Psalm 94
1O LORD, the God to whom vengeance belongs,
O God of vengeance, let your glorious justice be seen!
2Arise, O judge of the earth.
Sentence the proud to the penalties they deserve.
3How long, O LORD?
How long will the wicked be allowed to gloat?
4Hear their arrogance!
How these evildoers boast!
5They oppress your people, LORD,
hurting those you love.
6They kill widows and foreigners
and murder orphans.
7“The LORD isn’t looking,” they say,
“and besides, the God of Israel doesn’t care.”
8Think again, you fools!
When will you finally catch on?
9Is the one who made your ears deaf?
Is the one who formed your eyes blind?
10He punishes the nations—won’t he also punish you?
He knows everything—doesn’t he also know what you are doing?
11The LORD knows people’s thoughts,
that they are worthless!
12Happy are those whom you discipline, LORD,
and those whom you teach from your law.
13You give them relief from troubled times
until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14The LORD will not reject his people;
he will not abandon his own special possession.
15Judgment will come again for the righteous,
and those who are upright will have a reward.
16Who will protect me from the wicked?
Who will stand up for me against evildoers?
17Unless the LORD had helped me,
I would soon have died.
18I cried out, “I’m slipping!”
and your unfailing love, O LORD, supported me.
19When doubts filled my mind,
your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer.
20Can unjust leaders claim that God is on their side—
leaders who permit injustice by their laws?
21They attack the righteous
and condemn the innocent to death.
22But the LORD is my fortress;
my God is a mighty rock where I can hide.
23God will make the sins of evil people fall back upon them.
He will destroy them for their sins.
The LORD our God will destroy them.
(Psalm 94:1-23, NLT)
The Daily DAVEotional
Psalm 94 is a cry and appeal to God for justice.
Apparently, there were evil people taking advantage of others and they appeared to be getting away with it.
Why is there no justice?
How long will we have to wait to see the wicked punished?
These are the questions the psalmist is asking.
Some things never change. We’re still asking those same questions today because there’s no doubt that evil still exists and that evil doers often seem to go unpunished.
There are two different ways of dealing with this perceived injustice:
The first way is to say God must not exist. This is the argument the atheist makes and it’s highlighted in verse 7:
7“The LORD isn’t looking,” they say,
“and besides, the God of Israel doesn’t care.”
The atheist uses the reality of evil as a primary argument against the existence of God. I wrote about this in my blog post “Does the Existence of Evil Disprove God” based on Psalm 75.
The atheist’s line of reasoning goes something like this:
If God exists, He would care about evil and He would do something about it (presumably, He would eliminate it). Since evil still exists, either God doesn’t care OR He’s unaware of it. Either way, God must not exist.
Verse 7 focuses on the premise that God doesn’t care about evil or He’s unaware of it. The conclusion is that God must not exist.
The second approach to the fact that evil exists and evil doers often go unpunished is to recognize that God will deal with justice in His timing. This is the approach the psalmist takes:
He punishes the nations—won’t he also punish you? (verse 10)
Judgment will come again for the righteous. (verse 15)
God will make the sins of evil people fall back upon them. He will destroy them for their sins. The LORD our God will destroy them. (verse 23)
The psalmist is not happy that evil doers seem to go unpunished, but He does not so quickly conclude that God must not exist.
You may be saying to yourself, “this is all well and good, but what does this have to do with refuting Buddhism.”
That’s a good question. This psalm says nothing about Buddhism, which would not even come into existence as a religious ideology for another 500 years after the writer penned this psalm.
So what’s the connection?
In December of 2023, I read a post on X.com from Nancy Pearcey (@NancyRPearcey), who had made a benign post quoting a section from the book “The Rise of Christianity“ by Rodny Stark. The quoted section was highlighting how Christianity introduced a revolutionary new ethic of love that was unique amongst religious ideologies of the time.
A person replied to the post questioning the idea that Christianity came up with anything that new or revolutionary. The poster claimed that Buddhism, and other Eastern philosophies had been preaching universal love for centuries.
This sparked an exchange regarding some of the principles of Buddhism and how it fails as a religion and philosophy to adequately explain reality.
You can trace the whole exchange here (which I highly encourage), but the exchange connects with Psalm 94 in this way:
Pearcey was explaining that Buddhism, like any religion or philosophy, has to be evaluated on its ability to adequately explain reality.
The point was made that in Buddhism, ultimate reality is not a personal being but an impersonal essence or force. Because WE are personal beings, Buddhism has no way of adequately accounting for where humans came from.
This psalm actually refutes Buddhism in verse 9, which says:
Is the one who made your ears deaf? Is the one who formed your eyes blind?
The principle is that the creator must have the same capabilities as that which is created. How could something that could not hear or see create something with ears to hear and eyes to see?
Since we are personal beings, whoever, or whatever created us must also be personal. Since Buddhism does not teach or believe in a personal creator, it cannot adequately explain our existence. In the Buddhist system, an impersonal force or essence somehow produces humanity – personal beings. This defies logic.
The psalmist has no knowledge of Buddhism, which would not exist for another 500 years. But the psalmist is aware of the skeptics’ argument that denies God. He calls the skeptic a fool (verse 8) and offers up the simple apologetic proof for God’s existence in verse 9.
This one-verse proof demonstrates that God must be personal. And since Buddhism denies a personal creator, Psalm 94:9 actually refutes Buddhism.
Reflection
When thinking about the fact that evil exists and evil doers do not always face timely justice, which of the two approaches are you most likely to take – to deny God’s existence, or realize that justice will eventually come in God’s timing? Explain your choice.
What convinces you most that God exists?
How do you explain the existence of evil to those who are skeptical about the existence of God?
What is your reaction to Psalm 94:9 and the apologetic argument that because WE are personal beings, God must also be personal because the created thing cannot be greater than that which created it? Is this argument convincing to you? Why or why not?
The Lowedown 