Christopher: The only one in all the universe who knows the full horror of what accursedness means is God himself in Jesus Christ who drinks it to the dregs on the cross for his people. And the Psalms of Cursing point us to that.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. We,
Christopher: this week, are continuing our eight week series working through the Psalms, and as we do, of course, we're not exhaustively looking through the Psalms, but we're approaching the Psalms as the prayer book of God's people, seeking to have our own souls shaped by this book so that out of that reshaping of soul we might pray with the mind of Christ as it appears in the Psalms, and we've Critical to this whole process is you all reading through the Psalms together. So again, I'm gonna keep mentioning that. Let us be reading through the Psalms as a church. One chapter a day can probably be made to work. So I encourage you to do that in tandem with this series.
Now the last two weeks we've been looking at the Psalms of Lament, the most populous genre in the whole Psalter, and Psalms of Lament just being Psalms in which you are crying out to God. Psalms where one cries out to God in the midst of hardship. We looked at that generally two weeks ago. Last week we looked at that specifically, crying out to God in the midst of the hardship of our own sin in Psalms of repentance. This week we're going to look at another and the final subset of Psalms of Lament, and this is a challenging one.
You may have run into this already if you're reading with us through the Psalms. These are Psalms where the author prays curses upon his enemies, curses upon his enemies. These are fit for lamentation because the enemies are assailing the psalmist, and he prays out, Lord, destroy them. Trample them down. Break them down.
Let them be accursed. Cast them out. So these are prayers in the midst of hardship in the face of opposition, in the face of enemies, but it can be jarring. It can be jarring for us to read, and it's not as if there's just one or two of these. This kind of prayer finds its place all through the Psalms.
I'll just read you an example as we begin. This will kind of be our test case Psalm for today. This is Psalm 109, and let me just read this for you, this being God's word. Psalm 100 nine:six-fifteen. These are the prayers that the Psalms give to us.
Here it is. Appoint a wicked man against him. Let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him come forth guilty. Let his prayer be counted as sin.
May his days be few. May another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg seeking food far from the ruins that they inhabit. May the creditor seize all that he has.
May strangers plunder the fruits of his toil. Let there be none to extend kindness to him, nor any to pity his fatherless children. May his posterity be cut off. May his name be blotted out in the second generation. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
Let them be before the Lord continually that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. So that is not one you will find crocheted on someone's wall, but that's in the Psalms. That's in the Psalms, and we have to ask ourselves, how do we pray that as Christians? How do we pray that? How does it work?
What do we do with Psalms that pray curses upon our enemies, especially when we have the command of Jesus to pray blessing for our enemies, to love our enemies? What do we do with this tension? And I thought that this warranted an entire sermon because, as I said, you'll find this isn't just one Psalm. There's a number of places where this shows up, and so as believers receiving the Psalms as the inspired prayer book of the church, what do we do with Psalms like that? Do you just skip them?
Do just pick out a person you don't like and pray it against them? What do we do with this? So my hope is that today this sermon would help to address some of the cognitive tensions you may feel as you come to these Psalms, and more than that, show us the part, the positive part that these Psalms do play in our own spiritual life as Christians, as those united to Christ. So let me pray for us, and by God's grace we'll look at these things and come to some answers together. So Father, we confess your word is the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path, and in the unfolding of it, we have light.
In the unfolding of it, we see your face. In the unfolding of it, Lord, our souls are satisfied with all that you are for us in Christ, and so I pray that today, by grace, you would grant me to faithfully unfold these words for your people in light of Jesus Christ, and that with the clarity of the Spirit we would be able to receive these words that you've inspired in a way, Father, that glorifies your name, that builds us up into Christ, that proclaims Jesus Christ as Lord and King over all, and that draws our hearts and the whole world into him. So Father, help me, help us, and thank you. Thank you that you've made us helpless creatures utterly dependent on you for every breath, for every heartbeat, for every word, for every moment, and hour, and day, and month, and year, we look to you for all things, and we pray this, Father, in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.
Well, so let's begin by clarifying this tension. I noted that there's a tension that we likely feel when we come to a text like this, and the main reason that tension is there is simply words. The words of the Psalms, praying curses upon enemies, and specifically the words of Jesus calling us to love our enemies. We could point to a number of things, but if you really wanna narrow down this tension, that's where it comes to. The Psalms are here praying curses upon enemies.
Jesus calls us to love and pray for our enemies, and of course it fulfills that command and supremely displays that in his own flesh on the cross. He himself becomes the embodiment of this call to love our enemies, and so how do we as his people receive prayers like this? Just to give you a few other brief examples, you don't have to turn to these. I'll just go through them quickly. Psalm 30 five:one-six says this, Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me.
Fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler. Rise for my help. Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuer. Say to my soul, I am your salvation.
Let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek my life. Let them be turned back and disappointed who devise evil against me. Let them be like chaff before the wind with the angel of the Lord driving them away. Let their way be dark and slippery with the angel of the Lord pursuing them. Or again Psalms 59 verses twelve and thirteen, For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride.
For the cursing and lies that they utter consume them in wrath, consume them till they are no more, or again in Psalm 139, which is the Psalm that is full of comforting and imagery that we love to read, and that warms our hearts rightly so, and yet the end of Psalm 139 we read this, Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? Do I not loathe them who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred and count them my enemies. So we confess all of scripture is inspired by God, by the one and the same God, which means not only this whole book is true, but it also means this whole book agrees. This whole book harmonizes.
Scripture harmonizes and agrees with itself. It all flows from the same mind, from the same heart. It's not being spoken out of two sides of God's mouth or from two parts of his character. So with that conviction before us, with that assurance, we see something like this, and we don't say, Oh, well, maybe it was written by this person and snuck in. No, we say, Okay, then how does it harmonize?
I know it does. How does it harmonize? Specifically, how does it harmonize with something like what Jesus commands in Matthew chapter five on the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus is going through and pointing out all the things that his hearers took for granted? You've heard this. You've believed this.
This is what you've been told. In Matthew chapter five verses 43 and following this is what Jesus says. Let me find it for us here. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
And in Luke's gospel it says something similar to, to not curse our enemies. So what do we do with what we find in the Psalms? How does that work? There's a tension here. A prayer for the cursing of enemies in the Psalms, and a command to love our enemies and bless them in Christ.
How do you harmonize this? How do we understand this? One crucial step we need to take as Christians, as people of Christ, is to realize that the main interpretive lens that we use when we come to all of scripture is Jesus himself. We come to all of scripture reading it from the perspective of Christ. Just like if you read a mystery novel, and in the midst of it you're confused who did it, what's going on, you get to the end and you say, Oh, that's why this was here, and that's why all that happened.
And then if you read it again, you're reading it through the lens of, I know who did this. Oh, I see that. I see that. I know why she went in there and did that. It all makes sense.
We have read the end of the mystery in Christ. It's him, the crucified and risen Jesus, so when we come to scripture, all the confusing uncertain parts, we're reading it now in light of Jesus, and this isn't just something we make up. Jesus himself calls us to do this. At the end of Luke's gospel, I shared this a few weeks ago, at the end of Luke's gospel when Jesus gathers together his disciples, it says I'll read it for you. It says that he, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, meaning they did not understand the scriptures before this point. Okay, what does it mean to understand the scriptures then? Look here. He opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations. So Jesus says, You do not understand scripture until you understand it is about the Christ who must suffer, die, be buried, and raised, and proclaimed for the forgiveness of sins.
That is how you understand the Bible, and so as we come to the Psalms, we don't understand them until we understand them as proclaiming this Christ, as about this Christ. So the tension that we feel there, one of the ways to begin to unravel that is to say, okay, how then do I read this text in light of who Christ is, and what he has commanded? And again remember on the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is taking he says, You heard it said this, but I say to you this. You heard it said, do not commit adultery. That's from the Old Testament.
But I say to you, don't even look at a woman with lustful intent. You heard it said, do not murder, but I say to you, do not even have anger in your heart. You heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemy. So what Jesus is doing there is not negating the Old Testament or saying, no, doesn't count. He is coming as the author of the Old Testament, as Yahweh incarnate saying, Let me tell you what this always meant.
Let me tell you what this meant the whole time. It could be taken one way incorrectly, but let me tell you what it means. And so when we come to Psalms of cursing, we ought to come listening to Jesus, the command, Love your enemies. Okay, that's gonna be the lens through which I approach this. The crucified Jesus dying for the accursed to gather them to himself, okay, that's gonna be the lens through which I approach this.
I'm not just reading it cold. I'm reading it in light of Christ. So our main interpretive lens as we come to these passages is Jesus himself, and specifically his command to love our enemies as he embodies and fulfills that command in his own flesh on the cross. So what that means is we do not erase the Psalms of cursing, just pretend they're not there, nor do we pretend that they're soft, comfortable love poems, and all of the Psalms are just wonderfully flowery poetic words, but what it does mean is that we come to these Psalms knowing, whatever they are, they are not intended to cultivate or affirm or enable my hatred of an enemy. That's not what they're for, even if it seems like that might be They are not for that.
We know that because of Christ's commands. Rather we know, like all of scripture, they are to point us to the cross. They're to point us to Christ, and they're to teach us to love like him. So that's our fundamental hermeneutical approach. That just means that's how we're going to interpret and understand these Psalms in light of Christ.
They're not stirring up hatred. They're pointing us to Christ and teaching us to live and to love like him. Okay, with that in mind, with that as our foundational principle because of Jesus, now we come to these Psalms and ask the question, how do I reconcile this tension? What do I do with these? Because you can talk a lot of interesting theological talk, but what do we do with these Psalms?
A few questions to help us work through that. The first question when we come to these Psalms is, who are these enemies? Trample my enemies down. Cast my enemies out. Who are these enemies?
The first thing to say is they are not ultimately personal enemies. These are not intended to be hurled at that one family member, or coworker, or politician that you don't like. Not These made for personal attack. Rather, we have to realize that the Psalms are written in the voice of the Davidic king. The Psalms are written in the voice of the king, the king of God's people, such that for the king, who remember represents Yahweh on the earth, the enemies of the king are the enemies of God.
It's not the case that my enemies are always God's enemies. It's not the case that your enemies are always God's enemies. Just because someone doesn't like you doesn't mean they hate God, but if you are the covenant king who is the representative of God in the world, to hate him is to hate God. And so the first thing to see is the enemies here are not merely people who are being unfair to us, or politicians we don't like, or whatever else it may be. These are ultimately enemies of God.
The enemies in view here are enemies of God. Now sometimes that may line up and be your enemies too, but not always. Ultimately the enemies in view in the Psalms of Cursing are the ones who are opposed to God and to his King, supremely Jesus. Secondly, and this derives from that, the enemies in view here are representatives of a particular kind of person. Representatives of a particular kind of person.
So if you dig into the history of the Psalms, you'll find that a number of the Psalms are written about particular historical situations where a particular person was involved, be it Saul or Doeg the Edomite or whoever else may have been opposing David at the time, and yet in writing these Psalms, David doesn't mention these people by name. Destroy Saul, even though Saul's the one pursuing him. He doesn't make it, say, Get rid of this person. The Psalm isn't narrowed down and given an individual name that you're against. Rather, the Psalms are being prayed in this way, Lord, destroy those who do this sort of thing.
Lord, oppose those who are like this, who place themselves in this camp. So it's not, Lord, destroy Joe, or Steve, or Sally. It's, Lord, break down those who are doing this kind of thing. Oppose those who are opposed to you. It remains representative rather than particular.
One of the things this does, and we'll come back to this at the very end, is this widens the scope of how we pray these things. If it's about those who do this sort of thing. That which opposes you widens the scope of our prayers so that we can pray not merely against, Lord, the human powers and systems and processes and groups opposed to you. Lord, tear them down and keep them from succeeding. We can pray that way, but we can also pray against, sorry here, we can also pray against spiritual opposition.
Lord, the spiritual powers arrayed against you and your kingdom. Demons, these Psalms can be prayed against demonic opposition. Again, we'll touch on that again at the very end. Also that widens the scope that these Psalms can be prayed inwardly against the opposition to God that I find in myself, against my own thoughts and desires and temptations which wage war against my soul. These kind of Psalms can be prayed against that as well.
So realizing that the enemies here are representative of those that oppose you, they can be prayed against humans that do so, spiritual powers that do so, and inclinations in my own soul that do so. It widens the way we can pray these things to understand the representative nature of the enemies in these Psalms. Third, deriving from what we just said then, ultimately we ought to understand that we are the enemies. We were the enemies in these Psalms. Christian, those trusting in Christ, you were the enemies in these Psalms.
If we come to these Psalms and see, well of course I'm the righteous one praying against the enemies of God, I'm missing something of the spiritual reality here because I was the accursed one. I, you, we were the ones set in opposition to God. We were the ones who turned from him and earned the curse on our own heads. As it says in Deuteronomy, Cursed is everyone who doesn't abide by all that is written in the law. I have abided by all that's in the law of the Lord.
You have not abided by all that's in the law of the Lord, even the law of our own conscience, and so we are under a curse. And so when we come to these Psalms as Christians, we ought to say, okay, this enemy that I'm praying against here, I was him. I was her. I was there. So that needs to shape the way we think about these Psalms as we come to them.
Not just I'm the righteous one praying against God's enemies, but I was God's enemy, under receiving, justly deserving the curses that I find right here in this Psalm. So that shapes the way we're thinking about it. So one way then to begin to solve this tension is who are the enemies? They're not personal enemies. They're the enemies of God.
They're not particular people. They're representatives of enmity against God, and ultimately it was me. It was us. It was all sinful humanity. That then leads to a second point that can help us to reconcile the Psalms of cursing to Christ and his commandments.
What are we actually praying for here when we pray that? You heard me read that Psalm 109. What's actually being prayed for? The first thing to see here is these are prayers. They're not actions.
This isn't a list of what the psalmist is preparing to go out and do to someone tomorrow. These are prayers. They're ventings of the heart to God. That matters. That matters.
The Psalms of cursing are not saying, Go out and do this to these people. They're saying, These are prayers. God, you do this. That's a big difference. They're prayers not, God, strengthen me to go out and get rid of everyone who opposes me, but Lord, you in your righteousness, in your wisdom, in your faithfulness carry this out in your own time.
So these are prayer. We're praying this, and that leads to this point. We're praying ultimately for the just judgment of God. That's what Psalms of cursing are, praying for God's just judgment to be carried out upon sin and upon those who continually and stubbornly and persistently hold fast to that sin. So these Psalms are asking God to act.
It's not seeking some ghoulish torture for my personal enemies. It's praying poetically, yes, praying for God to justly, wisely, and perfectly judge sin, And in that sense the Psalms of cursing are nothing but a zoomed in version of something that we pray every day, which is your kingdom come. Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. What do you mean when we say that? We mean your rule be established on earth.
Your righteousness be established on earth. Your beauty and holiness cover the earth, which also means all that opposes you be taken away. All that is against you be trampled down. All that is at enmity with you be defeated. And the Psalms of cursing are just zooming in on that point and saying, For the one who persists, for the one who continues, for the one who opposes God to the end, your kingdom come means these things be played out in their life.
This destruction be brought into their life. That's what your kingdom comes means. So sin, this helps us to see, sin is real. Sin is real. Sin has real, horrible consequences.
Consequences that play out sometimes in our own lives here in this life, in our own bodies, in our own relationships. We see the consequences of sin, but ultimately those that hold to sin unrepentantly will be plunged into the curse of exile from God's presence, from the presence of everything good and true and beautiful, and therefore they can only be drowned in the sea of what is wicked, deformed, and mad, and consumed with chaos. That's the end. That's the end that is set before those who would continue to oppose him. So as his kingdom comes, so too the day of judgment will come, and the curse passages of the Psalms vividly, specifically remind us of that reality.
They put it right in front of our face that sin is real, and this is coming, and this is happening, and we ought to feel that. We all here, I pray, would feel that, that it wouldn't be this distant reality that has no meaning, but judgment is a present thing. It is a coming thing. It is a real thing, and we all have to deal with it, and that drives us then to cry out to a savior, to cry out to Christ, because all of us left to ourselves will be the accursed man of the Psalms, and that leads us then to a third point. We've asked ourselves, who are the enemies in view here?
What is actually being prayed in these prayers? And then we say, okay, now how can we look at these kind of Psalms in light of Jesus, in light of the crucified and risen Christ, in light of the one who tells us he himself is the interpretive key for all of scripture? What do these Psalms look like as we come to them in light of him? Well, let's look at three things, three things that we could say. First, we can say that only Jesus can perfectly pray Psalms of cursing like we find in the book of Psalms.
Only Jesus can perfectly pray these. I mentioned it a moment ago, but Jesus himself is the true king. Remember all of Psalms is written in the voice of the covenant king, the Davidic king? Well Jesus is that king supremely, which means the royal voice that speaks in the Psalms is ultimately the voice of the crucified and risen Jesus. He is the only one who can perfectly pray judgment against sin because he is the only one who perfectly knows the hearts and the destinies of all.
Jesus is the only one who can pray these prayers perfectly. When we take these prayers on our lips and pray them against a specific person, it is very likely that we will in one way or another, either by hating that person in a sinful way in our hearts and using the Psalms as justification for that, or perhaps by directing these prayers against one whom the Lord intends to bring to himself. We don't know how that's going to work out. You could have prayed Psalms of cursing against Saul of Tarsus, but look, the Lord intends to bring him to become Paul, the Apostle Paul, and one could argue, well, it because of that cursing. He died and was raised, again, as Paul, and that's true, but all I'm saying here is we don't know what God's going to do with anyone, and so we are not the ones who can perfectly pray these prayers.
Jesus is the one who can perfectly pray them. So when we come to these prayers, rather than aiming them at a particular person or pet peeve or whatever it may be, it seems wise to me that we would pray them into the hands of Jesus. I'm praying these, Lord, into your hands. You do this in the right way. You carry this out as seems good to you because only your heart and only your hand is worthy and able to do this.
The sword of judgment and cursing can only be wielded in the hand that is pierced by bearing that judgment and cursing on the cross, and so we entrust these prayers to him, and that leads immediately to the second point. Not only is Jesus the only one who can pray these prayers perfectly, Jesus is the only one who has experienced these curses perfectly. What do I mean by that? Well ultimately the curses in the Psalms are due to whom? To sinners, to us.
That's who the curses are due to, and yet here we are, these curses not having fallen on us. There are many preserved saints for whom these curses did not fall upon them. Why? We're sinners. Sin recalls this curse.
Why then are we preserved? Galatians three thirteen. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. That's how. We are not dying under the curses of the Psalms because Christ became that curse for us.
The curse we read in the Psalms, he becomes that for us. Now we can get used to that kind of language lamentably in the church. We can get used to the language of Jesus died for me. Jesus took my punishment. Jesus takes away my sins, but the Psalms of cursing help us feel the specificity of that, the horror of that, the wonder of that, what it means that Jesus bore not just the generic curse, this cursing for us, this cursing for us.
No human being, just consider this, no human being has ever experienced the curse of God forsakenness to the full. Why? Because the curse of being forsaken by God is an infinite curse, because God himself is infinitely full, and so to be separated from him, who, what finite being can fully drain the cup of infinite separation from an infinite God. No creature can know the curse to the full. The only one who knows the curse to the full is the one who takes that cup of infinite separation and drinks it fully into his own infinite soul, Jesus Christ in whom dwells the fullness of God.
Only Jesus can drain the cup. Only Jesus has drained the cup of cursing and absorbed it to the full for any and all who turn to him. So the only one in all the universe who knows the full horror of what accursedness means is God himself in Jesus Christ who drinks it to the dregs on the cross for his people, and the Psalms of cursing point us to that, set that shocking reality before our eyes, which leads to the third point here. Ultimately, ultimately in the deepest way Jesus Christ himself is the accursed man of the Psalms, and that may sound shocking, but it's what we confess every day as a Christian. Jesus Christ himself is the accursed man of the Psalms, because wherever the Psalms speak a curse over the enemy of God, there we see the description of what God has become for his enemies.
You read a description of the curse against the enemy of God. Well, to draw his enemies out of that cursedness, God in Christ becomes that, bears that, receives that in full. This is the scandal and the horror and the wonder of the gospel. There's many things we can say about what Jesus is achieving on the cross. This doesn't exhaust it as awesome as it is, but the reality is one of the things God is doing on the cross is becoming a curse for the accursed ones, becoming the cursed man of the Psalms for those, you and me, who deserve to be the accursed man of the Psalms.
So on the cross Jesus Christ becomes the one we read of in the Psalms of Cursing for the sake of his accursed bride. Again, we say Jesus died for me. Jesus took my punishment. I'm so grateful for that, but we have this kind of fuzzy generic picture of what that means, and the Psalms of Cursing clarify that for us. Like when you're focusing a camera, and it's all fuzzy, you see a tree or a mountain or whatever it is, and it's all out of focus, and then you bring it into focus, the Psalms of Cursing do that.
All fuzzy and unclear, Jesus died for me. Bring it into focus. Jesus became this for me. That's one of the things the Psalms of cursing do. They sharpen for us to shockingly clear specificity what Jesus has become, what God in Christ has become for us on the cross.
So listen again to Psalm 109. I'm going to read it for you again, but as I read it I want you to see your Lord and Savior before you hanging on the cross. I want you to see Jesus, the beloved of God, the beloved of our soul, the beloved of the cherubim and the seraphim and all the heavenly hosts, the Lord and God and treasure of the cosmos, the holy one and Lord of glory, see him hanging on a cross becoming this for us, bearing this for us, saying, My beloved bride who is accursed for her sins, I will bind you to myself. I will call you my own body, and therefore I will bear in my body the accursedness that you've called down on your own head, that you might know me and live with me for all eternity. So let me read this and hear and see the love of God in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
At the cross he becomes this, Appoint a wicked man against him. Let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he has tried, let him come forth guilty. Let his prayer be counted as sin. May his days be few.
May another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit. May the creditor seize all that he has. Let there be none to extend kindness to him.
May his posterity be cut off and his name be blotted out. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord. Let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually that he may be cut off from the memory of the earth. He loved to curse.
Let curses come upon him. He did not delight in blessing. May it be far from him. He clothed himself with cursing as his coat. May it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones.
May it be like a garment that he wraps around him, like a belt that he puts on every day. May this be the reward of my accuser before the Lord, of those who speak evil against my life. This is what Jesus Christ becomes for his people. He didn't love to curse, he loved to bless, and yet curses fell upon him. He delighted in blessing, and yet it was far from him at the end.
He clothed himself with mercy, and yet he was wrapped in curses that soaked into his body like water. This was his reward from the Lord because he said, You will be my people and I will be your God. You will be mine, and I will be yours. This is the love of our God in Jesus Christ, and the Psalms of Cursing set that before our eyes with a startling clarity. So how do we actually go about praying these Psalms?
Five quick thoughts as we wrap up here at the end. Five points for us. How do I pray these Psalms when I come to them? If you're reading through this year and you come to these Psalms, how do you pray them? First, let's pray them rightfully against our own sin and the spiritual powers that are arrayed against us.
Romans eight thirteen and elsewhere in the New Testament presents the struggle against sin as a war. Fight against your sin. Put it to death. So in that sense the temptations, the desires, the inclinations of our soul that are against Christ, these are enemies against which we can rightfully pray the Psalms of Cursing, that the lying voices have their tongues cut out, that the alluring temptations have their teeth broken and be trampled down. That's rightfully prayed.
Also we can pray these against spiritual powers and authorities. Paul tells us we are in a war in the spiritual realms. Demons are not a metaphor for spiritual struggles. Demons are beings that hate us and oppose us. They are enemies of the church, enemies of Christ, and so are rightfully objects of these prayers, these prayers of cursing.
Lord, those powers and authorities arrayed against you, let them be cast out. Let them be rendered nothing. Let them be trampled down. So we can pray it against our own sin, spiritual powers. We can pray it against human forces that are opposed to God.
Again, it does not seem to me in looking at these that these are to be prayed against particular individuals, but they are to be prayed against humanity in general arrayed against God. Lord, those who are opposing you, those who are against you, those who hate the coming of your kingdom, let them be trampled down. Let them be opposed by you continually so we can pray them rightfully against the forces of humanity, against God. Pray them against our own sin, against spiritual powers, against humanity, against that is opposing God. Third, pray them into the hands of Jesus.
Pray them into the hands of Jesus. We don't know who deserves this and who deserves that. Who is to be accursed and cast out and who is to be brought in? I don't know, but we are the body of Christ. As we pray, we're praying as his body, so pray them into his hands.
Pray them into Christ. Lord, you know against whom these are to be carried out. You know what this looks like. So I am praying this into your heart and into your hands, trusting you to carry this out with perfect wisdom and justice and love. Fourth, we pray them with trembling.
We pray these Psalms with trembling knowing that we were under this same curse. We don't pray these with triumphalism or a holier than thou attitude of I'm the righteous one, and everyone who opposes me is needing to be trampled down as an enemy of God. No, we read these realizing, remembering this was me. This was me, and only because God in Christ became this for me am I not under this curse any longer, but able now to pray these as his beloved child? So we pray them with trembling, and then lastly we pray them with awe knowing that our God became the Accursed One of the Psalms in our place, allowing the Psalms, the cursings of the Psalms to sharpen the gospel, sharpen the cross in our own mind saying, This is what he became.
What does it mean that Jesus loves me and gave himself for me? He became this. My curse was soaked into his bones. He became this. So under the light of the slain and risen Jesus, who is himself the interpretive lens through which we read of all of scripture, under the light of Christ, the ugly and thorn covered jagged surface of the Psalms of cursing become a mirror of his glory, a mirror of his love.
You became this in my place. You bore this in love for the accursed bride that she might become your beloved one, your people, your church. So let us read these in wonder at the love of our God, which is his glory, and of course remembering that we are called to that same love, so the Psalms of Cursing ultimately call us to love as Christ has loved us. In a way now for us to not just consider these things, but receive them into ourselves is coming to the table together, because remember what Paul tells us? As often as you drink this bread and as you eat this bread and drink this cup, proclaim the Lord's death, what?
Until he comes, which means when we come to this table and take these elements, we are confessing the promise that the king will come, and all opposition to him will be dealt with perfectly. Everything prayed for in the Psalms of Cursing will be perfectly carried out in absolute wisdom and faithfulness. We confess that when we come to this table. But we're coming to this table as beloved ones, no longer accursed ones. And so also as we come to this table, we're confessing that this God became a curse for me.
Why is the bread broken? Why is the wine spilled? Because our Lord and our God received into himself the cursing, Do his bride, do my soul, do your soul, and overcame it in the grave and was raised up and raises us up with him. So here too is the witness of your accursedness born in love. Drink the cup, eat the bread, and taste your accursedness swallowed up in the love of the Savior, the accursedness of any who would turn to him swallowed up in his love, so let us come and eat and drink and know the curse bearing love of our God.
Let me pray for us before we come to the table together. Father, we are reaching for heights far beyond us here. We're looking into wonders beyond our understanding, but we know that Christ became a curse to redeem us from the curse, And so at the very least, Lord, as we come to these Psalms, may they resonate for us with the horror and the wonder of your love on Calvary, and may we be a people freshly in odd over who you are and what you've done and the beauty of your name, which is our stronghold and our refuge. We praise you, Father, for this. We praise you that in your justice you will carry out all punishment that is needful.
All sin will be trampled down. All of your own will be raised to yourself. All who continue to oppose you will be cast out, and we leave that in your hands, Father. But we pray now make us a people united to Christ who see all things in light of him and who are being made more and more like him as we pray the prayers you've given us to pray in the book of Psalms. We ask these things, father, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.