NOTES for Psa 24:10

Reflecting on God's goodness, the psalmist exclaims: "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth..." Today this fact is hardest for us to accept. In other psalms and in other places of the Old Testament we meet both the wrath of God and His threats, but it appears that here the psalmist is right, because both God's wrath and His warnings are an expression of the truth of His love for us.

And one more consideration. Perhaps you have a different impression, but more than once I have met people who, having found in the Bible God's promise of something good for those who do something good, immediately ask: "And if one does not do this good thing, then will God not give it?" This desire is astonishing: first of all to try on unrighteousness, "badness," and thereby "test" what will come of it. It is possible that here the very temptation by which the serpent seduced Eve "works" (Gen. 3).

Or perhaps behind this question stands an irresistible desire to get something "for free," without exertion. It would appear that if the reward suits you, why not work? But instead of doing the work, we look around at others: did they manage to get the same thing with less effort? And if they did, we perceive this as terrible injustice toward us. The well-known parable of Jesus is about this same human phenomenon, is it not (Matt. 20:1-16)?