How Excellent is Your Lovingkindness, O God! - Psalm 36

 

Psalm 36 A Psalm of David with Commentaries by Dennis Edwards

Psalm 36:1 The transgression of the wicked says within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.

The New International Version translates the first verse in the following manner, which makes it clearer to understand.

“I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Here we see the first sin of the wicked: they don’t have the fear of God “before their eyes.” They claim that He doesn’t exist. They start their thinking with themselves. “In the beginning ME,” is their secret thought, rather than, “In the beginning GOD.”

Rather than say, “The Lord He is God: it is He that has made us, and not we ourselves, Psalm 100:3, they claim we can’t be sure of a Creator. They believe that we are the result of a cosmic accident with no purpose or design. They have not God in their thinking.

King Solomon in his search for truth gave himself “to seek and search out by wisdom concerning things that are done under heaven.” He said, “I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.” He gave his heart to know pleasure, to drink wine, to build great construction works, to have many employees, to obtain silver and gold, to have musicians. He said, “Whatsoever my eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy,” Ecclesiastes 2:10a.

At the end of his search for the meaning and purpose of life, he wrote, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, and every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil,” Ecclesiastes 12:13-14.

But modern man has forgotten God. By accepting the theory of Evolution, he has found an intellectually satisfying reason to not believe. Today’s man believes that mankind has descended from a single-celled organism which formed in a warm pond millions of years ago. That’s today’s creation myth. Modern man has no room for God in his thought processes. The scripture tells us, that as a result, the non-believer becomes a fool. “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God,” Psalm 14:1. However, God claims that He has given ample evidence of His existence in nature and the world around us. Mankind is without excuse, Romans 1:20.

Psalm 36:2 For he (the wicked or unbeliever) flatters himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful.

Or it is in the New International Version, “In their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin.”

Their sin of pride keeps them from seeing the truth. The god of this world has blinded their minds so that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, cannot shine into their darkened and unbelieving hearts, 2 Corinthians 4:4. They have chosen darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil, and they do not want to be exposed, John 3:19-20.

Psalm 36:3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he has left off to be wise, and to do good.

If we don’t start with the right initial belief or assumption, we end up with a false conclusion. We need to follow truth where truth leads, but not deceive ourselves when truth knocks up against reality and disproves our wrong assumptions. When such happens, we should abandon those false ideas and search for others that do conform to reality.

Psalm 36:4 He devises mischief upon his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he abhors not evil.

If we embrace falsehood, and refuse to let reality correct us, we end up so deceived that we love evil. We end up calling evil good, and good evil, Isaiah 5:20. We end up “giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils,” and “having our conscience seared with a hot iron,” 1 Timothy 4:1-2.

The New Testament tells us that in the last days, “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,” 2 Timothy 3:13. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, without self-control, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, conceited, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God,” 2 Timothy 3:2-4. Though they have a form of godliness, they deny the power thereof: and from such, Apostle Paul advises, we should turn away, 2 Timothy 3:5.

Too much fellowship with unbelievers will cause us to fall away from the Lord.

“Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has he that believes with an infidel? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty,” 2 Corinthians 6:14-18.

The rest of the psalm speaks of the goodness of God.

Psalm 36:5-7 Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and Your faithfulness reaches unto the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep: O Lord, You preserve man and beast. How excellent is Your lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.

As a mother hen shelters her baby chicks beneath her wings, so God does shelter His children under the protecting wings of His presence. His wings may not always keep us from harm, but they transform all our life’s events into something good for our character and our development in becoming more like Jesus. God works all thing together for good, because we love Him.

Psalm 36: 8-9 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Your house; and You shall make them drink of the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life: in Your light shall we see light.

When we dwell with God in the heavenly city, that city will have no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. Out of the throne of God and of the Lamb will proceed a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, there shall be the tree of life, which will bare twelve manner of fruits, which will yield her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree will be for the healing of the nations of unbelievers outside the heavenly city, still in the process of being redeemed, Revelation 21:23, 22:1-2.

And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and we shall see His face. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever, Revelation 22:3-5. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things shall be passed away, Revelation 21:4.

Psalm 36:10-12 O continue Your lovingkindness unto them that know You; and Your righteousness to the upright in heart. Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me. There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.

We pray with David, let us not fall away in pride, but let your lovingkindness uphold us. May we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, Micah 6:8. For the workers of iniquity shall fall and “shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death,” Revelation 21:8b. “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city,” Revelation 22:14. Amen.

Revelation 22:12 “And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his works shall be.” “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life,” Revelation 2:10b.