Psalms 68:1-3 (ESV)
God Shall Scatter His Enemies
TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID. A SONG.
God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who hate him shall flee before him!
As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away;
as wax melts before fire,
so the wicked shall perish before God!
But the righteous shall be glad;
they shall exult before God;
they shall be jubilant with joy!
The contrast in the above opening lines of this psalm could not be more pronounced. God’s enemies will be “scattered.” The enemies of God will “flee.” They will be driven out. They will melt. They will perish. That is the lot of those who reject the truth of God’s Word and the plan of His heart.
“But the righteous!” Those words alone bring great solace to the soul. If we only heard those words, it would be enough. It is a contrast with the previous words about the wicked. “But the righteous” means that there is something different for us. There is something totally separate from the ways and the plights of those who reject God. God promises, in the above passage, that the righteous will be “glad.” The Hebrew word here is used 145 times in the Old Testament and it is often translated, “rejoice.” Whereas the wicked have nothing but grief, pain and suffering before them, the righteous will be rejoicing in God. But not just regular rejoicing. The passage above states that the righteous will be “jubilant with joy.” In the Hebrew it means will be full of “joy with joy.”
Make no mistake. Those that put their trust in God will not be the same as those who don’t. The contrast is profound. God makes it plan that those who reject Him will be, also, rejected. Those who trust Him will be filled with everlasting joy. That is the story of the Gospel. Jesus bleed and died and rose again to give us this life of abundant and powerful joy. Note Jesus’ own words:
John 10:10 (ESV)
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
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