AS THE DUST BEFORE THE WIND

Before we begin to look at this phrase, we remember that only because of God’s infinite grace we are not now ‘dust before the wind’. We know that, ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’, Heb. 10. 31. Yet we rejoice that by knowing Christ, who died for our sins, God’s just wrath will never touch us.

The Psalm refers to ‘enemies’, ‘the sorrows of death’, ‘the floods of ungodly men’, ‘the sorrows of hell’ and ‘the snares of death’, creating an ominous scene of impending disaster. Raised up by God, the king is under attack from every side and recognizes that the forces against him are too strong for him, v. 17. He faces the overwhelming odds against him by drawing on God’s strength, vv. 1, 2, 32, 39. From heaven, the Lord thundered against the king’s enemies and the king acknowledges that God delivered him and showed mercy to His anointed, to David, God’s appointed king, v. 50.

God is slow to anger, a message stated in the Bible more than once. Ezekiel quotes God, writing, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked’, 33. 11. Yet when the mind is totally opposed to God’s will, as in the case of those who intractably rejected David as king, God finally acts in justice, beating ‘them small as the dust before the wind’. Translations employ words like ‘grinding’, ‘pounding’, ‘crushing’, all awesomely frightening terms that speak of God’s just judgement against the wicked. The result is that the wind blows the dust away.

This is not annihilation. Rather, to shut God out of one’s life is to close the door to what God always wanted human beings to be. C. S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, ‘Aim for heaven and God throws in earth, Aim for earth and you get nothing’. To listen to God not only opens the door to an eternity charged with glory and activity, but also makes this present life worthwhile. To rebel against God and to live in this world as if this is all there is to life is a tragedy. When the human being persists in going his own way, it will lead to the moment when, like dust, he will be blown away forever from what God wanted him to be.