Don’t Make God Laugh

Surely the wrath of man shall praise You; the remnant of wrath You will put on like a belt. -- Psalm 76:10

The psalmist is talking about God’s judgment and His great power. He asks, “Who can stand before You when once Your anger is roused?”(v.7) That God is able to bring the plans of man to naught goes almost without saying. He can bring peace, cause conflicts to cease, and render the mighty powerless.

We live in a world where anger is constantly expressed. We can watch the evening news and see people protesting and shouting. We see people doing everything imaginable to get their way. We hear of assaults, attacks, and murders. We see property destroyed. We see thieves and vandals running amok. Many people who aren’t expressing anger are depressed – which means they simply lack the energy and enthusiasm to be enraged. How is it that the wrath of man can bring glory to God? It seems to be a contradiction. Man’s capacity for malcontent, for greed, envy, and violence seems limitless. Should we not fear the wrath of man? Should we not try to appease the protesters and those who demand their way like spoiled children?

First, God has put a limit on the power of humanity to do evil. We sometimes find this hard to believe. Yet it is only God who is wise enough, good enough, and powerful enough to set the boundaries. Man cannot, as Matthew Henry says, permit sin because “they cannot check it when they will”. When the wrath of man hits its limit, it is a testimony of God’s strength and grace. Man’s rage is restrained and thrown back upon itself as the waves of the sea. As Rick says: The black rocks of the shoreline support the shoreline and continue underneath the land … traveling … back from the sea and become gradually lost in the earth. It is the rocks that keep the sea from the land…. Humanity’s most outrageous efforts eventually break upon the Solid Rock.

Man rages against God and God’s will. The world system mocks the truth of the Bible, dismisses the infallibility of the Word, and enthrones itself as the only acceptable authority. Science does not claim to be infallible in all its pronouncements, but it does claim a sort of inevitable infallibility in its method. The world tends to forget that, even if man had a perfect methodology, it would only be as good as the flawed humans wielding it. God, in His complete and comprehensive understanding, often allows man to run his course, despite the suffering it may cause, even to the innocent. The Lord is able to comfort and deliver His people who refuse to hope in material and biological life alone but place their hope in Christ and His life that is eternal.

Men are building a global kingdom with no room for Christianity, no room for God. Many Christians are feeling the pressure of this new and, so far, cold war without realizing the source of it. We think, because the world is becoming more “enlightened” and “tolerant”, we are past our days of being thrown to the lions. Yet the world rejects Christ, as it always has, as it must. The world system is threatened by Christ – always has been, always will be. The kingdoms of man are necessarily built upon a foundation of fear, lies, and deception. People are manipulated and enslaved by the system. If the light of truth were allowed to shine into the current system’s fog of financial machinations and debt it would be dispersed and collapse within days.

I will not say that the situation will not get worse. I will not say that man will not succeed to some degree. I will not say that the wrath of man will not fall upon God’s people and that many of us -- even, perhaps, some of us alive today, will not be delivered through persecution rather than from it. But, I say, we will be delivered. The wrath of man will praise God when the kingdoms of this world again crumble and become dust in the wind.

You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. -- Daniel 2:31-35 (emphasis added)