The War Within

Psalm 2

 

Are you the kind of driver that when you pass a police car on the road you look in the mirror to see if he whips around and turns his lights on? I don’t know if it’s a guilty conscience or what, but I do that. Maybe it’s because there are consequences for breaking the law and I/we don’t like consequences.

 

We also don’t like to think of God as a judge. We prefer to think of Him as being a loving, forgiving and understanding Father who takes us in His arms and comforts us. But Psalm 2 is very clear as it presents God as a judge of those who don’t obey the law,

who rebel against Him and who prefer to go their own way.

 

^4 “But God in heaven merely laughs! He is amused by all their puny plans. ⁵ And then in fierce fury he rebukes them and fills them with fear.            TLB

 

And again it is written: ⁸ “Only ask and I will give you all the nations of the world. ⁹ Rule them with an iron rod; smash them like clay pots!”               TLB

 

The worst part of God being a judge is that we deserve to be judged. Isn’t our natural inclination exactly what the psalmist wrote about? Don’t Paul’s words in Romans 7 apply to us as well?

 

^21 “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with

me.²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” NIV

 

There is a war within us that we battle every day. And because of our sin, because of this war with us, someone had to pay. God the judge had to judge. Judgement was required.

 

Thankfully, Christ paid the price for our sins. Indeed, as Paul wrote, ^25 “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”