When Evil Boasts Series

Do you believe that there is such a thing as evil? Our culture today suggests that there is not. A recent book “Love Wins” even suggests that there is no hell or punishment for sin. I think we don’t want to accept the fact that there is evil, and most of the time it is simply because we have not personally experienced it or been affected by it. Talk to someone who has had their child abducted and murdered, or talk to a survivor of the holocaust, and you get a different perspective. Psalm 10 looks into the heart of darkness to see what goes on in the mind that is purposefully rebellious against God and has given itself over to evil. But it is also a look into the heart of God and what He feels about evil.

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I’m sure to the Jews in Germany during World War II this refrain was often said as literally millions were captured, tortured, and butchered in concentration camps. As people called out to God for help it seemed He stood a distance from the fray and did not intervene.

David here is feeling like God is hiding when He should be active! In verse 12 he calls on God to rise up out of His hiding place and take action. But do you sometimes feel God’s absence when evil is present in your life, or when you are going through a particularly difficult time? Is it that He doesn’t care or is powerless to help? Certainly not. So a couple of things to consider:

1.God is doing a bunch of things at once and part of what He is doing may involve you going through suffering, even at the hands of evil

2.Jesus promised us this would happen.

(Luke 6:22-23) Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, and slander your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. 23 "Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! Take note—your reward is great in heaven, because this is the way their ancestors used to treat the prophets.”

Your suffering becomes a witness against evil, but God still takes care of you in it, though it may not feel like it.

(2 Corinthians 1:5-6) For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer” NIV

God may seem absent but He is nearer than you know and working in you and through you some wonderful things directly as a result of you undergoing evil. But that should not stop you from crying out to God, who hears and answers.

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The word “relentlessly” is the Hebrew word for “flame” and the idea is someone who is hotly pursued. Those who reject God sometimes seem as if they cannot be stopped. David prays, again, that they would fall prey to their own schemes. It’s amazing to me how arrogant our culture has gotten when it comes to rejecting God and any accountability to Him.

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Here is a very intense and troubling picture of the character of someone who is truly evil.

3 – They do whatever they desire (like greed) and boast about it. (1 Timothy 4:1-3) Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, 2 through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.

4 – If there is no God then why worry about what I do? If God is absent from a life then that character is pulled relentlessly away from the character of God towards evil. Man is not good by default. “There is none who does good, no not one.” (Psalm 14:3). This is called “practical atheism” the belief that God is not involved in man’s affairs so we can do whatever we want.

5 – When you reject God you do feel secure, but you are blinded to reality. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Regarding them: the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ

6 – That arrogance and blindness leads to a feeling security and more evil.

7 – Strong words here: and basically the evil confirms his character every time he opens his mouth.

8 –10 He also reveals his character with his actions—taking advantage of those who cannot defend themselves.

11 – The ultimate in arrogance, that no one will bring him to account—but it a false assumption.

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