rebels in rubble

 

The righteous shall see and fear,

and shall laugh at him, saying,

“See the man who would not make

God his refuge,

but trusted in the abundance of his riches

and sought refuge in his own destruction!”

Psalm 52:6-7

All the ways that human souls seek solace and strength outside of God will come to ruin. This is because all our sinful efforts at doing good or caring for ourselves all fall short of the glory of a powerful, holy God. Those alternate means of self righteousness or attempts at self satisfying happiness seem to promise us much, but in the end they let us down. It's like trying to make a bomb shelter out of the ruins of a previous bombing. It can be attempted but it will not stand. You can't hide from destruction in the ruins of your previous devastation.

Those who trust God have three responses to this sad show of human endeavor that seeks to trust anything other than God. First we see it. And that is no casual observation. We see the difference. We know God and we know life without God and we thrive in seeking the Lord. We then easily discern the significance of the failure to seek Him. And so we are spiritually aware of what it means to seek refuge outside of God and it drives us to seek the Lord even more.

The second response comes from the seriousness with which we seek God after we see this. We fear when we seen others insisting on sheltering in the rubble of sin's destruction. We fear for them. We fear for our own souls because we can easily revert to such fruitless spiritual failure. And in our fear, we reach out to the lost, begging them to cease their own efforts at refuge in ruin and to come to the Lord! It is the fear of the Lord that calls us to persuade others to come to the safety, salvation, and security of the love of God in Christ known only in the gospel.

The third response described here is laughter. When the wicked person persists in their attempt at evading destruction in the ruined rubble, it is our final response. This is not ridicule being talked about here. It is a recognition of irony. And when hard hearts will not repent, it is the response of the righteous to be like God Who sits in the heavens and laughs, having rebellious sinners in derision for their useless wanton rebellion (see Psalm 2 for how that looks).