D. Scott Meadows

Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?
Who eat up my people as they eat bread:
They have not called upon God (Psa 53.4; cf. 14.4).

Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee,
And upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name (Psa 79.6).

A clear pattern of ungodliness arises from these similar verses in the psalms, a pattern of spiritual ignorance, antipathy, and indifference. Where these traits are characteristic, a person or a people are ungodly and perishing. Whatever of them remains in Christians should humble us and become targets of purposeful mortification.

Ignorance of God

In his prayers to God, the psalmist complained about the enemies of righteousness. He seems incredulous as he asks, “Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge?” (53.4a). Their habitual wickedness seemed to be a symptom of total ignorance that God is and what God is and what God does and shall do. In a certain sense, he was right. “The heathen . . . have not known thee” (79.6a).

The Bible teaches that there is a certain universal knowledge of God, and then there is a knowledge of God that is peculiar to the redeemed. Paul insists on the former in Romans 1.19-21. The pagans “knew God,” yet they “glorified Him not as God.” They refused to worship Him as they should, and they had enough knowledge to aggravate their guilt in this.

Yet they never “knew” God as the righteous do. The term know can indicate merely an awareness, or something much more. It may have connotations of intimacy, affection, and delight which only real believers experience. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17.3).

The spiritual ignorance of the ungodly is a case of “practical atheism,” if not philosophical. In a chapter of that title, Stephen Charnock wrote,

The title of atheist doth not only belong to those who deny the existence of God, or to those who contemn all sense of a Deity, and would root the conscience and reverence of God out of their souls; but it belongs also to those who give not that worship to God which is due to him, who worship many gods, or who worship one God in a false and superstitious manner, when they have not right conceptions of God, nor intend an adoration of him according to the excellency of his nature. All those that are unconcerned for any particular religion fall under this character (The Existence and Attributes of God).

Is it not a fearful thing to consider, if this is true, that the world is full of practical atheists, many of whom are professing Christians?

Antipathy to God’s People

A second characteristic of the ungodly in this unholy triad is enmity toward God’s chosen people. They “eat up my people as they eat bread” (53.4b). This portrays them as voracious predators of saints, a figure for oppression and persecution.

They do not know the Lord intimately nor do they care about his looking down from heaven. They busily pursue their self-interests and, in so doing, “devour” God’s people. . . . The appetite of the godless is insatiable. They “devour” the possessions of others and add them to their own, . . . satisfy(ing) their appetites for a moment, but they did not return to the Lord. They expressed no remorse, no recognition of his judgment, and no request for mercy (Van Gemeren, EBC, on Psa 14.3).

At best, the ungodly do not care for God’s people. No neutral posture toward the Church on earth is really possible. Either we love Christians and minister to their needs for the sake of Christ, or we don’t. Christ interprets this as a revelation of our relationship with Him personally (Matt 25.31-46). Only real Christians love other real Christians in deed and truth, and all real Christians do (1 John 3.14-19).

Indifference to Prayer

This triad’s third member is de facto prayerlessness. “They have not called upon God” (53.4c), an indictment concerning their whole past experience. They “have not called upon Thy name” (79.7c); this is substantially the same indictment.

De facto prayerlessness is completely compatible with a practice of something that very nearly resembles true prayer. The Pharisee in Jesus’ story “prayed with himself” and went down to his house without being “justified,” that is, he was still wicked in the eyes of God (Luke 18.9-14). The Westminster Shorter Catechism (#98) offers a fine, brief description:

Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies.

If this is true prayer, then how widespread prayerlessness is! How easily we fall into saying prayers, without really praying in the Spirit (Eph 6.18).

Consider the relationship between these three ungodly traits. Why would anyone who 1) takes no delight in the true and living God, and 2) has no practical love for God’s people 3) give themselves to true prayer, as real Christians do? Prayer is inevitable for God-lovers and Christian-lovers, because we draw near to God for His blessings upon ourselves and our brethren. So then, let us prove real Christians, and purge ourselves completely of these three ungodly traits. Ω