Imprecatory - Psalm 69:24

Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous sway in me, and lead me in the way Everlasting,

it's 139, 23, and 24. So in the Psalms, we find this wonderfully rich spirituality. And in the midst of that, we find passages such as our text tonight. Pour out your indignation upon them and let your burning anger overtake them. To give you a little bit of context there,

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see and make their loins tremble continually. May their camp be a desolation. Let no one dwell in their tents. Add to them punishment upon punishment. May they have no acquittal from you. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living. Let them not be enrolled among the righteous.

We call those imprecatory prayers. They invoke curses and judgment. So what do you do with that? Are we supposed to pray that? So tonight I'm going to try and answer three questions as we're thinking about about Psalm 69 24. I want to try and answer three questions. First, may we skip over prayers like this? So I'm going to, let me give away the short version of that answer. No, no, we may not skip over prayers like this. So then second, why is this prayer here? And third, how do Christians pray this psalm? How do Christians pray like this? So first, may we skip over prayers like this. Second, why is this prayer here? Third, how do Christians pray something like verse 24? Okay, so let's tackle that first question now. May we skip over this prayer? I think, here's the reality, I think most Christians already do. or at least most Western Christians, already do skip over prayers like this. They make us uncomfortable. We don't know how to pray this sort of thing when we're also told to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. So what do you do in that situation? But I think we see, if we were to look at the entirety of the song, we'd see three reasons, at least three reasons, not to skip this. The first is that this imprecatory prayer is framed by statements about the character of God. If you work through this psalm, you see an appeal to the knowledge of God in verses four and five and 19. You have concern for the honor of God's name in verses six through eight. Verses 13 through 16 and then down in verse 33, we have appeals to God's covenant love, God's faithfulness, God's mercy. The prayers in verses 22 to 28 should be seen as appeals to God's justice. The end of the psalm calls for worship. So I can't pass over verse 24 without passing over all of that. So that's one reason we can't skip a prayer like this. This imprecatory prayer is framed by the salvation of God, literally in this psalm framed by the salvation of God. The first verse is a cry for salvation. The last verse expresses hope in that same salvation. And this plea for deliverance, for salvation, is repeated in verse 13. Verse 14, verse 18, and verse 20. So apparently, there is some connection between the Lord's covenant faithfulness to his people and imprecation. They're a package deal. So I have to figure out what to do with that. Third, this imprecatory prayer is framed by the New Testament's use of this psalm. Psalm 69 is the second most quoted psalm in the New Testament, behind Psalm 22. which is also in the same vein. Jesus uses verse four to describe himself in John 15. Verse nine is used in the Gospels of the cleansing of the temple, and by Paul in Romans 15. Verse 21 is applied to Jesus on the cross in the Gospels. The heart of the imprecation in verses 22 to 28, well, verses 22 and 23 are cited in Romans 11. Our text, verse 24, is cited in Revelation 16.1. Acts 1.20 applies verse 25 to describe Judas, and verse 28 is cited in Revelation 21.27. So I'm stuck with this. It's ironic, though, that where the New Testament uses this psalm the most is where we tend to be most uncomfortable with it. So apparently, We not only cannot skip prayers like this, we need them if we're to be faithful to the rest of scripture. So may we skip this? No. So then we should turn to the second question. All right, so if I can't skip this, then why is this prayer here? What's it there for? How does it arise? Why does the psalmist pray verse 24? Well, the superscript of the psalm tells us that it's a psalm of David, so it's possible that he prayed this when he was running from King Saul, or when he was forced to flee Absalom and abandon Jerusalem. But the superscript also tells us that it's for the choir master. In other words, this is intended for general use in public worship. Why don't we sing songs like this, by the way? Can I just, anyway. Because apparently that's what it was for. So I'm gonna focus on what we know from the psalm itself. So why does he pray verse 24? First of all, the psalmist prays because he's suffering persecution. That's in verses one to three. He has enemies who are seeking his harm. It's so terrible that the psalmist compares it to the experience of drowning. We've seen images from Florida of the damage that hurricanes can do. where entire downtown areas just get washed away. And that's the imagery that's being used here. The psalmist is experiencing his own personal hurricane because of the persecution that he suffers. So that's first, he's suffering persecution. Second, the psalmist prays because he suffers persecution innocently. It's verses four and five. His enemies hate him without cause and spread lies about him. God knows the psalmist's heart and his deeds, no matter what his accusers say and do. And God knows that he's innocent. The fact that God knows is a good thing because third, the psalmist prays because he suffers persecution innocently for the Lord's sake. That's verses 6 through 12 of the psalmist.

For your sake, O Lord, that I've borne reproach.

Zeal for your house consumes me, O God, and because of my earnestness in my fasting and in my prayers, not even my own family wants anything to do with me. So the psalmist pleads with God for rescue, that's verses 13 to 18. He pleads with God for rescue, pleads with God to make his suffering stop, because fourth, he suffers persecution, innocently, for the Lord's sake, with no help, or excuse me, with no hope of relief from anywhere else. Verses 19 to 21. Lord, they've even sought to poison my food and have given me sour wine to drink. I am alone, there is no pity, there is no comfort, there is no way to make it stop. And I plead with you, make it stop. Judge them, Lord, verses 22 to 28. If they will not stop, destroy them. Pour out your indignation upon them and let your burning anger overtake them. Blot them out, do not relent. And I will praise you because you hear the prayers of the needy and the humble versus 29 to 35. Does that make sense why he's praying this now? He prays because he suffers persecution innocently for the Lord's sake with no hope of relief. That's why this prayer is here. So if that's why it's here, then how do we pray it? What do we do with that? That takes us to that third question, how do Christians pray this psalm? And I think perhaps the reason that we struggle with how to pray something like verse 24 is that frankly, we just don't face this kind of situation very often. It's outside of our experience. I mean, do we encounter opposition for our faith? Yeah. Right? Does it sometimes feel hopeless? Yeah, but like this? We don't suffer persecution innocently for the Lord's sake with no hope of relief. So when folks say that imprecatory Psalms seem unloving or ungracious, friends, that's very much a first world white collar objection to imprecation. We might feel differently about it if we lived somewhere else or sometime else. Thanks be to God, we live where we live and when we live. And yet, this psalm is still God's word for us. We need this word. And so let me suggest four ways that the prayer expressed here in Psalm 69, 24 might do us good. Four ways. So first, how do Christians pray this psalm? We pray this psalm because it helps us to hope earnestly for a day of future salvation and judgment. We pray a psalm like this because it helps us to hope earnestly for a day of future salvation and judgment. The salvation of the elect and the judgment of their oppressors go hand in hand. This is what the martyrs cry out in Revelation 610.

Oh, sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

When we take communion, how do we end our observance of communion. What do we all say in union? Come quickly. Do we understand what we're saying when we say that the writing of all wrongs, the cleansing of the world, the imprecatory songs remind us of what we ought to long for. So that's one way. It's a second way that this helps us when we pray. Second, when we pray and read this text, we learn to sympathize with our brothers and sisters who do suffer like this. We learn to sympathize with those who do suffer like this. The Lord Jesus sympathizes with them. He understands their suffering. He shares it. He's the ultimate example of innocent suffering. That's why the New Testament quotes Psalm 69 so much. The Lord, as Calvin puts it,

cannot shut his eyes to our miseries and forever allow the license which the wicked take in doing evil to pass with impunity without denying himself.

So you might not suffer like this. But what of the Christian woman in Nigeria who is kidnapped and sold into sex slavery? Or what about the Christian man in Pakistan who watches his whole family die because of their faith? Will you pray for justice for them? Will you sympathize with them? Because they need this prayer. So first, it helps us to remember what we ought to long for. And second, it helps us to sympathize with those who do suffer. Third, if you do find yourself in such suffering, there is much comfort in knowing that those who persecute God's people will face his wrath. Don't mess with God's kids. He takes that very personally. The reality is that even if your suffering is on a much smaller scale, that there is comfort in knowing that God is a just God. After all, as one commentator has put it,

it's surely better to pray for God to punish the wicked than to do it yourself.

You note that's what he does here. He doesn't take matters into his own hand. He appeals to God. That's the logic in Romans 12, 19.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

Friends, that's comfort, and that comfort is real. We ought not deny those who suffer unjustly the comfort given them by God in his word. And finally, fourth. Reading and praying this prayer will help us be more grateful for the suffering of the Lord Jesus. Reading and praying this prayer will help us be more grateful for the suffering of the Lord Jesus. Because the reality is this, because we have hated what is good and loved what is evil, what we deserve is what the psalmist prays for. To get that, what you and I deserve is what the psalmist actually prays for here. We deserve the indignation and burning anger of God.

But he demonstrates his love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Christ suffered divine imprecation in our place. And we are always in need of that reminder. And Psalm 69, 24 can do that for us, if we have ears to hear it. Let's pray. Father, even after having preached this, the words stick in my throat. but you will pour out your anger on those who are not repentant, on those who persecute your people. You are a just God, and for those who suffer, that is a comfort. May we know the comfort, and may our brothers and sisters who suffer even now for the sake of the gospel know the comfort of knowing that you are a just God, who will punish the wicked one day. And thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have suffered the burning anger of the Lord in our place. We pray all this in your name and for your sake, amen.