How to Pray for Justice - The Book of Psalms
Main idea:
When we look at the curses in the Psalms we learn that, rather than being a problem to christians, these passages give us a strong cord of hope that we can hang on to in a world that is full of pain and evil. They give voice to our fears and worries. And they provide a healthy pathway for us to be rooted in God's power and justice.
Outline:
1. See the full story of the Psalm
2. See the posture of the author
He seeks God's kingdom, not his own
He submits himself to God's judgment
He turns to God for justice, not his own desires and abilities
He acknowledges the very real power of God's wrath against sin
3. Connect the Psalm to the big story of the Bible
The promise to crush the head of the snake
The promise to build an everlasting kingdom
The plot twist of the Son of God who was crushed for us
Scripture references:
Psalm 137
Psalm 118:10
Psalm 109:26-27
Psalm 139:19-24
Genesis 3:15
Psalm 2:7-9
Revelation 18:1-2; 8
Isaiah 53:5
Application:
How do you respond to anger, pain and injustice? Do you recoil into yourself and your thirst for revenge?
Do you see the danger of your own sin in the midst of pain?
Do you trust the justice of God above your own sense of right and wrong?
Have you ever dwelt on the terrible reality of God's wrath against sin?
Do you have a daily awareness of the beauty of the price Jesus paid to set you free from punishment? Do you walk in the joy of this freedom?
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One of the biggest objections to the Christian faith is the reality of evil, pain and suffering in the world. There is a universal desire built into all of us to see a solution, to see justice against all the terrible things that happen in the world.
Some of us are unbothered by this because we have had pretty easy lives. Some of us have faced very very dark and difficult things. Anyone who takes a moment and considers the amount of evil and suffering around us in the world will come to the same conclusion: how do we cry out for justice for the terrible things that happen to us or the people around us? How do we give voice to the anger and rage that sometimes fills our heart?
More importantly, does God care? Is he present? Does he hear the pain? What is his relationship to it?
Unfortunately, the people who are supposed to represent God in this area have failed miserably. Church leaders have often responded to evil and injustice with simplistic answers or solutions that have hurt people.
Now, when it comes to how the Bible responds to these issues - that becomes an issue in and of itself. Many passages, especially in the OT seem to present God and his people as cruel or vengeful.
One of the most common accusations against the Bible is, "How can you say that God is about love and peace and mercy when he is so vengeful and wrathful? How can it be right that so many passages in the Bible have God's people saying or doing things that do not seem to follow the words of Jesus to "turn the other cheek"?"
One of the biggest areas that this is seen is the Psalms. Numerous Psalms include curses that the author expresses about his enemies and calls for God to judge and punish them.
So, on the one hand, we want to see God execute justice against evil, we want to see that God is NOT detached or indifferent to suffering in the world. On the other hand we have a really hard time with passages that present harsh judgement.
This is a very important problem for us in how we see the Bible and how we see God. Today, we want to look at one of the most difficult passages in the Bible, and to try to untangle this knot.
Psalm 137
That last verse to me is one of the most difficult and shocking statements in all of Scripture.
Many people try to "fix" these passages in a variety of ways:
• some say this is an example of the authors selfish and sinful desires
• some say these passages dont apply to us at all because Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek
• some just avoid such passages
• more examples?
We never have to shy away or avoid anything in the Bible - even the parts that seem complex or contradictory. If the Bible is really God's word, then there is a richness and treasure in all of it. And it truly pays off to dig and to ask the hard questions because we often learn in this process that it was OUR OWN bias or false assumption that lead us to misunderstand it in the first place.
When we look at the curses in the Psalms we learn that, rather than being a problem to christians, these passages give us a strong cord of hope that we can hang on to in a world that is full of pain and evil. They give voice to our fears and worries. And they provide a healthy pathway for us to be rooted in God's power and justice.
1. See the full story
It's easy to see one line and be stuck on that.
"crush them in your anger Lord"
"blessed is he who dashes their infants on a rock"
These words are terrible and painful to see! How could he say such a thing??
We live in an age of one liners, of misquoting and misunderstanding. And we need to learn to get the fuller picture of what we are reading. What is truly going on here in this passage? What is the story?
- the Psalm starts with a note of sadness and heartbreak - the authors are captives in a foreign land
- their captors are mocking them in their pain and asking them to sing the songs of Zion (another name for Jerusalem)
- they experienced brutal suffering, the kind that none of us have ever seen. Later in the Psalm we see that their neighbor city, Edom, which was supposed to help them, allied against their enemies and we excited to city them completely destroyed.
- We see this in the exciting cheering "Destroy it! Destroy it down to its foundations!"
- Ancient Near Eastern war practices were very very brutal - and Babylon was know for their merciless brutality
- They experienced brutal and bloodthirsty betrayal
2. See the posture of the author
At first glance these kinds of passages may seem to be driven by a selfish thirst of revenge and anger. But when we look closely at the thought process in these kinds of Psalms, we see that they are actually processing their pain and anger by submitting them to God.
The fact alone that this Psalm is showing us that this author, even though he is going through very intense pain and anger, he is not off brooding and scheming somewhere in a dark corner about his revenge. He is talking to God about it. He is opening his heart to God and seeking his guidance in this painful experience.
Notice a few characteristics of this prayer, which are also present in many other Psalms of a similar nature.
• He seeks God's kingdom, not his own
When the OT saints talk about Zion or Jerusalem, it is important for us to see what they are really saying. They are NOT just being patriotic about their own country and hateful of other countries (this is a common assumption of modern readers).
In the OT, God's promise of land was inseparable from his promise of his presence, living with and blessing his people. The center and focus of Jerusalem is not the palace, but the temple, which is the place where heaven meets earth, where God lives among and leads his people.
When the author is expressing heartbreak over Jerusalem, is not just that he is sad that his favorite city is fallen. The fall of Jerusalem means the fall of God's kingdom purposes in the world. His desire to remember and restore Jerusalem is fueled by his desire for God to work in the world, for God to show himself in the world, for God to be exalted in the world.
This is seen also in other Psalms when the author asks God to give him strength to crush his enemies.
Ps. 118:10
"All the nations surrounded me;
in the name of the Lord I destroyed them."
Ps. 109:26-27
"Help me, Lord my God;
save me according to your faithful love,
so that they may know that this is your hand
and that you, Lord, have done it."
Very often our first response in the midst of evil, pain and injustice is to focus on ourselves and how this will impact us. But even as he is speaking curses on the enemies, the Psalmist is doing that from a very specific perspective - he hates it when evil triumphs. He has a deep desire to see God work HIS victory, build his kingdom, so that all may see God's glory.
• He submits himself to God's judgment
"5. If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6. May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!"
Instead of playing the victim card, the author understands his own danger to sin, he understands his own brokenness. He submits himself to the judgement of God before he submits others. He acknowledges that there is a danger that HE will forget the beauty and glory of God's kingdom and God's promises. He admits that he is in danger of losing hope.
This is very common in other Psalms as well. As the author is praying for judgement on others, he is also bringing his heart to God and inviting God to inspect his heart.
Ps. 139:19-24
19 God, if only you would kill the wicked—
you bloodthirsty men, stay away from me—
20 who invoke you deceitfully.
Your enemies swear by you falsely.
21 Lord, don’t I hate those who hate you,
and detest those who rebel against you?
22 I hate them with extreme hatred;
I consider them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my concerns.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me;
lead me in the everlasting way.
One of the biggest areas that we are tempted to fall into our own sin is when we are being sinned against. Sinners respond sinfully to being sinned against. In the moments when we have experienced pain, betrayal, physical suffering, we often feel a sense of entitlement to let our own sin go full throttle.
In one of the stories we have read with the kids lately, there is a character who was wrongfully separated from the woman that he loved because he was not of a noble enough family. He suffered great pain even though he committed no wrong. But then that pain took hold in his heart and grew into a darkness that made him an even greater villain and monster than anything that was done against him.
The Psalms teach us that even in our pain, we must come to God with an awareness of the danger of sin in our own hearts.
• He turns to God for justice, not his own desires and abilities
Verse 7 is when he gets to the final section of the prayer, and notice how it starts:
"Remember, Lord..."
you remember and you do something about it.
"Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction..."
That is an interesting phrase. How does he know that Babylon is doomed to destruction?
When we read Jeremiah and Isaiah, they both tell us that God will destroy Babylon for what they did. This is where the author is pinning his hopes.
He is quoting God's promises back to him. He is allowing SCRIPTURE to shape his pain and anger.
Isaiah 13 - a terrible and brutal chapter that talks about the judgement that will fall on Babylon, and it includes the same prediction that this will happen to them, what they did to other nations.
In the midst of his pain and his cursing he is praying God's promises back to him, that God will come and God will judge evil and wicked people.
To be clear, in the OT, God never presented this practice of killing babies as correct. It is always presented as the horrible and wretched thing that the pagan nations do in war. And here is this statement, God is saying, these terrible things that they committed to others will come upon them.
This Psalm gives us a poetic statement of a terrible fact: they will be destroyed by the very same evil that they poured out on others.
Even as the author is reaching the peak of his anger, he is not speaking from his own imagination - he is quoting God's own promise that GOD will bring justice upon the enemy.
• He acknowledges the very real power of God's wrath against sin
When we say we want God to destroy and punish all evil, what do we mean? Do we mean God should punish the devil and all his spiritual forces of evil? Should God punish the evil people that have followed the devils program? People who have chosen to do unspeakable terrors?
Yes. And yes.
But the problem is that we recoil in horror when we think of that punishment actually happening. We want God to show justice against evil. But we don't want anyone to get hurt in the process. We want "evil" to be some mythical fairytale villain that we can punish and feel no sense of remorse or tragedy.
And we don't realize that the villain lives in all of us!
We often hear the phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin", and that is definitely true. We see that in the life of Jesus.
But there is also a very real sense in which the sinner becomes the sin. God punishes sinners for their sin because it is the people that do that terrible things.
Sin turns all creation into a terrible darkness. And worst of all, sin turns people, God's image bearers, into monsters, through their own choosing.
When we read of infants being killed, it is like nails on a chalkboard, in sends a shiver through your spine, it causes us to recoil in horror. And this is why the Psalmist uses this phrase - to give us a tiny spark of the grave and terrible power of God's wrath on sin. And that wrath is coming.
All sin is an attack on the glory of God. All sin is a rebellion against God himself. And sin turns image bearers into monsters. Sin is dangerous and evil. And God comes at all evil and all sin with a fury and a wrath that we can't even imagine.
As he is praying, this Psalmist knows that deep down. He knows that his anger is nothing. The truly frightening thing, the truly terrible thing is coming at these evil enemies and it is God who they must be afraid of.
3. Connect the Psalm to the big story of the Bible
The authors of the Bible are constantly alluding and hinting at one another. They are always writing in the company of the rest of Scripture.
We have not faithfully read any part of Scripture unless it connects to the rest of the story.
James Hamilton makes the observation that in this text, we see the echo of a promise that hangs over all the Old Testament and over all the story of the Bible. A promise made in the garden at the moment of the greatest tragedy. A promise of justice that is to come.
Genesis 3:15
"To the serpent God said:
I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."
Ps. 2:7-9
7 I will declare the Lord’s decree.
He said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.
8 Ask of me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance
and the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will break them with an iron scepter;
you will shatter them like pottery.”
Revelation 18:1-2; 8
After this I saw another angel with great authority coming down from heaven, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2 He called out in a mighty voice:
It has fallen,Babylon the Great has fallen!She has become a home for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird,
...
"For this reason her plagues will come in just one day—
death and grief and famine.
She will be burned up with fire,
because the Lord God who judges her is mighty."
Notice that these are the careful lines of story that the authors of Scipture are weaving together. When we read our Bible as a unified book we start to see this lines of connection and it starts to make more and more sense.
How do we see the curses against Babylon in Psalm 137? At NT believers, we see that the historic Old Testament era nation of Babylon also functions as a type, or a predictive character that represents all the enemies of God.
When the author speaks of the blessed on who will dash the babies of Babylon he is not actually saying that he is excited to see babies get smashed. He is using poetry, he is using God's own promises, he is using strong language - to present the reality of God's fierce and total justice that is coming on the enemies of God.
As NT readers we see from the very beginning that God promises to crush the head of the serpent and his offspring, we see how God promises that a King will arise who will restore order and life to the world, who will smash all evil and darkness once and for all. A King who will restore truth and peace.
And yet there is also the key event in the middle of how it all takes place, the plot twist that no one expected.
Isaiah 53:5
"But he was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds."
The King who came to restore the world, came to bring that restoration by giving himself - the Son of God who is crushed for our sins. He is the precious, perfect and truly innocent Son who was stricken and destroyed by the vilest of men.
The same Lord who will one day bring fierce judgement upon his enemies is the Lord who came to bleed for his enemies to be saved. This is the power and wonder of the cross! The very God who will pour our judgement on the world in the end is the God who came to drink that judgement in their place, to make a way, to call them back to himself!
To reject this King, to reject the Son who was crushed in our place is to seal our own doom with our own hands. And he will be glorified in his justice just as he is glorified in his mercy. His mercy makes more and more out of his justice.
As NT believers, because of Jesus, we have the freedom to live in this paradox - to call for God's victory over evil, over darkness, over the enemies of God, AS WELL AS to call all his enemies to turn and repent and come to him who took their place.
• We have the right to have hope - because God's greatest victory over evil was accomplished in Jesus' death and resurrection.
• We have the right to look forward to God's full and total justice against evil, that a time is coming when every enemy will be punished and every tear wiped away
• We have a right to have courage to bear witness about God in the face of his enemies, to call them to turn to him before he comes
• We have a healthy way to process anger, pain and grief as we are welcomed into the presence of God. He knows the deepest betrayal. He knows the frightening reality of the deepest evil. He knows what its like to be trampled and crushed. And he knows the victory that he alone is bringing.
Application:
• How do you respond to anger, pain and injustice? Do you recoil into yourself and your thirst for revenge?
• Do you see the danger of your own sin in the midst of pain?
• Do you trust the justice of God above your own sense of right and wrong?
• Have you ever dwelt on the terrible reality of God's wrath against sin?
• Do you have a daily awareness of the beauty of the price Jesus paid to set you free from punishment? Do you walk in the joy of this freedom?