The Mammon-Apostates of Psalm 10

Psalm 9 calls for the Lord to rise up in judgment on the wicked nations, while the related Psalm 10 takes up a tone of lamentation and a continued call for judicial action – but in a more narrow context. The condemned self-idolatry of the nations plays out in a more immediate sense in the way the wicked (the rich and powerful) crush the poor and the weak.

This happens on an Israel vs. the world level but it also takes place within the 'land' (v.16) – meaning within the confines of the covenant. Psalm 10 in this respect echoes the many sections within prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah in which such people in the context of the covenant are reckoned as apostates. This imagery is replete throughout the Old Testament – those who swear falsely by My Name, and in the New Testament we are reminded of this when Christ overturns the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple and in the Mystery Babylon imagery in Revelation wherein the apostate Bride joins with the world and is no longer distinguishable from it.

Reading these passages it is difficult if not impossible to think of the contemporary context and the way in which the Church of our day has repeated the pattern and thrown in with the wicked, often strengthening their hands.

We see this of course within the context of the mainline or mainstream denominational bodies wherein they simply are iterations of the world's philosophy. They are the Sadducees of our day or reminiscent of those Jews who under Hellenistic rule capitulated to the Seleucid cultural programme and for all intents and purposes abandoned the distinctives of the Old Covenant in order to retain standing vis-à-vis the Greeks. The apostasy of the Northern Kingdom also comes to mind, an apostasy that begins at Dan and Bethel with the emulation of pagan worship and ends with the outright worship of Baal.

But there is another type of functional apostasy and it was one seen in Judah and condemned by the prophets of that kingdom. While the true religion is retained, it is functionally subsumed by the weed of riches and the worldliness it generates, a new idolatrous ethos which chokes faith and consumes it, and those who succumb to this mammonism pay lip service to God (swearing falsely by His Name) even while their lives demonstrate they are servants of another master – described in the Psalm as a lion. And like this lion, they too stalk their prey. It is no accident that while Christ is the Lion of Judah, His adversary – the Devil is also described as a lion – a roaring one. This is strikes at the heart of the real threat to God's people. The Bestial powers always represent a type of temporal threat but in every case the greatest threat and most destructive in spiritual terms is the subversive threat from within – when the apostates are in the land as it were, promoting worldliness under the guise of the true religion. The heathen are enemies of God but it is counterfeit Christianity (heresy and apostasy) that remains the greatest threat. This has always been the case.

In our day the counterfeits have erected a theology to justify their actions and their ethics which effectively turn Scripture on its head. I'm sure it was the case in Old Testament times as well even if we do not have a complete elaboration of what they did and said. But in passages such as Psalm 10, the aforementioned sections in Isaiah and the other prophets, we can put together a picture. Sometimes the prophets cut to the chase as it were and reveal the true motives and corrupted subconscious reasoning of these people but at times there are but hints as to how they justified their actions.

In verse 2 we read about how the wicked in his pride persecutes the poor and how he blesses the covetous (v.3) whom the Lord abhorreth. Again I would argue on the basis of verse 16 that this Psalm has switched from the focus of its close cousin Psalm 9, from the nations – to the land. This indictment is within the context of the covenant. Some would argue that this is in reference to the extant Canaanites or perhaps the Philistines – and thus the people of the land are off the hook as it were. But I don't think so. The shadow of the covenant and a tale of apostasy loom over this passage which so closely parallels what we read in the other prophetic denunciations of the rich crushing the poor. The references to God don't fit the context of heathen reasoning but of functional apostasy – an apostasy that reveals them to be heathen in the end, for that is how they should be reckoned, as they need to be cut off from the people of God.

Often the attitude or posture in reference to God not seeing or forgetting is not some kind of functional denial of omniscience but a reference to his judicial 'seeing' – in other words God doesn't 'see' their deeds in terms of holding them to account for them. Why? Because in their faulty reasoning the end justifies the means. Convinced that somehow they are in good standing with God or that in their twisting thinking they are serving the interest of Heaven, they are granted something akin to carte blanche. God's with us, and therefore the rules don't apply. It's antinomianism to the extreme driven by a false imperative (worldly power) that functionally overrides not just the literal commands of God but the larger spirit or ethos of which they are a part. These are those who are the antithesis of the spiritual poverty and meekness spoken of by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount.

God is not in all his thoughts (v.4) – this is part of their self-deception. There's another angle we can consider regarding the thought patterns of the wicked and what is the meaning of them thinking that God has forgotten (v.11). Is this something conscious, or rather descriptive of how this wicked man actually lives his life? It's merely a nuance of what was already stated, perhaps viewing the question from a slightly different angle. We are driven once more to read a passage like Isaiah 5 and the hints of Christ's words spoken to the Pharisees in the gospels concerning the vineyards (Matthew 21, Mark 12). Like the condemnations found in Amos 2, the portrayal of decadence in Amos 6, and the wicked exploitation described in Jeremiah 22, these are portraits of apostasy and so it is in Psalm 10. These are God's people acting like the heathen – God's name is on their lips but their hearts are far from him.

In the New Testament, we encounter a similar type of world-affirming and world-focused false teaching – which often is portrayed as exhibiting both a Judaizing tendency with its temptation to conceptualise God's Kingdom in terms of earthly power, conflated with a Hellenistic tendency which relies on philosophical inference and sleight-of-hand argumentation in order to re-frame and explain away the doctrines revealed by God through the apostles.

We are reminded of the false teachers in Philippi – their true god is in fact their belly (not merely a reference to food or the retention of kosher laws), they do not mind heavenly things, they do not seek first the Kingdom, seek things above, or set affection on things above, but on the Earth. These are not heathen, but those who have under the guise of Christianity have infiltrated the Church. Paul describes such men as deceived deceivers (2 Tim 3.13) – in other words they are sincere and believe that they serve God. This can reach an extreme as revealed in John 16.2. It's a sad story seen throughout Church history and one we will certainly face again.

Unwilling to take up the cross and live as pilgrims, these apostates say in v.6, I shall never be in adversity. In other words their values are akin to that of the Middle and Upper Classes and the great import they place on status and security. And certainly with this, one must consider the modern Evangelical culture of guns and the kind of fortress mentality that dominates everything from the ethos of the home being one's 'castle' to attitudes about law enforcement, borders, and foreign policy – points exacerbated and muddled by the functional confusion of America with the Kingdom of God. When pressed, these people will deny believing in these analogies but their pronoun usage and conflation belies their claims and reveals their true thinking. Their actions expose what is in their hearts, a point being made by the Psalmist.

There are many who profess the name of Christ that seemingly put on a different hat or visage once they enter the day-to-day grind of the business world. Their speech changes, although some will mask this by means of euphemism and polite substitutes. Their ethics change and in many cases the rules of the marketplace govern their thinking and many things are permissible and even encouraged that are (in Biblical terms) cases of deceit, exploitation, and fraud. Others hide behind the market or the law as they exploit their workers or those on the receiving end of their business stratagems. If it's legal it must be okay – though they certainly decry this in other instances and should know that such thinking is necessarily flawed. Legality has nothing to do with the moral rectitude or Biblical ethics.

Angling for position in the business or political world often leads to mischief and vanity – to manipulation, pride, and an attempt to degrade opponents. It's interesting how verse 7 puts cursing, fraud, and vanity together – one also thinks of the attitudes of 'patriots' and how they often approach and consider those in other countries or those who might get in their way. In all these cases we see riches and power are inseparably wed and with them the tendency (if inevitability) toward manipulation and self-aggrandizement. If you want to understand Christ's statement concerning mammon you would do well to consider not just Isaiah 5, Jeremiah 12, or the book of Amos – but consider Psalm 10.

The love of money is the root of all evil and how often have money and power been behind the murdering of the innocent (v.8) and the plots to destroy the poor and rob from the weak. Murder and business often go hand in hand and we must not turn a blind eye when poor people in some African, South American, or Asian village are forced out in order for a corporation or government to get resources, and lives are destroyed in the process – that too is murder in the eyes of God. It's just murder by other means, a killing in slow motion.

Individuals engage in this sort of behaviour as do corporations and nations. With money and power being paired as they are, we can also think of how debt is used and in other cases there are ways in which the rich erect systems and mechanisms that deny access to those they don't like.

Regardless of their lip service and outward piety, they are self-deceived and act as if God doesn't see (v.11), and sometimes this is accomplished by getting others to do the dirty work, by parceling out the work and breaking it up into components wherein no one person is able to see or reflect on the magnitude of what is happening. But there are those who know, the architects of the plan and they have a dozen ways to rationalise their actions. Once again some believe God doesn't 'see' in the sense of judicial reckoning. For them the gospel grants them the rights of the sociopath – they are above the rules, the rules they would impose on others.

The modern Church sides with the wicked, supports and strengthens the hands of evildoers and increasingly forms open alliances with such people. The end justifies the means and as such the apostate Church has struck a Faustian bargain and will reap a Faustian reward.

The Middle Class Church despises the poor, for there is nothing worthy of more condemnation to them than to be poor and lacking. Their actions, and their endless compromises demonstrate this. The poor are viewed as lazy and stupid even though in many cases the poor work much harder than they do and in some cases with far more integrity and decency.

A vigorous rejection of Middle Class values on the basis of integrity is either not understood or categorically rejected. Making a stand resulting in a less than Middle Class standing is anathematized by them because such a stand openly condemns them and all they are, and all they stand for. One thinks of both Christ and Paul. In the case of the apostle he too faced condemnation for his pilgrim-ish otherworldly life and his lack of concern about wealth and conformity to society's values about such things. He was bewildered to witness so many Christians fall prey to false teachers that exploited them and made merchandise of them. Nothing has changed or so it would seem.

The modern Western Church finds ways to justify its affluence and often does so with a defiant and often celebratory pride – glorying in their shame. Some try to downplay this by arguing that everyone in the developed world is rich. There are degrees of poverty to be sure. Not everyone who is poor is living in a hut and in many places that isn't an option anyway. It won't be tolerated. Just because someone does have a house or apartment, a car or a television does not make them rich. They may still struggle to survive and regardless of the fact that there is a spectrum to poverty – that doesn't let the rich and especially the apostate rich off the hook, nor should we allow this reality to justify the mammon-ethics they would seek to impose on Scripture or conflate with it. There's a lot of ground between the wealth of the Middle Class and destitution.

You cannot serve God and mammon and the Old Testament testifies to this. And in every case apostasy is wed to riches and power. To be blunt the Capitalist Church won't have it, they won't hear these words, and as such they have replaced Christ with an idol in their own image – a cross turned into an amalgam of sword and dollar sign. Psalm 10 testifies to the fact that this isn't new and the New Testament reminds us that these things in the Old Testament were written for our benefit. Why? Because they are applicable and will (in different form) characterize the Church Age. The context is different and so some wisdom is required in interpretation but the lessons are there to be learned and it's clear enough there are also dangers in misapplying and using the Old Covenant text. The Judaizers did this and their descendants are still with us as well.

Psalm 10 testifies to all of these things, and nicely harmonizes with what we find in the other prophets. And like the declarations of the holy seers and oracles the psalm anticipates life in the New Covenant – as it is exists in this present evil age. Millennia may pass, but men don't change and as such the same patterns are bound to reappear.