How Many My Foes
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One of the features of the Lament Psalms is their focus on our enemies. Psalm 3 begins with these words:
O Lord, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
many are saying of my soul,
“There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah
In addition, there is frequently a prayer that God would oppose and judge our enemies:
Arise, O Lord!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.
Christians find these prayers of cursing very troubling, because Jesus clearly taught that we are not to curse our enemies, but rather pray for them and do good to them. For example:
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
The full answer to this troubling question is beyond the scope of one sermon, but one of more important parts of this answer is found in the word “many” in Psalm 3:1-2. The superscript clearly identifies David’s son Absalom as the leader of this rebellion, yet the rebellion was much bigger than Absalom. David came to power after a long and bitter civil war. There were clearly many within Judea and Israel who never accepted David’s reign. The death of Absalom did not dispel this unrest, within days of Absalom’s death, a man name Sheba led a second rebellion against David (2 Kings 20) and at the end of David’s life there was a court coup to place Adonijah rather than Solomon on the throne. (1 Kings 1)
This should teach us that behind the individual who persecutes us there is something much larger. If we are serious about fighting against evil (and we should be), it does little good to pray against individuals, but rather we must direct our prayers against a larger system of evil that the bible identifies as The World, The Flesh and The Devil.
The first of these is
The World
The World
In the Apostle John’s first letter, we find these words...
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
The biblical writers, but particularly John, use the word “world” in different ways. Sometimes it is speaking of the whole of creation and is used in positive way. For example:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
But other times it is speaking of the system of evil that is opposed to God and His Messiah. We saw evil system of rebellion in Psalm 2:1-3.
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
This is what Absalom’s rebellion was all about: In rebelling against David, Absalom was rebelling against God. You see, the anointed kings of Israel and Judah were not your run of the mill heads of state, they were prophetic types pointing to Jesus, who is the true “Anointed One.” To attack or rebel against them was to rebel against God and ultimately against Jesus.
This rebellion against God and against Jesus did not begin with Absalom but began in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. It is a rebellion that is still going on today. Jesus explained it like this:
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
It is so important that we understand this. What might seem on the surface as a personal attack or political ideology is really spiritual warfare. As western society has retreated from its Christian heritage, ancient paganism has rushed in to fill the vacuum. We see it all around us. The blurring of gender differences and the rise of sexual immorality and deviancy. The placing of one’s ultimate hope in the state or in the scientific enterprise. The loss of the sanctity of human life in the rise of abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. The increase in profanity and the decrease in civility.
The barbarians are no longer at the gate, they are running amuck in the city, in fact, they are sitting in the sets of authority and influence!
So, to think that Jesus’ call to “turn the other cheek” is a call to passivity in the face of evil, but it is anything but! We pray for our enemies, so that we can overcome our enemies. Paul says in Romans 12:21...
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
In fact, praying for the conversion of those who persecute us is the most effective method of attacking this world system of evil we have been talking about. When a person is moved over from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light, the world system of evil that opposes Christ is weakened.
Hear again what the petition “Thy Kingdom come” means according to the Heidelberg Catechism:
“Rule us by your Word and Spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to you. Keep your church strong, and add to it. Destroy the devil's work; destroy every force which revolts against you and every conspiracy against your Word. Do this until your kingdom is so complete and perfect that in it you are all in all.”
These are fighting words!
As evil as the world is, there is a deeper level of evil we struggle against, it is what the Bible calls...
The Flesh
The Flesh
The “flesh” is the corruption of our human nature by the fall. Theologians speak of total depravity, but by this they don’t mean that we are as evil as we could be, rather the corruption of sin has affected our total being. More importantly, sin has made us God’s enemies and apart from God’s grace we would still be in rebellion against God. It is this corruption of our nature by sin that is at the root of this world-wide rebellion against God.
It is this corruption of our nature by sin that is at the root of this world-wide rebellion against God.
Although the Christian is no longer a slave to his or her old fallen nature, that old nature is still active and it is warring against us. Paul writes of this war in his letter to the Romans.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Paul goes on to say this war is a life and death struggle:
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
As we pray a Lament Psalm like Psalm 3, and we come to that line which asks God to “break the teeth of the wicked,” we should not only direct this prayer against the rebellious world system, but at the “wickedness” that is within each and every one of us. We do this because the old fallen nature of sin that is waging war against us is an enemy far more dangerous than the world. The world can temporarily destroy our bodies, our fallen sin nature can permanently destroy our souls!
What so valuable about Romans 8:13, is that it reminds us that the only way to successfully wage war against the flesh is by the Spirit. This is why it is so important to pray for the conversion of our human enemies. When they become Christians their old sin nature receives a mortal blow!
Jesus’ command to love our enemies is not passive, they are fighting words!
There is however, an even deeper, even more dangerous level to this struggle. It is not just the wicked world system we struggle against. It not just our fallen human nature we struggle against. It is against the devil and his fallen angels we struggle against.
The Devil
The Devil
Later on, in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says this:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
The first two evils we struggle against are tied to “flesh and blood.” The world is made up of “flesh and blood” people. Our fallen human nature is called “the flesh” because in some mysterious way it is tied to our “flesh and blood.” This last enemy is not “flesh and blood” but is “spiritual.” Ultimately, all these prayers of cursing we find in the Lament Psalms are directed at Satan and his angelic allies.
This is why it is so pointless to direct our prayers of imprecation against individual human beings. Even individuals as evil as Adolph Hitler or Osama Bin Laden, are but pawns to a much greater evil.
In fact, if you really hate the Devil, you would pray for your human enemies because nothing hurts Satan and his cause more than the conversion of sinners.
Take the Apostle Paul as an example: Before his conversion, Paul was Satan’s go to man in his battle against Christ and His church. After his conversion, Paul did more than any other human being to build Christ’s Kingdom!
Paul is not an isolated example; church history is filled with the stories of wicked men and women who came to Christ and did great good. That is what is so exciting about conversion—the good that God does through us is so much greater than the evil Satan can do through us. Again, hear the words of Jesus:
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
These are fighting words! Such prayers “break the teeth” of The World, The Flesh and The Devil!
Let us pray.