Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
11 And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
The earth in Genesis 6 had become corrupt and filled with violence and God had Noah do something about it, to build an ark. One could imagine the description of the corrupt in the psalmists’ day could aptly describe Noah’s neighbors. The psalmist complained that the proud did not seem to get their due punishment but this was untrue in Noah’s day, just as it will be untrue at the end of the age.
We encounter people like those the psalmist encountered. They live their lives as though they expect to get away with everything, even flagrant violation of the law. They disbelieve in God and are certain that he cannot know because he cannot be. That is the saddest mistake of all. When they finally realize that there is a God and he is holy, punishing sin, it will be too late. Like Noah before us, may we present a way out but instead of being in an ark, we are spared by being in Christ. May those scoffers join us and be saved.
Dear Lord, thank you for making a way to escape the wrath to come. We pray for those who are running headlong into it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Pastor Brad Boyer
Cape Community Church