To the Chief Musician. Set to “Do Not Destroy.”[a] A Michtam of David.
1 Do you indeed speak righteousness, you silent ones?
Do you judge uprightly, you sons of men?
2 No, in heart you work wickedness;
You weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb;
They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent;
They are like the deaf cobra that stops its ear,
5 Which will not heed the voice of charmers,
Charming ever so skillfully.
6 Break their teeth in their mouth, O God!
Break out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!
7 Let them flow away as waters which run continually;
When he bends his bow,
Let his arrows be as if cut in pieces.
8 Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes,
Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
9 Before your pots can feel the burning thorns,
He shall take them away as with a whirlwind,
As in His living and burning wrath.
10 The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,
11 So that men will say,
“Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
Surely He is God who judges in the earth.”
I see this Psalm as discussing sin nature. Upon first read, it just sounds so harsh and cruel, maybe in a sense how we can be toward friends or maybe others around us who are living a fallen life.
But as I read it more, it makes me sad for those who are lost, consumed in their sin.
And that is the way we should feel about it. We should want nothing more but to help those to find Christ and to help the prodigals to find their way back to their Father.
The verse that really spoke to me, is verse 8...
"Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes"
I may be off on my assessment, but I took it as how when we are consumed in sinful ways, when we are focused on our own pleasures, no matter how they hurt others.....when we are doing what we feel in our hearts is wrong, yet we do it anyway, because at the time it's fun or what not, in a way, we lose a piece of ourselves each time. Our faith, our fruit, our relationship with God, our joy, it all begins to melt away.
I have been there before, so wrapped up in the world, that I didn't realize how much of myself I was leaving behind at each turn. I was becoming someone else. And it's so easy to have it happen.
We need to keep a hold on our hearts to make sure they are focused on what really matters. We need to keep a hold on our tongues, to make sure they are speaking good, not evil. We need to keep a hold on our hands, to make sure they are in worship to God, not in worship to the world.
Don't let yourself melt away.
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