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Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” So, we might ask, can Christians pray Psalm 5, which speaks of God’s hatred of evildoers and prays for God to cause enemies to fall and be cast out?
Psalm 5 is the first imprecatory psalm in the psalter. Kids, there’s your big, impressive words to remember for today, “imprecatory psalm.” By most counts, there are 14 imprecatory psalms and we will see two of them this summer (the other being Psalm 10). The word “imprecatory” comes from the word “imprecation,” which means “a spoken curse.” In imprecatory psalms, the psalmist cries out to God against the wicked—not just about the wicked. In Psalm 5, that language comes out most clearly in verse 10, “Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.” So again we ask, if we are called to love and pray for our enemies, can we pray this kind of prayer?
The short answer is “yes.” God would not give us these words to pray and sing if they were sinful or in conflict with his other commands. In fact, in a world where hostility to God and his people is very real, where there really is pervasive evil, and where there really is an ongoing spiritual battle, these are more than tolerable prayers; these are helpful and important prayers. But there are right ways and wrongs ways to use these prayers.
We learn from Psalm 5 the right way to pray these sorts of prayers. One of the great things about the Psalms is that they teach us how to pray. If you’re ever struggling with your prayer life, go to the Psalms and pray God’s words back to him! And the Psalms teach us many different kinds of prayers for many different parts of our lives. The Psalms teach us how to praise God’s perfection, how to seek wisdom, how to confess our sins, how to delight in salvation, how to weep in sorrow, and yes, even how to pray against God’s enemies in times of battle. We need ALL of these kinds of prayer if we are to go to God in every season of life. As the first imprecatory psalm, this morning in Psalm 5 we will see five basic principles for how to rightly pray prayers of imprecation. Can we pray these prayers? Yes. So, how do we pray these prayers?
1. Pray, don’t curse.
First, pray, don’t curse. You’ll notice, if you have the ESV translation, that the psalm is broken up into five sections. These five sections alternate righteous, wicked, righteous, wicked, righteous.
Our first section is in verses 1-3. David opens this psalm by crying out to God in the morning. He specifies the time of day in verse 3, repeating “in the morning” two times. Psalms 3-6 alternate between morning and evening psalms. Psalm 3 was morning, Psalm 4 was evening, Psalm 5 is morning, and Psalm 6 (next week) is evening. Throughout the history of God’s people, there have been different patterns of prayer throughout the day. The most basic of these is morning and evening prayer (beginning and ending our day in prayer). The Psalms mirror this basic pattern and we would be wise to follow that pattern in our own prayer lives (both beginning and ending every day in prayer).
In these first three verses, David cries out to God to listen to his prayer: “Give ear to my words… consider my groaning… give attention to the sound of my cry…” And he makes these requests because God is his King (verse 2) and God hears (verse 3). Here, David the king is calling out to HIS King asking for an audience with the King. And notice that he asks God his King to not only hear his words, but also his groaning. It’s an amazing truth in prayer that God not only pays attention to the words we say, but also our sighs and groaning. He hears our works and knows our hearts.
But the big thing we need to see right away is that in the presence of trouble and enemies, David doesn’t lash out and curse his enemies, he goes to God in prayer. This is where the word “imprecatory” can actually be misleading. Again, “imprecatory” can mean “a spoken curse.” But David doesn’t actually address his enemies directly with a curse at all; he addresses God for help.
This is the first important lesson about how to pray this kind of prayer. Imprecatory psalms aren’t for when you get cut off on the highway, step on a Lego, are annoyed by your brother, or are frustrated at work. We’re not given license in the Bible to throw out curses upon people whenever we think we are wronged. We are often too quick to speak (and think) words of cursing against people for the smallest of infractions against us. Psalm 5 directs us instead to bring our requests to God. Pray, don’t curse.
2. Appeal to God’s Justice.
Second, how do we pray this kind of prayer? Appeal to God’s justice. This is exactly what David does in verse 4-6. He bases his prayer on the just and righteous character of God. Look at these verses. God does not delight in wickedness. Instead, God is so perfect and just that evil cannot dwell with him or stand before his eyes. In God’s presence, with wicked, violent, and deceitful are (in verses 5 and 6) hated, destroyed, and abhorred.
These are hard verses, but we also need to see that they are good verses. Notice that in God’s justice he not only hates evil, he hates evildoers. You may hear some say that God hates sin, but not sinners. That simply isn’t true. I think part of our struggle with this idea is that we use the word “hate” far too often and for the wrong things. Packers fans say they hate the Bears. We hate getting up early. We hate steamed broccoli. “Hate” is not a word to use about personal preferences. “Hate” is a weighty word that must be used with great care. And here in Psalm 5 it isn’t at all about our own personal vendettas against our own personal enemies or our own personal preferences. It is used in its proper weight and proper context. Hate is God’s righteous posture toward evil.
This is good! A God who is ambivalent toward wickedness would not be a God of justice nor of goodness. I think we’re actually seeing a bit of a resurgence in the idea that justice cannot mean being tolerant of or ambivalent toward evil. True justice cannot mean “live and let live.” If the violence of the bloodthirsty and the self-serving deceit of the wicked do not bother you, I would argue that your lack of hatred toward evil actually reveals a lack of love for God and a lack of love for your neighbor. If a child is being abused and you don’t contact the authorities because you believe that the punishment of the abuser is opposed to love, I would argue that you aren’t truly acting in love because love in that context defends the weak. God does not lay aside his goodness and love when he hates evil and even evildoers. His hatred of evil is the proper response of his goodness and his love for his creation, especially those created in his image who are being trampled upon by violence and deceit.
When David prayed to God in his time of trouble, he rightly found comfort in God’s justice. For the abused, for those oppressed under the violence and sin of others, and for those who suffer, the justice of God is good news, and it grounds the hope of our prayers. If God were indifferent toward evil, that would provide no comfort. God’s hatred of evil means he will defeat it. Though justice may be denied in this life, God will not let sin go unpunished.
And when it comes to God hating evildoers not just evil, this is because God rightly does not merely hate evil in the abstract. You cannot ultimately abstract evil actions from the people who do those evil actions. And it is not merely actions that are under the wrath of God, it is people. But to understand this is then to understand the key to the beauty of the gospel because God didn’t solve the problem of sin by forgetting our sin ever happened or merely removing our sin from us; God dealt with our sin by pouring out his wrath on a person. God loved even his enemies to the point of pouring out the full weight of his just wrath on a perfect person in the place of sinful people to set them free, so that if you belong to Jesus, not one drop of wrath remains for you. God’s righteous hatred and perfect love are never in conflict but perfectly congruent and find their greatest visible display in the cross of Jesus Christ.
3. Depend on God’s Covenant Love
How do we pray this kind of prayer? First, pray, don’t curse. Second, appeal to God’s justice. Third, depend on God’s covenant love. Remember that this psalm alternates between the righteous and the wicked. Verses 4-6 were about the wicked. Now, in verses 7-8, David contrasts himself with the wicked. Whereas the wicked couldn’t be in God’s presence in verses 4-5, David enters God’s house and bows toward his temple (the place where God is present with his people). Whereas the wicked pursued violence and lies and were therefore abhorred by God, David, in verse 8, prays that God would lead him in the right pay and the way of righteousness. But the foundation of this confidence in verses 7-8 isn’t David’s own perfection. In fact, David himself was not innocent of the things listed in the previous verses–deceit and bloodshed. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and had Uriah her husband intentionally killed in battle to cover up his sin. When we pray these prayers, we’re not coming to God as perfect people either. What sets David apart, and what we depend on as well, is God’s steadfast love (as we see in the first line of this section in verse 7).
This word for “steadfast love” is the Hebrew word “hesed.” It refers specifically to God’s covenant love and faithfulness. It is the love and mercy that we receive from God based not on our perfection, but his covenant promises. Again, David’s confidence is in God and his character—both God’s justice against evil and God’s faithfulness to his promises.
When we are overwhelmed by the violence and evil of our world and we pray for God to do justice, let us also personally depend upon God’s covenant love for us if we belong to his people in Jesus.
4. Have a Realistic View of Sin
Pray, don’t curse. Appeal to God’s justice. Depend on God’s covenant love. Fourth, have a realistic view of sin. As David alternates back to the wicked in verses 9-10, this is related to verses 4-6 but is also distinct. Verses 4-6 dealt with God’s posture toward sin. Verses 9-10 then paint a picture of the seriousness of sin and ask God (particularly in verse 10) to act in accordance with his justice and destroy the wicked. This is the truly “imprecatory” part of this psalm.
Verse 9 lays out the seriousness of sin and it focuses primarily on sins of the tongue. Remember, we sin not only by our actions, but also by our thoughts, desires, and yes, even words. “For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.” Do you see the connection between the mouth and the heart here in verse 9? The sins of their tongues are just a peek into their inmost selves and into an open grave. This is what Jesus speaks about when he says in Luke 6, “…for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” One of the ways to discern the heart is to listen to the tongue. If you study human physiology, there is an anatomical connection between the lungs and our voice. If you study theology, there is a similar spiritual connection between our heart and our voice. When it comes to the wicked, David says, “…their throat is an open grave.” Their speech reveals a dead, rotting heart.
But here’s something we simply cannot miss: If we read these descriptions of the seriousness of sin in verse 9 and don’t see ourselves, we’re not reading this verse correctly. We might read this description and hear in it the loud voices of our present world. But C. S. Lewis notes that in those familiar voices, “One of them may be too familiar for recognition.” In other words, we might miss our own voice in the crowd. Paul quotes directly from verse 9 in Romans 3 in a long line of Old Testament quotations which describe the state of human sin:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
According to Paul, this is a description of EVERYONE by nature. We must read this description of the seriousness of sin in verse 9 and have the humility and wisdom to see ourselves.
This means that for us to make the imprecatory request of verse 10 apart from Jesus, we would be calling down judgment upon ourselves! We would be asking God to make us bear our guilt and fall by our own counsels and be cast out because WE have rebelled against him. We CANNOT pray imprecatory psalms with self-righteousness.
I think we often are drawn into the “us-them” language of our world in a way that only reinforces self-righteousness. We talk about “them” in a way that puffs “us” up. We become like the pharisee that sticks out his chest and boldly declares, “I’m glad I’m not like that sinner over there.” But again, to pray Psalm 5 self-righteously is to ask God for your own destruction.
Instead, we must find our confidence in what the rest of Romans 3 teaches—that though we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that we are justified (declared righteous) through faith in Jesus Christ, who bore our sin and gives us his perfection. We can only pray Psalm 5 in Jesus because he is the only King who could pray it perfectly, and he prays these words for us as the King who will defeat all his and our enemies.
5. Take Refuge and Rejoice
Lastly, how do we pray this kind of prayer? Take refuge and rejoice! Notice in the last two verses the intertwining of refuge and rejoicing; protection and praise; safety and singing. God is a refuge, he is a protector, he is a shield, so we can rejoice, sing for joy, and exult in him.
Singing with joy is perhaps the least expected thing to do when, like David, we are surrounded by enemies, evil, and violence. But this is the joyful posture of the one who takes refuge in God. We can rejoice in trials and afflictions because our refuge is God—our security is not of this world, but is far stronger and more sure.
I can’t say it any better than Christopher Ash, “Finally, with Psalm 5:11-12, we take refuge in God our Father with Jesus our King. For this is what faith is, a running for safety in a world filled with seductive flattery and yet ugly evil. As we run into the arms of our Father, we find Jesus there and rejoice that he has prayed these verses for us. Whatever troubles may afflict us in this age, the protection of our holy Father is spread over us in Christ, and he covers us with his favor as with full body armor, so that not a hair on our heads will perish. The shield protects us in this life and crowns us in the next. Our joy will be everlasting, secure, and complete.”
