God will always do what is right is a very comforting truth to all believers and unbelievers alike. For the unbelievers, the reason is that they know that God will do what is right by them if only they would repent. They know that if they were to be sent to hell they have no one to blame but themselves, for God has done what is right. For believers, they know that God does not relate to them based upon relationships or what man has sacrificed but always upon righteousness. This affects the way they ought to pray (in righteousness) and not to pray. It is not as if God will do what they want because they have done this or that! This righteousness is not a secret that has not been revealed to man. This righteousness is the very Word of God itself, the perfect Bible. All man needs to do is to study and know the Bible and the righteousness of God known to them so that they can live rightly. When they do so, God has given to them His Word by this truth in verse 6 that their lives will be pleasing to God when they stand before Him on the day of judgement.

This is the only way God will judge all mankind. It is based upon His unchanging righteousness revealed to mankind in His Holy Word. If any man thinks that God’s judgement which is based upon God’s righteousness is easily comprehended and he can know it all, then he needs to think again. The judgements of God are like the great deep. The depths of the oceans are unfathomable. No matter how deep a man plunges, he will not be able to touch the bottom. Albert Barnes described it well, “The word rendered "deep" here means properly wave, billow, surge; then, a mass of waters, a flood, a deep; and the phrase "great deep" would properly refer to the ocean, its "depth" being one of the most remarkable things in regard to it. The "idea" here is, that as we cannot fathom the ocean or penetrate to its bottom, so it is with the judgments of God. They are beyond our comprehension, and after all our efforts to understand them, we are constrained, as in measuring the depths of the ocean, to confess that we cannot reach to the bottom of them. This is true in regard to his law, in regard to the principles of his government as he has declared them, and in regard to his actual dealings with mankind. It could not be otherwise than that in the administration of an infinite God there must be much that man, in his present state, could not comprehend.” We can know it but to know it fully with full comprehension, it is beyond man. This inability to comprehend everything is the catalyst that spurs him on to study God’s Word all the days of his life.

Such is the study of the precious Word of God. The more one studies it, the more one realizes the amazing nature of it and how much he doesn’t know and that there is so much more to know. For example, the same book of the Bible could be studied ten times but each time the believer will learn new truths. The reason is that when the believer matures in faith and his walk with God is closer, the Holy Spirit helps him to see more wonderful truths. The judgements of God are so unique that man is amazed by the manner in which the great God balances His great grace and mercies with His holy justice and righteousness. Who would send His only begotten Son to die for sinful wicked man? God did! What kind of judgement is it that the same God whom man sin against would send His Son to die so that they can live in eternity with Him in heaven!! This kind of judgement is beyond man’s comprehension. They can only just accept it with the greatest humility, gratitude and thankfulness. God’s judgement is always tempered with mercy. If sinful man were to repent of their sins and return to God through Jesus Christ who died for them, their sins would be readily forgiven by the Holy God. However, if they reject His mercies through Jesus Christ and choose to remain in their state of sin, then what awaits them will be condemnation and they will have to face the wrath of God. The judgement of God is that sinners who die in sin will end up in hell and then ultimately in the Lake of Fire where they will have to be punished for eternity. This is the heinous nature of man’s sins against God.  Sinners who have believed in Christ and have received the cleansing power of the blood of Christ in their lives will be judged according to their works done in Christ. Their eternal destiny is the New Heaven and New Earth. This is just a glimpse of the multi facets of God's judgement that is captured succinctly by the imagery of the unfathomable “great deep.”

Man cannot save himself. God alone can save him. He needs God. The word “preserve” means “to save” which is also the meaning of “Joshua”. God will save man and beast in His time and by His power. If not for what God has done through Christ, there is absolutely no salvation for anyone and all things on earth. Man was made the federal headship of all creation when God made man to dominate God's creation in Genesis 1:26-28. When man fell into sin, creation fell with man. That is why this earth is in the state of destruction. It was created a place of safety and tranquillity where there was no tsunami or earthquake or any of these destructive forces that kill man. But because of man’s sins this world is doomed.

However, when man is restored, this world will also be restored. When God saves man through Christ, God saves His creation as well. That is why creation groans for man’s glorification which is also the restoration of the image of God in man in its completeness. When this happens creation will be healed and restored back to the day before there was sin. This is taught clearly in Romans 8:20-23 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” God saves man and His creation by His righteous judgement. Sinful man may plot and plan their evil deeds, but the LORD will protect His own and preserve them for His own glory. Children of God have nothing to fear. Their LORD is always in total absolute control.

[To be continued]