Don’t you hate it when it feels like evil-doers are getting over? When wicked people are living the high life while you suffer? I look around and see workaholics who ignore their family getting raises and promotions while hard-working, but family first, workers get left behind. I see those unfit for parenthood littering the earth with offspring they can’t provide for while friends spend countless months and countless dollars to adopt a child who gets so terribly ill they can’t even bring her back from Ethiopia. Is there a more God-like action in all the world than adoption (see Rom. 8 on our adoption into God’s family)? I see sick pagans healed while 3-year old Joseph has spent much of his life unsuccessfully battling leukemia. And as I look around and see these things, my heart breaks and I am left asking, “Why God? Where’s the hope? Where’s the justice?”

My only hope is that same hope of the psalmist…that God is a loving, present King. As verse 4 declares, “The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord is on His heavenly throne.” He is not a passive observer to history. Rather, He sees the deeds of both the righteous and the wicked and He will bring justice. “On the wicked He will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur; a scorching wind will be their lot” (vs 6). The wicked will not go unpunished. Their kingdom is of this world and they are seeking to be kings in it. But their evil deeds will not go unpunished. Our investment is not in this earth, but in the one to come. Their it is we who will enjoy forever the blessings of God’s right hand and the beauty of beholding God’s face.

When it seems like all hope is lost and injustice will win the day as the wicked prevail, we hold to verse 7, “For the Lord is righteous, He loves justice; upright men will see His face.” Through hardship and sickness and pain in this life we guarantee our inheritance in God’s presence in the life to come.

Don’t you hate it when it feels like evil-doers are getting over? When wicked people are living the high life while you suffer? I look around and see workaholics who ignore their family getting raises and promotions while hard-working, but family first, workers get left behind. I see those unfit for parenthood littering the earth with offspring they can’t provide for while friends spend countless months and countless dollars to adopt a child who gets so terribly ill they can’t even bring her back from Ethiopia. Is there a more God-like action in all the world than adoption (see Rom. 8 on our adoption into God’s family)? I see sick pagans healed while 3-year old Joseph has spent much of his life unsuccessfully battling leukemia. And as I look around and see these things, my heart breaks and I am left asking, “Why God? Where’s the hope? Where’s the justice?”

My only hope is that same hope of the psalmist…that God is a loving, present King. As verse 4 declares, “The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord is on His heavenly throne.” He is not a passive observer to history. Rather, He sees the deeds of both the righteous and the wicked and He will bring justice. “On the wicked He will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur; a scorching wind will be their lot” (vs 6). The wicked will not go unpunished. Their kingdom is of this world and they are seeking to be kings in it. But their evil deeds will not go unpunished. Our investment is not in this earth, but in the one to come. Their it is we who will enjoy forever the blessings of God’s right hand and the beauty of beholding God’s face.

When it seems like all hope is lost and injustice will win the day as the wicked prevail, we hold to verse 7, “For the Lord is righteous, He loves justice; upright men will see His face.” Through hardship and sickness and pain in this life we guarantee our inheritance in God’s presence in the life to come.

Sometimes God takes longer to act than we wish he did. We want the wicked punished immediately. We cry out to go along with the psalmist, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” In other words, “God, can’t you see what’s going on here? The wicked are prevailing while the innocent are being murdered. What are you waiting for?”

Yet listen to the hopeful words that close the psalm. “The Lord is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.” When the OT speaks of God hearing, it doesn’t merely mean that it reached his ears, but that he intends to respond affirmatively to the request. So when God hears the cries of the fatherless and the oppressed, he intends to bring salvation and hope. We do often wish he would act faster. That he would work on our timeline, not his own. He is the King. He will reign for ever and ever. He will judge the wicked and bring peace to the afflicted. He will act on behalf of the innocent. He is the King.