praying for justice i recently came across this article which i found interesting i have posted it to hear what other people feel about the issue i realise it is rather long pages in wordperfect by may well be worth the read except for the first page which i typed the rest was scanned inusing omnipage some of the f s have come out as t s and visa versa i have tried to correct as much as possible about the author peter hammond is the founder of frontline fellowship a missionary organisation witnessing to the communist countries in southern africa he has also made several visits to many east european countries frontline fellowship news issn x praying for justice by peter hammond to those involved in ministering to christians suffering persecution the imprecatory psalms are a tremendous source of comfort and those of us who are fighting for the right to life of the preborn or battling social evils such as pornography or crime are beginning to appreciate what an important weapon god has entrusted to us in the imprecatory psalms the imprecatory psalms early in my christian walk i encountered the prayers for judgement in the psalms and was quite at loss to know how to respond to them prayers such as break the arm of the wicked and evil men call him to account for his wickedness psalm did not seem consistent with the gospel of love which i had accepted yet psalm was clearly motivated by love for god the lord is king for ever and ever the nation will perish from his land and why does the wicked man revile god and by love for the innocent who suffer you hear o lord the desire of the afflicted you encourage them and you listen to their cry defending the fatherless and oppressed in order that man who is of the earth may terrify no more nevertheless i grew increasingly uncomfortable reading such graphic prayers for god to judge the wicked as pour out your wrath on them let your fierce anger overtake them o lord the god avenges o god who avenges shine forth rise up o judge of the earth pay back to the proud what they deserve break the teeth in their mouths o god let them vanish like water let their arrows be blunted the righteous will be glad when they are avenged when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked then men will way surely the righteous still are rewarded surely there is a god who judges the earth certainly i wanted god to be honoured and yes i was deeply destressed by the prevalence of evil but could i actually pray for god to pour out his wrath on the wicked the scripture make it clear that these prayers are not to be prayed for own selfish motives nor against our personal enemies rather they are to be prayed in christ for his glory and against his enemies the psalmist describes the targets of these imprecation as those who devise injustice in their heart and whose hands mete out violence those who boast of evil and are a disgrace in the eyes of god your tongue plots destruction it is like a sharpened razor and you who practise deceit you love evil rather than good falsehood rather than speaking the truth they crush your people they slay the widow and the alien they murder the fatherless with cunning they conspire against your people they plot against those you cherish you hate all who do wrong you destroy those who tell lies bloodthirsty and deceitful men the lord abhors to those unrepentant enemies of god the psalmist declares surely god will bring you down to everlasting ruin surely god will crush the heads of his enemies of those who go on in their sins and the purpose of these prayers for justice is declared then it will be known to the ends of the earth that god rules to proclaim the powers of god all kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him who knows the power of your anger for your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you yet despite the fact that of the psalms include imprecations prayers invoking god s righteous judgement upon the wicked such prayers are rare in the average western church however amongst the persecuted churches these prayers are much more common praying against the persecutors amidst the burnt out churches and devastation of marxist angola i found the survivors of communist persecution including the crippled and maimed and widows and orphans praying for god to strike down the wicked and remove the persecutors of the church i was shocked yet it was biblical even the martyrs in heaven pray how long sovereign lord holy and true until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood revelation the initiator of the communist persecution in angola was agestino neto described as a drunken psychotic marxist poet neto had been installed by cuban troops as the first dictator of angola he boasted that within years there won t be a bible or a church left in angola i will have eradicated christianity yet despite the vicious wave of church burning and massacres it is not christianity that was eradicated in angola but agestino neto neto died in mysterious circumstances on an operating table in moscow in romania i learnt of a series of remarkable incidents recorded of god judging the persecutors of the church in answer to prayer a communist official ordered a certain pastor to be arrested the next day the official died of a heart attack another communist party official ordered that all the bibles in his district were to be collected and pulped to be turned into toilet paper this blasphemous project was in fact carried out but the next day when the official was medically examined he was informed that he had terminal cancer he died shortly afterwards on another occasion a communist official who had ordered a baptist church to be demolished by bulldozers died in a car crash the very next day when an order was given to dismantle a place of worship on the mountainside in a forest the workmen flatly refused to carry out the order at gunpoint a group of conscripted gypsies also refused to touch the church in desperation the communist police forced prisoners at bayonet point to dismantle the structure yet the officer in charge pleaded with the local christians to pray for him that god would not judge him he emphasised that he had nothing against christians and was only obeying strict orders the building was in fact reconstructed later and again used for worship they were all seized with sear and the name of the lord jesus was held in high honour in this way the word of the lord spread widely and grew in power acts nicolae ceaucescu the dictator who ordered much of the persecution in romania was overthrown by his own army and executed on christmas day to joyous shouts of the antichrist is dead in the streets many testified that this was in answer to the fervent prayers of the long suffering people of romania another persecutor of the church who challenged god was samora machel the first dictator of marxist mozambique samora machel was a cannibal who ate human flesh in witchcraft ceremonies in the s he pledged his soul to satan and vowed that he would destroy the church and turn mozambique into the first truly marxist leninist state in africa thousands of churches in mozambique were closed confiscated nationalised chained and padlocked burnt down or boarded up missionaries were expelled some being imprisoned first evangelism was forbidden bibles were ceremonially burnt and tens of thousands of christians including many pastors and elders were shipped off to concentration camps most were never seen again a month before his sudden death samora machel cursed god publicly and challenged him to prove his existence by striking him machel dead on october while several churches were specifically praying for god to stop the persecution in mozambique machel s soviet tupelov aircraft crashed in a violent thunderstorm the plane crashed metres within south africa s boundary with mozambique amidst the wreckage the marxist plans for overthrowing the government of malawi were discovered and published not only had god judged a blasphemer and a persecutor but he had also saved a country from persecution in the months leading up to the first multi party elections in zambia many churches fasted and prayed tor god to remove the year socialist dictatorship of kenneth kaunda this was done on st october when fredrick chiluba a man converted to christ whilst imprisoned for opposing kaunda was elected president of zambia and covenanted to make zambia a christian country it is recorded in history that the wicked mary queen of scots declared trembling and in tears i am more afraid of john knox s prayers than of an army of ten thousand on april the secretary general of the south african communist party chris hani was shot dead from the unprecedented international wave of condolences and adulation reported one could be forgiven for assuming that this man was a saint and a martyr certainly it was not the death and resurrection of christ jesus which dominated the thoughts and headlines of south africa this easter but the assassination of chris hani the stunning hypocrisy of the situation is that people were murdered in south africa in yet more collective concern and anguish were reported over the death of the head of the sa communist party than for all the thousands of other victims indeed the sa government the international community and the mass media have apparently had greater sorrow reported over this one death than for all the south africans murdered since nd february when the anc sacp and pac were unbanned yet as a member of the anc revolutionary council since deputy commander of umkhonto we sizwe mk the anc s military wing from and chief of staff of mk from chris hani had approved and ordered bombings and assassinations of many unarmed civilians as jesus warned all who live by the sword will die by the sword matt after personally confronting hani about his terrorist activities at a press conference in washington dc where he publicly declared his support for fidel castro col gaddafi yasser arafat and saddam hussein and defended the placing of car bombs and limpet mines in public places during the struggle i told him that i was a christian and while i didn t hate him i did hate communism and i was praying for him that god would either bring him to repentance and salvation in christ or that god would remove him he responded by swearing and declaring that he was an atheist several other people also prayed that god would either bring hani to repentance or remove him similarly several churches in america have begun to pray the imprecatory psalms against unrepentant abortionists in one town abortionists were struck down with heart attacks strokes car accidents and cancer within months of these public prayers for god to stop these killers of preborn babies some praised god for his righteous acts of judgement and quoted when justice is done it brings joy to the righteous and terror to evildoers proverbs others were shocked that any christian could express satisfaction at the misfortune of any even of the blatantly wicked yet the apostles prayed imprecatory prayers acts galatians tim and so did our lord matt what then should our attitude towards the imprecatory psalms be should we be praying the psalms to tackle these thorny issues i would like to present a short summary of an excellent book war psalms of the prince of peace lessons from the imprecatory psalms by james e adams published by the presbyterian and reformed publishing company our lord jesus christ his apostles used the psalms constantly in teaching men to know god the new testament nt quotes the old testament ot over times of all ot quotes in the nt are from the psalms christ himself alluded to the psalms over times the psalms are the prayer book of the bible are the imprecatory psalms the oracles of god some christian commentators theologians reject these psalms as devilish diabolical unsuited to the church and not god s pronouncements of his wrath on the wicked but the prayers of a man for vengeance on his enemies just the opposite of jesus teaching that we should love our enemies yet tim declares all scripture is god breathed and is useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of god may be thoroughly equipped for every good work see also peter the fact that something in the word of god is beyond our comprehension is not grounds to denying or even questioning its inspiration to make ourselves the judge of what is good or evil is to impudently take the place of god do we imagine ourselves to be holier than god wrong ideas of god have led many to become evangelic plastic surgeons who have made it their job to clean up god s word according to their own ideas of what is proper they have forgotten that it is god alone who must determine what christianity is and what is suitable for his church the essence of what many have done is to question the authority of god s word like eve s original sin of listening to satan s question yes hath god said the psalms are part of god s revelation of himself and his attributes and they are reaffirmed by the nt as the authoritative word of god those imprecatory psalms which these evangelical plastic surgeons reject as unsuited and unworthy for the church are the very psalms christ used to testify about himself eg mark matt and which the apostles used as authoritative scripture eg acts acts heb see also samuel ch spurgeon said concerning the imprecatory psalms especially ps truly this is one of the hard places of scripture a passage which the soul trembles to read yet it is not ours to sit in judgement upon it but to bow our ear to what the lord would speak to us therein the rejection of any part of god s word is a rejection of the giver of that word god himself who is praying these psalms christ quoted the psalms not merely as prophesy he actually spoke the psalms as his own words the psalms occupied an enormous place in the life of our lord he used it as his prayer book and song book from the synagogue to the festivals and at the last supper on the cross christ quoted from the psalms not as some ancient authority that he adapted for his own use but as his very own words the words of the lord s anointed which as david s son he truly was father into your hands i commit my spirit ps my god my god why have you forsaken me ps in his ministry christ foretells what he will say as the judge on the day of judgement and he quotes the psalms in doing so matt then i will tell them plainly i never knew you away from me you evildoers ps in heb the apostle attributes ps directly to christ although nowhere in the gospels is christ recorded as having said these words similarly hebrews attributes ps directly to christ despite there being no record of his having spoken these words while on earth clearly the apostles believed christ is speaking in the psalms christ came to establish his kingdom and to extend his mercy in all the earth but let us never forget that jesus will come again to execute judgement on the wicked david as the anointed king of the chosen people of god was a prototype of jesus christ acts being therefore a prophet he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of christ david was a witness to christ in his office in his lite and in his words the same words which david spoke the future messiah spoke through him the prayers of david were prayed also by christ or better christ himself prayed these psalms through his forerunner david the imprecatory psalms are expressions of the infinite justice of god of his indignation against wrong doing and his compassion for the wronged but what about the psalms of repentance christ is also the lamb of god the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins christ in the day of his crucifixion was charged with the sin of his people he appropriated to himself those debts for which he had made himself responsible our lord was the substitution for the sinner he took the sinners place isaiah god made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of god cor in history the psalms especially the imprecatory psalms have been understood to have been the prayers of christ by st augustine jerome ambrose tertullian luther and many others all the psalms are the voice of christ christ is praying the imprecatory psalms all the psalms are messianic it is the lord jesus christ who is praying these prayers of vengeance it is only right for the righteous king of peace to ask god to destroy his enemies these prayers signal an alarm to all who are still enemies of king jesus his prayers will be answered god s word 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 he who prays psalm will one day make this prayer a reality when he declares to those on his left depart from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels matt all the enemies of the lord need to hear these psalms god s kingdom is at war the powers of evil will tall and god alone will reign forever with justice he judges and makes war out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations he will rule them with an iron sceptre he treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of god almighty king of kings and lord of lords rev are jesus prayers contradictory what about jesus command to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us matt christ is of course the loving and merciful saviour who forgives sin but he is also the awesome judge who is coming in judgement on those who disobey his gospel god is just he will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled this will happen when the lord jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels he will punish those who do not obey the gospel of our lord jesus they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marvelled at among au those who have believed thess jesus has power on earth to forgive sins and he has power on earth to execute judgement upon his enemies in the psalms we see both the vengeance and the love ot god even in the n t in the gospels we see imprecations woe to you hypocrites blind guides blind fools full of greed and self indulgence whitewashed tombs you snakes you brood of vipers how will you escape being condemned to hell matt in matt christ quotes from ps and to refer to his betrayal by judas we also need to acknowledge that christ s prayers of blessing are not for all in john it is clear that christ is only praying to the elect of god those who have obeyed your word accepted god s word and have believed see luke those who reject the message of god s kingdom will be judged may we pray the imprecatory psalms martin luther pointed out that when one prays hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done then he must put all the opposition to this in one pile and say curses maledictions and disgrace upon every other name and every other kingdom may they be ruined and torn apart and may all their schemes and wisdom and plans run aground to pray tor the extension of god s kingdom is to solicit the destruction of all other kingdoms eg dan the god of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed it will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end but it will itself endure forever advance and victory for the church means defeat and retreat for the kingdom of darkness there is a life death struggle between two kingdoms the church cannot exclude hatred tor satan s kingdom from its love for god s kingdom god s kingdom cannot come without satan s kingdom being destroyed god s will cannot be done on earth without the destruction of evil the glory of god demands the destruction of evil instead of being influenced by a sickly sentimentalism which insists upon the assumed but really non existent rights of man we should focus instead upon the rights of god note psalm where the psalmist prays against those who plot together against god and his people cover their faces with shame so that men will seek your name o lord do to them as you did to midian as you did to sisera and jabin at the river kishon who perished at endor and became like refuse on the ground the story of sisera in the book of judges chapter and provides a vivid example of god s judgement on the wicked sisera cruelly oppressed the israelites for twenty years and they cried to the lord for help judges in response to those prayers the lord routed sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword and sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot all the troops of sisera fell by the sword not a man was left judges the account then goes on to describe how sisera escaped to the tent of jael where she lulled him into a false sense of safety and then drove a tent peg through his temple with a hammer the song of victory by deborah and barak celebrated the crushing of the head of sisera in graphic detail judges and it is this that psalm implores god to again do to his enemies as you did to sisera the blessings of obedience and the curse of disobedience the imprecatory psalms are fully consistent with the law of god if you do not carefully follow all the words of this law which are written in this book and do not revere this glorious and awesome name the lord your god the lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants he will bring upon you all the diseases of egypt that you dreaded and they will cling to you the lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this book of the law until you are destroyed because you did not obey the lord your god so it will please him to ruin and destroy you you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess deuteronomy the covenant god made with his people included curses for disobedience as well as blessings for obedience deuteronomy records the formal giving and receiving of the covenant terms in an awesome account the levites shall recite to all the people of israel in a loud voice cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol a thing detestable to the lord the work of the craftsman s hands and sets it up in secret then all the people shall say amen cursed is the man who dishonours his father or his mother cursed is the man who moves his neighbour s boundary stone cursed is the man who leads the blind astray on the roads cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien the fatherless or the widow cursed is the man who kills his neighbour secretly cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of the law by carrying them out then all the people shall say amen deut the new testament confirms that the inevitable consequence of rejecting christ is the curse if anyone does not love the lord a curse be on him corinthians see also romans hebrews how can we preach these prayers the church of jesus christ is an army under orders scripture constitutes the official dispatch from the commander in chief but we have a problem those who are called to pass on those orders to others are refusing to do so how then can we expect to be a united effective army is it any wonder that the troops have lost sight of their commission to demolish the strongholds of the kingdom of darkness if the church does not hear the battle cries of her captain how will she follow him onto the battlefield pastors are commissioned to pass on the orders of the church s commander never withholding or changing his words one whose job is to carry dispatches to troops in wartime would face certain and severe punishment if he dared to amend the general s orders the pastor s charge is of greater importance than that of a courier in any earthly army there s no place tor the dispatcher to decide he doesn t agree with his commander s strategy when jesus christ sent seventy two disciples on a preaching mission he told them to proclaim the coming of god s kingdom lk that is to announce that people must submit to god s rule in their lives jesus instructed them to pray for peace on any house they approach assuring them that if anyone rejected it the peace would return on the disciples verse but we must consider what he said they should do if their message were rejected that is if the hearers persisted in rebellion against god s rule but when you enter a town and are not welcomed go into its streets and say even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you yet be sure of this the kingdom of god is near luke what would be the result of that denunciation i tell you it will be more bearable on that day for sodom on which god sent fire from heaven in judgement for its wickedness than for that town verse immediately jesus added curses on korazin bethsaida and capernaum tor their rejection of his message verses he then explained to the disciples the great authority he had given them he who listens to you listens to me he who rejects you rejects me but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me verse this is the fundamental basis tor calling down god s curses on anyone his persistent rebellion against god s authority expressed in his law and the ministry of his servants we need to clearly and forcefully proclaim the war cries of the prince of peace only then will the church awake from its lethargy and once again enter the battle if we tail to pass on the battle cry then a lack of urgency and confusion in the ranks will be inevitable like psalm our preaching needs to clearly show the blessings of obedience and the curse of disobedience the eternal truth is that god cannot be mocked whatever a man sows that shall he reap galatians the curses pronounced on disobedience in deut were fulfilled in detail in samaria kings and in judea ad the wrath of god upon covenant breakers is real the i of the psalms is jesus christ the we of the psalms includes those of us in the lord jesus the enemies are not our own individually but those of the lord and of his church the psalms are ot christ as prophet priest and king they record christ s march in victory against the kingdom of darkness as christ is the author of the psalms so too is he the final fulfilment of the covenant on which they are based god will answer the psalmist s prayers completely in jesus christ on the final day of judgment while on earth jesus foretold the day when he will say but those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them bring them here and kill them in front of me luke a fatal end awaits everyone who refuses to acknowledge and to obey jesus as king and lord hearing expositions of these war psalms of the prince of peace will remind his people that god s kingdom is at war the kingdom of darkness is being overcome by the kingdom of jesus christ a war in which each local congregation of believers plays a vital part you must rally your battalion to put on the whole armour of god including the sword of the spirit which is the word of god eph that battle readiness also involves pray ing in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests n eph christ teaches his army to pray for the utter destruction of the enemies of god as the psalmist did pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you on the kingdoms that do not call on your name ps to deal with the very real hurts and injustices in this world it is necessary for us to pray for god s justice those who are persecuted need the comfort of these prayers let the saints rejoice in his honour and sing for joy may the praise of god be in their mouths and a double edged sword in their hands to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples to bind their kings with fetters their nobles with shackles of iron to carry out the sentences written against them this is the glory of all his saints praise the lord ps prayer is in fact spiritual warfare one weapon is prayer for conversion of spiritual enemies another is prayer for judgement on those who finally refuse to be converted we handicap the army of god when we refuse to use both of these great weapons that he has given us it is at all times a part of the task of the people nf god to destroy evil if you have been guilty of dulling your sword by neglecting or undermining these psalms repent of that sin sharpen your sword anew and go forth to do battle in the name and for the glory of jesus until the knowledge of the lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea hab the full book war psalms of the prince of peace is available at r from frontline fellowship po box newlands rsa permission to reproduce those wishing to reproduce or quote from any edition of ff news are encouraged to do so we only request that due acknowledgement of the source be mentioned and that a copy be sent to us
