“Break the arms of these wicked, evil people! Go after them until the last one is destroyed. The Lord is king forever and ever! The godless nations will vanish from the land. Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.”
Psalm 10:15-18 NLT
In the middle of another rant about wicked people and what the Psalmist would like God to do to them, we read, “The Lord is king forever and ever”. It is important that in the middle of our frustrations about God’s apparent lack of action with the evil around us, that we don’t lose our perspective. In the end, it’s not about us, or the apparent injustice we see in our nations and societies. We need to look up and see the Lord. In the time of a national crisis, Isaiah looked up. King Uzziah had just died, bringing a fear of political instability to Judah after a long reign of 52 years. Uzziah was one of the good kings and Isaiah, fearful of what the days ahead would bring, went to the Temple and there we read, “It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple” (Isaiah 6:1). Isaiah looked up beyond the circumstances around him, and, if we read on in Isaiah 6, we find that his encounter with the Lord transformed his life and ministry.
We pilgrims yearn for the King to return and bring peace and His Kingdom to this war-torn world. We know that the Lord is King. We know that He is coming back to this world again, although we don’t know when. We know that He is the forever King, present since before the world was created. But instead of looking around at the “wicked evil people” as the Psalmist did, we need to look up and see the Lord. Isaiah’s encounter with the Lord in the Temple changed him for the rest of his life. He wrote, “Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies”” (Isaiah 6:5). The Lord asked Isaiah, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” and his reply was, “Here I am. Send me”” (Isaiah 6:8). Instead of wallowing in fear and misery, paralysed through the potential instability of his nation, Isaiah became a messenger for the Lord to his people.
There is something significant about having a forever King. We often forget that, although we are living in this world, with all of its sin and evil, we are in all reality citizens of another world, the Kingdom of God. There the Lord is King forever. No evil. No wars and strife. And it is there we run to when we are in danger of being overwhelmed by the worldly events around us. It might be helpful if we stand up and say to ourselves something like “I choose today to step into the kingdom where the Lord is King” and then take a step forwards, looking up as we do. We never know, but we might, like Isaiah, see a vision of the Lord, “high and lifted up”. Where is our faith because with the Lord anything might happen?
When we look up, we find an opportunity to see what the wicked in this world look like to God. When we look up we also find ourselves looking forward to the time when God will bring justice to correct all the injustices that have ever gone unpunished. And when we look up, we see the King and our hearts melt in the warmth of His gaze, flowing with love and compassion. There is no better place to be than in the presence of our forever King.
Father God, please forgive us for our lack of vision and understanding. You are our forever King and we praise and worship You today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 