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“God is a righteous Judge, And a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready.” -Ps. 7.11-12 Here is another scarcely considered portion of the Psalms, and one that you will not frequently hear expounded from the pulpit. It is scarcely considered because of it’s supposedly uncouth theological message, and we are suffering for the neglect of this and like passages. I have heard this portion of Scripture misemployed and abused by picketers who purport to be evangelizing, and men of a less-than-merciful disposition have quoted it while “foaming at the mouth” against various forms of immorality. Still, even though these verses may have been utilized in the wrong way over the years, that does not detract from their theological significance. The Psalmist is giving us a glimpse into his own revelation of God, and we need to be brought into his theological prayer and reflection. We know too little of the anger of God these days, and those “God hates gays” characters haven’t helped us come into a Scriptural understanding at all. But they are blatantly and obviously missing the mark of Biblical proclamation. What about the more subtle deception of a Church with a lop-sided Gospel; a people unwilling to consider that the God of compassion and grace is also the “God who has indignation every day”? We ought to reject the self-righteous and spiteful spirit of the ones who have misemployed these verses, but have we also rejected the spirit and revelation of the Psalmist in the process? Hear Spurgeon on this: He not only detests sin, but is angry with those who continue to indulge in it. We have no insensible and stolid God to deal with; he can be angry, nay, he is angry today and every day with the ungodly and impenitent sinner. The best day that ever dawns on a sinner brings a curse with it. Sinners may have many feast days, but no safe days. From the beginning of the year even to its ending, there is not an hour in which God’s oven is not hot, and burning in readiness for the wicked, who shall be as stubble. “If he turn not, he will whet his sword.” What blows are those which will be dealt by that long uplifted arm! God’s sword has been sharpening upon the revolving stone of our daily wickedness, and if we will not repent, it will speedily cut us in pieces. Turn or burn is the sinner’s only alternative. (The Treasury of David: An Original Exposition of the Book of Psalms, C.H. Spurgeon, Vol. 1; 1881, Funk & Wagnalls; p. 78) Our understanding and revelation of the love of God will ever and always be on the increase. The “height, depth, width and breadth” of His love can be grasped but it can’t measured. It is vast and all-encompassing, sweeping us up into heights of worship and adoration. Even so, His attributes never cancel one another out. He will always be loving and compassionate, and He will be angry with the impenitent sinner until he turns from his sin, and bows before the Throne of grace. Have we a consciousness of this? Do we view the man who rebels against the ways of the Lord in the same way that He Himself does? I’m not suggesting some kind of angry and mean attitude towards unbelievers. I’m asking simply this: Do we see them as under judgment and in a most ultimate need of mercy from on high? Do we jog along casually with the world as if it’s all fun and games, eat, drink, and be merry, and ‘to each his own’? If God Himself has indignation every day, we ought to be radically concerned for our own souls, and for the souls of those around us. Am I concerned for eternal reality, or am I living in some kind of spiritual fantasy? Lord, let us know You as You are, and not as our convenient and self-serving theologies would make You out to be. Let us see You in reality, and thus see men as You see them. Have mercy upon the Church Lord, and raise up true voices in the earth, to set You forth in power, to the Jew and to the “Greek.”

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