How does God show his sovereignty over the wicked?
Psalm 11:4
What a comfort are these wonderful words! The absolute sovereignty of God is the single most comforting doctrine to God’s children who suffer persecution or difficulty at the hands of evil people. In verse 2, it says, “The wicked bend their bows to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart.” The unseen “friend” giving advice in verse 1 counsels “Flee!!… Run for the hills! Save yourself from these wicked foes!” But David trusts in the unshakeable fact of God’s sovereignty over all people, even over those who seem to have complete ascendency at the moment, and who are the least submissive to his rule.
Verse 4 says that God is watching, examining, observing the situation. Though the wicked man may say, “God sees nothing; he does not notice,” the truth is quite the opposite. The wicked say such things because it seems God does nothing at all about their evil deeds. Psalm 50 alludes to this phenomenon of God’s silence: “These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you” (Psalm 50:21). But that Psalm testifies to the certainty of a future time in which God will break his patient silence: “Our God comes, and will not be silent; a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages” (50:3), and, “…I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face” (50:21).
“In the depths of his being God has an implacable hatred for those who hunt down his children to do them harm.”
Here in Psalm 11, God shows the depth of his passionate hatred of evil. Verse 5 says that God’s “soul hates” these evildoers. This means that, in the depths of his being God has an implacable hatred for those who hunt down his children to do them harm. Each of their acts of violence stores up fiery wrath against them for the Day of Judgment, when, according to verse 6, he will,“rain fiery coals and burning sulfur.” God’s hatred of the wicked is well-established and powerful. He will not allow his name of his people to be trampled on forever. Thus, according to this passage, God does not love everyone, not in the way people think. Of course, God sends,“rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45), and is loving to his enemies in this regard. And of course, God saved the persecutor Paul as a trophy of his grace.
No persecutor is beyond the grace of God. But those who are not his chosen ones, who will never repent and obey him, who will not love his children and seek their welfare, those wicked persecutors his soul hates – he finds no pleasure in them. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and many other persecutors can testify by personal experience that their moment of power was all too short for them to escape the truth of Psalm 11. Because God is ruling on his heavenly throne, he will soon bring an end to their wicked career – no matter how powerful they may seem at the moment. In that day, all the righteous trust and rejoice.
