Psalm 68:1 (ESV)
God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who hate him shall flee before him!
Does the hatred and abuse and sorrow and disease and pain and warfare and cruelty and selfishness and greed and hunger and homelessness and emptiness and hollowness and idolatry and deception and godlessness and meaninglessness and fruitlessness and immorality and lust and faithlessness and hopelessness and lovelessness and lack of joy, lack of peace, lack of patience, lack of kindness, lack of goodness, lack of self control, lack of gentleness, lack of unity and horizontal vision and atheism and agnosticism and polytheism and pantheism and cultism and lying and stealing and adultery and murder and covetousness and family strife and divorce and domestic violence bother you?
Do you sometimes wonder if the promises of God to put an end to all that sin has done to the world are really going to be kept? Does the preponderance of evil and tragedy in the world make you wonder if God really is there? Does it make you wonder if He really has spoken?
Does the power of sin in your own life make you think that maybe you don’t have what the gospel promises or that the Gospel itself is a sham?
Look at the promise of Psalm 68:1. Remember that this promise was made over three thousand years ago. This is precisely why many do not believe. Mankind has been waiting a long time for the promises of God for a better world, to be realized. Doesn’t the fact that David was longing for a better world the same as we are indicate that his hope for God to intervene is all just vanity? Not in the least.
The Bible is the unfolding of a plan hatched in the eternal secret counsels of the Almighty. The triune God planned for the eternal Son to come and undo what sin had done.
The Old Testament maps out the need for the coming of Christ. The New Testament shows His life and death and victory over sin and tells those of us who know Him how to live in this world and then it shows us that He indeed will keep the ancient promises.
Time is not the factor that proves that God is a liar or worse, that He is not there. The time for the restoration of all things is set. God cannot lie. He is not slack concerning His promise. The reason He has not put an end to all things yet is because He is gracious and full of mercy. He is going to save more people. You want to see the end of this horribly sin infested system? Give the Gospel.
The fact that David longed for the Lord to come and put an end to evil does not mean God is lying or non-existent. It simply means that sin has always bothered the faithful. Cruelty has always been a concern for those who are created in the image of God and have not fallen into the depths of depravity as deeply as others have. It is not a discouraging thing that David longed for God to intervene and we are still praying the same prayer. It shows that the world really does need God to do something and it directs us right to Jesus.
Rejoice that you have more knowledge than David had when he wrote these words. And rejoice that God waited long enough for you to hear and believe the Gospel. And rejoice that there are hundreds of thousands yet unborn who will come to Christ and know the peace that you pray for and will be used by God to bring even more in.
God’s plan cannot be improved upon. Get in on it. Instead of just mourning the darkness, light a candle and be part of the solution. Be part of what God uses to consummate His coming when all evil will be destroyed once and for all. Oh what will we see when the promise is finally brought to pass.
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