Our Prayer Against Our Enemies - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Psalm 5, we see David praying for God’s justice for his enemies. In light of the cross, we can pray the same, though our ultimate hope should be for their salvation.
Transcript:
Sometimes there are songs that you hear on the radio that really catch your attention. You hear them and you can't forget them. Pray For You by Jaron Lowenstein is one of those songs. It's a country tune that came out, 15 years ago, and it plays on the theme of someone who hasn't been to church in a while, who hears a sermon calling on them to just pray for those who have harmed them.
And Lowenstein responds with the following chorus. He says, I pray your brakes go out running down a hill. I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill and knocks you in the head like I'd like to. I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls. I pray your flying high when your engine stalls. I pray all your dreams never come true.
Just know wherever you are, honey, I pray, I pray for you. Now that's an eyeopener right there, isn't it? It's like, well then, now this doesn't sound quite like what we, what Jesus would have us to do. However, at the same time, if you're familiar with the Psalms, you know that some of them can sound a bit similar to this song.
They're called the Imprecatory Psalms. Now you're thinking, imprecatory. What does imprecatory mean? Imprecatory comes from the word imprecation, which means to curse. So these are Psalms of cursing. Now that's probably surprising to a few of you. You don't think of there being psalms that are devoted to, to cursing. Understanding how these Psalms can stand alongside the teachings of Christ, it can be a challenge, but I think it's a challenge we can sort out by looking at Psalm five. Now, Psalm five is not the most, I guess you would say, violent of the imprecatory psalms. There's some out there that are, are, are really challenging when you just read it and you don't have any other context.
I'm looking at Psalm five this morning because I think it gives us the key for, and context for understanding all of them. Here in Psalm five we find both grace and judgment. And so it kind of gives us a bit of a roadmap for considering how we can pray along the lines of these psalms, even as we also pray in the way that Jesus has taught us.
So we turn to Psalm five and we begin in verses one through six. For the director of Music. For pipes. A Psalm of David. Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my king and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my request before you and wait expectantly. For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, evil people are not welcome. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence. You hate all who do wrong; you destroy those who tell lies. The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, Lord, detest.
David begins his psalm here in the form of making a plea, bringing a lament before God at the beginning of his day, in the morning. The morning's a really great time to come before the Lord in prayer. And the prayer that David is bringing begins by stating some plain facts, the reality that the wicked are not welcome before God.
Now when he's talking about that the wicked are not welcome before God, they're, that they're not welcome into God's holy presence, david's not just talking about their legal situation, that the fact that they've done guilt, they've done sinful things, and so they have a guilty record. He's talking about the fact that their, their hearts are in a present state of corruption and wickedness, such that they would be defined as evil people.
And we've already heard this in, in Psalm one. Verse five says, therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment or sinners in assembly of the righteous. And at the end of days, we find in Revelation 28, verse eight, it says, but the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, they'll be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.
You see, we have some, some good news here and some bad news for us as, as far as we are concerned. The good news is that God is a God of justice. He doesn't let evil go unpunished. Now, the trouble is, is that we're all guilty of sin. We're all sinners. And so if we're reading this psalm, honestly, as we consider our our own selves, we kind of begin wondering.
It's like, how could you know, would I be welcome in God's presence? And the only way that we can come to appreciate that, I think, is if we truly appreciate the depth of God's Holiness. We began this service by singing Holy, holy, holy, that God is utterly perfect. He is totally righteous. He is perfectly good, and we are not. Now, you have to remember that we as human beings have been created to reflect who God is, but because of our rebellion, instead of reflecting who God is, we're reflecting something else. We're reflecting evil. We're, we're in fact reflecting the ways of the devil in our lives, some more than others, but all the same, we're not reflecting God in the way that we should be in our lives. Nonetheless, it remains the fact that, as David has stated here, the wicked are not welcome before God's holy presence. And we see this division played out in the Old Testament of just the sanctuary of the temple itself. You cannot go willy-nilly into the presence of God.
Sacrifices had to be offered. Only the high priests could enter into the Holy of Holies once a year with a sacrifice of atonement for the people. But David is coming before God crying for help, and in making this appeal, he is in some way differentiating himself from these that would be categorized as the wicked.
Those who are evil. Now verses seven through nine reveal the basis upon which David makes his approach to God. He says in verse 7 but I, by your great love, can come into your house; in reverence I bow down toward your holy temple. Lead me, Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies-- make your way straight before me.
Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with malice. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongues they tell lies. So if we were to ask, well, how is it that David can come into the presence of God?
David is able to come into God's presence by God's great love. It's not because of who David is, but because of who God is. And we see how this in fact anticipates the salvation that God provides for us in Jesus Christ. The Apostle John in 1st John 4: 10 says this, this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
So given that we are in the position that we are, on the other side of the cross, we can read this psalm through the lens of Christ and understand the differentiation that's being made here. The differentiation between those who are wicked and those who belong to God is not in terms of our own moral performance.
It is on the basis of have we turned to God and received the love that he has shown towards us in Christ by repenting of our sin and trusting in Christ for salvation, rather than trying to stand on our own two feet before God.
So David, even though at this time he's on the other side of the cross, even he understands though that he is coming into God's presence by God's great love for him. Now, he says here in the other half of verse seven, he says, in reverence, I bow down toward your holy temple. And you might be wondering why that is.
Something that's important to understand about the nature of the temple is that the temple did not contain God, but it was that place in which God manifested his presence among his people. And so when the temple was dedicated, we find King Solomon offering up this prayer in 1st Kings 8 verse 29 through 30.
He says, may your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, My name shall be there, so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. Hear the supplication of your servant and your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. This is why David is saying this, is because this is where God is making his presence manifest among the people. All the people you know, they all couldn't be immediately in Jerusalem and so they were directing their, their prayers toward where God was among his people. Now, of course, this is no longer necessary because there is no longer any physical temple made of, of stone and mortar.
Rather, we have been made into the temple of God in Jesus Christ, and so. We worship God in spirit and truth, Jesus told the woman at the well, you're gonna neither worship at their hill, Mount Gerizim, or in Jerusalem at that temple at that time, but in spirit and truth. And so that is what we do today, but that's just to kind of help your understanding there as to why they were praying towards the temple.
Now in verse eight, David prays, lead me, Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies-- make your way straight before me. And then he goes on to talk about how his enemies are malicious towards him and, and basically they wanna lead him astray. And so David is not taking for granted that he is going to continue walking in the ways of righteousness, that he's going to continue walking God's ways.
Part of David's plea here, part of his prayer is that God would guard his path, that he would not be taken astray because his enemies don't actually have his best interest in mind. Now we can imagine that perhaps they were actually conniving to lead David astray, but we can also understand that there are greater forces at work through people that go beyond their conscious intent.
We know that the devil is very happy to lead people astray. And so we have to be wary about the company that we keep, that even if those persons don't have any personal malice toward us, nonetheless, if they're walking in the ways of evil and wickedness, the devil is more than happy to use those people to help us get on the wrong path in life.
This leads David to call for the destruction of these enemies of his, these ones who are in fact actively trying to lead him astray. These ones that can't be trusted, their, their throats like an open grave. He closes the Psalm in verses 10 through 12. It says, declare them guilty, oh God! Let their intrigues be their downfall.
Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you. But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.
So this would be the imprecatory part of this psalm, the especially imprecatory part of this psalm, where David's saying, alright, God, declare those who are wicked guilty, hold nothing back, bring about their downfall, banish them for their many sins, for their rebellion against you. Now again, it's at this point where we might become uncomfortable, both because of our own sins and also because we hear the voice of Christ. We hear the voice of Christ that, that invites sinners to come to him so that they might be saved rather than being banished forever. So there seems to be some sort of tension here. In fact, we might think that there's maybe some hypocrisy here, but again, we have to remember what David prays in verse seven.
He says It's by God's great love for him that he comes into his presence and, and David's making it clear here that he's taking refuge in God. He's not, it is not on the basis of who he is that he's accepted. And we, and we see this over the course of David's life that he, he recognizes this in Psalm 51, and we'll read verse one and verse five.
David writes this psalm for the director of music. A Psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. And David prays. He says, have mercy on me, o God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion, blot out my transgression.
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. So David has no problem admitting that he's a sinner. But the thing that differentiates David from these others that he is calling to be banished is that he is seeking refuge in God. He's looking to God's love and mercy, whereas the evil ones that he's talking about, they don't care. They don't care what God thinks. They're not pleading for mercy. They're very content with themselves. And so yes, David is calling for, for these ones to be declared guilty, for them to be banished, for them to face the consequences of what they've done.
And we might think, you know, is this an Old Testament versus New Testament thing? But when we go to the New Testament, we find similar appeals being made to God. I've, in my time preaching here I've referred to this passage a few times, so it might be familiar to some of you. Revelation six, 10 through 11, we find those, among those Christian martyrs in John's revelation, we find them crying out, the Christian dead, crying out. It says, they called out an a loud voice, how long, sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood? Than each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.
They're not condemned for making this appeal. They, but they're crying out. We were unjustly murdered. God, when will, when will you avenge us? In the book of James, in James five verses one through eight there's anticipation of God's judgment coming against the wicked rich. It says now listen to you, now listen you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You've hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You've condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. So we have a very similar picture here in James as we do in Revelation of the Saints having this desire for justice, and James is calling them to be patient. All those that have done wrong against you and and picked out here are those who are rich. It's not that being rich is wrong, it's that these are people who are rich who have been treating those who are under their sway unjustly.
They haven't been paying just wages to their workers. And James is saying, you're gonna have to answer for what you've, you've done so, so we just see clearly here, this is not an Old Testament, New Testament thing. There is a place for anticipating God's judgment and also calling for it, that God would, would judge evil, that he would bring judgment against wickedness.
But it is important to make clear here that this vengeance is God's vengeance. It's not our vengeance.
In Romans 12 verses 18 through 21, the Apostle Paul tells the Christians in Rome this, he says, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: it is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary: if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he's thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not become, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
The reason why when someone does something wrong against any one of us, we don't seek revenge against them because we're leaving that in God's hand. It is God's place to avenge, not ours. Now we turn to Christ's teaching in the gospel. Matthew five verses 43 through 45, and this is probably the sort of teaching that comes to mind when you're reading Psalm five, other Imprecatory Psalms because Jesus is very explicit about how we should treat those who wish evil against us. He says, you have heard it, heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
If we step back and we, and we look at these things together, if we see what David is calling for, and we also consider these prayers of the Christian Saints, and we also see Christ's teaching here, if we step back and really look at them, I think you'll see that there is no inconsistency here. The fact is, is that sinners should repent of their sins, and we should pray that they would repent.
That's what really Jesus is, is calling for here. You can't love your enemy by saying, giving two thumbs up to the evil that they're doing. That's not loving people. We love people by speaking the truth to them in love. What you're doing is wrong. I might not be able to change your mind, but I am going to pray that God would change your heart, that you would in fact turn from your sin. So that's, that's certainly in keeping with God's love. It's also in keeping with God's justice that they would actually change their ways. Likewise, there's nothing inconsistent with us praying that those who refuse to repent of their sins should answer for their sins.
You see, there's no situation in which God is allowing people to not have to answer for their sins, in which they are escaping justice. That's not the situation here. The situation is this, is that there are those who are in Christ and there are those who are outside of Christ. Those outside of Christ are going to have to answer for what they've, they've done. They don't think they have to change anything, well they're going to have to report to God on that. Those in Christ have confessed their need. They've confessed that, yes, I am a sinner. I need God's mercy, I cannot save myself. And they've put their trust in Jesus Christ. In fact, he is the only perfect man.
He's the only perfect human being, and that in fact, he is the only one that could make amends for my sins. You see, Jesus is the perfect satisfaction of both God's justice and mercy. He's an obvious expression of mercy, but he satisfies God's justice because he makes atonement for our sins. He pays that ransom.
He pays the price for our sins by his sacrifice on the cross. And so justice may be, must be upheld, and it'll be upheld either in Christ or outside of Christ, and if outside of Christ, it ends in destruction. And so we are not hypocrites in praying both of these things. We confess that without the love of God, we are lost and that it is only because God has loved us that we are saved.
Paul says in Ephesians two, verses four through seven, but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-- it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. You see, our new situation in Christ fits hand in glove with the terms in which David explains his acceptance by God. It's by God's love manifest toward us in Christ that we are saved.
We are saved, not by our own standing, but by taking refuge in Christ. Verses, verse 12, David says that surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield. Christ is that shield. Christ is that favor of God shown towards us. And as we put our trust in him, he surrounds us like a shield. It is Christ who is our cause of rejoicing as we see God's love for us and we respond in kind to Him by loving him with all of our hearts.
Like David, we do need to pray that God would protect us from falling into the ways of the wicked that have landed us in this situation in the first place. Wickedness leads to death. We pray that others would join us, that even our enemies would join us.
We're not, we're not wishing that people would not receive God's mercy. That'd be a little hypocritical because God's shown us a whole heap of mercy. But if they will not forsake their wickedness, it is no contradiction for us to pray in the same breath that God would hold them to account for what they have done.
We relent of seeking vengeance ourselves, perhaps we even forgive them without them seeking an apology. But in the end, every sin is committed against God. It's not just personal to us, it is personal to God. It's not wrong to pray for God to reveal his justice, both now and on the final day. In fact, I think praying that those who have harmed us would face justice now can be for their good, not just for our own. Because if that, if, if they have to answer for what they've done here and now, they'll be taught of their guilt before the final judgment arrives, and in fact may provide an emphatic opportunity for them to repent and turn to Christ. And so we need not pray that people get away with things.
But we should pray that they would repent of their sin and receive mercy.
Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. And yet, when Christ returns, he will judge the world in righteousness. No contradiction, just two parts of the one truth that sin is intolerable to God and that it must be dealt with, one way or another, in Christ or outside of Christ.
And so we pray in just that way. Let's come before the Lord in prayer.
Dear Father.
We come before you by your great love for us.
Father, we know that we have been among the rebellion, the evil rebellion against you, willing participants in it.
And that we have no way to stand before you on our own two feet. Father, we thank you that because of Jesus Christ, we can be accepted by you. We thank you that you have given him to be our refuge, our shield. Father, we pray for those that are currently outside of Christ, who've not sought refuge in him, who believe that they're all right on their own.
Father, convict them of their sin. Help them to see your perfect holiness and goodness. And fill them with a desire to be with you, to abandon their rebellion. Father, we pray that they would accept the mercy that you have so graciously offered in Jesus Christ. And Father, for those that refuse this mercy, that intend to just persevere in their evil to the very end, father, we pray that they would answer for what they're doing and we know that they will. Father, we know that your judgment is sure. If somehow, father, they can receive judgment here and now so that maybe that would awaken them to, to their need for Christ, we pray that would happen even now father.
But Father, we, we do pray that your justice would be revealed on earth and we know that it surely will on the day of Christ's return. We give you praise. We thank you, father for our salvation in Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we continue our series Summer in the Psalms. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)