As we’ve been learning this summer, the Psalms are far more than just good poetry or passages to be read on special occasions. The Psalms are divinely inspired songs worship and prayer. Yet they are even more than that. The Psalms teach us how to think about God and man in a fallen world. But they don’t just stop with helping us think correctly. The Psalms are also meant to shape our feelings about God and man and the world. How should think about the reality of evil in our fallen world? What about the anger, retaliation and vengeance we can feel when we see evil being done in the world? Even more, how should a Christian think and feel about those who have wronged him or her—perhaps in terrible ways? How should that person pray?
Psalm 69 is part of a group of psalms in our Bibles that are called imprecatory psalms. Imprecation means to call for a curse or a judgment to fall on an enemy. In the Psalms we see them as curses, judgments against God’s enemies. Psalm 69 is an example of one of these Psalms going so far as to ask God to blot out evildoers from the book of life. When you have been the victim of crime or evil or persecution, isn’t there something inside you that really likes these verses? If the Psalms are supposed to shape how we think and feel and pray, are these Psalms saying that we can join in with David and start calling down curses and judgments against our enemies? Then what do we do with what Jesus taught us, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27-28). It sounds like these psalms are doing the opposite of what Jesus said and did. It is important to understand how the New Testament used and explained this psalm. And we get a lot of help here because seven of the verses of this psalm are quoted explicitly in the New Testament, including the parts that are imprecatory.
In light of New Testament teaching (listen to the sermon to hear this explained), here’s what this Psalm can teach us: When we see or experience evil in our world, we should pray that God be glorified through the deliverance of the victim, mercy for the sinner, and God’s justice not our vengeance.
More specifically, here are some practical ways to understand and apply Psalm 69:
1.) In the face of evil, pray for help (v. 1-4)
2.) In the face of evil, confess your own sins (v. 5-12)
3.) In the face of evil, pray the character of God (v. 13-18)
4.) In the face of evil, pray for God’s Justice, not our vengeance (v. 22-28)
5.) In the face of evil, pray for God’s glory and praise in all the world (v. 29-36)
Psalm 69 has two teaching points in the New Testament. One is the reality of judgment. The imprecations are not sinful personal retaliation but prophetic approval of God’s righteous judgment and wrath against sin and evil. The other is the suffering of Christ and the judgment of Christ in our place. In light of those twin truths, we can be freed from our own self-righteous retaliation and revenge and hatred and instead be free to love our enemies. The fact is that God will avenge himself (Ro. 12:19-21) and it is right for him to do so. It is also the very means by which we are able to follow Jesus in suffering for the sake of others who have wronged us.
There is a sense in which we are always praying and singing the imprecatory psalm. “God destroy evil, right all wrongs, deliver us, save us, throw death itself into the lake of fire.” In the Lord’s prayer, 5 out of 7 requests have imprecatory implications. “Hallowed be your name” implies “Lord, remove all that is unhallowed all that does not hallow you.” We pray “Thy kingdom come” and all pretend kingdoms be destroyed. “Thy will be done” and destroy every contradictory will. “Lead us not into temptation” and destroy their sources; deliver us from evil.
How does all this inform the way we pray for the evil we see in the world? Here is one way we can pray:
“Father, what ISIS is doing is evil…what Hamas is doing is evil…what the child molester is doing is evil…, it is horrible and wrong and I ask you that you will destroy evil and that you will heal and protect and restore the victimized. And father if it would be your will save the evil person, do not hold this sin against them, just as you did not hold my sin against me when I was your enemy. Forgive and transform them. But Lord if they are not going to repent, remove them, bring justice, take them out of circulation, and deliver the victims from their hands. We ask this so that your name might be glorified in your justice, in your mercy and all because of Jesus. Amen”
