When God shows up on the scene, the people run. Those who know Him run to him, celebrating and rejoicing. Those who hate him flee the other direction. ‘So let God arise, let his enemies be scattered’ as the song goes.
When do you sing these kinds of songs? When the Lord has given you a great deliverance over certain death.
In the West I think for the most part we have been detached from a lot of such things. War and battles are things that happen in far away lands and not the land we live in. Yet. Hopefully it will stay that way.
But when a nation is captured and there has been much blood-shed, deliverance is extraordinary and celebrated mightily. And this is the God we read about in Ps 68. The God who delivers from enemies, but also the God who cares for the fatherless, the widow, the prisoner and the homeless. He is the God who gives rain in the desert. And that is a God to rejoice in.
“May the Lord be praised! Day after day He bears our burdens; God is our salvation. Our God is a God of salvation, and escape from death belongs to the Lord God” (Ps 68:19-20).
And then like several other psalms, this nice wonderful psalm turns gory, at least by our standards:
- “God crushes the heads of His enemies, the hairy head of one who goes on in his guilty acts” (Ps 68:21)
- “I will bring them back…so that your foot may wade in blood and your dogs tongues may have their share from their enemies” (Ps 68:22-23)
Uh…what?
From our clean and sanitized perspective that doesn’t have to face battle and war at close proximity en masse, this is nasty. But from a people that have had to wade through bodies and blood, it is a statement of victory and deliverance. Whether it is figurative or literal, those who do evil will have to pay for it with their blood.
Then the psalm returns to celebration of deliverance, victory over enemies and the power of God over the power of those who do evil on the earth.
In the big picture there is celebration that God mightily delivered them from their enemies. That He is powerful and mighty. And that when God shows up, evil must flee.
In many ways this is an encouraging word. Evil right now is running wild and I don’t think we have even seen hardly the beginning of what will unfold upon the earth. But God is not distant. There is a day when he will show up. And when he does, those who do evil will run in fear and hate. And those who love God will rejoice with great rejoicing.
