“Surely your wrath against men brings you praise, and the survivors of your wrath are restrained.” (Psalm 76:10)
Let’s begin this meditation by recalling 1 John 4:8, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Here we learn that God is love. It means that everything God does is expression of love because love is who God is rather than one of his many attributes; everything even his wrath!
Please note the present tense in the verse above. Generally, the present tense is used to describe actions that are factual or habitual. Here the psalmist speaks of what he knows to be truth about the wrath of God. He is making a kind of timeless statement. Don’t we say that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow?….
The expression “the wrath of God” is generally used in the Bible to mean an angry response on God’s part to human disobedience. Interestingly, the psalmist remarks or reminds us that God’s wrath against men brings Him praise, and the survivors thereof are restrained. This is significant because praise is related to what God does or has done to demonstrate his goodness (read psalms 44 to 150).
See, God’s response to human disobedience is always redemptive, hence it comes as last resort, that is, when everything else has failed. The fact that the psalmist notes that God’s wrath brings him praise (from men) implies that it has positive visible outcome(s). The most noteworthy/remarkable outcome is that the survivors of God’s wrath are restrained -Talking about the necessity of God’s wrath as also evidence of how much He cares that we don’t all perish on account of the wickedness of men on earth.
When Adam and Eve sinned the whole creation was adversely affected (Read Genesis 3:17ff; Romans 8:20-25), and, in the Ten Commandments we discover that the sin of the fathers visits/affects the children to the third and fourth generation, especially where there is no repentance (Exodus 20:4-6). The notion of individual sin affecting only the individual who commits it is not biblical. I believe this is an area we need God’s grace to help us rightly appreciate.
Accordingly, the doctrine that “what two individuals decide to do with their own lives is no one else’s concern, i.e business” is most likely from the pit of hell and not supported by historical facts at all! Everything in God’s creation, including human beings, is so interconnected that what a part does is bound to affect the whole as a system….We recall that God gave the Man dominion for a reason, but that is a topic for another time.
The psalmist writes, “Surely your wrath against men brings you praise, and the survivors of your wrath are restrained.” Clearly, the wrath of God aims at restraining the survivors for the survival or good of God’s creation as a whole. Hence, the wrath of God against men brings him praise.
One thing we need to always remember: God cares about his creation and life on earth more than most of us realise.
Finally, a word of wisdom from Psalm 32:9, “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
May God help us all!
