3. Prayers Against ‘the Wicked’! Psalm 58:6-9

Text: “And take the helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.”

Ephesians 6:17-18.

Good morning, powerfully armed Christian!  A careful study of God’s Word – Old Testament and New – clearly reveals the God-given fact that we who are genuinely redeemed by the shedding of Christ’s sinless Blood at Calvary, are granted powerful Spiritual weapons with which to wage war with Satan and his vile, rebellious agents, both spiritual and temporal.  Too many today, in this increasingly apostate and Spiritually toothless 21^st Century church, have no idea of the powerful Spiritual weapons the Lord has placed at our disposal to enable us to ‘confound’ the enemies of the Gospel, never mind willing to use them in the Cause of Christ Crucified. Fact.

 

It is time, beloved in Christ; it is time to unwrap our powerful Spiritual armoury and unleash God’s power upon those who would even dare to hinder and persecute those of us for whom Christ suffered, bled, and died.  Awake, and Christ shall give thee light!

 

Verse 6. “Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth. Treat them as the snake-charmers do their serpents – extract their fangs, break their teeth.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 260)

 

“There is nothing malicious here; the slandered man simply craves for justice, and the petition is natural and justifiable.  Guided by God’s good Spirit, the Psalmist foretells the everlasting confusion of all the haters of the righteous (Made righteous in Christ).  

"Shameful disappointments shall be the portion of the enemies of the Gospel, nor would the most tender-hearted Christian have it otherwise; viewing sinners as men, we love them and seek their good, but regarding them as enemies of God, we cannot think of them with anything but detestation and loyal desire for the confusion of their devices.

 

“No loyal subject can wish well to rebels.  Squeamish sentimentality may object to the strong language here used, but in their hearts all good men wish confusion to mischief-makers.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 170)

 

Christianity today seems, in many cases, to have slumped down into a cosy, lovey-dovey sentimentalism, that is devoid of the Spiritual teeth necessary to engage in any serious contention for ‘…the faith once delivered unto the saints…’  (Jude 3)

 

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against Spiritual wickedness in high places.  Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day…” (Ephesians 6:12-13)

 

The power to call down God’s Divine curses against His enemies and, therefore, ours – is a powerful weapon indeed.  However, not all professing Christians are willing to even think of employing such a devastating Spiritual weapon – and thus, the church declines and is found reeling about in a politically correct confusion of its own making.  Sad.

 

“How are we to account for such prayers for vengeance?  We find them chiefly in four Psalms – the seventh, thirty-fifth, sixty-ninth, and one-hundred and ninth, and the imprecations (curses) in these form a terrible climax.  In the last, no less than thirty anathemas (curses) have been counted.  Are these the mere outbursts of passionate and unsanctified feeling or are they the legitimate expression of a righteous indignation?  An unobstructed fastidiousness, it is well known, has made many persons recoil from reading these Psalms at all.”  (J.J. Stewart Perowne 1868)

 

If our KJV Bibles are indeed, ‘God-breathed’, Spiritually inspired as Paul, inspired by God the Spirit, teaches us they are – then, ‘the Imprecatory Psalms’ mentioned above, are also the inspired Word of God, and as such are God’s Authority to us for our use.

 

“All Scripture (Old Testament and New) is given by inspiration of God (breath of God), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man/woman of God may be perfect (mature in teaching), thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”  (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

 

“Then shall He (the Lord) say also unto them on the left hand (unsaved, reprobates), Depart from Me, ye CURSED, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41)

 

The souls of those placed on ‘the left hand’ by our Lord Christ in this verse above, are the souls of the reprobate (those ‘passed over by God reference Eternal Salvation); these are ‘the wicked’, the enemies of God and of us, ‘His people’ who are elected to Salvation from before the foundation of the world.  Therefore, the Lord Jesus is declaring the fact that those on ‘the left hand’ on His judgement day are in fact, left under God’s curse declared back in Eden’s Garden; and as such are the Eternal enemies of Christ and ‘His people’. They are Eternally cursed of God, and as such have been, shall always be, and are, Eternally lost.  What an Eternally sad and devastating position to be in!

 

Divine Curses In Psalm 35.  Confusion (verse 4); Blown Away, as dust before the wind (verse 5); Hounded by God’s angels (verse 5); Instability, set in slippery darkness, and persecuted by God’s Holy angels (verse 6); Doomed, thrust into sudden destruction, caught up in God’s net of retribution (verses 7 & 8)

 

Imprecatory curses are not prayed lightly by Christians.  They are prayed against ‘the wicked’ tyrants who, ‘without cause’, persecute, slander, hinder and harm Christ’s children, and openly defame His Holy Name.

 

Verse 9. “He shall take them away as with a whirlwind. Cook, fire, pot, meat, and all disappear at once, whirled away to destruction.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 261)

‘The wicked’ prepare all their schemes, their false laws, against Christ’s saved people, but they only ever succeed in calling down God’s full wrath against themselves.  God is not mocked.  Let us implore unsaved souls to cease from their wickedness, and come, receive Christ’s Salvation, while it is still the day of God’s Sovereign grace.  Come, sinners, come, now!

 

Thought: “Maxentious built a false bridge to drown Constantine but was drowned himself.  Henry the Third of France was stabbed in the very same chamber where he had helped to contrive the cruel massacre of the French Protestants.” (Thomas Brooks 1608-1680) Wicked Anti-Christians, beware of God’s inevitable wrath!