Get 'Em God!

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show. Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. There are some prayers in the Bible that are, you know, pretty eye-opening, especially some of the prayers of David in the Psalms. Some of them are prayers against his enemies, and he's not exactly loving, I wouldn't say, when he prays. So, James, you've written some books on praying the prayers of the Bible. So, you know, what do you do with prayers like that?

Oh, that's a great question, Robbie. And I wanted to talk about that today because a missionary asked me that question recently. Those prayers are called imprecatory prayers, and that means, basically, to pray for something bad to happen to someone. And a great example of this is found in Psalm 35, where David prays in verse 8, May ruin overtake them by surprise, may the net they hid entangle them. Or in Psalm 58, 6, he prays, Break the teeth in their mouths, O God. And you read that, you just say, ouch, you know, you wonder, wait a minute, is it ever okay to pray a prayer like that?

And if it isn't, why would God allow that to be included in His Word? And the short answer is that these prayers show us the immediate confrontation of good with evil. And we have to remember that David was unjustly targeted and pursued by Saul, and later by his own son and his forces. So at the heart of these prayers, you also see a cry for help. They're a reaction to something else that is happening. And David was also coming up against some real darkness in the practices of the nations he was facing.

Yes, he was. I mean, human sacrifice, child sacrifice, some horrible things. But there's a lot of the battle between good and evil here. And what I think the real question that was on our minds as we look at these prayers is, is it ever okay for us to pray like that? And again, there are at least 10 of these prayers in the Bible, just in the Psalms alone. And think about it, we've all been through those circumstances where we want to pray, get up, God, you know, I mean, that's just human nature.

But the ultimate answer as to how to handle prayers like this has to come from Jesus himself, when on the cross he prayed, Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they are doing. You know, this is really helpful for us to think about in our current political climate, right, and cancel culture, where so many are tempted to react or resist, instead of first asking, What does God want me to do? Yeah, I mean, sometimes we can lose sight of the fact that we're citizens of the kingdom of heaven first.

And that's where our deepest allegiance lies. So that means we let him lead us and help us stand against evil. And to do that, you know, we have to take the full counsel of Scripture in which Jesus tells us to even love our enemies, because the ultimate goal is to encourage others to come to him and discover the real love and life that only he gives. So James, what do you think the scriptural approach is when you come up against evil, you know, including evil people in your own life? Well, Jesus clearly teaches us to pray that we will be delivered from it.

So you know, that much that we can go that far. And if you look at the response of the church in Acts, there's this prayer against the enemies of the church in Acts 4 29. And I think this prayer really sums it up. Now, Lord, consider their threats, and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.

So there are two things going on there. I think it's a great model prayer, because it's basically praying for strength to stay faithful to keep following God to keep preaching the word, you know, but it's also saying, consider this, you know, look at this, Lord, see what's happening here. Really, it makes me think of Romans 1219, that says, Do not take revenge, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord. And that's what the early believers were doing when they prayed. Now, Lord, consider their threats. You know, they just laid the whole situation out before God. And I think Scripture makes clear that we really can pray, Lord, do something to stop this evil. But but we leave to Him entirely what that will be.

That's what Scripture indicates when it says that we're to leave room for God's wrath. So maybe I shouldn't ask this, but whatever. Let's go there. Have you ever prayed that way about someone?

Yes, I have, Robbie. And I'll tell you, it was a very difficult place. It was when my daughter was a runaway. And there was someone who really had encouraged her in that it was keeping her in harm's way.

And this is a place where you have to tread so carefully. You know, here's someone who was harming one of my children. And I was so angry, and I wanted to react and do something. I mean, you know, as a dad, I wanted to do something physical, and I knew that would be wrong. And that wasn't what God wanted. So I just poured out the situation to him, including all my anger and frustration, you know, as a dad, not being able to do anything. And I asked him, better put, I pleaded with him about it.

And without getting into specifics, a couple of days later, something happened. And I was really made aware of the fact that God watches over his people in his own wisdom and way. But again, we have to leave room for him to act. But he helps us as we call on him. But looking back, you know, really, that was more of a prayer of deliverance than saying, Get him, God, you know, God's word reminds us in Romans 1214, bless and do not curse. And that verse begins with the words, bless those who persecute you. So he really shows us where he wants our hearts to be in this, but it's not easy, is it? Oh, no. And if you take that a step further, Jesus said in Matthew 5, 44 through 45, pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Yeah. So when you look at the imprecatory prayers in the Psalms, I think it's important to kind of file them with the understanding that David was a warrior. But Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God's truth. So we have to follow Jesus.

Now, what we can learn from David and Asaph, who also wrote them, is to give every emotion, including and especially our anger to God, and then let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. And I think that's the only way we can do that, to just pour it out before him. You know, if you go on Matthew 5, 45, Jesus says that God causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. And he will sort it all out. You know, the best place for our anger is really in his hands. Well, thanks, James. Let me wrap it up with a prayer that we will bring everything to him. So Jesus, thank you so much for this insight. And I pray that you would help us to be free, to tell you all we really are thinking, but then also free to release that to you, to handle it, as we ask you for guidance as, you know, you really are our Lord. And we ask this, that you would engage all of us in this kind of prayer. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina.

May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. the kingdom by trying to shut down his business. You can't buy his pillows at Kohl's anymore. You can't get them on Amazon or you can't get them at Costco.

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