In 2008, Bernie Madoff — a respected Wall Street figure with deep ties to NASDAQ — was arrested for running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history. For decades, people trusted him with their retirement savings, their charities, their family money. He looked successful, credible, and safe. What they didn’t know was that he was using their money to pay other investors while sending out fake statements that made it all look legitimate. He was destroying people’s lives while acting like nothing was wrong.
That is the kind of wickedness David describes in Psalm 36. It deceives. It destroys. It uses words to create a false version of reality. And for a while, it seems to work. That’s what makes wickedness so disturbing — it’s not just that evil exists. It appears to prosper. So what do we do with that?
What Wickedness Looks Like
David, the ancient king of Israel and the writer of Psalm 36, knew what it was like to face wicked people. So in the opening verses of this psalm, he gives us an honest diagnosis of what wickedness really is before he shows us where to turn.
PSALM 36:1–4 (NLT)
Sin whispers to the wicked, deep in their hearts. They have no fear of God at all. In their blind conceit, they cannot see how wicked they really are. Everything they say is crooked and deceitful. They refuse to act wisely or do good. They lie awake at night, hatching sinful plots. Their actions are never good. They make no attempt to turn from evil.
David does not open this psalm by speaking to God. He begins by observing and describing the wicked — and what he sees is a life under the command of sin. Sin is not offering harmless suggestions to the wicked. It is speaking to them with authority. They listen to it and let it direct their lives. That pattern leads to a life marked by four defining absences.
No fear of God. God carries no real authority over anything in their lives. Since the fear of God is absent, his authority doesn’t humble their pride, his justice doesn’t restrain them from doing wrong, and his truth doesn’t shape what they say. They live as if they answer to no one but themselves.
No self-awareness. When people live that way, they stop seeing themselves honestly. Their desires become the standard. Their excuses become convincing. Their sin no longer looks as ugly to them as it really is, so instead of confessing it, they flatter themselves and explain it away.
No integrity in speech or action. Since they don’t fear God, communication is not about bringing truth to light — it’s about controlling the outcome. They leave out what exposes them, exaggerate what helps them, and accuse whoever gets in their way. Truth no longer governs their words. Wisdom no longer governs their decisions. Goodness no longer governs their actions.
No desire to change. When the fear of God is gone, sin no longer troubles them. Instead of lying awake wrestling with a guilty conscience, they’re plotting their next scheme. No attempt to turn from evil. That’s where sin has been taking them all along.
David is not describing everyone who sins. If what he’s described troubles you, that’s the fear of God doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. The person David is describing feels none of that. You do.
But for others, this person has affected your life — a continual pattern of twisting words, manipulating stories, no apology, no accountability, not even an attempt to make it right. People like that don’t just leave scars behind. If you let them, they can take up residence in your thoughts. You replay conversations. You think about what you wish you had said. You imagine exposing them, confronting them, or proving them wrong. Before long, they aren’t just affecting what happened to you — they’re shaping what’s happening inside you.
Where do we turn when wickedness seems to go unchecked?
Where David Turns
In verse 5, David takes an abrupt turn toward God. He stops observing and starts praying. But notice how his prayer begins. He doesn’t start by asking God to deal with the wicked. He turns to God and declares who God is — worshiping, but also countering everything the wicked appeared to be with the truth of who God is. Reminding himself, and us, that even when the wicked seem powerful, they are not as powerful as they look. There is still a God in heaven.
PSALM 36:5–9 (NLT)
Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O Lord. How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your river of delights. For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see.
In these five verses, David declares nine qualities about God. He starts with love.
The specific Hebrew word David uses for love — hesed — is the kind of love in which God binds himself in covenant to the people who belong to him, refuses to abandon them, and commits himself to their good. He says two things about it. First, it is unfailing. It doesn’t waver, doesn’t run out, and doesn’t give up. Second, to show how expansive this love is, David reaches for the biggest image he can find: the sky.
Several weeks ago, driving home from Sacramento heading south on I-5 between Stockton and Santa Nella, I found myself surrounded by the Central Valley’s wide-open agricultural land — mountains so far off in the distance that they framed the horizon. No matter which way I turned, everywhere was sky. In front of me, behind me, to my left, to my right. There was no edge to it. I couldn’t drive out from under it.
And then it hit me: David is reminding himself of what is true. God loves you with an unfailing love. But his love is not the fragile, moody kind of love that gives up when you don’t measure up. God’s love for those who belong to him is so vast that no matter where you go, it’s above you. There is no end to it. You are loved.
David begins with God’s unfailing love, and then shows us what kind of God that love belongs to. This love belongs to a God who is faithful. God’s faithfulness is his consistency and reliability. He doesn’t become unstable because you feel unstable. He doesn’t change with circumstances, waver under pressure, or get ruled by moods the way we do. David says his faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds — God’s faithfulness has no ceiling. He will always be who he says he is, and he will do what he says he will do without fail. You can count on him all the time.
God’s righteousness is like the mighty mountains. Everything God is, does, decides, and declares is right and true. Mountains are immovable, enduring, visible from far away. They’ve stood longer than any civilization. Empires have risen and fallen, cultures have shifted, and the mountains just stood there, completely unchanged. God’s righteousness cannot be shifted, overturned, or eroded. What is right before God stays right. Because his righteousness stands like mountains, you can trust what he says, submit to his commands, receive his correction, and rest in his judgments.
His justice is like the ocean depths. The Mariana Trench — the deepest point in the ocean — is nearly 36,000 feet deep. You could drop Mount Everest into it and its peak would still be more than a mile underwater. Human courts are limited by what can be seen, discovered, and proven.
Witnesses can lie. Evidence can go missing. Motives can stay buried. But what can be hidden from human justice is never hidden from God. He sees what lies beneath every fact and every hidden motive. Every verdict is perfectly equitable and impartial. Because God is just, you can trust him with what you cannot see, cannot prove, and cannot make right.
God cares for people and animals alike — his care is both universal and intimate. No person or creature, nothing that lives, is outside it or beneath his notice. As Jesus said:
MATTHEW 6:26 (NLT)
“Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?”
Then David steps back from his rapid description of God and declares: “How precious is your unfailing love, O God!” (Psalm 36:7). It’s as if he pauses to absorb everything he’s just said — your love, your faithfulness, your righteousness, your justice. Precious means valuable. Treasured. Something so costly you don’t treat it as common because it cannot be replaced. That is what David says about the unfailing love of God.
The image that follows is one of the most tender in all of Scripture: at the slightest threat, chicks disappear underneath the mother hen’s wings — completely hidden, completely covered. That is the picture David gives us of God. You are not too small, too weak, too wounded, or too exposed to be covered by him.
And God doesn’t just shelter — he provides. David says God feeds his people from the abundance of his own house and lets them drink from a river of delights. Don’t imagine a beggar receiving scraps outside a stranger’s door. Imagine someone welcomed in, seated at God’s table, and fed from God’s abundance. God isn’t tightfisted. He gives generously with an open hand — not just what we need to survive, but what our souls were made for: himself.
Finally, David calls God the fountain of life and the light by which we see. As the fountain of life, God is the source from which all life flows — every breath, every heartbeat. As light, God makes sight possible. Without him, you can have healthy eyes and still not see, perceive, or understand what is in front of you. He gives us clarity about himself when circumstances make him seem distant, about others when wicked people seem more powerful than they really are, and about ourselves when fear, hurt, anger, or pride distort what we see.
Praying from What You’ve Declared
David was not describing the wicked from a distance. He had the scars to prove otherwise. From what we know of his life, he was no stranger to people like this — King Saul hunted him for years, driving him from his home, his family, his rightful place. Others betrayed him, conspired against him. It was out of experiences like these that he prays:
PSALM 36:10–11 (NLT)
Pour out your unfailing love on those who love you; give justice to those with honest hearts. Don’t let the proud trample me or the wicked push me around.
Every word of that prayer carried history. And notice the structure: David spent verses 5–9 declaring the truth about who God is before he brought his need to God. First he worshiped. Then he appealed. Truth before request. Worship before appeal.
This pattern runs throughout Scripture. Nehemiah, Daniel, and Jehoshaphat all begin their prayers with the truth about who God is before bringing their needs to him. And Jesus taught his disciples the same pattern. Before “Give us today the daily bread we need” (Matthew 6:11), he teaches us to pray:
MATTHEW 6:9–10 (NLT)
“Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
First, God’s fatherly care, his heavenly authority, his holy name. Then the request.
How we begin our prayers shapes how we pray.
Think about what happens when we are wounded by wicked people. The hurt is real. It stirs up fear, frustration, and anger we can’t just turn off. The point is not to be emotionally dishonest by pretending it didn’t hurt. The point is not to let the hurt be the first thing that shapes your prayer.
Instead, let your first move be to tether yourself to the truth of who you’re praying to. Before you name the wound, anchor yourself: I am praying to the God whose unfailing love reaches to the heavens. Because of that, I know I am loved. I know he cares about this hurt. That’s why I can pray honestly and confidently.
Consider the difference. If hurt shapes the prayer first, it might sound like this: “God, after what they did to me, you seem far away. I’m struggling to understand why you would let that happen. They hurt me, and it seems like nothing has changed. Are you going to do anything about what they did?” That is not the truth about God shaping the prayer. That is the hurt shaping it.
But when we tether ourselves to the truth first, the same situation sounds different: “God, your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. You are consistent when people are not. What they did hurt me, but it does not change who you are. I know you are reliable, so I am asking for help. Help me trust you with what they have done. Do not let the wicked push me around.”
When we lose sight of who we are praying to, our prayers can feel weak — like words disappearing into the air. But when we pray to the God whose love never fails, whose righteousness never moves, whose justice reaches places no human court can find, those same prayers become confident appeals. That is what happens with David.
After nine declarations about who God is, he makes his requests — and then comes verse 12:
PSALM 36:12 (NLT)
Look! Those who do evil have fallen! They are thrown down, never to rise again.
Do you hear the confidence in those words? David knew that evil had not been eradicated yet. But he had seen God more clearly. And when you’ve declared that his love is as vast as the heavens, his righteousness immovable as mountains, his justice as deep as the ocean — the wicked stop looking as big as they did at the beginning.
They looked powerful, but they are not stronger than God’s justice. They looked unaccountable, but nothing is hidden from the God who sees all. They may trample and push you around, but they cannot overthrow the God who shelters his people.
Conclusion
Where do you turn when wickedness feels loud, threatening, and unchecked? Turn to God in prayer. But do not let what the wicked have done shape your prayer, because how you begin your prayers shapes how you pray.
Begin where David begins. Turn heavenward before you turn inward. Saturate your mind, heart, and soul in the truth of who God is. His love is unfailing — he will not abandon you. He is faithful — you can trust him to be reliable and consistent. He is righteous — he will always do what is right for you. He is just — he will always be perfectly fair toward you. He is a refuge — when you run to him, he will cover you.
Let that shape the way you pray. When you do, you’ll find that the God you worship is bigger than the wickedness you’ve been facing.
