The Audacity of Faith and the Arrogance of Fools Text: Psalm 10:12-13
Introduction: The Great Stare Down
We live in a world that is engaged in a great cosmic stare down. On the one side, you have the afflicted, the humble, the saints of God, who look up to heaven, sometimes through tears, and cry out for justice. On the other side, you have the wicked, the proud, the practical atheist, who looks at that same silent heaven, smirks, and concludes that nobody is home. This is the fundamental conflict of all human history, and it is distilled for us with potent clarity in these two verses from Psalm 10.
The modern secular man prides himself on his supposed realism. He sees the world as it is, a place where power makes right, where the strong devour the weak, and where the only consequences are the ones you get caught for. He believes that the universe is a closed system, a great cosmic machine with no mechanic, and certainly no final audit. What he doesn't realize is that his "realism" is nothing more than the ancient, stale, and breathtakingly arrogant assumption of the fool described in this Psalm. His worldview is not a new discovery; it is a very old and very stupid rebellion.
Into this arrogance, the psalmist hurls a prayer. And we must understand what kind of prayer this is. This is not a timid, questioning, "O God, if you're there..." sort of prayer. This is a bold, demanding, covenantal summons. This is the prayer of a man who knows God's character, knows God's promises, and is calling upon God to act like Himself. It is the audacity of faith confronting the arrogance of fools. This is not just a poem; it is a battleground. And the central question is this: who is right about the nature of reality? The man who believes God will act, or the man who believes he can get away with it?
The Text
Arise, O Yahweh; O God, lift up Your hand.
Do not forget the afflicted.
Why has the wicked spurned God?
He has said in his heart, "You will not require it."
(Psalm 10:12-13 LSB)
The Covenant Summons (v. 12)
The prayer begins not with a whimper, but with a righteous command born of faith.
"Arise, O Yahweh; O God, lift up Your hand. Do not forget the afflicted." (Psalm 10:12)
To tell God to "Arise" is to speak the language of the covenant. This is the cry that went up when the Ark of the Covenant, representing God's throne on earth, was set in motion before the armies of Israel. "Arise, O Yahweh, and let Your enemies be scattered" (Numbers 10:35). The psalmist is not trying to wake God from a nap. He is calling upon the King of the universe to go to war on behalf of His people, as He has sworn to do. He is, in effect, reminding God of His job description as the covenant-keeping warrior God of Israel. This is not insolence; it is profound faith. It is taking God at His word and demanding that He make good on it.
To "lift up Your hand" is a vivid anthropomorphism for the execution of divine power. A king with his hand at his side is at rest. A king with his hand lifted is about to pass judgment or strike an enemy. The afflicted of the earth see the wicked prospering, and it appears as though God's hands are in His pockets. The psalmist prays for God to make His power visible, to intervene in history in a way that cannot be ignored. He is praying for a demonstration.
And the motive for this intervention is clear: "Do not forget the afflicted." The great fear of the humble is that they are insignificant, that their suffering is lost in the noise of the cosmos. The great comfort of the faith is that God has a special, peculiar care for the afflicted, the widow, the orphan, the downtrodden. For God to forget them would be for Him to deny His own character. The psalmist knows this, and so he appeals to God on the basis of who God has revealed Himself to be. He is not appealing to his own merit, but to God's reputation. "Be who You are, Lord. The defender of the helpless."
The Fool's Creed (v. 13)
From his prayer, the psalmist pivots to a diagnosis of the problem. He asks God a question that reveals the inner workings of the wicked mind.
"Why has the wicked spurned God? He has said in his heart, 'You will not require it.'" (Psalm 10:13 LSB)
The question is, "Why?" What is the root cause of such contemptuous rebellion? To "spurn" God is to treat Him as irrelevant, to mock Him, to blaspheme His name by living as though He does not matter. And the psalmist provides the answer immediately. The wicked man spurns God because of a foundational belief he holds. Notice where he holds it: "He has said in his heart."
This is the critical point. This is not about formal, philosophical atheism. The wicked man might be very religious. He might check all the outward boxes. But his functional, operational theology, the creed that is written on his heart, is what drives his behavior. This is the essence of practical atheism. It is the conviction that when all is said and done, God is not actually watching, and there will be no final exam.
And what is the central article of this creed? "You will not require it." The Hebrew is direct: "You will not seek, you will not investigate, you will not call to account." The wicked man believes that his life is unaudited. He is convinced that he can lie, cheat, steal, oppress, and abuse, and that the cosmos will simply shrug and move on. He believes there is no ultimate reckoning. This is the primordial lie, whispered by the serpent in the Garden: "You will not surely die." It is the foundational assumption of all tyranny, all corruption, and all high-handed sin. It is the belief that you can get away with it because the One in charge either does not exist, does not see, or does not care.
The Cross as the Great Accounting
So we have two conflicting worldviews laid bare. The psalmist's faith says, "God, You must act because You are a just God who sees." The fool's arrogance says, "I can act however I want because God will not require an account." Who is right?
The entire biblical narrative rushes to answer this question, and the answer is given with thunderous finality at the cross of Jesus Christ. At Calvary, God's hand seemed to be at His side. It appeared for all the world that the wicked had spurned God and gotten away with it. They murdered His Son, the ultimate afflicted one, and it looked like heaven was silent. The fool's creed, "You will not require it," seemed to be vindicated.
But then came the third day. In the resurrection, God arose. He lifted His hand, not in judgment against His Son, but in vindication of Him and in the ultimate display of power over sin and death. The resurrection is God's definitive declaration to all of creation that He most certainly will require an account. He did not forget His afflicted Son, and He will not forget any of His afflicted people.
The cross is the place of the great accounting. For those who are in Christ, God required a full account of our sin from His Son. Our debt was audited and paid in full. The judgment we deserved fell upon Him. For those who persist in the fool's creed, the cross stands as a terrifying warning. If God did not spare His own Son in accounting for sin that was merely imputed to Him, what makes you think He will spare you when He requires an account of the sin that you yourself have committed?
Therefore, the prayer of the psalmist is our prayer. We cry "Arise, O Lord," knowing that He has already arisen in Christ and will come again to finish the job. And we must reject with every fiber of our being the wicked man's lie. We must live every moment in the joyful and sober reality that God sees everything, forgets nothing, and will one day require a full and final accounting. For the believer, that day holds no terror, for our account has been settled. For the unbeliever, it is the day when the most arrogant and foolish assumption in the universe will be shattered forever.