To modern Christianity the imprecatory Psalms must ever be a mystery if not explained away in terms of the more sanguinary nature of the Old Testament dispensation. To call for God’s wrath upon His enemies would be regarded in our day as most unchristian conduct. So it must be to those to whom the love of God is everything and the righteousness and holiness of God practically unknown.
David was of a different mind. He opens the 68th Psalm saying: “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered: let them also that hate Him flee before Him.” It was not carnal vengeance that filled David’s soul in this and many similar utterances but zeal for God’s glory. How often in the Psalms does David speak in this way and all these utterances were Spirit-indited. These were the words of “the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel.” He could say, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue.” 2 Sam. 23: 1, 2.
David in his day was a mighty instrument in God’s hand for the overthrow of the Lord’s enemies. This was true in his early life when, as a youth, he went out against Goliath, the giant of Gath. What actuated David at that time? Was it mere bravado or pride? His brother, Eliab, thought so. But a higher motive compelled David. He answered his brother: “What have I now done? Is there not a cause?” He had earlier spoken in this way: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” And later, as he went forth to meet Goliath, we hear him say: “I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied.” Was not zeal for God’s glory the motive that actuated David’s heart as he went forth to challenge the champion of the Philistines? Is not this the very highest motive to which the heart of man can aspire? Yet only the renewed heart can know anything of it. David was a man after God’s own heart.
David had no doubt of the eventual outcome of the conflict, that is, that Goliath would be slain. “This day,” he said, “will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air; and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.” And as David predicted, so it came to pass. David overcame him with a sling and a stone. With the Philistine’s own sword, David cut off the giant’s head. How unequally matched were the contestants, yet victory did not rest with the well-armed Philistine but with the one whose strength was not in himself but in the Lord his God. What was Goliath after all but part of Satan’s kingdom? As such he was an instrument in Satan’s hand for the overthrow of Israel. For the destruction of this kingdom of Satan we are warranted to pray.
What lesson are we to learn from this conflict? It teaches us that it is to the Lord we are to look for the overthrow of the enemies of His Church in the world. Having identified them, we may righteously plead: “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered.” We need have no hesitation in pleading thus. It is the Lord’s purpose that His enemies, that is, all who magnify themselves against Him and who persist in their rebellion, shall be destroyed. To the Son He has said: “Sit on my right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” In the destruction and overthrow of any of Christ’s enemies in our own day, we have warrant to sing in an ecstasy of triumph with Deborah of old: “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.”
In David’s cry, “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered,” there is a warning to us — a warning lest we should be found enemies to God. If we are left to ourselves, what else shall we be but opposers of Christ and His kingdom? There should come from our hearts a cry to God that he would be pleased to deliver us from our natural enmity to Him and to His Cause in the world and subdue us to Himself. We need to be delivered by divine almighty power from our opposition to God, so that we might serve Him in newness of life. Then we will become enemies of those who are enemies to Him. David could say: “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.” Ps. 139:21, 22. But those that express such sentiments must go on with David to say: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Ps. 139:23, 24.
Zeal for God’s glory attained its highest perfection in the Divine Redeemer. When He went up to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover and found the temple desecrated by those that bought and sold there, He drove them all out of the temple, saying, Make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. “And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.” And was not this zeal for God’s glory to be demonstrated more largely still in the work He was to finish on Calvary’s Cross. In the light of this, what reason we have to mourn, if we are His people and servants, how little of this spirit we possess. How zealous we ought to be for the honour and glory of God. Yet how zealous we are for our own glory, and how little zeal for the honour and glory of God. As James says in another connection, “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” May the Lord be pleased to deliver us from our little zeal and possess our hearts with much zeal and true zeal for His glory. We will then say with the Psalmist: “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered: let them also that hate Him flee before Him.”