The afflictions of the wicked will not prevail against God’s people

Is it right to rejoice at the death of the wicked? I remember this being a very controversial question in years past. After the attacks on September 11, the US engaged in a nearly ten year manhunt to find Osama Bin Laden who had orchestrated the attacks. He was found in a compound in Pakistan and was famously killed by Seal Team Six in 2011.

When the news arrived the next day, many people were rejoicing and praising God that this man had been stopped and was now dead. Yet, others were hesitant, saying that a lost soul had just been sent to Hell and that this was no cause for rejoicing. Christians were caught in the middle. On the one hand a wicked man had been stopped. But on the other hand an image bearer of God had been sent to eternal torment.

Should Christians have been praying for this man to be killed? Should we have been instead praying for his conversion? When he was killed was it an answer to prayer or a failure to answer prayer?

It is a difficult challenge for the Christian to know how to interact with other humans who are deeply entrenched in their sin. How should we respond to the wicked?

Our psalm this morning will address some of these things. I warn you it may bring up more questions than it answers. However, there is one thing that is held sure throughout the whole psalm. And that is that the sufferings and afflictions caused by the wicked will not have the last word.

Main Point – The afflictions of the wicked will not prevail against God’s people

Prayer

Our psalmist introduces the concept of wickedness by bringing up its personal effects on those who are singing the psalm.

Point #1 – Remember that you endured the afflictions of the wicked (vs. 1-3)

The psalm begins with a bit of a recap of their nation’s history. The speaker is Israel and she is recalling what has happened over the course of her life.

READ VS 1-2

Ever since Israel was a child she has been afflicted by others. The nation of Israel begins with Abraham and elsewhere in the Bible her “youth” refers to the time spent in Egypt. The word greatly here could also be translated as the word often or repeatedly. So ever since Israel was in Egypt they have been afflicted. They leave Egypt and cross the Red Sea, still being afflicted. They enter the promised land and establish their nation, always afflicted. They are sent into exile, more affliction. They return from exile; the affliction never stops.

And who is causing all of this affliction? Who has been their enemy all these years? We don’t read about a specific group that is opposing Israel. We simply see in verse 5 that they are called “all who hate Zion”. Now, it would be rather strange for someone to hate the hill that Jerusalem is built on. Obviously, the hill, Zion, is representing God because that’s the place where his presence was. That’s where his temple was. So because these people hate God, they cause suffering for God’s people. What does that look like?

READ VS 3

Commentators are a bit divided here as to whether the plow is actually running over their back or if it is by the strength of their back that the plow is being pulled. It seems more likely to me that they’re being run over. The furrows are the rows that they plow up for planting. So these people who hate God are frequently crushing his people as if they’re running over them with a plow.

And lastly we see the final outcome of these hateful enemies and their crushing affliction. The end of verse 2 states, “Yet they have not prevailed against me”. Despite their efforts over the course of a thousand years. Those who hate God have not succeeded in destroying Israel. They persist. Through all kinds of horrible oppressions, they still carry on. One writer described it this way, he said, “Many nations look back upon what they have achieved. Israel looks back on what she has survived.” Their praise here in this psalm isn’t, “Look at how awesome we are and look at all the great things we have done.” They’re praising God that “Look, we keep surviving”. They’ve survived all the suffering caused by those who hate God.

And what is Israel doing in response to that suffering here? They’re singing about it. How bizarre is that? They are even commanded to sing about it “Let Israel now say”. Our psalmist is telling them to bring up all of the painful memories of their past. Think about all of those horrible things you endured because we’re going to sing about them.

This sounds like a horrible idea. You go out hiking with a friend and you’re walking up the trail to the mountain and they say, “Hey, you know what would help pass the time? You should think about the worst things you’ve ever experienced and you should put them to rhyme and we can both sing about them.” What? No. That sounds like a disgusting idea.

But there’s a point to it! Why does he want them to remember? Because “they have not prevailed against me”. You’ve gone through horrid experiences. People have intentionally caused you pain and suffering. And yet here you are. For the Jews singing this hymn, they could say that countless enemies tried to snuff them out and yet here they are, in our Songs of Ascent, walking to Jerusalem to celebrate God at a festival.

It’s easy and probably preferable for each of us to try to remember only the good things that have happened to us in our past. We want to fill our minds with happy thoughts and recall the best parts of our lives. But here we’re told there is benefit to recalling the worst parts of our lives.

Now I want to tread carefully here. I’m not suggesting you sit in the dark and listen to sad music and ruminate on how horrible your life has been. That would be extremely unhealthy and dangerous for you. The point here of recalling our painful past is to remember the deliverance that it led to. Israel is not supposed to think “Remember how you were slaves in Egypt and how that was awful. Remember how the Philistines tried to wipe you out and how horrible that was. Remember when the king of Assyria put you under siege for months and you nearly all starved to death. Hasn’t your life been dreadful?”

No, but the purpose of recalling them is so that you can remember how those events and those people didn’t prevail against you. God freed them from Egypt. God saved them from the Philistines. God delivered them from Assyria. These wicked people afflicted them and yet here they sit.

And here you sit. You’ve gone through some painful experiences. You’ve made sinful choices of your own that could have ruined you. Others have afflicted you greatly, perhaps even intentionally trying to ruin you. And yet they have not prevailed against you. Here you are. You’ve come here to hear God’s Word and to worship him and give him thanks and give him praise. God is the one prevailing in your heart, not the pain from your past. Your life is a tale of perseverance and determination. But it’s not a tale of your perseverance and determination. It has been God’s. He’s the one relentlessly pursuing. By remembering the enormity of the obstacles God has overcome in your life it gives you a greater sense of confidence in Him than if you never remembered the obstacles at all.

It’s this confidence in the Lord that the author continues to develop in the next verse.

Point #2 – Remember that God nullifies the afflictions of the wicked (vs. 4)

READ VS 4

A little lesson in how to interpret our Bibles here. You see that the Lord cuts the cord of the wicked. What does that mean? You can use some tools to do a word search and see if that word means anything more specific, but nope it’s just a rope. So how should we understand it? Is it a rope that people are tied up in? Is it used to make a net? Is it just a belt holding up their pants? That would be a pretty humorous option. But the best way to determine what it means is to look at the rest of the psalm.

In verse 3 we see the metaphor of plowing and making long furrows. Later in verse 7 we’ll see reapers that are harvesting. So on either side of the “cords” we see images of planting and harvesting. It would make sense if these cords didn’t introduce a new image, but were consistent with the rest of it. So these cords are likely what ties the oxen to the plow. The Lord cuts these cords so that the wicked are no longer able to plow. They had been plowing on Israel’s back, but he puts an end to that.

Why does the Lord do this? Because the Lord is righteous, or another word for righteous here would be “just”. God cares about justice. He will by no means clear the guilty. Because he is righteous, his great desire is to see evil punished and to see good rewarded. And so we read that God cuts the cords of the wicked so that they are no longer effective.

This sounds great. Praise God. But when evaluating human history this seems completely untrue. The wicked have been unbearably effective. It doesn’t take a detective to see this. Pol Pot’s crimes killed around 2 million people in Cambodia in the 70’s. The corrupt government of Sudan and their president Omar al-Bashir were responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of civilians through government sponsored attacks in the mid-2000’s. Then there’s the well known atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, Rwanda, and all of these are just in the past century.

How is it possible to say that God has cut the cords of the wicked? Even in Israel’s own history tens of thousands of their people were slaughtered by Babylon when Jerusalem was captured and destroyed. And this is a glaring problem that many have with Christianity. We say things like, “God is in control” or “God is love” or “The Lord is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked,” but when we look out our window for 5 seconds we see a world that shouts the opposite of that. This does not match up with our experience at all. How can we make sense of this?

I

 don’t usually do this, but I’m going to ask you to turn in your Bibles to another passage. Turn back to Psalm 73. I want to read a significant portion of this psalm, because the author was struggling with the exact same issue. He was troubled by how successful the wicked are. Let’s start at verse 1. I’ll read down to verse 13.

READ PSALM 73:1-13

Do you see the same problem we’re facing? It seems as if the wicked are prospering everywhere. They are openly defying God and there is no punishment, no response. Their wickedness actually seems to be working out for them. I really appreciate his words in vs 13 - “In vain I’ve kept my heart clean”. He’s saying, “Why have I bothered to do what’s right? Because those who do evil are the ones that are prospering, not me.” What’s his solution? Let’s pick it up at vs. 16.

READ PSALM 73:16-17

This is a good strategy. Don’t merely consider what’s happening at this moment. But start to think big picture and long term.

READ PSALM 73:18-19

Their end is destruction. They won’t reap the benefits of any of their work. There is no harvest for them. They tie their plow to their oxen. They go out into the field to make deep long furrows, but as soon as they begin their work God cuts the cord. They continue marching their oxen back and forth, but with no plow attached. Their hope is to receive great gains from their evil. Like we talked about last week. They want to eat the fruit of the labor of their hands. But there are no blessings waiting for them on the other side. They receive nothing. The wicked spend all their time afflicting others, but it leads them to nothing, only temporary, evaporating, and petty pleasures.

I’m not suggesting that this makes suffering any easier to bear.  I’m not saying that if someone wicked is actively seeking to harm you that, “Hey don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.” But we must remember for every sort of persecution and every sort of affliction that is weighed against us, it is temporary. It’s time always comes to an end. The day comes when you will be singing the song of the Lord’s deliverance of you from this moment. It will be yet another notch in the moments that God delivers us from.

This is what we mean when we say that “God is in control” and that “God is love” and that “He cuts the cords of the wicked.” It means there’s a bigger picture than what we see right now. And faith places our hope in God’s justice and his righteousness to work this out and nullify the work of the wicked.

There is no reward for them. For the wicked, the petty pleasures they have now are the best thing they will ever get. But for the Christian, the pains of this life will pale in comparison to the joys that await.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” - Romans 8:18.

That’s not a dismissal of your sufferings. It’s perspective.

The afflictions caused by the wicked are still painful and we pray that God would remove them. This is what our psalmist turns to next in our psalm, psalm 129.

Point #3 – Request that God removes the afflictions of the wicked (Vs. 5-8)

READ VS 5-8

The psalmist is literally pronouncing a curse on the wicked. He wants them to fail. This kind of prayer pops up throughout the psalms and it’s something called an imprecatory psalm. Imprecatory is just a Latin word that means to curse. Our psalmist is cursing someone.

So…. that seems bad right? Isn’t it a bad thing to curse people? Is this just the ancient version of when the mean girl passes you a note that says, “I think you’re ugly and I hope all your hair falls out”? Because this seems like a very unchristian thing to pray. He says, “I hope you wither up like dead grass and that no one ever blesses you.”

Now believe me, this is quite tame compared to many of the other imprecatory psalms. Others say things like, “Let his wife become a widow and his children beg in the streets.” Yikes. It’s strong language. And believe me there are worse curses called down. Many Christians have struggled with this and have tried to resolve it. Some say things like, “Clearly this type of hatred is wrong and the author shouldn’t say things like this at all, but at least they’re being honest about their feelings.” It’s treated almost like that really angry note you write to someone, but then you never deliver it. Others have said something like, it was ok for the Old Testament saints to do this, but not for us living in the New Testament. But none of these explanations seem satisfactory.

In fact, the New Testament quotes from imprecatory psalms in multiple places. Paul quotes from these curses and directs it towards those who harden their hearts against Christ. After Jesus’ death, the apostles quoted a curse and directed it at Judas Iscariot. It seems that these types of psalms are not inherently wicked and they are still legitimate expressions of prayer for us today.

But how should we read this as Christians who have been taught by Jesus to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute you?

There’s a couple things to consider here. First, who is the offended party? Whenever you see an imprecatory psalm written, it’s because God’s glory has been offended. God’s plans have been resisted. And God’s name has been defamed. These aren’t prayers of personal vengeance. They are prayers to see God be glorified and his name to be vindicated. So in these psalms God is the offended party, but also God is the one who they ask to enact justice. They don’t say, “God you have been offended and so now I am going to destroy them.” They call out to God to be the one who makes things right.

In this sense, these curses are actually a way of placing faith in God to keep his promises. They aren’t taking matters into their own hands. The psalmist is asking God to be the judge who brings about justice. Here’s what God had promised Israel through Abraham,

“I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” - Genesis 12:3

We often call on God to be faithful to his promise to bless, but there are times when God’s people would call on him to be faithful to curse as well. But again, the important part here is that we are trusting in God to be the one who enacts justice.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” - Romans 12:18-19

A very simple example of how this translates to our lives is that if a dangerous murderer is on the loose, it is right and appropriate to pray for that murderer to be caught and arrested. It is right and appropriate to rejoice when he is brought to justice. But should we ever personally meet that murderer face-to-face, our Christian responsibility is to show respect and kindness toward them.

However, the way that Christians are to treat those who are deeply wicked and unrepentant is a complicated issue that includes even more nuances and caveats than we’re able to address today. But what’s the point of all of this?

The point is that it is appropriate to pray that God would remove the ability for wicked people to do wicked things. It is appropriate to ask that they no longer be able to harm those who are innocent and weak. But more importantly, we are called to have confidence that God will in fact do just that. I don’t have to be the one who puts people in their place. I don’t have to be the one who takes matters into my own hands and delivers the sort of vigilante justice that I find appropriate. Rather as Peter phrases it,

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. - 1 Peter 4:17

It’s not wrong to attempt to remove yourself from a situation in which you are suffering. It is not wrong to pray for the end of suffering. But it is always our responsibility to do good in the midst of suffering and entrust ourselves to God’s care in the midst of it.

To conclude we have to finally answer our question, is it right to rejoice at the death of the wicked? I will answer it this way. It is right to rejoice at the death of the wicked in the same way that it is right to rejoice at the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The death of Jesus was a horrific expression of mankind’s wickedness, of my own wickedness. He was tortured in such a way that it would have been unbearable to watch. He wasn’t a wicked tyrant receiving his just reward, but rather was a gracious and loving king being shamed and abused. No one who loved Jesus was rejoicing at the foot of the cross.

But now that Christ has been resurrected and our sin removed we can say with Paul that “I will boast in nothing except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And we can rejoice in what was accomplished at the cross, because we were the ones who deserved to be under the curse. We were the ones who were wicked and deserved death because we are the ones who have broken God’s laws.

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” - Galatians 3:13

I rejoice at the death of Jesus Christ, but I rejoice with humility, with gratitude, and with awe. Awe that instead of wickedness prevailing against God. God prevails against wickedness and saves his people at the same time.

Prayer