00:00:00:32 – 00:00:35:14
Clint Loveall
Friends. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us as we start Thanksgiving week. A little bit of a short week for us. We’ll have details as they unfold in terms of our schedule here. Definitely with you today and tomorrow as we continue through the Psalms, get probably pretty close to wrapping up the Psalms. Today, we have a category of Psalms, which, if you’ve been with us, you know, we’ve been trying to highlight a type of psalm that is scattered throughout the Psalter and we’ve been looking at several to today is one I think, I don’t know.

00:00:35:15 – 00:00:57:58
Clint Loveall
Tell me if you agree with this, Michael. It seems to me that there would be more of this in the Psalms that than most people might be aware of. But I think sometimes people would be surprised that there are enough of these Psalms to make it, category in the title that it gets is it is kind of a church word, improvisatory, but that means to curse.

00:00:58:03 – 00:01:25:54
Clint Loveall
And so these are Psalms that essentially call down curses on other people. And typically in the personal Psalms, that’s enemies of the psalmist. In the national Psalms, it might be other nations or enemies of Israel. It may say something about our humanness, Michael, but there’s a lot of this in, in there, there. The more than I think people realize.

00:01:25:58 – 00:01:46:36
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, absolutely. Because the Psalms are living in the realm of human reality in a way that I think sometimes we maybe don’t give the scriptures credit for. I think we often think of the scriptures as being like a roadmap, or being a guide, or being a devotional source of meaning in our lives. That certainly is all of those things.

00:01:46:40 – 00:02:08:34
Michael Gewecke
But the Scripture also recounts, in the very raw and human way, the experience of living life. And you’ve got a factor. I mean, Clint checked me on this, but I think one of the things that these types of Psalms do is they are built on top of the foundation of trust that God is present, and that God cares, that God is active in our lives in a meaningful way.

00:02:08:34 – 00:02:41:36
Michael Gewecke
And so the upshot of that, or the so what of that is, if you are in a circumstance where the circumstances against you, where there’s a person working against you, where there’s a large national societal enemy that is set against the people of Israel, whatever the context is of the Psalm, there’s this assumption God cares about his people, that God cares about the well-being and the furtherance and the love and nurturing of those people.

00:02:41:36 – 00:03:06:45
Michael Gewecke
And so therefore, these Psalms have in the background behind them this kind of trust that God is going to bless those things that are a blessing to the people, that God is going to curse those things that stand in between the the people in their furtherance. To modern readers, especially to those who are reading the Psalms post Jesus Christ, I think that these Psalms might sometimes strike yes as being very harsh.

00:03:06:59 – 00:03:20:45
Michael Gewecke
That’s a conversation we’re going to have to have. But I just think we need to start with that foundation, which is to say, the psalmist assumes that God is there and that God cares. And then this comes out of those experiences of adverse, adversary.

00:03:20:56 – 00:03:51:43
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I, I think also inherent in that, Michael, is the idea that that God is just and therefore the wicked are old retribution and wrath, vengeance. In other words, the psalmist sort of presumes that his in most cases, case is just, and therefore God should punish and will punish the wrongdoer. Before we jump in here, I think one word of caution.

00:03:51:48 – 00:04:34:40
Clint Loveall
I do not think that Christians. I think that Christians, while recognizing. The sentiment behind some of these Psalms, behind some of these words, should be tempered by the words of Christ. The words of the New Testament. Don’t take revenge. Bless those who curse you. Pray for your enemies. I, I not sure we should, I think we would, but I think it would be dangerous for us to take these as permissive as as if we can start simply wishing bad things or praying to God to do bad things to those that stand against us.

00:04:34:40 – 00:04:58:42
Clint Loveall
So I think these are interesting. I, I’m not sure they should be inspirational, but let’s look, Psalm 109, which is a wonderful example of what we’re talking about to it says a Psalm of David. So here we have this intro. Do not be silent, for the wicked, deceitful mouths are open against me. They speak against me. They beset me with words of hate.

00:04:58:42 – 00:05:27:20
Clint Loveall
They attack me without cause. So they reward me evil for good and hatred for my love. Now listen to what David here writes, picking up in about verse seven. When he is tried, let him be found guilty. Let his prayer be counted as sin. May his days be few. May another sees his position. And then, you know, this gets dark.

00:05:27:25 – 00:05:51:34
Clint Loveall
May his children be orphans, his wife or widow. May his children wander and beg. May they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit. May the creditor seize all that he has. May strangers plunder the fruits of his toil. May there be no one to do him kindness, nor any pity for his orphan children. May his prosperity be cut off, may his name be blotted out.

00:05:51:34 – 00:06:21:51
Clint Loveall
And this continues along those lines. It those are uncomfortable words when you take them seriously, when you read them for what they’re written as, those are dark. Those are hard hearted words. And if you’ve been wronged, you know that there is that tendency to respond in that way. Again, I think that has to be tempered for Christians with New Testament teaching, with Jesus’s teaching.

00:06:21:55 – 00:06:40:21
Clint Loveall
But this is about as human as it gets. Somebody has done me wrong and I want them to suffer. I want their family to suffer. I want terrible things to happen to them and to those they love. This isn’t this isn’t a part of the scripture. I think that we wave around as there’s a great example of the word.

00:06:40:26 – 00:07:05:43
Michael Gewecke
I suppose, Clint, that some might come and want to make an argument to the fact that a person deserved these kinds of words. Right. And I think to do that, if you would turn to like verse 16 here, for this person did not remember the show kindness. Love to curse. So like curses. Come on him he clothed themselves with cursing as his coach.

00:07:05:54 – 00:07:15:12
Michael Gewecke
So the argument I think you would make would be, hey, look, the psalmist is going out of his way to say, this is an unrepentant person, that this is a person who had it coming.

00:07:15:12 – 00:07:26:25
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I don’t want to I don’t want to interrupt, Michael, but I think particularly you make that case in the Old Testament. The idea for I kind of tenor that hangs over that. I think you’re exactly right.

00:07:26:36 – 00:08:00:00
Michael Gewecke
And on that note, if you wanted to pursue that further, I think you’ve got to be very, very careful. Because fundamentally, as a Christian who’s reading this text, you are reading this not just for the words and the idea that’s here, but you also have to reckon with the reality of the revelation of Christ, who was the one who God took on flesh and literally bore the sinfulness on the cross before the mocking people and professed forgiveness.

00:08:00:00 – 00:08:23:07
Michael Gewecke
Right. So the action of God demonstrates with revelation a radically different way of overturning these words. I would make a case here clean, and, you know, I’m going to trust you to push back on it. But I think a Christian reading this text would go a little wrong, trying to define how bad the person is to justify these words.

00:08:23:07 – 00:08:47:25
Michael Gewecke
I think a Christian might look at this and say, the honest truth is, anyone who’s been self-reflective about the brokenness of our hearts can resonate with these words that we, too, have wished ill upon our enemy. We’ve found ourselves in the situation where we did not see redeemable in the life the visage of another person. And these words resonate in that.

00:08:47:25 – 00:09:23:07
Michael Gewecke
And truly, God is the ultimate judge, right? God has a way of sorting the wheat and the chaff. And ultimately, the good news is you and I aren’t the judge of that. We don’t need to be referees. What we are as people are those with this foundational reality, with the experience of having known people in their life who did not show kindness, who did love to curse, who wore those curses even as a garment around them, so, and yet were called once again to show up with the kind of image and action that Jesus Christ showed up with.

00:09:23:18 – 00:09:34:25
Michael Gewecke
These words, I think, become a reflection on a state that is true. And then they open a question of the so what do Christians do with that?

00:09:34:30 – 00:10:02:15
Clint Loveall
There’s a human part in each of us that. Revels a little bit in people getting what they deserve. Right? Or if people have taken advantage of others, if they’ve stolen, if they’ve lied when their name hits the news and they’re in scandal, there’s a part of us that said, yeah, they you know, they deserve it. And that’s certainly going on here again, we on this side of the resurrection of Jesus.

00:10:02:20 – 00:10:27:43
Clint Loveall
We have to temper this with what we understand. He taught about the way that we try to manage that part of our humanness. Having said that, Michael, I think may be one of the reasons that these Psalms surprise us in the Old Testament is that there’s very little of this voice in the New Testament. There’s some there’s obviously some warnings about God punishing the wicked.

00:10:27:43 – 00:11:05:26
Clint Loveall
There’s ultimately, you know, the book of revelation that shows God will triumph over evil. But there are not. I can think of very few places where the voice of a character or, of an individual in the New Testament is calling for destruction and hardship and punishment and, and horrible circumstances for other people. That’s that’s something that transitions out to some extent between the two testaments.

00:11:05:31 – 00:11:14:58
Michael Gewecke
Well, and that think that the way that this blends in other genres that we have in the Psalms is really interesting to to point that out, let’s jump to Psalm 139.

00:11:15:05 – 00:11:15:28
Clint Loveall
This great.

00:11:15:28 – 00:11:36:45
Michael Gewecke
Example. I think you’ve got this idea where it starts in the very personal, individual, self-reflective ness. You have this idea of, you’ve searched me, you’ve known me. This idea that that God is intimately aware of the inside of our life. Right? You can’t even go to Sheol or the bottom of the sea. You can’t get away from God’s presence.

00:11:36:59 – 00:11:57:57
Michael Gewecke
In fact, God has been there in the creative part of our lives, just skipping through this very quickly. And then let’s land on verse 19. Boom! Oh, that you would kill the wicked, oh God. And that the bloodthirsty would depart from me. Those who speak of you maliciously lift themselves up against your evil or for evil. Do I not hate those who hate you?

00:11:57:57 – 00:12:24:12
Michael Gewecke
Oh, Lord. And this is big. I think this transition helps us understand the foundation upon which this is built. On one side, there’s a humility and a self-reflection, admitting that God knows the inner know most parts of our hearts. And so therefore, there’s this awareness that God, judges the evil and unrighteousness inside us. And then, on the other hand, that is.

00:12:24:12 – 00:12:47:56
Michael Gewecke
But God, I am set against those who are evil and who are dead set upon that position, upon those who even stand against the Lord. Who in the world could stand before a righteous God? I know I’m not righteous is one way of saying I know that I’m not righteous, but God. I show up aware of that unrighteousness, and those who stand against God.

00:12:48:05 – 00:12:50:36
Michael Gewecke
Those people are going to get what they have coming for them.

00:12:50:43 – 00:13:10:19
Clint Loveall
You know, this is a really well known psalm. People love the psalm. I praise you, Lord. I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful all your works. My frame was not hidden from you. How weighty are your thoughts? The sum of them? I try to count them. They’re more than the sand. I come to the end and I am still with you.

00:13:10:31 – 00:13:38:29
Clint Loveall
I think for many people who love this psalm, they think. Or they might like to think that’s where it ends, right? And then we turn to this idea I wish you would kill people. I hate them with perfect hatred, a phrase that is, ironically interesting. Yeah. I think that Psalm 139 is a great example of the multiple natures of being human.

00:13:38:29 – 00:14:06:23
Clint Loveall
There is this heart cry of praise and of endurance, and then the anger that goes with being on the receiving end of injustice and calling out to God to balance the scales and and make it right. And again, I don’t think this is permissive for Christians. I don’t think we can all of a sudden say, this is my new favorite song, Psalm.

00:14:06:23 – 00:14:43:19
Clint Loveall
I’m going to be out there calling for, you know, people’s deaths and hating people. The messaging has evolved since then, but we all know that this lives within the human heart. We are all capable of this. And so I think again, the fascinating reality that when those people of faith centuries, millennia before us wrote in it, wrote it up, that they even wrote that experience into the Scripture.

00:14:43:24 – 00:15:01:48
Clint Loveall
That’s that’s instructive, it’s humbling, it’s confessional. It’s all of those things. And I think, the Psalms are a wonderful mirror to hold up and see parts of our self, even parts we may not be entirely comfortable with.

00:15:01:53 – 00:15:31:40
Michael Gewecke
I think there’s two really quick things there. The first is this is going to sound obvious to say, but bear with me people are unique creatures of God and different personality traits, different life experiences, different families that are growing up in people are going to have different predispositions, and some people are going to resonate with different places of the Psalms more than others.

00:15:31:40 – 00:15:52:12
Michael Gewecke
And so if we’re doing this and you’ve somehow made it through this part of the video, but you say, man, this seems strange to my experience, I can’t imagine thinking that I just want to assure you, as pastors who work with people, that there are folks who get this intuitively, who just say, yeah, I when I sense that injustice in the world, it makes me angry.

00:15:52:12 – 00:16:26:02
Michael Gewecke
I show up like in, inside out with the fire above my head. Right. And it’s just some people, that is there. That’s their inner experience of the world. And if that’s you, then the second thing is this. This is in the Bible, and it’s directed to God. I just want to make that clear, right, that this is given up as a kind of prayer and reflection and regardless of whether the content makes you uncomfortable or not, I think the point here is this is held in discourse with the righteous God.

00:16:26:02 – 00:16:56:46
Michael Gewecke
So that’s an important heart orientation that no matter what your expression is in this moment, whether that be a move towards forgiveness or whether it be harboring pain, guilt, anger it wherever you are in that continuum directed towards God. The Psalms shows us that there’s a comfort level with, those ancient people of faith to say that God can take that, that God’s able to be present to you even in that.

00:16:56:51 – 00:17:05:03
Michael Gewecke
And there’s a way in which expressing it may even create an opportunity for God to work in the midst of an otherwise sealed heart.

00:17:05:07 – 00:17:31:49
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And a willingness to say, God, do what is right. I wish they would be punished. God may not right. God may not acquiesce to that. God may not give in to that gate. God may not agree with that. But again, the the permissiveness that the Psalms do give us is to share our innermost heart with God, hoping that God will change us and adapt us and mold us into the people that he wants us to be.

00:17:31:49 – 00:17:54:34
Clint Loveall
So, I think a very interesting and just just in case, you know, we didn’t get very deep into this, but in case you’re thinking, well, just a couple of psalms, there are dozens of these. I mean, they’re this is not unknown territory in the psalm. Curse our enemies is is well attested in this book and and in most of the Old Testament.

00:17:54:34 – 00:18:05:43
Clint Loveall
That is one of the changes, I think, that Christ institutes. And you see it relatively clearly when you compare the teachings of Jesus with, with some of these harsher words.

00:18:05:52 – 00:18:30:39
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, look up 35, 52, 58, 83 others. But that a lot of it’s woven throughout. The interesting thing here is turn a couple pages, Clint. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Right? And the reality is the Old Testament is comfortable with things held in tension in a way that we often struggle to hold in our modern faith.

00:18:30:39 – 00:18:57:21
Michael Gewecke
And I think there’s much to be stretched and much room for us to grow that the same book that is exhaustively praising God for blessings, like crying out to God in deep pain, is also raising up to God substantially pointed curses against the enemy, and all of that lives in a bundle that’s in there on purpose. And it’s part of this holistic picture that the Psalms is really, really honest about.

00:18:57:30 – 00:19:17:06
Clint Loveall
Well, we’ll see it tomorrow. But one of the great hypocrisies of the human heart is that a person can pray to God for forgiveness in light of his own sin. Yeah, but punishment for his enemies in light of theirs. So we all have. We all have that struggle.

00:19:17:11 – 00:19:34:52
Michael Gewecke
And we hope that will certainly continue with us as we make our jump into that tomorrow. Certainly. Subscribe if this has been helpful. You won’t miss studies like this. So we have more to come and also light this video. It’s not light because it’s simple or easy or even comfortable content, but because it might help others find it in their own study.

00:19:34:57 – 00:19:36:16
Michael Gewecke
We’ll see you all tomorrow. Thanks.