The Practical Atheist - Psalm 14

Psalm 14

To the choirmaster. Of David.

 1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
    there is none who does good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
    who eat up my people as they eat bread
    and do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they are in great terror,
    for God is with the generation of the righteous.
6 You would shame the plans of the poor,
    but the Lord is his refuge.
7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
    When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
    let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

The practical atheist is not so much a person who flat-out rejects the idea of God, but rather a person who lives as if God doesn’t exist. It is that sort of person the psalmist calls a “fool” in Psalm 14.

---

For the director of music. Of David.

1 The fool says in his heart,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
    there is no one who does good.

Because the fools don’t believe God will hold them to account, they behave in wicked ways.

---

2 The Lord looks down from heaven
    on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.
4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?

The Lord is searching for faithful people in the midst of a faithless generation—don’t these foolish people know that nothing is hidden from the Lord?

---

They devour my people as though eating bread;
    they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
    for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
    but the Lord is their refuge.

People are being eaten up by the wicked, but God has not abandoned the poor and vulnerable—He is with them.

---

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
    When the Lord restores his people,
    let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Zion is the little mountain on which the Temple was built in Jerusalem, and the Israelites liked to think of it as the Lord’s particular place. Jacob was the Old Testament patriarch who was renamed Israel; thereafter, the entire nation of the Israelites was often called “Jacob” or “Israel”. Nearly all the psalms end, like this one, on a note of hope.

Be hopeful today! The Lord sees.

There Is No God - Psalm 10

Psalm 10

1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
    let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
    and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
    all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5 His ways prosper at all times;
    your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
    as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
    throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
    under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
    in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9 he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
    he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
    and fall by his might.
11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
    he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”
12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
    forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God
    and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
    that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
    you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
    call his wickedness to account till you find none.
16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
    the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

---

Have you ever felt as if God were asleep or indifferent or unable or unwilling to come to your aid? That’s what Psalm 10 is about—the psalmist wants to rouse God awake to come and fight for the righteous and the poor against the wicked. Psalm 10 imagines the wicked man saying, “there is no God”—not because he is an atheist, but because he believes he can get away with whatever he wants. To this the psalmist says, “Wake up, Lord!”

---

1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

“Lord, please WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING!” One of the lessons of the psalms is that it is good for us to cry out to God and lodge a protest or a complaint.

---

2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
    let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

This is a common theme in the Psalms—that the wicked end up harming themselves. Haven’t we all wanted that to happen? It would seem to be the ultimate form of justice.

---

3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
    and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
    all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”

It’s not that the wicked man is an atheist; rather, it is that he believes he is untouchable—that God is weak or indifferent and that therefore the wicked man can get away with all his scheming.

---

5 His ways prosper at all times;
    your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
    as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
    throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”

Doesn’t it often seem as if the wicked prosper while the righteous languish? The psalmist certainly feels that way. No wonder the wicked man is so arrogant—it really does seem as if he will get any with his evil actions.

---

7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
    under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
    in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9  he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
    he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
    and fall by his might.

This description of how bad men take advantage of the poor and vulnerable is 3,000 years old, but it could have come out of yesterday’s newspaper. The psalmist is working himself—and us—into a state of desperate outrage.

---

11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
    he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

Once more, the wicked man feels totally untouchable, and he congratulates himself at his boldness and evil.

---

12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
    forget not the afflicted.

After cataloguing all the evils that the wicked inflict on the innocent, the psalmist can’t stand it any more:

“WAKE UP, LORD, AND DO SOMETHING!”

How many times have you and I wanted to scream the same thing at the Lord?

The lesson of the psalms—it’s okay to do so.

Remember, the psalms teach us to pray through our emotions.

---

13 Why does the wicked renounce God
    and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
    that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
    you have been the helper of the fatherless.

And here the tenor of the psalm changes. The psalmist again imagines the wicked man in his arrogance and pride, chuckling to himself and believing that he will escape accountability.

---

And then come my favorite 4 words in this psalm:

“But you do see.”

It might seem that the Lord is blind and deaf, but that’s not reality—the Lord in fact sees and notes the actions of the wicked and the sufferings of the innocent, and he will not be mocked! Justice will roll down! God have mercy on the arrogant and the wicked when that day comes.

---

15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
    call his wickedness to account till you find none.

Ultimately, the wicked will be brought to justice. There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

---

16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
    the nations perish from his land.

The nations that inhabit the land are like renters—the Lord is the owner, and those that oppose him will one day be overthrown.

---

17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Amen.

Pascal's Wager - Psalm 53

Psalm 53

To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath. A Maskil of David.

1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
    there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
    on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away;
    together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
    not even one.
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge,
    who eat up my people as they eat bread,
    and do not call upon God?
5 There they are, in great terror,
    where there is no terror!
For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you;
    you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
    When God restores the fortunes of his people,
    let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

---

Psalm 53 is almost identical to Psalm 14; both psalms begin the same way:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

---

Are you familiar with Pascal’s Wager? It’s a brilliant reason to believe.

[The text below can be found here.]

---

It's important always to remember Pascal's project of trying to provide a defense of Christiantiy. Part of the crowd that Pascal hung around with before his conversion did all the things he later identified as diversion: hunting, partying, but especially gambling. Pascal himself is often credited with inventing roulette. So it's not surprising that he uses the device of a wager to try to convince people, who are already gambling, to take a chance on God. That is, if you want to make a point to a gambler, put it in the form of a bet. That'll at least get their attention and disturb their indifference. 

Pascal begins by presenting a decision. Either a person will choose to believe or she will not (there are only two possibilities). As for the way things are, either the God whom Christians worship exists or that God does not (there are only two possibilities). Pascal thought that reason by itself cannot help you decide which path to follow. And in light of this, and the two choices listed above, Pascal asks 'how will you wager?' And note that we have to wager. We can't just not play the game at all. Pascal thinks that by the way each of us is already leading our lives, we are all already making a bet one way or the other. As he says, "There is no choice, you are already committed." He continues, "A coin is being spun which will come down heads or tails. How will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose either, reason cannot prove either wrong."  

If we have to bet, then, how shall we decide? Well, says Pascal, let's look at the possible payoffs (that's just what gamblers do, after all). 

—If God REALLY exists, and we believe (= bet that God exists), we have an infinite gain (heaven).

—If God REALLY exists, and we don't believe that, then we have the potential of an infinite loss (hell, or at least eternal separation from God).

—If God really does NOT EXIST, and we believe that God exists, we essentially lose nothing.

—If God really does NOT EXIST, and we believe that God doesn't exist, we essentially gain nothing.

This can be represented in a table as follows: 

---

---

There are really two other versions of this wager in Paragraph 418, but they just build on the point made above that if one has to bet (and we do), then it's always more rational to wager on an infinite gain. An infinite gain will always outweigh even a finite loss or gain. Therefore, it's always more rational to bet that God exists. As Pascal says, if you wager and win, "you will win everything." 

---

Pretty interesting stuff, huh? —Andrew

The Practical Atheist - Psalm 14

Psalm 14

To the choirmaster. Of David.

 1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
    there is none who does good.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one.
4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
    who eat up my people as they eat bread
    and do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they are in great terror,
    for God is with the generation of the righteous.
6 You would shame the plans of the poor,
    but the Lord is his refuge.
7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
    When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
    let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

The practical atheist is not so much a person who flat-out rejects the idea of God, but rather a person who lives as if God doesn’t exist. It is that sort of person the psalmist calls a “fool” in Psalm 14.

---

For the director of music. Of David.

1 The fool says in his heart,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
    there is no one who does good.

Because the fools don’t believe God will hold them to account, they behave in wicked ways.

---

2 The Lord looks down from heaven
    on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.
4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?

The Lord is searching for faithful people in the midst of a faithless generation—don’t these foolish people know that nothing is hidden from the Lord?

---

They devour my people as though eating bread;
    they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
    for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
    but the Lord is their refuge.

People are being eaten up by the wicked, but God has not abandoned the poor and vulnerable—He is with them.

---

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
    When the Lord restores his people,
    let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Zion is the little mountain on which the Temple was built in Jerusalem, and the Israelites liked to think of it as the Lord’s particular place. Jacob was the Old Testament patriarch who was renamed Israel; thereafter, the entire nation of the Israelites was often called “Jacob” or “Israel”. Nearly all the psalms end, like this one, on a note of hope.

Be hopeful today! The Lord sees.

"There Is No God" - Psalm 10

Psalm 10

1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
    let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
    and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
    all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5 His ways prosper at all times;
    your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
    as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
    throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
    under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
    in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9 he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
    he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
    and fall by his might.
11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
    he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”
12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
    forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God
    and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
    that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
    you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
    call his wickedness to account till you find none.
16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
    the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

---

Have you ever felt as if God were asleep or indifferent or unable or unwilling to come to your aid? That’s what Psalm 10 is about—the psalmist wants to rouse God awake to come and fight for the righteous and the poor against the wicked. Psalm 10 imagines the wicked man saying, “there is no God”—not because he is an atheist, but because he believes he can get away with whatever he wants. To this the psalmist says, “Wake up, Lord!”

---

1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

“Lord, please WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING!” One of the lessons of the psalms is that it is good for us to cry out to God and lodge a protest or a complaint.

---

2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
    let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

This is a common theme in the Psalms—that the wicked end up harming themselves. Haven’t we all wanted that to happen? It would seem to be the ultimate form of justice.

---

3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
    and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
    all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”

It’s not that the wicked man is an atheist; rather, it is that he believes he is untouchable—that God is weak or indifferent and that therefore the wicked man can get away with all his scheming.

---

5 His ways prosper at all times;
    your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
    as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
    throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”

Doesn’t it often seem as if the wicked prosper while the righteous languish? The psalmist certainly feels that way. No wonder the wicked man is so arrogant—it really does seem as if he will get any with his evil actions.

---

7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
    under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
    in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9     he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
    he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
    and fall by his might.

This description of how bad men take advantage of the poor and vulnerable is 3,000 years old, but it could have come out of yesterday’s newspaper. The psalmist is working himself—and us—into a state of desperate outrage.

---

11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
    he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

Once more, the wicked man feels totally untouchable, and he congratulates himself at his boldness and evil.

---

12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
    forget not the afflicted.

After cataloguing all the evils that the wicked inflict on the innocent, the psalmist can’t stand it any more:

“WAKE UP, LORD, AND DO SOMETHING!”

How many times have you and I wanted to scream the same thing at the Lord?

The lesson of the psalms—it’s okay to do so.

Remember, the psalms teach us to pray through our emotions.

---

13 Why does the wicked renounce God
    and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
    that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
    you have been the helper of the fatherless.

And here the tenor of the psalm changes. The psalmist again imagines the wicked man in his arrogance and pride, chuckling to himself and believing that he will escape accountability.

---

And then come my favorite 4 words in this psalm:

“But you do see.”

It might seem that the Lord is blind and deaf, but that’s not reality—the Lord in fact sees and notes the actions of the wicked and the sufferings of the innocent, and he will not be mocked! Justice will roll down! God have mercy on the arrogant and the wicked when that day comes.

---

15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
    call his wickedness to account till you find none.

Ultimately, the wicked will be brought to justice. There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

---

16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
    the nations perish from his land.

The nations that inhabit the land are like renters—the Lord is the owner, and those that oppose him will one day be overthrown.

---

17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Amen.

Pascal's Wager [Psalm 53]

Psalm 53 is almost identical to Psalm 14; both psalms begin the same way:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

---

Are you familiar with Pascal’s Wager?

[The text below is from Professor Joseph Incandela’s website.]

---

It's important always to remember Pascal's project of trying to provide a defense of Christiantiy. Part of the crowd that Pascal hung around with before his conversion did all the things he later identified as diversion: hunting, partying, but especially gambling. Pascal himself is often credited with inventing roulette. So it's not surprising that he uses the device of a wager to try to convince people, who are already gambling, to take a chance on God. That is, if you want to make a point to a gambler, put it in the form of a bet. That'll at least get their attention and disturb their indifference. 

Pascal begins by presenting a decision. Either a person will choose to believe or she will not (there are only two possibilities). As for the way things are, either the God whom Christians worship exists or that God does not (there are only two possibilities). Pascal thought that reason by itself cannot help you decide which path to follow. And in light of this, and the two choices listed above, Pascal asks 'how will you wager?' And note that we have to wager. We can't just not play the game at all. Pascal thinks that by the way each of us is already leading our lives, we are all already making a bet one way or the other. As he says, "There is no choice, you are already committed." He continues, "A coin is being spun which will come down heads or tails. How will you wager? Reason cannot make you choose either, reason cannot prove either wrong."  

If we have to bet, then, how shall we decide? Well, says Pascal, let's look at the possible payoffs (that's just what gamblers do, after all). 

—If God REALLY exists, and we believe (= bet that God exists), we have an infinite gain (heaven).

—If God REALLY exists, and we don't believe that, then we have the potential of an infinite loss (hell, or at least eternal separation from God).

—If God really does NOT EXIST, and we believe that God exists, we essentially lose nothing.

—If God really does NOT EXIST, and we believe that God doesn't exist, we essentially gain nothing.

This can be represented in a table as follows: 

---

---

There are really two other versions of this wager in Paragraph 418, but they just build on the point made above that if one has to bet (and we do), then it's always more rational to wager on an infinite gain. An infinite gain will always outweigh even a finite loss or gain. Therefore, it's always more rational to bet that God exists. As Pascal says, if you wager and win, "you will win everything." 

---

Pretty interesting stuff, huh? —Andrew

The Practical Atheist [Psalm 14]

The practical atheist is not so much a person who flat-out rejects the idea of God, but rather a person who lives as if God doesn’t exist. It is that sort of person the psalmist calls a “fool” in Psalm 14.

Psalm 14

---

For the director of music. Of David.

1 The fool says in his heart,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
    there is no one who does good.

Because the fools don’t believe God will hold them to account, they behave in wicked ways.

---

2 The Lord looks down from heaven
    on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.

4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?

The Lord is searching for faithful people in the midst of a faithless generation—don’t these foolish people know that nothing is hidden from the Lord?

---

They devour my people as though eating bread;
    they never call on the Lord.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
    for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
    but the Lord is their refuge.

People are being eaten up by the wicked, but God has not abandoned the poor and vulnerable—he is with them.

---

7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
    When the Lord restores his people,
    let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Zion is the little mountain on which the Temple was built in Jerusalem, and the Israelites liked to think of it as the Lord’s particular place. Jacob was the Old Testament patriarch who was renamed Israel; thereafter, the entire nation of the Israelites was often called “Jacob” or “Israel”.

Nearly all the psalms end, like this one, on a note of hope.

Be hopeful today! The Lord sees.

"There Is No God" [Psalm 10]

Psalm 10

Have you ever felt as if God were asleep or indifferent or unable or unwilling to come to your aid? That’s what Psalm 10 is about—the psalmist wants to rouse God awake to come and fight for the righteous and the poor against the wicked. Psalm 10 imagines the wicked man saying, “there is no God”—not because he is an atheist, but because he believes he can get away with whatever he wants. To this the psalmist says, “Wake up, Lord!”

I will walk us through the text of Psalm 10—folks seemed to like it when I did the same for Psalm 5 last week.

---

1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

“Lord, please WAKE UP and DO SOMETHING!” One of the lessons of the psalms is that it is good for us to cry out to God and lodge a protest or a complaint.

---

2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
    let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

This is a common theme in the Psalms—that the wicked end up harming themselves. Haven’t we all wanted that to happen? It would seem to be the ultimate form of justice.

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3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
    and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
    all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”

It’s not that the wicked man is an atheist; rather, it is that he believes he is untouchable—that God is weak or indifferent and that he can get way with all his scheming.

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5 His ways prosper at all times;
    your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
    as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
    throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”

Doesn’t it often seem as if the wicked prosper while the righteous languish? The psalmist certainly feels that way. No wonder the wicked man is so arrogant—it really does seem as if he will get any with his evil actions.

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7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
    under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
    in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9     he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
    he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
    and fall by his might.

This description of how bad men take advantage of the poor and vulnerable is 3,000 years old, but it could have come out of yesterday’s newspaper. The psalmist is working himself—and us—into a state of desperate outrage.

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11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
    he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

Once more, the wicked man feels totally untouchable, and he congratulates himself at his boldness and evil.

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12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
    forget not the afflicted.

After cataloguing all the evils that the wicked inflict on the innocent, the psalmist can’t stand it any more:

“WAKE UP, LORD, AND DO SOMETHING!”

How many times have you and I wanted to scream the same thing at the Lord?

The lesson of the psalms—it’s okay to do so.

Remember, the psalms teach us to pray through our emotions.

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13 Why does the wicked renounce God
    and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
    that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
    you have been the helper of the fatherless.

And here the tenor of the psalm changes. The psalmist again imagines the wicked man in his arrogance and pride, chuckling to himself and believing that he will escape accountability.

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And then come my favorite 4 words in this psalm:

“But you do see.”

It might seem that the Lord is blind and deaf, but that’s not reality—the Lord in fact sees and notes the actions of the wicked and the sufferings of the innocent, and he will not be mocked!

Justice will roll down! God have mercy on the arrogant and the wicked when that day comes.

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15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
    call his wickedness to account till you find none.

Ultimately, the wicked will be brought to justice. There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

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16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
    the nations perish from his land.

The nations that inhabit the land are like renters—the Lord is the owner, and those that oppose him will one day be overthrown.

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17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Amen.