Psalm 139 is a valuable psalm, emphasizing the fundamentals of God’s relationship to His youngsters. Within the first six verses, David says (to paraphrase), “God is aware of me intimately”; in verses 7–12, “God is with me consistently”; and in verses 13–18, “God has made me splendidly.”
Verses 19–22, nevertheless, strike what would possibly sound like a discordant notice. This part virtually appears misplaced. Of the twenty-four verses within the psalm, there’s no query most would regard these 4 as probably the most troublesome. Having praised God for His provision in verses 1–18, David then prays for God to guage the depraved:
Oh that you’d slay the depraved, O God!
O males of blood, depart from me!
They converse towards you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your identify in useless.
Do I not hate those that hate you, O LORD?
And do I not detest those that stand up towards you?
I hate them with full hatred;
I rely them my enemies. (Ps. 139:19–22)
To ensure that these verses to make sense, we should learn them throughout the context of your complete psalm (to not point out all of Scripture). God is so valuable to David that he finds those that converse towards God as insupportable.
The precept is straightforward: When an individual’s world is stuffed with God, like David’s was, he’ll lengthy for the elimination of evil. Like how a father is full of anger towards those that make the most of his little one, so David despises those that insurgent towards the Lord.
From Psalm 139 we will collect a number of ideas for serving to us learn the psalms of judgment within the Bible.
The Psalms of Judgment Are Prayers
First, we should always notice that in these verses, David directs his phrases to God. The image will not be of the enthroned king shouting at his topics however of a humble man bringing his burden as a petition to the King of kings.
Extra particularly, this psalm is an imprecatory prayer. An imprecation is a curse. These psalms categorical how all opposition to God’s magnificent holiness will in the future be destroyed. In a phrase, they’re prayers for divine vengeance, primarily based in God’s personal promise of the identical.
That these psalms are within the Bible in any respect makes some embarrassed. In an effort to clarify them away, we is likely to be tempted to play the Previous Testomony towards the New Testomony, saying, “The God of the Previous Testomony is considered one of wrath; Jesus within the New Testomony is stuffed with grace. You received’t discover something like these cursing psalms within the Gospels or Letters.” However a better take a look at the New Testomony proves in any other case.
All opposition to God’s magnificent holiness will in the future be destroyed.
Jesus, for instance, curses the hypocritical Pharisees of His day in Matthew 23:33: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to flee being sentenced to hell?” Or Paul, writing to the church buildings in Galatia, warns, “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel opposite to the one you acquired, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). Imprecatory prayers are a characteristic of each the Previous Testomony and the New.
On the similar time, the Bible expressly forbids private vengefulness. Christians are Deuteronomy 32:35 individuals, entrusting all vengeance towards evil into God’s arms. (Importantly, Paul even references this verse in Romans 12:9, making use of the Previous Testomony precept to New Testomony Christians.)
In affirming each of those truths, there’s a steadiness to attain. On one hand, we pray with David that God would decide the depraved. On the opposite, we additionally entrust that judgment to God alone.
The Psalms of Judgment Are Not Applications
Since vengeance belongs to God, these prayers for judgment usually are not a program for David—or any of us, for that matter—to implement. David, like us, longs for a day when wickedness will probably be destroyed. However he refuses to take issues into his personal arms.
Regardless of the various privileges David loved as king and the various alternatives he needed to precise violence towards his enemies, he didn’t do it. Walter Kaiser described the character of David’s enemies in 1 and a couple of Samuel as “the end result and remaining fruit of all falsehood, greed, hate, cruelty, and treachery aimed towards the very technique of their very own salvation.” Males like Doeg, Cush, and Ahithophel hated David, rejecting God’s anointed king and saving guarantees.
The very fact is that David noticed evil for what it’s: evil. He hated it “with full hatred.” If we’re sincere, it’s troublesome to offer a voice to that type of expression with out mixing it with private animosity. However God’s Phrase stands. These phrases are a prayer to be prayed with out being a program for exacting private revenge. They’re additionally to be prayed with the information and hope that the depraved can, by God’s grace, nonetheless flip and be saved so long as there’s breath of their lungs.
The Psalms of Judgment Reveal Humanity’s Drawback
Christians studying the imprecatory psalms face a twofold predicament. First, we could be confused in our pondering. Maybe a part of the rationale we hesitate to hope like David did is as a result of we discover it distasteful to confront sin. If we aren’t cautious, we will let cultural clichés fairly than biblical ideas dictate our worldview.
Fashionable Christian within the West, for example, has grown snug with the saying “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” It sounds good—however does it sq. with how David prayed in Psalm 139? He knew he lived in a world wherein evil abounds. For him, evil was not an summary idea; evil revealed itself within the hearts and lives of people. He didn’t distinguish between the sin and the particular person committing the sin.
There’s little question that we’re to have compassion on those that are stranded of their sin. On the similar time, we should convey our serious about sin and sinners underneath the jurisdiction of the Bible. It’s concurrently true that God’s wrath is revealed towards all sin and that God’s love extends to responsible sinners (John 3:16, 35).
That we’re confused in our pondering is compounded by a second downside: We could be compromised in our dwelling. We will fail to spot how actually evil evil is, recoiling from God’s judgment. Just like the frog within the kettle that doesn’t understand the water is coming to boil, we will slowly drift into an elevated tolerance of the practices that God condemns in His Phrase.
It’s concurrently true that God’s wrath is revealed towards all sin and that God’s love extends to responsible sinners.
The Psalms of Judgment Should Be Learn with Humility
The psalm’s concluding verses commend a posture of humility. Having referred to as on God to guage the depraved in verses 19–22, David then submits himself to divine scrutiny. He doesn’t confine his assault to the evil round him; he faces as much as the evil that’s inside him:
Search me, O God, and know my coronary heart!
Attempt me and know my ideas!
And see if there be any grievous method in me,
and lead me in the way in which eternal! (Ps. 139:23–24)
“Search me. Attempt me. Verify for sin in me,” David prays. He acknowledges what we should additionally confess: In our hearts are the seeds of all appalling evil. If we’re to hope as David did, then we should look not solely on the sinfulness round us but in addition to the sinful tendencies that stay inside us.
In prayer, we should not look solely on the sinfulness round us but in addition to the sinful tendencies that stay inside us.
We’d like God’s assist to learn and to hope the psalms of judgment with pure hearts. Maybe we might do properly to make Paul’s expression of reward our personal prayer:
Oh, the depth of the riches and knowledge and information of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and the way inscrutable his methods! “For who has identified the thoughts of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a present to him that he is likely to be repaid?” For from him and thru him and to him are all issues. To him be glory without end. Amen. (Rom. 11:33–36)
This text was tailored from the sermon “God Judges Righteously” by Alistair Begg.
