Don't imprecate me, Bro!

 

But whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.   --Matthew 18:6

One of my favorite Facebook groups, and a source of many biblical memes that I use on my own page, is called "Imprecatory Psalms for Dads and Malms."  It's a play on words, encouraging parents to teach the entire Scripture to their children, even those passages that aren't all warm and fuzzy.

Imprecatory is an adjective that means to curse or invoke evil on someone.  Yes, the Bible does that.  This week in my daily Bible readings I came upon Psalm 59, which is considered to be one of six or seven Imprecatory Psalms in the Bible.  

Before you shut me out or stop reading because this idea offends you, let me point out some things.  In the secular world, we use some pretty violent imagery in our daily struggle on this Earth.  How do we describe someone who happened to pick some winning stocks or bonds?  "He made a killing in the market."  How do we encourage a friend who may be going through a divorce?  "Hit him where it hurts."  What is the first thing a child might think if he has gotten into trouble?  "My parents are going to kill me."

I am a fairly decent sports fan.  Yesterday was a day for college football, where rivals on the gridiron were encouraged to "knock their heads off" or "cut them into tiny pieces."  Former football star Dick Butkus said, "When I played pro football, I never set out to hurt one deliberately--unless, you know, it was important; like a league game or something."  Today two of my favorite NFL teams played in nationally televised games.  One smashed the other team into submission; the other got beat like a rug.

Not a sports fan?  Then how about politics?  You can hardly turn on the television or radio without being subjected to the vitriol and spite hurled at the other side in order to convince you to vote for one side or the other.  Imprecations are part of the human experience; we are hard-wired to invoke curses on one another.  This doesn't stop when one becomes a believer; it is merely tempered with grace.

My enemies try to implicate me

Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; Defend me from those who rise up against me.  Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloodthirsty men.  For look, they lie in wait for my life; the mighty gather against me, not for my transgression nor for my sin, O Lord.  They run and prepare themselves through no fault of mine.  Awake to help me, and behold!  You therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to punish all the nations; do not be merciful to any wicked transgressors.  --Psalm 59:1-5 NKJV

David was running from Saul, because Saul was determined to kill David.  Saul want to accuse David of treason, a crime for which David was completely innocent. David's prayer was a cry for justice, not limited to the house of Saul only, but against any nation that came against God's people.

Jesus said in John 15 that His followers would have to endure persecution for His Name's sake.

But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.  He who hates Me hates My Father also.  If I had not done among them the  world's which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.  But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law: "They hated Me without a cause."  --John 15:21-25

Jesus quoted Psalm 69:4 and 109:3-5, which by the way are also known as Imprecatory Psalms.  They underscore His innocence, and prophesy that evil will one day come upon His accusers.  David's words preceded Christ's, but they spoke of the same problem, because the wicked would always accuse the innocent.

My God will vindicate me

I will wait for You, O You his Strength; for God is my defense.  My God of mercy shall come to meet me; God shall let me see my desire on my enemies.  Do not slay them, lest my people forget; scatter them by Your power, and bring them down, O Lord our shield.  For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride, and for the cursing and lying which they speak.  Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be; and let them know that God rules in Jacob to the ends of the earth. --Psalm 59:9-13

They say that truth is the best defense, but it is not so in this day and age.  I have a friend who posted a meme about the non-government organizations who are providing the most assistance after the devastating hurricanes in Florida: they are churches and faith-based organizations, not political ones--not Planned Parenthood or Black Lives Matter or any other pseudo-political "grass-roots" movements we have seen in the news in recent years.  Unfortunately, my friend was beset by internet trolls, who accused him of outright lying.  Their argument seemed to be that he did not know who was sending help of contributions to those in need, and therefore he needed to shut up about it.  He took down the meme, and said that he would focus instead on his own ministry.

Even as we pray that God would set things right, we do not pray for death and destruction against our enemies.  "Do not slay them," David wrote, because of God's tender mercy (long-suffering or steadfast love, as the ESV translates the Hebrew word hesed, which we have written about many times before.)  We want God's will to be done, even if that means they come to know Christ and start preaching His word.  Remember Paul?  As David described his enemies "belching out" lies and corruption (see verse 7), we are reminded that Paul was "breathing out threatenings and slaughter" against believers (see Act 9:1).  God showed mercy to Paul; He may also have mercy on our enemies, or not--that is up to Him.  If He wants to consume them utterly for their unbelief, He is entitled to do that.

Their sin will imprecate them

And at evening they return, they growl like a dog, and go all around the city.  They wander up and down for food, and howl if they are not satisfied.  But I will sing of Your power; yes I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning; for You have been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.  To You, O my Strength, I will sing praises; for God is my defense, my God of mercy.  --Psalm 59:14-17

It is good to have God on our side.  We are sinful, separated from God, but we receive mercy.  1 John 2:1 says, "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin.  And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."  Isn't it good to have an advocate, a defense attorney who is in the Judge's good graces?

The danger with our message is that it is often too grace focused.  Will everyone believe in Jesus, and be saved from God's wrath by His shed blood?  Unfortunately, no.  Jesus Himself said, "Whoever causes on of these little ones who believes in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depths of the sea." (Matthew 18:6).  This Imprecatory statement (e.g. curse, wishing evil upon someone) came from Jesus Himself.  In John 3:18 Jesus said, "He who believes in Him (God's Son) is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God."

Believe in Him today.  Call upon Him for forgiveness and salvation before your eternal soul meets a fate worse than death.  Confess your sins, for that is the only way to obtain God's mercy.

 

Grace wins

 

Thy mercy Lord doth to the heavens extend,
Thy faithfulness doth to the clouds ascend;
Thy justice steadfast as a mountain is,
Thy judgments deep as is the great Abyss;
Thy noble mercies save all living things,
The sons of men creep underneath thy wings:
With thy great plenty they are fed at will,
And of thy pleasure's stream they drink their fill;
For even the well of life remains with thee,
And in thy glorious light we light shall see.—Sir John Davies.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is quoted as saying, "What you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying."  Said another way, actions speak louder than words. It is a mark of maturity to be able to look past flowery language to see the heart of a person.

God knows our heart, and in the 36th Psalm we see David contrasting the heart of evil man with the heart of God as evidenced by His steadfast love, His faithfulness, and His righteousness.  David goes on to pray that God's favor would continue to be with him (and people like him) and that we would not be tripped up by the wickedness of men among whom we live.  Let's take a closer look together.

The evil that men do

Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.  For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.  The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good.  He plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not reject evil.          --Psalm 36:1-4

Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar, "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." People have interpreted these words in several different ways.  Some say it means that all your evil deeds will be remembered long after the good you have done is forgotten.  Others interpret it to mean that someone may speak well of a person at their funeral, overlooking their sin and evil nature.

Similarly, there are several different interpretations of verse 1 of the 36th Psalm.  Here are just a few of them.  The Hebrew word for "speaks" is sometimes translated a "Oracle".  So the NKJV renders it this way:  "An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked: there is no fear of God before his eyes."  So we see that the sinful actions of man bespeak the evil within them, as would a prophet or an Oracle (i.e. one who sees with spiritual eyes.)  Another interesting deviation among the various translations is the pronoun "his", as in "his heart."  The ASV translates it this way: "The transgression of the wicked says within my heart, There is no fear of God before his eyes."  Once we start questioning whether this should be a first person or second person pronoun, we are faced with the fact that we may see the sins of others quite easily, but we ourselves are prone to the very same sin.  Romans 3:10 reminds us that "None is righteous; no, not one."

The point, I think, is that when we see ourselves and others through the filter of our sins, our true heart is revealed.  We may flatter ourselves, or speak well of others, and kind of brush our sins under the rug so that no one can see them.  This is like putting lipstick on a pig.  People are still wicked in their heart of hearts.  The Phillips paraphrase renders verse 4 like this: "They lie awake at night hatching sinful plots.  Their actions are never good.  They make no attempt to turn from evil."  In Genesis 6:5 God made this assessment: "Every thought of man was evil all the time."  Jesus said in Matthew 24:37 that the last days would be as the days of Noah.  If you believe that we are in the last days, one of the evidences would be the utter and complete depravity of man that we see around us every day.

The absolute goodness of God

Contrast the wickedness of man with the attributes of God.  We see in verses 5-9

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, You faithfulness to the clouds.  Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.  How precious is your steadfast love, O God!  The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.  They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You given them drink from the river of Your delights.  For with You is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

What do we see about God in this passage?  How does David describe Him?  The first adjective he uses is the Hebrew word hesed.  This word is found almost 250 times in the Old Testament, and it is variously translated as mercy, kindness, lovingkindness, goodness, and favor.  Many would equate it with the Greek word agape, which describes the sacrificial love of God; but this is too limiting.  It does not merely mean the love of God, but goes so much deeper.  This steadfast love, this hesed, is indeed precious.

The second adjective describing God is His faithfulness.  This word can mean firmness, fidelity, steadfastness and steadiness.  In ancient times sailors would plot a course to get to their destination, and if they stayed true, and did not drift off-course, did not turn to the right or to the left, they would faithfully reach their destination.  In modern times pilots will do the same: set a course, and stay true to that heading, so that their passengers (souls on board) and cargo can safely reach their destination.  How much more is God true and faithful in bringing about His will for us?  This is what Steven Curtis Chapman was thinking when he wrote the song, the refrain of which says, "My Redeemer is faithful and true; everything He has said He will do.  Every morning His mercies are new.  My Redeemer is faithful and true."

The third word David uses to describe God in these verses is righteous.  He is without sin.  You will note that the first word used to describe man was sinful, wicked, transgressing His ways--these words are the defining qualities of man.  By contrast God is righteous, sinless, and pure; but that is not even the best or most important thing about Him.

Because His love is steadfast, we can take refuge in Him (verse 5).  Because of His faithfulness (verse 5), we can "feast on His abundance" and can "drink from the river of His delight" (verse 8).  Because of His righteousness, His sinless purity, He is the very light by which we see.  Without the shadow of any guilt or stain in the lens through which we see reality, we can see His goodness, His love, His righteousness.  We can also see our own sin.

The prayer for deliverance

Oh, continue Your steadfast love to those who know You, and Your righteousness to the upright of heart!  Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.  There the evildoers lie fallen; they are thrust down, unable to rise.  --verses 10-12

When we are confronted with the sinfulness of man, it speaks to our heart.  When we recognize the righteous favor of God, we run to Him for refuge and forgiveness.  Yet even then we are prone to look back, to revisit our sin, to even long for it.  We must pray, as David did, that God's love would remain steadfast.  We must pray that God would impute His righteousness upon us, covering our sin.  We must not be drawn away, because then we become like those overcome by evil, lying in the dirt, unable to have fellowship with a holy God.

Salvation is not a "one-and-done" event.  We are to take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23), dying to our sinful selves and allowing God to cleanse us, to use us, to love us unconditionally.  Let us continually grow in grace, and avoid arrogance.  We must humbly call to Jesus, and not let the hooks of evil men around us draw us away from Him.  Hebrews 12:1 says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."  I believe the writer of Hebrews was writing to Christians, not to "sinners."  We all must shake off the effects of sin to be an effective Christian.  We all need grace.

John Newton, was a former slave trader turned Christian, who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.  Near the end of his life he said, "Although my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner; and Christ is a great Savior."  

We must not forget the mercy of God in our sin.  As Christians, we know that God's mercy and grace have overcome our sin.  Grace wins.