The President and Psalm 109:8

What do we do with Psalm 109? You may have seen posts on Facebook suggesting that we should pray for our President by praying Psalm 109:8, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” Of course, verse 9 gives us a clearer picture of what the psalmist means, “Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” While it might seem funny to tell people that we’re praying Psalm 109:8 for our President, Psalm 109 is nothing to joke about. These are the words of a very downtrodden person, desiring the death of his enemies.

Some people, such as C.S. Lewis, have suggested that it is best to leave Psalm 109 and other similar psalms alone. That seems to be the wrong approach when you consider that Peter didn’t stay away from these psalms when he quoted the book of Psalms as saying, “Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his office let another take.” He saw it as the inspired word of God and so should we. He saw it as something to use for guidance and so should we. Even so, this is still a bitter curse against the psalmist’s enemies.

In Acts 1:20, when Peter referred to Psalm 109:8, he wasn’t praying it. Instead, he saw a similarity between it and what they had experienced with Judas. Judas was a man that they had loved and a man that Jesus loved and yet, Judas betrayed them. Peter didn’t have to pray that Judas would be judged for his actions, it had already happened and the punishment described in Psalms 109 had already been carried out. So, Peter had reason to believe that they should follow Psalm 109 a step farther and find someone to take Judas’ place.

People looking to pray Psalm 109 against people like our President have this idea that because he is doing stuff that is wrong, it is okay to curse him. Look at Psalm 109:4, 5. “For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.” It is not appropriate for us to pray like Psalm 109 if we don’t love the people we are praying for.

David loved the people he was praying for. Perhaps this was his son he was praying for. You recall that his son tried to take David’s throne by sitting around and telling people, that things would be better for them if someone other than David was king. David loved his son, but his son still fought against him. That puts Psalm 109 in a very different perspective. Instead of this being David looking for God to be the sword with which he smites his enemies, this might be something else completely.

Suppose you have a friend that you have been praying for and you have seen the Lord answer those prayers. You have seen the hand of God working in their life and there’s hedge around them like the hedge God placed around Job. But in spite of you praying for their protection, they turn against you. You plead with them, hoping to restore the relationship, but they are not moved. They lie to your other friends. They steal from you. Nothing you say convinces them. You are at the end of your rope. That is when you start praying like David in Psalm 109. “Lord, you remember how I asked you to protect my friend? Take it all back. Let Satan do whatever he wants to him. Let him lose his money. Let him lose his family. Let him lose his life.”

It is similar to what is said in 1 Corinthians 5:5. There are some people who should be delivered to Satan for destruction, in hopes that they will see the error of their ways and repent. If our desire for Barak Obama is simply to get him out of office, we have no business praying Psalm 109:8. I very much doubt the Lord will hear that prayer. But if out of our love for Barak Obama we seek to release him from the protection we’ve been asking the Lord for, that’s a different story. Our primary desire should be that Barak Obama repent of his sins and accept Jesus Christ. Of course, it makes no sense for us to pray for God’s protection to be removed if we haven’t been praying for him to be protected in the first place.

So, what do we do with Psalm 109? We follow it as the inspired Word of God, but before we start using it to pronounce curses on people, we need to do like David and love them first.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: WestBow Press

Image
T oday, I’m writing a book review unlike any I have written before. Actually, I’m going to I’m reviewing two books and I haven’t read either one. As you may recall, some time ago, Thomas Nelson announced that they were entering the vanity press market, using the imprint WestBow Press. The first books out of that arrangement are making their way down the pipeline, two of which you can see here. The first thing I noticed when they arrived was the size of the box. I arrived home and saw the box sitting on my front step. My first thought was that they had only shipped on of them. The box is the same sized box Amazon.com uses to ship individual copies of my novels. I opened it up and found both novels stacked neatly, one on top of the other. Both books have the dimensions 6” x 9”, a fairly standard size for non-traditionally published books. Publishing a book with that dimension simplifies the process when a book will be published both as a paperback and a hardback. One of the books is p...
Read more

Review: Raider Publishing

Image
A few weeks ago, I received a request from someone who had come across the popular Review: Westbow Press post. This reader requested that I look at Raider Publishing . After asking this reader a few questions via e-mail, I learned that she had used them to publish a book and was disgruntled with them. One of her complaints was that Adam Salviani was not responding to her e-mail and he was “unavailable” when she called his office in New York. This was brought on by her concern because she had not received an advance copy of her book and found that it had been published without her being informed. In her e-mail, she stated that she had been in contact with other customers and they had received the same treatment. I did what I normally do when I receive a request like this concerning a company I don’t recognize. I looked for as much third-party information as I could find on the web. Interestingly, I did that search before I realized she was disgruntled and I found relatively little to...
Read more

Is Tate Publishing a Scam?

Image
T oday, I want to take one more look at Tate Publishing and Enterprises LLC. In case you missed Tuesday’s post, Tate Publishing is a subsidy press that focuses on unpublished authors. They charge a $3,990 publicist setup fee, but they do appear to have sufficient staff to justify their claim that they have allocated $27,000 for each book. Today, I want to look less at promises and more at results. In the interest of showing rather than telling, take a look at the video below: One of the services that Tate Publishing provides is that they create fifteen second spots like the one above and run them on cable networks. They promise 80,000 impressions. Or to state it another way, they promise that 80,000 people will see that commercial. Someone from Tate Publishing is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they charge an additional fee for these commercials. The way I would expect this to play out is that each commercial will air one time with about 80,000 people watching. T...
Read more