The Attitude Of The Wicked

Psalm 36:1-12

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD.

“The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.  For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful.  The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.  He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.” (Psalm 36:1-4)

As David watched the wicked he began to realize certain attitudes and activities were common to all of them.  First, there was no fear or respect for God.  They do not believe God can or will intervene.   Secondly, they tell themselves they are smarter or better than other people and thus have the right to do the things they do.   They continue doing their bad behavior, escalating until it reaches a point where people refuse to put up with it any longer.    They deliberately lie and deceive to get new victims and to conceal what they are doing, and after a while stop making any effort to do what is right.  As they get older, they become more brazen, because they have gotten by with their wickedness in the past they assume no one will do anything about it.    

While other people lie awake trying to figure out how to make things work properly, the wicked lie awake trying to figure out ways of doing evil things without getting caught.  They adopt a life style that other people see leads to trouble, and hang around people who have obviously bad attitudes and unsavory reputations, making it obvious they find evil attractive. 

“Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.  Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.  How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.  They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.  For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.” (Psalm 36:5-9)

God’s mercy is visible in the entire universe.  If current theories of evolution are true, and there is no God we should see entire galaxies vanishing into black holes on a regular basis, with no concern for anything.   God prevents it from happening, because of his mercy.  He cares and doesn’t want things to be destroyed.   That God can be depended on is obvious by the fact that he has established rules governing the natural things such as clouds, so that the moisture evaporates, then condenses to form clouds, and finally falls to the earth to repeat the process.  It has been repeated for thousands of years, and still happens the same way.

God’s righteousness is obvious from the way he punishes the evil and enables both humans and animals to continue to survive.  If there were no God and evolution were true, animals or humans would have evolved in places where there was no food for them to eat and died before they could adapt to what was available.   Because they recognize this fact every culture on earth has adopted some kind of a religion and sought to please a god of some kind.  Those who have chosen to serve and honor God will experience his blessings, being satisfied with their lives and find pleasure in life.  He is the source of life and light so that we can enjoy it. 

“O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.  Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me.   There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.” (Psalm 36:10-12)

David’s prayer is that God would continue to be the loving merciful God he has always been toward those who know him and try to please him.  He asks that the evil be prevented from attacking or destroying him.  People who attack those who stand for good and right are involved in doing evil things and they have brought about their own destruction, usually blaming those who do what is right.   Because they blame others and do not address their responsibility, they will be unable to recover.  It is impossible to resolve a problem without addressing what causes it.