In his sermon 'Profiting from Imprecatory Psalms,' Mike Davenport explores the challenging nature of imprecatory psalms, which include prayers for judgment and curses on enemies. He argues that these psalms are profitable for study as they are God-breathed scripture, providing valuable insights into God's holiness and justice. Davenport addresses the discomfort they often cause by proposing that these psalms are not only the prayers of the psalmists but also reflect the words and prayers of Jesus Christ. He suggests that Jesus, during His earthly ministry, prayed some of these psalms, portraying them as war cries from the Prince of Peace. By studying these psalms, believers can understand the nature of spiritual warfare, recognize the clear distinctions between God's people and the world, and find comfort and strength in the face of injustice. Davenport also addresses the apparent contradictions with the New Testament teachings of love and forgiveness, suggesting that these psalms reflect the multifaceted attributes of Christ, including His righteous retribution. He advises Christians to pray these psalms without personal vengeance, focusing instead on the advancement of God's kingdom and the destruction of evil. The sermon concludes with a call for Christians to embrace the full counsel of scripture, including the imprecatory psalms, to mature in their faith.

So imagine with me, it's a beautiful, crisp fall morning. You grab a hot cup of coffee or maybe tea if you don't like coffee. And you retire to the back porch in a very comfortable chair. And you sit there and you're breathing in this wonderfully cool air, sipping this delicious hot beverage, and you open your Bible to one of your favorite books of the Bible, the Psalms. They are such a source of encouragement and help and joy.

And so you come and you're reading the chapter 58 and you work your way down to the second half of the chapter where you read, break their teeth in their mouth, O God. Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord. Let them flow away as waters which run continually. When he bends his bow, let his arrows be as if cut in pieces. Let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes, like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

Before your pots can feel the burning thorns, he shall take them away as with the whirlwind, as in his living and burning wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, so that men will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely he is God who judges in the earth. Or maybe you find yourself in Psalm 109.

Set a wicked man over him and let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is judged, let him be found guilty, and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few, and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children continually be vagabonds and beg.

Let them seek their bread also from their desolate places. Let the creditor seize all that he has and let strangers plunder his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy to him, nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following, let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

Let them be continually before the Lord, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth." Well, these psalms, like some others, have come to be known as imprecatory psalms. And when we run across words such as these in the scripture, they often don't sit well with us. We become uncomfortable. We are not quite sure what to make of them or how to apply them. Now, when we call these imprecatory psalms, what do we mean by that?

That's a big word, children. Imprecatory psalms. Well, in the 1828 edition of Webster's Dictionary, they define imprecation like this, the act of invoking evil on anyone, a prayer that a curse or calamity may fall on anyone. It's praying judgment to fall upon someone. And that's what's going on in these passages.

And there are others like them in the Psalms. You've run across them. Well, as is the case with many dear Christians, the imprecatory Psalms leave us often with more questions than answers. So in the time before us, I want us to ask a few questions and then seek biblical counsel in answering them. The first question I want us to grapple with is, why study imprecatory psalms?

Why study them? Well, I would answer that the first reason is that these psalms, like all of scripture, is God-breathed. It's inspired by God and is therefore what? Profitable. It's profitable.

Now it's our duty to receive the profit of these Psalms, And so we have to wrestle with the question, have we received the intended profit from these Psalms? If not, why not? A second reason to study these Psalms is that there are Bible scholars who denigrate the Word of God in the way that they talk about these Psalms. Haley's Bible handbook states unapologetically that these Psalms, quote, are not God's pronouncements of His wrath on the wicked, but are the prayers of a man for vengeance on his enemies, just the opposite of Jesus' teaching that we should love our enemies." The handbook goes on to justify its comments by stating that, quote, in Old Testament times, God in measure for expedient sake accommodated himself to men's ideas. In New Testament times, God began to deal with men according to His own ideas." The pulpit commentary, when commenting on Psalm 35, another imprecatory Psalm, says this, and I quote, So with this and other imprecatory Psalms, they give us not God's precept, but man's defective prayers." Peter C.

Craigie in the world Bible commentary states, quote, these imprecatory psalms are not the oracles of God, end quote. Author C.S. Lewis, in his book Reflections on the Psalms, describes the imprecatory Psalms as, quote, devilish and diabolical, end quote. A third reason to study these imprecatory Psalms is the blessings, is the blessings that unfold from them. Sinners are warned about God's disposition towards sin and the coming judgment for that sin.

The church is strengthened for the battle they find themselves in. Christians find a source of comfort, strength, and even glory. And God's people find a biblical response to the injustices they experience in the earth. So that's why we should study these Psalms, and I'm sure there are other reasons. These are the first that came to my mind.

Second question we're going to ask, who is praying these Psalms? Who is praying these Psalms? Well, the first and obvious answer is that the psalmist, the one who actually penned the words is praying here. I think we would all agree with that. But I propose to you that the Psalms are also the prayers of Jesus Christ.

He is ultimately the author of these words, and when he dwelt on earth, he actually spoke and prayed some of the very words of the Psalms, some of the words of the imprecatory Psalms. And he didn't do so in just a prophetic sense. The words of the Psalms were often his own words. Now, we understand this concept, do we not, when it comes to the Psalms described as messianic Psalms? We understand Christ breathing out these very words in Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? For dogs have surrounded me. The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. We understand that these are the cries of Jesus.

Well, I would argue that we are to understand the imprecatory Psalms in much the same way. James Adams in his book, and I'm going to hold it up and show it to you, War Psalms of the Prince of Peace. I cannot recommend this book high enough. In fact, he himself did a lot of studying, has taught it for years. He actually says in the preface, to my knowledge, this is the first book of its kind in the English language.

But it deals with the Word of God. And Mr. Adams says in this book, we do not argue that all of these Psalms were written by David, or that the New Testament places the entire Psalter on the lips of Christ, but that the entire Psalter is bound up with the name of David and of David's greater Son, Jesus Christ. David, by the Spirit of Christ in him, speaks far beyond his own understanding and experience. He anticipates the coming, suffering, deliverance, and exaltation of his Son and Lord, Jesus the Christ.

These are invaluable truths for us to understand and communicate to others. A Christological understanding of the Psalms will enlighten, for God's people, the whole prayer life of Jesus Christ. His prayers have a bearing on our lives daily. A few pages later, Adams writes, it is only right for the righteous king of peace To ask God to destroy his enemies in So doing he affirms the supremacy of God who puts all enemies under his feet What a difference it makes in our preaching when we know that these Psalms are not the emotional prayers of angry men, but the very war cries of the Prince of Peace. The Lord Jesus Christ is praying these prayers of vengeance.

The prayers that cry out for the utter destruction of the psalmist's enemies can only be grasped when heard from the loving lips of our Lord Jesus. These prayers, he says, signal an alarm to all who are still enemies of King Jesus. His prayers will be answered. God's wrath is revealed upon all who oppose Christ. Anyone who rejects God's way of forgiveness in the cross of Christ will bear the dreadful curses of God.

All the enemies of the Lord need to hear these prayers of Christ proclaimed today. They are not the prayers of a careless and compassionless tyrant, but the effectual prayers of the Lamb of God who bore the curse of God for the sins of all who bow their knee to him. The wrath of the Psalms must be preached as the wrath of the Lamb of God. God's kingdom is at war." End quote. Now, if these Psalms are indeed the words of Jesus, then a third question arises.

Do these Psalms pose a serious contradiction? Do these Psalms pose a serious contradiction? After all, did not Jesus command us that the second greatest commandment next to loving the Lord our God is to love our neighbor as ourself? Is it not our biblical duty to even love our enemies and do good to them who spitefully use us or even persecute us? Does this not pose a serious contradiction within the teaching of Scripture?

Well, first of all, we have to confirm what Scripture teaches us, that the Bible is holy, righteous, and good. Therefore, anything that appears contradictory is not actually contradictory at all. The problem lies not within the pages of Scripture. It lies within our understanding. That's always the case.

Always. The second thing we must do is not Let our study of these Implications rob us of the weight of our duty to love even our enemies It's not pitting it against each other We can't just simply say okay, well it says this in the psalm so I'm going to ignore that no We can't stress one command of God to the neglect of another command. Thirdly, as to why these psalms don't pose a serious contradiction, I want to read another quote from Mr. Adams. He says, the various utterances of Christ are not contradictions, but true reflections of His many shining attributes.

In particular, the prayers of the Lord Jesus and of His true followers in both testaments express his love and his righteous retribution as the holy God who is love personified. This is an essential truth to hold in comprehending the Psalms. Contradictions? No. On the contrary, we find in the prayers of Jesus the glorious balance and unity of all the attributes of God." Consider as well the thoughts of Professor James Dick, who uttered the following at a Psalm Singers conference in Northern Ireland in 1902.

Quote, these prayers then, for woes unutterable upon enemies, are the prayers of Christ Himself. But The difficulty to many minds about this is that it seems inconsistent with his prayer for enemies. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That the two prayers that we see in the Psalms destroy them and forgive them, that they fell from his lips, we know, and that they represent two different things, which he received a commission from the Father to do, we know. He has the power on earth to forgive sins, and he has power on earth to execute judgment upon enemies.

These psalms themselves present both sides of his mediatorial character and work in this respect." So David and the other psalmists prayed these truths. Christ himself did as well. But here we must ask a fourth question. Are we to pray the imprecatory psalms? Are we to pray them?

Well, First of all, we must grasp the fact that these imprecations were not for the satisfaction of personal vengeance. They were not for the satisfaction of personal vengeance. If you study these particular psalms out, you will discover that the purpose of the prayers was for relief, for vindication of honor that had been lost at false accusations and attacks, or for the glory of God. The purpose was not that the psalmist might have his pound of flesh, or so that he might gloat. Brothers and sisters, as sinners before a holy and righteous God, we deserve the full force of all the imprecations breathed out in the Word of God.

We deserve them. If we indeed are to pray these imprecations, we pray them as Those who apart from Christ are deserving of these various imprecations, these judgments, this wrath. As those who are recipients of undeserved grace and mercy, The very first prayer upon our lips on behalf of others should be that God would have mercy upon them, even as He did upon us. This is what Jesus taught us to do. At the same time, our God is not just a God of love.

He's a God of holiness, and justice, righteousness. And the Lord Jesus taught us to pray that God's kingdom would come and that His will would be done here on earth even as it is in heaven. In order for that to happen, for God's kingdom to come, for His will to be done, Satan's kingdom must be both plundered and destroyed. It has to be. As Johannes G.

Voss wrote in the Westminster Theological Journal, quote, God's kingdom cannot come without Satan's kingdom being destroyed. God's will cannot be done in earth without the destruction of evil. Evil cannot be destroyed without the destruction of men who are permanently identified with it. Instead of being influenced by the sickly sentimentalism of the present day, Christian people should realize that the glory of God demands the destruction of evil. Instead of being insistent upon the assumed but really non-existent rights of men, they should focus their attention upon the rights of God.

Instead of being ashamed of the imprecatory Psalms and attempting to apologize for them and explain them away, Christian people should glory in them and not hesitate to use them in the public and private exercises of the worship of God. Harry Menegah wrote in that same journal as part of his master's thesis, it is the peculiarly balanced prayer life that the Christian must foster. He is obligated to pray for the conversion of sinners, of those who are now identified with the kingdom of darkness. This he must do in the interest of God's glory. At the same time and in the same interest, he must pray for the coming of God's kingdom, which involves necessarily praying for the destruction of the kingdom of evil and those who are identified with it.

It is in this tension that the Christian must live. Since he does not know who are permanently identified with the kingdom of evil, He cannot pray for the doom of known individuals in the way the psalmist did, and rather must show love to all people, even his enemies. Yet, this prayer for their conversion is accompanied by a prayer for the overthrow of Satan's kingdom, a kingdom which cannot be conceived of apart from its concrete embodiment in actual persons in history. It's a tension. All for the glory of God.

When we pray these psalms, as God intended, We must absolve ourselves from all personal vengeance, as well as all interest in our own little kingdoms. We rather take up in our prayer the cause of King Jesus, the advancement of His kingdom, the glory of all of His attributes, and the praise of His whole being, and the prosperity and good of His church. In other words, it is not necessarily the matter of our prayer, but the manner of our prayer. We can get the matter right and get the manner wrong. Just like in other areas of our prayer life, We can pray for the right thing, but we can pray for the absolutely wrong reason.

Dear ones, have we become so man-centered in our praying that we are unable or unwilling to pray for the things that God desires, that Christ Himself prayed for, that God has purposed to bring about? Dear ones, we need to understand the implications of all of Scripture so that we might be complete and mature Christians in Christ. Such a serious consideration of these Psalms and other texts of Scripture like them would help us in at least the following ways. Number one, it would ever keep our minds of the fact that we are in a war, that there is a battle going on between two kingdoms. Second, it would draw good and necessary distinctions between God's people and those of the world, those whom He blesses and those who fall under His curse.

Just as it would bring the coming judgment of God into clear focus, it would also bring the saints' everlasting rest into focus as well. Because Christ suffered these at the hand of His Father, we're a blessed people. Third, it would warn a traitor like Judas that God will not take lightly the sin of betrayal. Some of those imprecations, you read Acts chapter 1, the apostles knew that some of the imprecations breathed out in the Psalms were fitting for Judas. Fourth, it would encourage the battle-wearyed Christian that his labor is not in vain, that justice will prevail, that he can leave every wrong done to him in the hands of the judge of all the earth who judges righteously.

That's what our Savior did. He uttered not a word, but left it all in the hands of his Father. And then fifth, it would remind us afresh of the glory of Christ and what he took upon himself. The imprecations of a holy God that were due us. Christ took up and embraced as His own, becoming a curse for us, becoming a curse for us that we might be redeemed, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Well, There's more to it. You would find if you read the book, he deals with some of the imprecations in the New Testament. We don't have time to look at him here and now. He's got a chart as well in the back that shows the imprecations that you find in the Psalms and where they are often repeated in the New Testament, because it's also not a matter of God's a different God. That was the God of the old covenant.

This is the God of the new covenant. No. You find love. You find holiness. You find justice in the old as well as the new.

But in the new, as we saw when we had our communion just a few hours ago, it's the new covenant in his blood. And in that taking up of that covenant, Christ suffered these imprecations on our behalf so that we might be a redeemed people. We have much to rejoice in. May God give us help in understanding these Psalms, not abusing them and not leaving them off to the side as if they weren't the Word of God for us. Oh, may God give us much help.

We need it. We need it. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your goodness to us. Lord, thank you for these psalms.

God, they're a reflection of the purity of your attributes. And Lord, to set them aside, to use them for other means would be to rob you of the glory due to you because of these attributes. Oh, God, our desire is that your enemies would be made willing volunteers in the day of your power. But Lord, we know that there in Psalm 110 that those who will not bow, that Christ will lift up their heads by the river and he will execute. Oh God, have mercy.

Have mercy Even as you have upon us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well we have a very short time for question and comments. We want to keep it brief so we can finish getting ready and head over to the pond.

Does anybody have any questions or comments either about this or about the message from