Thugs, Thieves and the Last Laugh (Psalm 37 #2)

Yes, the circumstances of the righteous in Psalm 37:1-40 still exist today. Wrongdoers have power and they use it for agendas dripping with evil. Driven by a lust for self, power, money, sex (yes it can be proven that sex of an immoral nature is the real motive behind various contemporary social, political, and even scientific views of our times), and a raging enmity against God (Psalm 37:20), they scheme against God and godliness everyday of their lives.

And often they prosper in their scheming ways (Psalm 37:7). I don't know about you, but it's hard to avoid the impression that political thugs and thieves are sitting in the same dark secret rooms where they've hatched their evil plots, now lighting up a victory cigar while smirking about how they've pulled another fast one on the peons below.

Evil men tend to be smug. In the preceding Psalm we see that the wicked has "no fear of God...[and]flatters himself...that his iniquity cannot be found out...[and] plots trouble while on his bed" (Psalm 36:1-4). This smug scorn of God, God's Law, and God's people continues prevalent today at every level of human society, right up into the halls of the White House, and across the world.

The world lives in open mockery of God, Truth, and Righteousness.

But God always has the last laugh. Indeed, "the Lord laughs at the wicked" (Psalm 37:13). When the kings of the earth "set themselves...and take counsel together against the Lord...saying, 'Let us break their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us,'" (Psalm 2:1-3) this is what happens: "He that sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision" (Psalm 2:4).

The Lord sits enthroned in heaven in open mockery of the thuggery of man. When man defies God's kingdom and seeks to establish one of his own, God simply laughs. He laughs a derisive, scornful, mocking, sovereign last laugh in return.

God laughs at them the way they laugh at us. The only difference is: God is holy and righteous in doing so, while they are simply fools.

And doomed fools at that. A major emphasis of Psalm 37 is the ultimate end of the unrepentant wicked (see Psalm 37:2, 9, 10, 15, 17, 20, 28, 35, 36, 38). They will be cut off and broken. They will perish, fade like grass in a blazing sun, vanish like smoke, simply "be no more".

So what does this mean? It means that when the wicked laughs at God, it leaves God unfazed and unchanged. But when God laughs at the wicked, it leaves the wicked in ruin and rubble.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, please know this: the unrepentant wicked will not long endure. If they insist on laughing at God He will soon have the last laugh. Their machinations and scheming prosperity simply will not last. In the end God wins.

In the shadow of this truth let us keep two things in mind:

1. First, let us pray for the wicked that they would repent before the laugh of God destroys them. So long as they have breath, there is opportunity for them to repent and come to Christ. Pray that God--in His just wrath--will remember mercy. Let us strive that when we think of the wicked fool who laughs at God we will be moved to compassion. For in man's folly is his ruin, unless he humbles himself before heaven's throne.
2. Second, if the wicked refuse to repent, let us simply never lose sight of this fact: our God is in the heavens deriding the arrogance of man. His sovereign plan is advancing toward the Day when the whole universe will hear the righteous, booming, blasting, consuming last laugh of God.

In the end there will be only one King standing.