The Futility of Green Grass: Psalm 92:5-9
Introduction: Two Ways to See the World
We live in a world that is constantly shouting at us, demanding our attention, and offering its own commentary on everything. The news cycle, the political pundits, the endless scroll of social media, they all present a picture of reality. And for the Christian, this presents a constant challenge. Do we see the world as God sees it, or do we see it as the world presents it? Do we interpret current events through the lens of Scripture, or do we try to interpret Scripture through the lens of current events?
Psalm 92 is a song for the Sabbath, a day of rest and reorientation. It is a psalm that teaches us how to see. It pulls back the curtain on the frantic, noisy machinery of human rebellion and shows us the quiet, immense, and eternal reality of God's throne. It presents us with two fundamentally different ways of viewing the world: the way of wisdom, which begins with God, and the way of the fool, which begins and ends with man.
The central problem that this psalm addresses is one that every believer has wrestled with. It is the problem of Asaph in Psalm 73. It is the problem of apparent injustice. We look out at the world and see the wicked prospering. We see men who mock God, who despise His law, and who build their little empires on foundations of sand, and yet, their lawns are green. Their businesses flourish. Their influence expands. They blossom. And if we are not careful, if our vision is not calibrated by the Word of God, we can become discouraged, envious, or confused. This psalm is the divine corrective. It is God's answer to the age old question: "Why do the wicked prosper?" And His answer is as profound as it is simple: they are prospering in order to perish.
The Text
How great are Your works, O Yahweh! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, And a fool does not understand this: That when the wicked flourished like grass And all the workers of iniquity blossomed, It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore. But You are on high forever, O Yahweh. For, behold, Your enemies, O Yahweh, For, behold, Your enemies will perish; All the workers of iniquity will be scattered.
(Psalm 92:5-9 LSB)
The Infinite Depths (v. 5)
The psalmist begins by setting the stage, not with the problem, but with the presupposition that solves the problem. He begins with God.
"How great are Your works, O Yahweh! Your thoughts are very deep." (Psalm 92:5)
Before we can properly understand the fleeting success of the wicked, we must first be grounded in the greatness of God's works and the depth of His thoughts. The two are connected. God's works, from the spinning of galaxies to the architecture of an ant, are magnificent because they are the product of His infinitely deep thoughts. He is not making it up as He goes along. History is not a series of unfortunate accidents. It is a story, written by a divine Author with purposes that are profound, intricate, and far beyond our ability to fully comprehend.
When we say His thoughts are "very deep," we are confessing that we stand at the edge of an ocean with a thimble. We cannot sound the depths of His wisdom. We cannot trace all the connections in His providence. This is a foundational piece of Christian humility. We must accept that we do not have all the data. Our perspective is limited. We see the top of the tapestry, with all its vibrant colors and clear lines, but God is weaving from the bottom, and He sees every thread, every knot, every connection. The problem of evil and the prosperity of the wicked is only a problem for us because our thoughts are so very shallow.
The Willful Ignorance of the Fool (v. 6)
In stark contrast to the deep thoughts of God, we are introduced to the shallow mind of the unregenerate man.
"A senseless man does not know, And a fool does not understand this:" (Psalm 92:6 LSB)
What is it that the fool does not understand? He does not understand the previous statement about the greatness of God's works, and as a result, he cannot understand the following statement about the destiny of the wicked. The word for "senseless man" here is ba'ar, which means brutish or beastly. This is not a comment on his IQ. A man can have a doctorate from Harvard and still be a brutish man in the biblical sense. It is a moral and spiritual diagnosis. He is a fool because he lives his life as though there were no God (Psalm 14:1). He sees the world only on a horizontal plane. He is spiritually colorblind.
His ignorance is not an innocent mistake; it is a culpable, willful refusal to see what is plainly there. He looks at the intricate design of the cosmos and calls it an accident. He sees the moral law written on his own heart and calls it a social construct. He sees the prosperity of the wicked and calls it proof that there is no ultimate justice. He is a fool because he refuses to connect the dots. He will not reason from the creation to the Creator, and therefore he cannot reason correctly about anything else.
The Green Grass of Perdition (v. 7)
Here, the psalmist reveals what the fool cannot grasp. He explains the true nature of wicked prosperity.
"That when the wicked flourished like grass And all the workers of iniquity blossomed, It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore." (Psalm 92:7 LSB)
This is a staggering piece of divine irony. The very thing that the wicked boast in, their flourishing, is the prelude to their destruction. The imagery is precise. They flourish like grass. What do we know about grass? It grows quickly. It can look lush and green. But it is also temporary, fragile, and destined for the mower. One day it is green, the next it is cut down and withers in the sun. The wicked, in their moment of blossoming, are simply ripening for judgment. Their success is not a sign of God's approval or indifference; it is a sign of His wrath. He is fattening them for the slaughter.
This is a hard truth, but a necessary one. God gives them rope. He lets them have their moment in the sun. He allows them to build their towers of Babel and to congratulate themselves on their ingenuity. But their entire flourishing enterprise is conducted under the sentence of eternal destruction. Their success is the fuel for their own funeral pyre. This is what the fool cannot see. He sees the green grass and thinks it will last forever. The wise man sees the green grass and knows the lawnmower is coming.
The Great Contrast (v. 8-9)
The temporary flourishing of the wicked is then contrasted with the eternal exaltation of God.
"But You are on high forever, O Yahweh. For, behold, Your enemies, O Yahweh, For, behold, Your enemies will perish; All the workers of iniquity will be scattered." (Psalm 92:8-9 LSB)
The wicked are like grass, waxing and waning. But God does not wax and wane. He is "on high forever." His throne is not subject to elections or revolutions. His power does not fade. The contrast is between the temporary and the eternal, the fragile and the omnipotent. This is where the believer must anchor his soul. Our God is not scrambling to react to the headlines. He is enthroned above them.
And because God is eternally on high, the fate of His enemies is sealed. The psalmist repeats the phrase for emphasis: "For, behold, Your enemies, O Yahweh, for, behold, Your enemies will perish." This is not a question. It is not a hope. It is a divine certainty. Notice that they are primarily God's enemies. Our conflict with them is derivative. The war is between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and the outcome has been determined from the beginning.
Their end is twofold: they will perish, and they will be scattered. All their carefully constructed networks, their corporations, their political parties, their ungodly movements, all the things they worked to build in defiance of God, will be broken apart and blown away like chaff. The workers of iniquity will be scattered. Their unity is a temporary illusion, a conspiracy of rebellion that cannot last. Only in Christ do all things hold together. Apart from Him, everything eventually flies apart.
Conclusion: Seeing with Sabbath Eyes
So how are we to live in light of this? This psalm is for the Sabbath, a day to stop, to worship, and to see rightly. We are to look at the world, with all its strutting and posturing godlessness, and we are to see it for what it is: a field of grass on the day before the mowing.
This should produce two things in us. First, it should produce stability. We are not to be shaken by the apparent success of evil. We are not to fret or be envious. Their prosperity is a mirage. Our God is on high forever, and His kingdom is the only one that will last. We can be calm in the storm because we know who commands the winds and the waves.
Second, it should produce evangelistic urgency. These workers of iniquity who are blossoming toward destruction are not abstractions. They are our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members. They are men and women made in the image of God, currently on a trajectory to perish forever. The knowledge of their coming doom should not make us smug; it should break our hearts. It should compel us to speak. The only way for the wicked to escape this judgment is to cease being wicked, to turn from their sin and lay hold of the mercy offered in Jesus Christ.
The gospel is the great announcement that the enemies of God can be reconciled to Him. Through the cross, God took all the judgment that our iniquity deserved and poured it out on His own Son. Jesus was cut down like grass, so that we, who were like grass, could be planted like mighty cedars in the house of the Lord (v. 12-13). He was scattered under the wrath of God, so that we who were scattered in our sin could be gathered together into one body.
Therefore, let us learn to see with Sabbath eyes. Let us see the greatness of God's works and the depth of His thoughts. Let us see the folly of the fool and the temporary nature of his green lawn. And let us rest in the unshakable reality that our God is on high forever, and that in Christ, we are secure in Him.