Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?
The psalm containing this question belongs to the sorrow, desolation, and prayers for deliverance of the Jewish captives in Babylon. It is to be read with Psalms 95 and 96, within the group of Psalms 91 through 109, a peculiarly rich group full of assurances including special promises to God's people in the time of trouble. The throne of iniquity has no fellowship with God, meaning that a civil or ruling power frames injustice, evil, and cruelty into formal laws, rules, and procedures so that wrong is done legally and injustice becomes lawful.
Earthly powers frame injustice into law when the beast and its image make unrighteous decrees imposing false tests of worship, and God's law and testimony safeguard against those deceptive requirements by directing God's people to keep His commandments and the faith of Jesus rather than worship the beast or receive its mark. Oppressive power using law to make evil lawful is followed by the apocalyptic Jezebel in persecuting and killing God's saints. The verse is fulfilled in the Inquisition's Holy Office, which in the name of religion systematically approved barbarous acts by printing books of rules for detecting heresy by torture by fire and by bolt and by soldering pipe and for inflicting exquisite pain. That same power solemnly invoked Christ while questioning suspects and used flame and pain to force confession.
Sunday laws that burden or proscribe Sabbath-keepers exemplify a throne of iniquity framing mischief by law. An international calendar that disrupts the seventh-day Sabbath would be such a law framing iniquity by opposing loyalty to God, placing faithful Jews and Sabbath-keeping Christians at odds with the world in both worship and the commercial week. South Carolina's code that oppressed Black people and struck out a provision requiring schooling for children in service is an example of mischief framed into law.
At the climax of probation the world will choose the laws of men instead of the laws of God and the ways of men in opposition to the ways of God, and when people decide for human law against God's law they pass judgment on themselves and probation closes, bringing the fiat of Revelation 22:11,12. The verse also shows that the wicked perish like the beasts, as one of many comparisons to perishable and combustible things proving that the wicked will be entirely burned up, consumed, and destroyed in the fire that melts the earth, not preserved alive forever.
The psalm containing this question belongs to the sorrow, desolation, and prayers for deliverance of the Jewish captives in Babylon. It is to be read with Psalms 95 and 96, within the group of Psalms 91 through 109, a peculiarly rich group full of assurances including special promises to God's people in the time of trouble. The throne of iniquity has no fellowship with God, meaning that a civil or ruling power frames injustice, evil, and cruelty into formal laws, rules, and procedures so that wrong is done legally and injustice becomes lawful.
Earthly powers frame injustice into law when the beast and its image make unrighteous decrees imposing false tests of worship, and God's law and testimony safeguard against those deceptive requirements by directing God's people to keep His commandments and the faith of Jesus rather than worship the beast or receive its mark. Oppressive power using law to make evil lawful is followed by the apocalyptic Jezebel in persecuting and killing God's saints. The verse is fulfilled in the Inquisition's Holy Office, which in the name of religion systematically approved barbarous acts by printing books of rules for detecting heresy by torture by fire and by bolt and by soldering pipe and for inflicting exquisite pain. That same power solemnly invoked Christ while questioning suspects and used flame and pain to force confession.
Sunday laws that burden or proscribe Sabbath-keepers exemplify a throne of iniquity framing mischief by law. An international calendar that disrupts the seventh-day Sabbath would be such a law framing iniquity by opposing loyalty to God, placing faithful Jews and Sabbath-keeping Christians at odds with the world in both worship and the commercial week. South Carolina's code that oppressed Black people and struck out a provision requiring schooling for children in service is an example of mischief framed into law.
At the climax of probation the world will choose the laws of men instead of the laws of God and the ways of men in opposition to the ways of God, and when people decide for human law against God's law they pass judgment on themselves and probation closes, bringing the fiat of Revelation 22:11,12. The verse also shows that the wicked perish like the beasts, as one of many comparisons to perishable and combustible things proving that the wicked will be entirely burned up, consumed, and destroyed in the fire that melts the earth, not preserved alive forever.