The Bone Scatterer
Lisa Cooke

Mankind has always had enemies. Those who have chosen to love God from the very beginning of time have had to face enemies who hated them because of their love for God and His ways. No one has ever had an “enemy free” life although we often wish for such a life here on earth. All throughout the Bible we have stories of God’s people facing one enemy after another, sometimes in the form of an army, sometimes in the form of an evil spirit influencing another human being. The variety of enemies, their strategies, their means of attack, all are designed to intimidate God’s people into yielding to fear and conceding defeat.

God has given us many spiritual weapons to combat such intimidation. He has also provided the strength to outlast these onslaughts, and the wisdom to outsmart the enemy’s tactics that are plotted against us. There is assurance through Scripture that “no weapon formed against us shall prosper” and we arm ourselves appropriately for each assault launched in our direction. We are a grateful people to be so well equipped with Heaven’s holy arsenal.

Knowing and believing God’s attitude toward the enemies of His people is a potent advantage we can have as we wage war against any of our adversaries and especially toward any doubts that may wander into our thought life. Remember that “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12). God has made our enemies His enemies and no one and nothing can conquer Him or His will. The book of Revelation makes it very clear that He will determine who is thrown into the lake of fire. No one will usurp His judgments.

So how does God view our enemies, as shown in Scripture? His power and authority are expressed in His disparaging attitude toward the boasts of our foes. When they vaunt their supposed victory over us, God one-ups their claims with His own declaration of triumph. Here are some scriptures from the Book of Psalms to meditate on when your confidence needs bolstering in the midst of a battle. My favorite one is the Psalm 53:5 verse: “For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you…”

When the “bone scatterer” is our God, whom shall we fear?

Psalm 2:4-6 – He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then He will speak to them in His wrath, and terrify them in His fury, saying, As for Me, I have set My King on Zion, My holy hill.

Psalm 3:7 – For You strike all my enemies on the cheek; You break the teeth of the wicked.

Psalm 5:6 – You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

Psalm 7:6 – Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; lift Yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; You have appointed a judgment.

Psalm 8:2 – Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

Psalm 9:3 – When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before Your presence.

Psalm 9:5-6 – You have rebuked the nations; You have made the wicked perish; You have blotted out their name forever and ever. The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins; their cities You rooted out; the very memory of them has perished.

Psalm 9:17 – The Lord has made Himself known; He has executed judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.

Psalm 11:6 – Let Him reign coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.

Psalm 21:11 – Though they plan evil against You, though they devise mischief, they will not succeed. For You will put them to flight; You will aim at their faces with Your bows.

Psalm 23:5 – You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…

Psalm 27:2 – When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.

Psalm 31:4 – You take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for You are my refuge.

Psalm 31:20 – In the cover of Your presence You hid them from the plots of men; You store them in Your shelter from the strife of tongues.

Psalm 33:10 – The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He frustrates the plans of the peoples.

Psalm 34:16 – The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

Psalm 34:21 – Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

Psalm 36:12 – There the evildoers lie fallen; they are thrust down, unable to rise.

Psalm 37:12 – The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for He sees that his day is coming.

Psalm 37:17 – For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.

Psalm 37:32-33 – The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death. The Lord will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial.

Psalm 44:5 – Through You we push down our foes; through Your name we tread down those who rise up against us.

Psalm 44:7 – But You have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us.

Psalm 54:5 – He will return evil to my enemies, in Your faithfulness put an end to them.

Psalm 55:23 – But You, O God, will cast them down into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days.

Psalm 57:3 – He will put to shame him who tramples on me.

Psalm 59:8 – But You, O Lord, laugh at them; You hold all nations in derision.

Psalm 59:10 – God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.

Psalm 60:12 – With God we shall do valiantly; it is He who will tread down our foes.

Psalm 64:7-8 – But God shoots His arrow at them; they are wounded suddenly. They are brought to ruin, with their own tongues turned against them…

Psalm 68:1-2 – God shall arise, His enemies shall be scattered; and those who hated Him shall flee before Him! As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God!

Psalm 68:21 – But God will strike the heads of His enemies, the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways.

Psalm 73:18-20 – Truly You set them in slippery places; You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when You rouse Yourself, You despise them as phantoms.

Psalm 73:27 – For behold, those who are far from You shall perish; You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to You.

Psalm 76:6-7 – At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both rider and horse lay stunned. But You, You are to be feared! Who can stand before You when once Your anger is roused?

Psalm 81:13-14 – Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes.

Psalm 89:23 – I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.

Psalm 91:3 – For He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.

Psalm 91:5-8 – You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.

Psalm 92:9 – For behold, Your enemies, O Lord, for behold, Your enemies shall perish; all evildoers shall be scattered.

Psalm 92:11 – My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies; my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.

Psalm 94:16 – Who rises up for me against the wicked? Who stands up for me against evildoers? If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.

Psalm 94:23 – He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness; the Lord our God will wipe them out.

Psalm 97:3 – Fire goes before Him and burns up all His adversaries all around.

Psalm 97:10 – He preserves the lives of His saints; He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

Psalm 119:119 – All the wicked of the earth You discard like dross…

Psalm 143:12 – And in Your steadfast love You will cut off my enemies, and You will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am Your servant.

Psalm 145:20 – The Lord preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy.

Psalm 146:9 – But the way of the wicked He brings to ruin.

Psalm 147:6 – The Lord lifts up the humble, He casts the wicked to the ground.

We clearly see our Father’s stance against those who oppose His will and His children in these verses. Through Isaiah, God said, “I will contend with him who contends with you, and I will save your children” (Isa 49:25). Reading these verses fills us with a sense of God’s omnipotence, which in turn strengthens our faith as we stand against the wiles of any enemy. It is as Paul says in Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

And lest you think that God only dealt with the enemies of His people in the Old Testament, Paul writes to a congregation suffering persecution in the New Testament (2 Thessalonians 1:4-10):

“Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.”

This may sound foreign to us when we are so used to thinking about the love and mercy of God, and of course, we pray that everyone will humble himself or herself before God and receive His mercy. The Apostle Paul himself was a great enemy of the church, and he received mercy. However, God is still a righteous and a just God, and we have the assurance that he will ultimately vindicate his people from their enemies. He is our bone scatterer!