Scripture Reference: Psalm 36
This psalm contrasts human wickedness at its worst and divine goodness at its best, between what people claim will make them happy and what God affirms will make us happy. People strive to achieve success with the expectation that accomplishments will bestow satisfaction or meaning to their lives.
Innumerable voices are clamoring to convey their message of what it takes to attain the life that excels. What kind of life is one that excels? I sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that God wouldn’t give us a desire that wasn’t attainable. He doesn’t play games with us. I firmly believe that if God implants a yearning in our hearts to be satisfied and to experience joy, then that very fact indicates that we can achieve it.
How can one however, find the truly satisfying, fulfilling life? I believe we can discover the answer in the three major divisions of this psalm.
1. The Futility of Sin
Please read Psalm 36:1-4 for the background to this section.
First, we will discuss how this psalm asserts that the life that excels views and acknowledges the futility of a sinful life.
Those who give themselves to the life-style of Satan do so with the expectation that they will somehow have meaning. The Bible makes it plain that when disobedience and rebellion toward God become one’s norm and pattern for life, then that person has given themselves, not to satisfaction but to futility. Wickedness and transgression make a person miss the opportunity to find meaning and purpose in life. It’s a fact that what one believes will determine what one does. Whatever your creed is (and we all have a creed of one sort or another) will determine how you act.
In the first four verses of our Psalm we see that sin has convinced the man spoken of to adopt a false creed, and he has pushed God out of his life. This is seen in a couple of ways; first, in his attitude:
“Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.”
His attitude is one of rebellion and arrogance toward God.
The phrase, “Transgression speaks to the wicked,” could be translated “the oracle of transgression,” and plainly means that transgression is his god. He worships evil and sin. The original Hebrew word for “transgression” is also the normal Hebrew word for rebellion, and therein lies the picture. In the heart of the believer, God is enshrined as his authority. To him, what God says becomes his obedient act and response. But these two verses describe a man who enthroned wickedness as his authority. Rebellion had the same place that the believer grants to God. He had become convinced that God was irrelevant to his life. He thought God was not going to catch him in his sin. “Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart” (Italics mine). The word “speaks” is a forceful word, and it is always employed in the Hebrew concerning the sayings of God. In the Old Testament where you read “so says the Lord,” that is the word in the original that is used here. There is a fixed contract in the believer’s mind, “so says the Lord.”
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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