Latest / Reformed Thinking / When the Wicked Triumph: A Cry for Justice (Psalm 94) | Charles Spurgeon

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When the Wicked Triumph: A Cry for Justice (Psalm 94) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to the show you are listening to Reformed Thinking.
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Good to be here. Yeah, it is.
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It is great to have you back. This is the place where we, you
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know, stop scrolling, turn off the notifications and just try
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to understand the world we are actually living in.
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We take a stack of sources, articles, ancient texts,
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theological treatises, and we try to extract the signal from
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the noise. And I think we should be pretty
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clear right off the bat about where we are coming from today.
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Right. Yeah, Full disclosure.
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We are Protestant Christians. We hold to the Westminster
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Confession. We view the world through the
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lens of Reformed theology. So we aren't trying to be
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neutral observers here. We are looking at reality
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through a specific historic framework.
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Absolutely. We believe that framework
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provides a a solid ground that you just don't get from the
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Morning News cycle. Yeah.
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And today we are tackling a topic that, honestly, it feels
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like it was ripped right out of a modern editorial, even though
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swarf material is thousands of years old.
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It really does. We are doing a deep dive into
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Psalm 94. Psalm 94 is just a powerhouse of
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a text. It addresses, I would say, one
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of the most frustrating, agonizing questions a believer
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can ask, which is why did the bad guys win?
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Oh, man, yeah, it is the age-old enigma.
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You look around and you see corruption, you see injustice.
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And not only are these people not being punished, they seem to
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be thriving, right? They are getting the promotions,
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they are winning the elections. They're consolidating all this
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authority. It makes you ask if anyone is
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actually running the ship. That is the central tension of
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the text. The writer of this song is
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watching his world fall apart. He sees evildoers in positions
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of authority. He is smarting under oppression.
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But, and this is key, he doesn't just complain, he appeals to God
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specifically as the judge of the earth.
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To guide us through this, we are using a classic resource we are
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walking through, The Treasury of David by Charles Spurgeon.
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Spurgeon is fantastic for this. He doesn't just give you his own
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thoughts, he curates insights from the entire history of the
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church. Yeah, the stack for today is
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pretty dense. We have Spurgeon, but we also
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have Jonathan Edwards, Augustine, John Milton.
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And some really fascinating scientific illustrations.
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Oh yeah, the anatomy of the eye and ear that Spurgeon included
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in his notes. We will get to that.
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It is incredible. Our mission today is to see how
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the psalmist moves from this vehement, almost panicked
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complaint against atheistic oppression to a place of calm
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assurance. We want to find out how to get
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that rest the text promises. We want to understand how to
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think like a Christian when the courts are corrupt and the
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wicked are boasting. It is all about the doctrine of
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God's omniscience and the peculiar blessing of his
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chastening. Spot on.
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Let's get into Section 1, the cry for retribution.
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The song opens with verses one through 7, and the very first
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line is a title for God that might make some people wince
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today. It says, O Lord God, to whom
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vengeance belongeth. It is a really intense opening.
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O God of retributions, shine forth.
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Now we need to unpack this immediately because in our
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culture, vengeance is a dirty word.
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We teach our kids not to be vengeful.
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We think of vengeance as petty, emotional, and destructive.
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So is the psalmist asking God to be petty here?
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Not at all. We have to make a very sharp
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theological distinction here. Spurgeon quotes a cardinal from
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the 16th century to Coco Sadaledo to help us out.
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We need to clearly distinguish between human revenge and divine
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vengeance. OK, let's separate those two.
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What is the difference? Well, human revenge is almost
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always an act of passion. It is reactive.
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Someone hurts you, your blood boils and you want to hurt them
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back, right? Sedalito points out that this
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kind of revenge is destructive to the Avenger.
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When we try to take revenge, we might harm the other person's
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body or property, but we stay in our own spirit.
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We lose our self-control. We become bitter.
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We basically become like the thing we hate.
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Precisely. It corrodes the vessel that
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holds it. But divine vengeance with the
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text refers to something else entirely.
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It is justice. It's the calm, dispassionate
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restoration of moral order. So it isn't about God losing his
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temper. No, that doesn't have tempers
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like we do. Said Alito argues that vengeance
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belongs to God because he alone can punish the spirit.
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He alone knows the exact measure of guilt.
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He knows the motives, He knows the circumstances.
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Therefore, he is the only one actually qualified to hand out
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retribution. That makes a lot of sense.
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That is why the scripture says vengeance is mine.
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I will repay saith the Lord. It isn't saying vengeance is
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bad, it is saying it is a tool way too heavy for human hands.
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That is a great way to put it. Barton Boucher, another
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commentator in our notes, suggests the prayer is
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essentially, oh, God to whom justice belongs.
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Right. Because if you look at the
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world, at the heritage of God being crushed, widows being
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robbed, and you do not want justice, there is something
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seriously wrong with you. Yeah.
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If you can look at sex trafficking or tyranny and not
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want retribution, you aren't being loving, you're just being
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morally numb. The.
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Psalmist is asking God to lift up himself.
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That is the language of a judge taking his seat on the bench.
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He is saying, Lord, the world is chaotic because you haven't
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banged the gavel yet. Please take your seat and issue
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the verdict. The text goes on to describe the
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state of the world and it is pretty graphic.
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It says the wicked are triumphing, and verse 4 says,
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How long shall they utter and speak hard things, And all the
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workers of iniquity boast themselves.
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There is a Hebrew metaphor in that word utter that is
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incredibly vivid. It implies a fountain gushing
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forth. So they aren't just speaking
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occasionally. No, it is a redundant, ceaseless
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flow. They are bubbling over with
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arrogance. These aren't criminals hiding in
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the shadows, ashamed of what they're doing.
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They are boasting, they're proud of their oppression, they're
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controlling the narrative. And who are they targeting?
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Verse 5 says they break in pieces, Thy people, O Lord, and
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afflict thine heritage. And then verse 6 mentions the
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widow, the stranger, and the fatherless.
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These are the classic biblical categories of the vulnerable.
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But notice this specific designation, thine heritage.
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This is an attack on the church, or, in the Old Testament
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context, the faithful remnant of Israel.
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Spurgeon notes that this exact cry has been heard in the
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dungeons of the Inquisition and at the whipping posts of
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slavery. It is a timeless cry.
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It is whenever a tyrant wants to consolidate rule, he usually
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targets the people of God and the vulnerable.
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And the psalmist is bringing this evidence to the judge.
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He is saying look at what they are doing to your heritage.
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Now what is the logic behind this oppression?
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Why do these guys think they can just get away with it?
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We find the answer in verse 7. Yet they say, the Lord shall not
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see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.
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This brings us to the concept of practical atheism.
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Break that down for us. How is that different from
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theoretical atheism? A theoretical atheist says there
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is no God. Practical atheist might say sure
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there is a God, but he lives as if God is completely irrelevant.
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These oppressors aren't necessarily denying the
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existence of a deity. They are denying his Providence.
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They are denying that he watches.
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They think he is an absentee landlord.
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Right. They think he is up in the
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heavens minding his own business, totally disconnected
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from the gritty reality of human politics.
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They say the Lord shall not see. There is a massive theological
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irony in that verse though. They use the phrase the God of
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Jacob. It is super ironic.
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Jacob is a covenant name. It refers to the God who
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wrestled with Jacob in the dust at Jabock.
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It refers to the God who watched over Jacob when he was running
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from Esau. To use that specific name, the
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name of the God who gets down in the dirt with his people, and
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then claim he doesn't see it, is absurd.
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It shows how blinded they are by their own pride.
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They are using religious language while completely
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denying the reality of who God is.
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It is the lie that every tyrant tells himself to sleep at night.
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I am the highest authority. No one is checking my work.
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So the psalmist has laid out the complaint.
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He has identified the crime and the criminals.
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Now in Section 2, which covers verses 8 through 11, he stops
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talking to God about them and starts talking to them directly.
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He turns to the oppressors and launches a debate.
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And he starts with a flat out insult.
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Understand. Be brutish among the people.
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Brutish. That is definitely not a
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compliment. No, the Hebrew word is derived
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from a rude that refers to bores or swine.
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He's calling them pigs. He is saying you think you are
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the elite. You think you are the
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sophisticated ones who have moved past the primitive idea of
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a God who judges, but actually you're acting like farm animals.
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Spurgeon has a great line here. He says wicked men are fools.
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The more they know without God, the more foolish they become.
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It is kind of the Dunning Kruger effect of theology.
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They are so incredibly confident in their ignorance.
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So how does he dismantle their argument?
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They claim God doesn't see? How does the psalmist prove he
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does? He uses what we call the
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argument from design. This is natural theology.
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He appeals to the very bodies these men are living in.
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Verse 9. He that planted the ear, shall
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he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he
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not see? It is a basic argument from
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cause and effect. You cannot give what you do not
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possess. If God created the faculty of
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hearing, he cannot be deaf. If he created the faculty of
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sight, he cannot be blind. I want to spend some time here
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because the Treasury of David includes some really in depth
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notes on the anatomy of the ear and I had to back this up.
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It isn't just a poetic statement, it is a biological
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argument. It is fascinating.
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Let's look at the ear first. The text says he that planted
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the ear. The source material notes that
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the ear is like a root, some deep into the skull.
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It isn't just the flap of skin on the side of your head.
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No, that is just the collector. The actual mechanism of hearing
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is excavated into the hardest bone of the body.
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You have these winding tunnels in the the labyrinth.
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You have the tympanum, the eardrum, which is like a
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parchment curtain stretched tight to catch vibrations.
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And the bones. The obstacles, the hammer, the
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anvil, the stirrup, these tiny chains of bones that act as
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levers to amplify sound and transmitted to the nerve.
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Right. The psalmist is asking you to
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look at this intricate machinery.
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It was designed for one specific purpose, to capture information
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in the form of sound. Do you honestly think the
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architect who built that receiver is unable to receive
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information himself? It would be like building a
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radio and not knowing what a radio wave is.
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Exactly, and the argument for the eye is even more detailed.
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The notes quote a scientist named PA Chadbourne at length
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here. The eye is an absolute marvel of
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engineering. What specifically stands out in
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that description? The combination of materials is
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wild. You have solids and liquids
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working together perfectly. You have the lenses, the humors,
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the retina which acts as a canvas.
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But think about the protection mechanisms.
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The eye is so delicate, yet it is placed in a Bony cavern, the
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orbit, for protection. And the eyebrows.
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The brow acts as a thatch to diverse sweat so it doesn't run
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into the eye. The lid acts as a shutter and a
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shield and the tear gland. I love this detail when reading
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the notes. The tear gland isn't just for
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crying. No, it is a sanitation crew.
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It constantly washes the eye to keep the lens polished and clear
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of dust. If you didn't have that, the
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lens would become opaque in a matter of days.
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And the iris. The iris is a self adjusting
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aperture. It expands and contracts based
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on light intensity instantly without you having to even think
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about it. If you walk into a dark room, it
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opens. If you walk into sunlight, it
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closes. So the logic is clear.
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This instrument, the eye, is perfectly adapted to the
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physical, the laws of light. It undeniably prove design.
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And a designer who creates an instrument of vision must
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possess infinite perception. He didn't just stumble upon the
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concept of sight, he invented it.
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So to say the Lord shall not see is scientifically illiterate.
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The commentators point out that the idolaters actually want a
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blind God. Yeah, William Arnott says a
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seeing God would not do. The idolater wants a blind God.
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If God is blind, you can sin in secret.
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You can oppress the widow and take the bribe.
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And no one knows, right? A living seeing God is
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terrifying to the impure heart. They prefer a statue because the
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statue can't testify against them in court.
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The psalmist takes the argument a step further in verse 10.
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He that chastises the heathen, shall not he correct?
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This is an argument from history.
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We know God judges nations. He judged Sodom, He judged
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Egypt, He judged Babylon. If he judges the macro, the
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great empires of the world, surely he will judge the micro,
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the individual man, You can't just hide in the crowd.
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And then verse 11 drops the hammer.
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The Lord note the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.
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This is where it gets scary. It isn't just that God sees your
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actions. He sees the internal engine of
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those actions. He knows the thoughts.
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Jonathan Edwards has some heavy commentary on this.
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He really does. Edwards points out that thoughts
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here represent the highest intellectual capacity of man.
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It refers to his schemes, his politics, his philosophies, his
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clever arguments. We tend to be very proud of our
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reason. We think we can reason our way
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out of moral obligation. But God looks at that reasoning,
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and what does he say? He.
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Stamps it as vanity vapor. Empty is nothing.
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Anthony Burgess adds a detail that I found chilling.
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He talks about the speed of God's omniscience.
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He says the twinkling of a thought is faster than the
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twinkling of an eye. You can have a thought and
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dismiss it in a fraction of a second.
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Yeah, God catches it. He tracks millions of them from
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billions of people simultaneously.
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There is no privacy. There's no secret corner of your
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mind where you can hide your rebellion.
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That is a terrifying reality for the brutish man.
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But now the Psalm pivots completely.
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We have been in the courtroom and we have been in the debate
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hall. Now in Section 3, verses 12
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through 15, we enter a different room entirely.
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We enter the classroom. Spurgeon calls this the school
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of affliction. The tone changes from aggression
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to comfort. Verse 12 says, Blessed is the
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man whom thou chasten us, O Lord, and teachest him out of
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thy law. This is a Beatitude Blessed.
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It means happy or to be envied. That seems totally backwards
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though. The world says blessed is the
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man who is healthy, wealthy and has no problems.
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Blessed is the guy on the yacht, right?
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The world views suffering as an unmitigated evil, but the
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psalmist views it as a mark of enrollment.
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If you're being chastened, it means God is treating you as a
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son. He is actually investing in you.
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But there is a condition attached.
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It doesn't just say blessed is the man who suffers.
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No, suffering by itself is just suffering.
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It doesn't make you holy, it just makes you sore, the verse
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says. And teaches to him out of thy
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law. That is the combination, the rod
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and the word. Spurgeon uses a metallurgical
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analogy here that is really helpful.
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He compares it to refining silver.
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The rod, the affliction is the fire.
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It melts the heart. But the rod without the word is
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like a furnace without flux. It doesn't purify the metal, it
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just burns it up. So you need the word to explain
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the rod. Absolutely.
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The Bible interprets your pain when you are suffering and you
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open the Scriptures. The Spirit teaches you things
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you could never learn on the eye.
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You learn about your own weakness.
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You learn about God's sufficiency.
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You learn patience. So the Bible is the textbook for
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the class called Adversity. And if you skip the textbook,
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you fail the class. You just get the pain without
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the profit. And what is the goal of this
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education? Verse 13 says that thou mayest
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give him rest from the days of adversity.
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This is a paradox. God gives us rest from the days
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of adversity, or as some translate it, rest in the days
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of adversity. So it doesn't mean the adversity
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stops. No, the wicked are still
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boasting, the pit is still being dug, but the believer in the
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school of God finds a quiet center.
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It is the tranquility of Spirit. He isn't panicking because he
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knows the teacher. It is the difference between a
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child screaming during a medical procedure and a child holding
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his father's hand. The pain is the same, but the
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rest is different. That is a brilliant analogy, and
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there's a timing element in verse 13 as well.
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Until the pit be digged for the wicked.
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That sounds ominous. It is the Longview of Justice.
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Augustine has a famous comment on this.
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He says do not be in haste. The pit is currently being dug.
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It is an active construction project.
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It is the wicked think they are building a tower, but they are
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actually digging a grave. Every act of oppression, every
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arrogant boast is just another shovel of dirt flying out of the
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hole. The believers job is to wait.
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God is the foreman of that project, and he knows when it is
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deep enough that. Requires a massive amount of
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trust. It brings us to verse 14.
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For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he
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forsake his inheritance. Here is our Reformed theology,
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shining through loud and clear. This is the doctrine of the
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preservation of the Saints, God. Sticks with his people.
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The text freely admits that God might cast us down, We might be
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knocked flat, we might be oppressed, we might feel like we
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are completely losing. But He will never cast us off.
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The covenant relationship is unbreakable.
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Because it depends on him, not us.
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Correct. He's the God of Jacob.
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Jacob was a mess, He was a deceiver, but God never quit on
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him and he won't quit on his church.
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And the section ends with the promise that judgement shall
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return unto righteousness. That is the historical horizon.
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Right now, judgement and righteousness seem to be
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divorced. The legal system is often used
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to crush the righteous, but the wheel will turn, Spurgeon says.
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Righteousness will retake the throne.
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It is inevitable. Moving into Section 4, verses 16
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through 19, the Psalm shifts from the classroom to a very
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personal, intimate confession. The psalmist asks Who will rise
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up for me against the evil doers?
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This deals with the profound isolation of the believer.
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I think many of our listeners have felt this recently.
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You look at the culture or your workplace or the political
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landscape and you naturally look for a champion.
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You want a leader to step up and stop the madness?
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And nobody does. Nobody does.
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The commentary asks where are the Luther's and the Calvin's.
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Sometimes the Church is bereft of human defenders.
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Is that accidental? Spurgeon suggests it by design.
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It dries the soul to God. If we had a human champion, we
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would trust the champion. We would pin our hopes on a
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politician or a pastor. When we have no one, we are
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forced to realize that God is our only true ally.
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And then we get this incredibly vulnerable moment in verse 18
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when I said my foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.
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Spurgeon speaks from deep personal experience here.
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He suffered from terrible depression and physical pain,
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gout specifically. He knows that sensation of
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imminent peril. It is the image of a mountain
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climber losing his footing. Yes, walking on ice or a narrow
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ledge, you feel the friction give way.
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Your center of gravity shifts. Your heart drops into your
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stomach. You think this is it I'm going
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over? But he doesn't fall.
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No, Thy mercy held me up, and notice it is mercy that holds
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him up, not merit. That is a key distinction.
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It wasn't because he was a skilled climber.
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It wasn't because he had great balance.
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It was because God caught him. It is the unseen hand of mercy,
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interposing at the last possible second.
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That leads us to verse 19. I think this might be the jewel
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of the entire Psalm. In the multitude of my thoughts
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within me, Thy comforts delight my soul.
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This verse is a masterpiece, but to really get the juice out of
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it we need to do a word study on thoughts.
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The Hebrew word here is seraphim.
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And what does that root imply? It relates to boughs or branches
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of a tree. Like entangled branches.
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Exactly. Think of a thicket twisted and
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agitated by a highwind. The branches are rubbing against
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each other, snapping back and forth.
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It describes a mind that is crowded, confused, battling
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itself. It.
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Is the monkey mind. It is pure anxiety.
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What if I lose my job? What if the diagnosis is bad?
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What if the laws change? It is a multitude of perplexed
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reasonings fighting for attention.
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I think everyone listening can identify with that.
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It is the 3:00 AM branch tangling in your brain where you
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can't find a straight path. But look at the counterbalance
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in the second-half of the verse. Thy comforts delight my soul.
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Thy comforts. Not my comforts, not a stiff
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drink, not a distraction, not scrolling social media to numb
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out, not positive thinking. Those are human comforts.
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They are weak. Thy comforts refers to the
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comforts that come directly from God.
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They are the objective truths of who He is, the attributes of
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God, His sovereignty, His goodness, His power, the
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promises of the covenant, the person of Christ.
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These are solid rocks in the swamp of our anxiety.
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And the text says they delight the soul.
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The word delight is strong. It implies rapture.
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It implies high emotion. It isn't just that God soothes
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you or calms you down. It is that the Holy Spirit drops
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the truth into your mind that is so potent it actually creates
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joy in the middle of the crisis. It is a miracle.
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It really is. It is the balance of the
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Christian life, great anxiety matched by greater consolation.
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You can have the tangled branches and the delighted soul
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at the very same time. That is beautiful.
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It is a lifeline for anyone struggling with anxiety.
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But the Psalm doesn't end on a cloud of comfort.
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It comes back down to hard earth.
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Section 5 versus 20 through 23 returns to the political
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reality. This is the political theology
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section, and it asks A devastating question.
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Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee?
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The throne of iniquity. That is a heavy phrase it.
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Refers to a government or authority that is fundamentally
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unjust. And the answer obviously is no.
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God has no alliance with unjust authority.
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But wait a minute, doesn't Romans 13 say the powers that be
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are ordained of God? They are ordained by His
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Providence. Yes, He allows them to exist,
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but He is not in fellowship with them.
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He does not approve of their wickedness.
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It doesn't matter if they claim divine right, or if they were
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voted in by a landslide, or if they have the biggest army.
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If it's a throne of iniquity, God is against it.
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And verse 20 defines what makes a thorn iniquitous.
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It says which frameth mischief by a law.
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This is a crucial concept. Just because something is legal
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does not mean it is right. Mischief by a law.
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Yes, when robbery, violence or persecution is codified into the
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statute book. When the law itself becomes the
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weapon of the oppressor. Like the Nuremberg laws or the
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Fugitive Slave Act? Exactly or laws that sanction
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the killing of the unborn. There is a Latin phrase the
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commentators use here, Sumum juice, suma injuria.
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The higher the law, the greater the injustice.
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When you use the machinery of justice, the courts, the police,
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the legislature to commit injustice, that is the peak of
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wickedness. And from a Reform perspective,
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we have to stand on this. If a law violates God's law, it
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is wickedness, regardless of its parliamentary validity.
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God washes his hands of it. He does more than wash his
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hands. He prepares war against it.
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The text says these wicked rulers gather themselves
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together against the soul of the righteous and condemn the
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innocent blood. It describes a conspiracy, the
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popular party, the majority gathering to crush the innocent.
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It feels overwhelming. But verse 22 is the believer
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stance. The Lord is my defense, and my
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God is the rock of my refuge. We don't defend ourselves with
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the same weapons they use, We hide in the rock.
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And then comes the end of the wicked rulers in verse 23.
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He shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and she'll cut
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them off in their own wickedness.
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It is inevitable destruction. We talked about the pit earlier.
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This is where they finally fall in.
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There is a sense of poetic justice.
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Justice here. Bring upon them their own
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iniquity. Often evil is self-destructive.
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The mechanism of judgement is often their own policy blowing
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back on them. The trap they set for the
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righteous snaps shut on their own leg.
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Haman is hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai.
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The Psalm ends with a double affirmation.
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Yeah, the Lord our God shall cut them off.
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It is decisive. There is no ambiguity.
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Faith reads the present in the light of the future.
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The present looks like the wicked are winning.
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The future is that they are cut off.
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The believer stands on the future.
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So let's zoom out and look at the whole arc of this deep dive.
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We started with the cry for justice, O God to whom vengeance
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belongs. We realized that vengeance is
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actually just pure justice. Then we looked at the scientific
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proof of God's all seeing eye. The planted ear in the formed
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eye prove that God is not blind to our situation.
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We went into the school of the Rod where the blessed man is
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taught by the word finding rest while the pit is being dug.
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We found comfort in the multitude of thoughts, realizing
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that God's comforts can delight us even when our minds are
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totally. Tangled and finally we saw the
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certainty of God's victory over the throne of iniquity.
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It is a complete progression. It moves from panic to peace,
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from questioning God to resting in God.
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Now, before we sign off, we need to land this plane.
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We always like to leave you with one provocative thought,
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something to chew on until our next discussion.
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Here's what stands out to me. We have spent this whole time
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looking at God as the God of vengeance and the judge of the
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earth. We have been cheering for him to
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judge the wicked. Right, get the bad guys.
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We have established that he knows the thoughts of man, that
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they are vanity. He sees the internal engine.
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He sees everything. If that is true, if he knows
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your thoughts and my thoughts, and he sees every secret thing,
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how can any of us stand before him?
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That is the terrifying flip side of the argument.
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If he judges the wicked for their thoughts, what about us?
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I have had some brutish thoughts.
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Exactly. If God is the avenger of sin, we
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are all in trouble. We are all in the line of fire
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unless we have a mediator. The Psalm points to the need for
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a shield, a rock. For the Christian, that rock is
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Christ. He took the vengeance.
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He took the vengeance that belonged to us.
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Without him, Psalm 94 is just a threat.
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With him, it is a promise of deliverance.
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So for the listener right now, maybe you are feeling the
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chastening. Maybe things are hard.
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Ask yourself, are you just suffering or are you being
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taught? Are you in the school of
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affliction, learning from the law, or are you just in pain?
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The difference is the word of God.
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Open the book, let the Master teach you.
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That is the perfect place to end.
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Thank you for diving deep with us today.
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It has been a pleasure. We will catch you on the next
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deep dive.