What About the Wicked?

Slave traders.

The following is Psalm 37 in my own words. This Psalm compares the wicked with the followers of God. I rarely ever write about the evil people of the world, but after copying out this Psalm, I felt I should share it. There is so much written about what the wicked do that is wrong, all through the Bible. It is to warn us not to be like them.


Notice the Psalm says nothing about burning in hell forever. No, it says the wicked will become like smoke. They will vanish and you won’t see them. Some people want to believe all will be saved. I understand that because I feel sorry for those who will be lost. But sometimes, when I read the news about sex traffickers, or watch a movie and there is a really awful, bad person in it, I want them to be dead. I want them to be dead because all they do is hurt people. Have you ever known someone like that? I have known a few, and when they died, I thought, “Well, they can’t hurt anyone any longer.”


Notice also the verse that says God will give you the desires of your heart. I believe this is true, if our desires are good. I asked myself what my greatest desire is and it is to see my children believe in God and be saved. I can see that now and am content. I thought back on what my greatest desire was as a child. It was to have children. Yes, God has given me my greatest desires.


Here is the Psalm:


“Do not worry and fret about evil people in this world. Do not be envious of those who do wrong and profit from their deeds. Like the grass and plants, they will soon die away. 


Trust in the Lord and do good. Live your life, and take pleasure in knowing the Lord; he will give you the desires of your heart. Give your life to the Lord and trust him. Your reward from him will shine like the rising sun.


Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret about the wicked who succeed in their plans and carry out their evil schemes.


Bridle your anger; do not fret, for it only leads to evil. For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit heaven.

In a little while, evil men will be no more; you may look for them, but they will  not be found. But the meek will inherit heaven and enjoy peace.


The wicked plot against good men. But the Lord knows their day is coming. They kill the poor and needy, but in the end, they will die by their own weapons.


It is better to have little in this world than have the wealth earned by wickedness. For the power of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord holds up the righteous.

The blameless spend their days under the Lord’s care; their inheritance will last forever. In times of disaster and famine, they will prosper.


But the wicked will perish; they borrow but do not repay; they will be consumed and will go up like smoke.


The great I Am, makes his children’s steps firm. They may stumble, but will not fall, for the Lord holds their hands in his.


I have been young and now I am old, but I have never seen God’s people forsaken by him. They are generous and freely give what they have; their children will also be a blessing to the world.


Oh, turn from evil and do good! Then you will live forever. For our good Father, I Am, loves those who are just and will never leave them.”

We Must Drink Our Cup.

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“The LORD is my inheritance and my cup; you support my lot.”   Psalm 16:5

When I read this, I wondered what inheritance and cup might mean in a spiritual sense. After looking up some Bible commentaries on Bible Hub, I could see how significant and wonderful these words are. 

An inheritance is of course, what you receive from your father or mother when they die. The Bible tells us God himself is our inheritance. Through the death of Jesus, we can become one with the trinity. As Jesus said, “I in you and you in me.” 
   

"The LORD is my portion (inheritance)," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in Him."   Lamentations 3:24

As for the cup, it is an important image strewn throughout the Bible. Jesus used it when talking about his coming death.

Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”   John 18:11

This expresses both the feelings which struggled in the Lord's breast during the Agony in the garden—aversion to the cup viewed in itself, but, in the light of the Father's will, perfect preparedness to drink it.   Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

A cup is also a symbol of the lives of the wicked.

For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.   Psalm 75:8

The reader will observe, that this expression, the portion of their cup, is a proverbial phrase in Scripture: God’s gifts and dispensations, whether pleasing or painful, consolatory or afflictive, especially the latter, being ordinarily expressed by a cup, poured out and given men to drink.   Benson 
Commentary

Jesus used the cup to represent the lives of the cruel priests of his time.

"Now then," said the Lord, "you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.   Matthew 23:26

The cup is, “…a synonym for “condition in life.”   Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

“The condition in life.” In other words, what happens when we are alive on earth; what illnesses we will contract, what family we are born in, how we look, our genetics, our strengths and weaknesses. Our “lot in life” so to speak. 

How many of us hate our “cup?” How many hate what happened to us in our childhood when we were weak and vulnerable? How many hate their jobs, their spouses or their struggles? How many resent the “cup?”

I started hating my life when I was in my mid-forties. I felt cursed, foolish, a joke, embarrassed by my mental illness and unloved by everyone. I was angry at God for my life; angry he let terrible things happen to me and others; angry at what I saw as his injustice. I was terrified what the future held for me.

I have written before how God, “drew me out of the mire and muck;” how he has filled my life with happiness, so I won’t repeat that here. What I want to tell you is how fast I can descend back into my old way of thinking and not trusting God about my “cup.”

I got up one morning this week, and as I stood in front of the microwave to heat my coffee, I couldn’t remember how to work it. I stared at the buttons and drew a blank. It finally came back to me and I heated the coffee, but now I was frightened. I’m 69, so I know it is possible for me to have dementia or alzhiemer’s disease. 

To me, I would rather die than have those two things happen to me. My sister and I have talked about this subject and we agreed how horrible it would be and how we don’t want people taking care of us, even family members. My sister said she would kill herself. Stupidly, I said the same thing, knowing God wouldn’t like it.

I talked with God that morning, pleading with him not to let me get that way. (My old style of praying.) Instead of leaving it with him, I began to think of ways to handle this, none of them good. I knew what I should do. Accept whatever came into my life. It took awhile. Then I told God I would accept anything that happened in the future. If it happened, then fine. Maybe he could use me even in that mental condition. Trust is the real issue. Do I trust God? I want to, and I pray I will for the rest of my life on this crazy planet. There is a good reason Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow.

Here are some more verses on the “cup” we are to drink. We have Jesus as our example on accepting the cup of our life.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.   Psalm 23:5

I will lift the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.  Psalm 116:13

Discontent Leads to All Sins.

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I am writing on the book, “The Art of Divine Contentment,” by Thomas Watson. I’ve learned a lot about myself in this book and how I have let discontent sometimes rule my life.

Mr. Watson writes that the first sin in the universe came from discontent. Lucifer and his angel friends became discontented with their stations.

“And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—“ Jude 6

Lucifer (Satan) was quite dissatisfied with his place in heaven. His discontent turned into rebellion against God – though God had done nothing to him.

“How you have fallen from heaven,

morning star, son of the dawn! (Lucifer)

You have been cast down to the earth,

you who once laid low the nations!

You said in your heart,

“I will ascend to the heavens;

I will raise my throne

above the stars of God;

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,

on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.”

But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,

to the depths of the pit.”  Isaiah 14:12-15

When Satan met Eve in the garden, he told her God was withholding a wonderful thing from her, the knowledge of good and evil. He said, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Eve must have felt some discontent in not having the same knowledge as God. She must have wanted what God had and decided to get it. So, she believed God was a liar and sinned against him.

In his book, Watson says that discontentment leads to every other sin. Every single one!

I thought about myself. I thought about the years I had been so depressed, suicidal and lonely. Was that because of discontentment? Yes, it was. I could see it clearly. I was discontented with my past, with my childhood all the way through adulthood.

I was angry I had a mental illness, that I wasn’t like other people, that I couldn’t work without having a breakdown, that my husband and I didn’t have what other people had because their wives worked and they had extra money. I was not content with this life God had given me. I thought I had suffered too much. That it wasn’t fair, that God wasn’t fair.

Yes, I was the epitome of discontent. I was its poster child. I was no better than Eve, or heaven-forbid, Satan himself. Whoa. Scary.

So, this week, I had been feeling down and upset and didn’t realize why. I asked myself, “Are you discontented about something?”  Yes, I was. I didn’t like it that my mom was in a nursing home instead of with me. I felt terribly sorry for her that her memory was bad now. She couldn’t read, watch TV or walk any longer.

Mom had told me she had wanted to die, but she didn’t die. She told me she hates being in a home. She told me she is angry, helpless and hopeless. I felt sick when she said these things. I don’t want this kind of empty life for her either.

But, during this, I did remember how when I trust God I always find there is a very good reason for everything that happens. I’ve been trying to give all my feelings about Mom to him. He has been helping me a lot. But I need to do it every day, or the discontent will creep up on me and I’ll be depressed and angry too.

I believe Mr. Watson is right. All sins do come from discontentment. Now that I know this, I will talk with God about it, pray about it and because God is my Savior and partner, I believe I will gain the victory over my discontentment.