SermonAudio.com has a new feature called "News in Focus" that highlights a current news item with ministers providing a Biblical perspective.
A recent article has just come in concerning SBC pastor, Wiley Drake, of Buena Park, California, who prayed the imprecatory psalms in desiring the death of abortionist, George Tiller, and continues to pray those psalms for the death of President Obama. You can get a jump-start on the news item, and a News in Focus perspective from my friend, and co-laborer in the Lord, Pastor Trevor Hammack of Victory Baptist Church in Ovalo, TX; CLICK HERE for the news item and 14 minute sound bite of Pastor Hammack.
I hope to contact Pastor Drake as soon as I can in order to find out if he actually did make comments to this effect (for we all know how the media can put a spin on anything; however, the Fox News Radio soundbite appears pretty compelling that he did so).
Meanwhile, as it pertains to the imprecatory psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures, let me offer these Biblical perspectives:
1. They are understood as inspired and prophetic and must be interpreted in the light of the whole counsel of God, particularly as it relates to "Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2).
2. As prophetic utterances, these Psalms express the wrath that we deserved when we were unsaved, unregenerate sinners who hated Light, loved darkness, and were the enemies of God (Jn 3:19-20; Rom 5:10; Rom 8:7).
3. Because Jesus Christ is the substitutionary Sacrifice for the wrath that we so rightly deserve, God the Father, with willing obedience from the Son to do so through the eternal covenant, and witnessed and sealed by the Holy Spirit, poured out His holy and just wrath upon Jesus Christ, in His death upon Calvary's Tree, He fullfilled the prophetic uttereances of the Law, the Prophets, and the Imprecatory Psalms (Gen 3:15; Isa 53; Psa 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137, 139; Gal 3:13; 2 Cor 5:21; et al).
4. Because we have been forgiven of sins through His shed blood, we have been declared righteous by Christ's imputed righteousness, because we have been reconciled to God Almighty through Christ, and have had the wrath for disobedience removed through Christ's Atoning Sacrifice, we have great reason to rejoice that those utterances made in the Psalms have been removed far from us. Our sins which were many, are forgiven, so that we may love much (Lk 7:47).
5. Since salvation was paid by the priceless, precious blood of Jesus Christ, and because His Sacrifice is of such infinite worth and eternal preeminence, through that revelation, as well as the revelation of the height, length, depths, and breadth of wrath that we have been redeemed from, &etc., how could we possibly think that we deserve to judge with finality the vengence that Scripture says belongs to the LORD, and to Him alone? (Deut 32:35; Rom 12:18-21).
6.Therefore, also through the revelation of salvation from the judgment upon the enemies of God, we, by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, upon the authority of God's Word, can submit and surrender to the commandments of God, such as "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," because "His commandments are not grievous" (Matt 5:44; 1 Jn 5:3).
7. Finally, death is the enemy of God, and the last enemy God will destroy (1 Cor 15:26). Adam ran headlong into death when he disobeyed God in the Garden, for God said, "...in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen 2:17). This is why Jesus must pray the prayer He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane; because for Him to not pray His prayer would be as if He rushed headlong into death apart from the answer to that prayer in communion and obedience to the heavenly Father. This is why it should be unthinkable for the Christian, saved by God's grace, to wish for the death of anyone. We are commissioned to preach eternal life, not desire the death of others.
I preached the following sermons on Imprecatory Psalms in 2008 at Higher Ground Calvary Chapel while I was between churches:
A recent article has just come in concerning SBC pastor, Wiley Drake, of Buena Park, California, who prayed the imprecatory psalms in desiring the death of abortionist, George Tiller, and continues to pray those psalms for the death of President Obama. You can get a jump-start on the news item, and a News in Focus perspective from my friend, and co-laborer in the Lord, Pastor Trevor Hammack of Victory Baptist Church in Ovalo, TX; CLICK HERE for the news item and 14 minute sound bite of Pastor Hammack.
I hope to contact Pastor Drake as soon as I can in order to find out if he actually did make comments to this effect (for we all know how the media can put a spin on anything; however, the Fox News Radio soundbite appears pretty compelling that he did so).
Meanwhile, as it pertains to the imprecatory psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures, let me offer these Biblical perspectives:
1. They are understood as inspired and prophetic and must be interpreted in the light of the whole counsel of God, particularly as it relates to "Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2).
2. As prophetic utterances, these Psalms express the wrath that we deserved when we were unsaved, unregenerate sinners who hated Light, loved darkness, and were the enemies of God (Jn 3:19-20; Rom 5:10; Rom 8:7).
3. Because Jesus Christ is the substitutionary Sacrifice for the wrath that we so rightly deserve, God the Father, with willing obedience from the Son to do so through the eternal covenant, and witnessed and sealed by the Holy Spirit, poured out His holy and just wrath upon Jesus Christ, in His death upon Calvary's Tree, He fullfilled the prophetic uttereances of the Law, the Prophets, and the Imprecatory Psalms (Gen 3:15; Isa 53; Psa 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137, 139; Gal 3:13; 2 Cor 5:21; et al).
4. Because we have been forgiven of sins through His shed blood, we have been declared righteous by Christ's imputed righteousness, because we have been reconciled to God Almighty through Christ, and have had the wrath for disobedience removed through Christ's Atoning Sacrifice, we have great reason to rejoice that those utterances made in the Psalms have been removed far from us. Our sins which were many, are forgiven, so that we may love much (Lk 7:47).
5. Since salvation was paid by the priceless, precious blood of Jesus Christ, and because His Sacrifice is of such infinite worth and eternal preeminence, through that revelation, as well as the revelation of the height, length, depths, and breadth of wrath that we have been redeemed from, &etc., how could we possibly think that we deserve to judge with finality the vengence that Scripture says belongs to the LORD, and to Him alone? (Deut 32:35; Rom 12:18-21).
6.Therefore, also through the revelation of salvation from the judgment upon the enemies of God, we, by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, upon the authority of God's Word, can submit and surrender to the commandments of God, such as "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," because "His commandments are not grievous" (Matt 5:44; 1 Jn 5:3).
7. Finally, death is the enemy of God, and the last enemy God will destroy (1 Cor 15:26). Adam ran headlong into death when he disobeyed God in the Garden, for God said, "...in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen 2:17). This is why Jesus must pray the prayer He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane; because for Him to not pray His prayer would be as if He rushed headlong into death apart from the answer to that prayer in communion and obedience to the heavenly Father. This is why it should be unthinkable for the Christian, saved by God's grace, to wish for the death of anyone. We are commissioned to preach eternal life, not desire the death of others.
I preached the following sermons on Imprecatory Psalms in 2008 at Higher Ground Calvary Chapel while I was between churches:
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