Tag: God’s Purpose for His Wrath - Psalm 63-65

Psalms 64:7-9

But God shoots his arrow at them;

they are wounded suddenly.

They are brought to ruin, with their own tongues turned against them;

all who see them will wag their heads.

Then all mankind fears;

they tell what God has brought about

and ponder what he has done.

Tag:  God’s Purpose for His Wrath: Get Man’s Attention

In Psalm 64 we have David’s “complaint” to God about those who are seeking his destruction.  Note the first verse of the chapter:

Psalms 64:1

Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint;

preserve my life from dread of the enemy.

David is in a tight spot.  He is really having a struggle with the wickedness of those around him always wanting his destruction.  In the early verses of the Psalm he points out just how wicked the wicked and craft they really are:

Psalms 64:5

They hold fast to their evil purpose;

they talk of laying snares secretly,

thinking, “Who can see them?”

They have an “evil purpose” in their hearts.   David, however, has confidence.  Not in himself, but in the acts and kindness of God.  In the above verses he boasts that God WILL destroy the wicked.  God will “shoot His arrows at them.”  We have no idea what that means, but, that God is accurate in His aim and deadly in His shot.   For what end?   Here is the key to understand how God’s justice demonstrates His love:

Psalms 64:9

Then all mankind fears;

they tell what God has brought about

and ponder what he has done.

We don’t always know about God until He has to rescue us from danger.  We can go along in life and not even realize we are being sucked into the vortex of the wicked.   But, God is always there, for His people, to draw them out of the traps of the enemy.  We have to but boast in this confidence and believe, as David, by faith, that God will deliver us.  The reason He will deliver us is not because we deserve something.  The reason He will deliver us is because He wants mankind to know of Him and to “ponder what He has done.”   God wants us to “ponder” Him. It is when we fail to “ponder” HIM that we fall into the trap that David was in as he wrote this Psalm.  He was pondering the success and the pain of the wicked.  God breaks through and saves him so that David, and others, will ponder God.  We are better off pondering God than pondering the actions of the wicked.