A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on March 17, 2024.
Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge the children of man uprightly?
No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;
your hands deal out violence on earth.
The wicked are estranged from the womb;
they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
They have venom like the venom of a serpent,
like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
so that it does not hear the voice of charmers
or of the cunning enchanter.
O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!
Let them vanish like water that runs away;
when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.
Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime,
like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.
Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!
The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth” (Psalm 58).[1]
1 and 2 Kings contain primarily the royal history of Israel’s rulers, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most were bad, and if by ugly we mean vile, then many were that too. In fact, it’s easy to list the good ones, because there were so few. But if we were to rank the bad ones, where would we start? There was Manasseh or Amon or perhaps Ahaz, and of course Ahab, of whom Scripture says, “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited” (1 Kgs. 21:25). Ahab was no doubt bad, but he was also one of many.
In fact, between Solomon’s reign and the Babylonian exile, the children of Israel lived under the reign of wicked rulers more often than not. This was not, however, by chance. As mighty Nebuchadnezzar eventually and humbly confessed, “to [God] belong wisdom and might … [who] removes kings and sets up kings” (Dan. 2:20). Even wicked rulers are put in place by God, which in the case of Judah and Israel he used to bring judgment on his people, to lead them to repentance. How and when God chooses to do this is a mystery; that he does is not. The question is: How should we then live when the wicked rule?
Know good from evil
One of the enemies of a just society is secular pragmatism, often expressed as “The end justifies the means.” Whether it is unethical or immoral is disregarded for the sake of accomplishing the objective. Such a perspective is as old as civilization and justified ever since the Fall. For example, Eve’s decision to eat the forbidden fruit was pragmatic. It is also a perspective that can cloud the conscience, misguiding one’s moral compass. Societally when that happens, those who rule can “call evil good and good evil,” “put darkness for light and light for darkness,” “put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20) and they are followed. Who cares if what they say is not true? Who cares if what they do is not right? So long as they get us what we want.
In contrast, David hears them and calls them liars, asking rhetorically, “Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?” (1a). Or, “Do you rulers indeed speak justly”?[2] In what sounds politically naïve,[3] or confrontational to a degree that would centuries later cause John the Baptist to lose his head, David’s question reveals that his moral compass has not been compromised. He hears them speak and knows that the words of the mouth reveal the condition of the heart. As Jesus said, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). And what is in the heart and comes out of the mouth moves onward to the hands.
Not asking but telling, David says, “in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth (2). To “devise wrongs” connotes planning, conniving “how to do what is unjust” (NET). The wicked don’t just stumble into a bad decision; they plan to do it and look forward to it. The prophet Micah says they lay on their beds and dream about it, and then wake up to do it (Mic. 2:1-2).
Wicked rulers are not, however, without identifying characteristics. For one, they are not only “rotten to the core”; they are rotten from the beginning. David says,
The wicked are estranged from the womb;
they go astray from birth, speaking lies (3).
Whether this is poetic hyperbole or an argument for nature over nurture is unclear. What is clear is what the wicked do today started well before yesterday. And as they mature, they become more wicked. Like deaf, venomous cobras, they do not heed warning but strike without regard, insensitive to anyone or anything but satisfying their own impulsive desires.
Such descriptions should not only lead to identification but also serious self-examination. When considering those who rule, we are quick to make them villains or heroes, forgetting,
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one” (Rom. 3:10-12).
When it comes to humanity as a whole, there is no distinction: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Let us gratefully remember that what distinguishes us and the wicked is not our best behavior but the grace of God:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
And but for the grace of God, David’s identifying characteristics would be our own.
But this does not negate the necessity for discernment: We must know good from evil. We are to be “wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil,” the apostle Paul teaches us (Rom. 16:19b). We should be able to discern good and evil when we hear it and when we see it, regardless of political persuasion. Practically, this often means limiting our exposure to our ruler’s rhetoric and saturating our hearts and minds with the truth of God’s Word. It also means keeping the gospel of Jesus Christ at the forefront of our communication and conversations with others, considering our unimpaired value of our witness to our neighbor, and the eternal blessing of winning them to Christ. As R.C. Sproul cautions,
when the hearts of men and women become so darkened that they openly revel in what is evil, the judgment of the Lord cannot be far behind. Those faithful people who live in such societies must plead with their neighbors to repent, for if people persist in approving of what is evil, the culture cannot survive.[4]
Pray for righteous justice
Praying for justice is not veiled vengeance. A personal vendetta is never to be desired nor is it agreeable to God’s will. To confuse your selfish sense of justice with God’s righteous justice will lead not only to self-righteousness but a dangerous interpretation and expectation of what God will do for you. Calvin reminds us, “God can never be expected to undertake a cause which is unworthy of defense.”[5] In other words, just because you feel wronged by others does not justify praying, “O God, break the teeth in their mouth” (Ps. 58:6). Instead, let us remember the humble prayer of Stephen as he was stoned to death: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).
So, what is David praying when he prays, “break the teeth in their mouth,” and when is it appropriate to pray this way? First, we must understand that David’s outrage is against the wicked and their deeds, specifically their deeds against God’s people, his church. Second, he is petitioning God to act in accordance with his righteous justice, not our fallen sense of it. Third, since God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Rom. 12:19), David prays that God will act accordingly and speedily.
Note the metaphors of David’s prayer. Though the wicked are like ravenous young lions, David prays that the Lord will tear out their fangs (6a), or though they are like archers with bent bows, the Lord will blunt their arrows (7b). In other words, he is praying that the Lord will render them powerless and harmless, which is a reminder to us, as Calvin says, to “not cease to pray, even after the arrows of our enemies have been fitted to the string, and destruction might seem inevitable.”[6] David prays that rather than continue to plague God’s people, the wicked would flow swiftly away like water (7a) or dissolve into slime like a snail (8a), or never live past birth.
And all this David prays expectantly, that the Lord would sweep away the wicked faster than kindling wood catches for campfire cooking (9).
To be clear, David’s prayers are not an exhaustive treatise of praying for our enemies. Nor do his prayers negate praying for our enemies’ repentance. As Matthew Henry points out,
David’s prayers against his enemies, and all the enemies of God’s church and people … [are] that they might be disabled to do any further mischief … Not so much that they might not feed themselves as that they might not be able to make prey of others … He does not say, “Break their necks” (no; let them live to repent, slay them not, lest my people forget), but, “Break their teeth, for they are lions …”[7]
And so we do pray for our enemies, as our Lord Jesus taught us, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:44-45). But what David teaches us, in praying for our enemies, we pray, as one scholar describes it, for “that temporal judgment by which God interrupts the kingdom-threatening violence of the wicked by any means just and necessary.”[8] And in this we are praying for righteous judgment; judgment that ultimately looks toward the final judgment when, as David sings in the seventh psalm, “the evil of the wicked [will] come to an end” (Ps. 7:9a).
Celebrate God’s judgment
If the history of the kings of Judah and Israel are indicative, then statistically we are more likely to encounter wicked rulers rather than righteous ones. As a result, as Proverbs puts it,
When the righteous increase, the people rejoice,
but when the wicked rule, the people groan (29:2).
But though we may groan, as this psalm teaches us, we are neither helpless nor hopeless. For, today we are sustained by God’s grace, and we will by that same grace persevere to the end, a last day when we will witness God’s righteous justice and rejoice.
In the sixth chapter of his prophecy, Isaiah sees the Lord as a Warrior, the coming Victor, “in crimsoned garments … marching in the greatness of his strength” (Isa. 63:1). Beholding this vision, Isaiah asks, “Why is your apparel red, and your garments like his who treads in the winepress? (Isa. 63:2) To which the Lord replies, “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifeblood spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. … I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth” (Isa. 63:3-6) Like the gathering of grapes for the winepress, God’s judgment will be a harvest of justice.[9]
And on that day, David says,
The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
Mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth” (Ps. 58:10-11).
Though we may endure the rule of the wicked and their wrath for a time, as David did, on the last day we will rejoice in the victory of our Lord.
For it is to the Lord alone that we look in faith, not relishing the spilt blood of our enemies but treasuring the precious blood of our Savior. Only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone shall our sins be pardoned. Only in the shed blood of Christ shall we be accepted as righteous in God’s sight, “but the wicked who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”[10] There will be on that day no doubt who rules and reigns: the King of kings and Lord of lords, and he shall reign forever and ever (Rev. 11:15).
Until that day, let us look not to the rulers of this world for hope, for that is hopeless, or accept their definition of good and evil or accept their deeds without discernment. Instead, let us look to the Lord Jesus Christ and the truth of his Word. Let us pray for righteous justice, that God’s truth shall prevail. Let us pray for righteous rulers, who know good from evil, and speak and live it, and let us pray for wicked rulers that they will repent and rule in righteousness. And so, we pray with confidence today, confessing now and forever:
High King of heaven, my victory won,
may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all.[11]
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] Willem A. Vangemeren, Psalms (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 465.
[3] Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72, An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 226.
[4] https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/when-good-and-evil-are-confused
[5] https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/psalms/58.htm.
[6] Ibid.
[7] https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary/matthew-henry-complete/psalm/58
[8] Trevor Laurence, Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2022), 274.
[9] The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), footnote, 1355.
[10] “The Confession of Faith” 33.2, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 150.
[11] “Be Thou My Vision,” Trinity Hymnal, Revised Edition (Suwanee: Great Commission Publications, Inc., 1990), 642.
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