The Mind of the Wicked | Psalm 10:2–6
2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue
the poor;
let them be
caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires
of his soul,
and the one
greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked
does not seek him;
all his
thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5 His ways prosper at all times;
your
judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all
his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be
moved;
throughout
all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
Depravity twists the desires and inclinations of the human
heart. A younger person, though still a
sinner, might be more sympathetic to the plight of others, but training in unrighteousness
warps and hardens him to the poor and afflicted. All are born in sin, but the wicked engage in
planned rebellion against God, even denying His existence. In these five verses, we get insight into his
mind, and the next five, we’ll see the demonstration of his ways.
The wicked serves his
base desires. His mind arises from his
sin nature, but he’s dedicated to crafting iniquity. He ensnares the poor and afflicted, prompting
God’s people to pray for these unrighteous plans to be reversed (cf. 9:15–16). He does this because he offers “praises” to his
base desires (“praise” and “boast” come from the same word in Hebrew, halal).
As Philippians 3:18–19 says, the god of the “enemies of the cross of
Christ… is their belly.” Whether his desire is more sex, money, or power,
he’ll use whoever to feed his lust.
The wicked denies God
in his thinking. His pride rises,
leaving unconcealed smugness on his face.
The spurning of God in v. 3 turns to a denial of God’s reality in v. 4. Even so, his thinking is constantly directed to
the task of suppressing the truth about God in unrighteousness (cf. Rm
1:18–20). That gives way to the next
item on this list.
The wicked imagines
his own world. This is where the “futile
thinking” of Romans 1:21 enters the scene.
The wicked prospers from a worldly perspective only while God’s workings
are hidden to him. In truth, he doesn’t
understand the things of God because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor
2:14). Still, he scoffs at the idea of any enemy gaining an upper hand, or that
he will ever be in adversity! His foolishly arrogant soul may be required at
any moment (cf. Lk 12:16–21), and God will “call his wickedness to account”
until He finds none (Ps 10:15).
