Psalm 35 is explored as an example of an imprecatory psalm, which expresses stern imprecations against enemies, and the sermon seeks to reconcile these passages with God's commands to love one's enemies. The passage explains that these imprecations reflect a desire for perfect righteousness and justice, akin to poetic justice, and are not from a place of personal vengeance but from a conviction of innocence and a trust in God's ultimate judgment. The sermon highlights David's desires for his enemies' defeat, his deportment of sorrow and prayer for them despite their actions, and his ultimate delight in praising and proclaiming God's righteousness. The core lesson is that when slandered or wronged, believers should take matters to the Lord for His judgment, rather than seeking personal revenge, trusting in God's sovereignty and vindication.
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Let us turn to Psalm thirty five. Psalm number thirty five. You're going to read this song beginning at verse one. Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me. Fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for mine health. Grow out also the spear and stop the way against them that persecute me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Let them be confounded and put the shame that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.
Let them be as chaff before the wind and let the angel of the Lord chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery and let the angel of the Lord persecute them. For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit? which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destruction come upon him at unawares, and let his net that he has hidden catch himself into that very destruction, let him fall. And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord. He shall rejoice in his salvation. All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee?
which deliverest the poor from him, that he's too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy, from him that spoileth him. False witnesses did rise up. They laid to my charge things that I knew not. They rewarded me evil for good, and to the spoiling of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. I behaved myself as though he had been my friend, or brother. I bowed down heavily as one mourneth for his mother. But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together, yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not.
They did tear me, and cease not. With hypocritical mockers and feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth. O Lord, how long wilt thou look on? who rescue my soul from their destruction, my darling from the lions. I will give thee thanks in the great congregation. I will praise thee among much people. Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me, neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. For they speak not peace, but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land. Yea, they open their mouth wide against me.
and said, Aha, Aha, or I have seen it. This thou hast seen, O Lord, keep not silence, O Lord, be not far from me. Stir up thyself and await to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord. Judge me, O Lord, my God, according to thy righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me. Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it. Let them not say, We have swallowed him up. Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together, and rejoice at my hurt. Let them be clothed with shame and dishonored and magnified themselves against me.
Let them shout for joy and be glad that favor my righteous cause. Ye, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which has pleasure in the prosperity of his servants. and my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and thy praise all the day long. Now may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's pray. Father, it's a joy to be able to turn to your word and find that which stimulates the conscience and enables us to rejoice in thee our God and to have a genuine cause to call upon thy name. We give thee thanks for thy righteousness for thy loving kindness and thy tender mercies unto us.
Now we ask you to take this word and with it examine our own souls to the end that we shall glorify thee for the Lord Jesus sake. Amen. Singing is a large part of the worship of the people of God. The first song that was ever sung by the redeemed people was sung by Israel. After they were redeemed from Egyptian bondage and they were on the wilderness side of the Red Sea. Exodus chapter fifteen. They sang unto the Lord. The Lord hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider he hath cast into the sea.
The praise book of the people of God is the book of Psalms. Many of our hymns in our hymn book can be traced to their source. In the book of Psalms, many of our Psalms are based upon the various Psalms, and I'm going to prove that to you in a second. We're all acquainted with the twenty-third Psalm. How many different tunes have been put to use to sing the twenty-third Psalm? We're all acquainted with the forty-sixth Psalm. God is our refuge in strength. And it became the basis for Luther's great hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.
Now, if you take your hymn book, and I just took it for a few seconds, while I was preparing this message, and I looked up just a few numbers, because I didn't have that much room, and I don't like to keep that many notes. But I wrote, I jotted down just a few that are based on the Psalms, and I want you to notice them. And we're going to think a little bit about the Psalms tonight. I want you to turn to number twenty-three in your hymn book. And we'll just take, and these are close together. And it's based on the sixty-third Psalm verses three through seven, where the Psalmist says, Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.
And on those verses, these words were composed that makes up hymn number twenty-three in our book. Look over at hymn number twenty-five by Charles Wesley. It's based on Psalm one hundred and fifty. Move on to number twenty-seven in your hymn book. All people that on earth do dwell. It's based on Psalm one hundred. And when you go down to number thirty-three in the hymn book, you'll notice it is based on the hundred-third Psalm. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, ye all that is within me.
Bless his holy name. And of course, when you move on to number fifty-two in your hymn book, that is based on the same Psalm, the hundred-and-third, joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of glory, God of love. These are just a few of the songs in our own hymn book. that are based upon the Psalms. But there's a series of Psalms, friends, upon which no hymns are based, not in our hymn book. And these Psalms are known as the imprecatory Psalms. They are difficult Psalms when you go to study them. The thirty-fifth Psalm that we're going to examine tonight is the first of the imprecatory Psalms.
The imprecatory Psalms are those in which the psalmist breathes stern imprecations upon the head of his enemies. Many have asked why the psalmist wrote, as he does in these psalms. When we consider what the word of God teaches concerning our enemies, The Word of God tells us that we're to love our neighbor as ourself. In fact, the Word of God teaches us that we are to love our enemies. But when you look at verses four through eight of this psalm in particular, what do we find?
It is a deliberate prayer that his enemies might come to a disastrous end. Did you notice that when we read? This thirty-fifth Psalm. How do we reconcile all this with the word of God? Now there are some who have taken, and I'm going to ask you to turn to two Old Testament passages. I want you to turn to Exodus chapter twenty-three for a moment. Exodus chapter twenty-three verses four and five have something very definite to say to us. It says, If thou meet thine enemies, ox, or his ass going astray. thou shalt surely bringeth back to him again.
If thou see the ass of him that hateeth thee, lying under his burden, and which forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him. In other words, there is a direct statement by God given at Mount Sinai to Israel as a nation in applying the law of God that he had given to them morally. And we're soon to be written on the ten tables of stone. Or the two tables of stone. The ten commandments. And as he applies that. He shows that the people of God are to love their enemy. Now I want you to turn to the book of Leviticus chapter nineteen.
The book of Leviticus chapter nineteen. And we want to read verses seventeen and eighteen. Where we read. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people. But thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. Now when you take these definite statements that God makes, And when you put them over against the imprecatory Psalms, it creates a problem.
And what we want to try to do by the grace of God is reconcile the problem. And as we do this, we want to keep in mind the whole of Scripture and what God is seeking to teach us by His grace. Now there's some. who point out that these imprecations are not from the heart of God, but that they come from the heart of the psalmist. And then they say, well, you know all of us have our faults, and you can see why at a time of stress, he'd make a statement like that. This is one way of looking at it.
Then there's some who have taken and slipped these imprecations from the lips of the psalmist to the lips of the enemies of the psalmist. So it wasn't really the enemy. And that's doing what our brother taught us this morning at the Lord's Supper, a shift imperative, which can't be done. And then there are others who have taken the Hebrew position that the enemies of the psalmist are the enemies of the Lord. And when you go through the book of Joshua, we notice that the enemies of the Lord became the enemies of Israel. and vice versa, and they were told by Joshua, the leader of Israel, to wipe the mouth.
Now, when we examine these various statements, and we could make more concerning what various ones have taught on this subject, there is something we must keep in mind. And what we must keep in mind is a definite statement in the New Testament. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And we're not going to shift paradigm, but we're going to recognize what Peter wrote also when he said, Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, in Romans chapter fifteen, we read that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Where did we put? the imprecatory Psalms. Now, because of that, the fact that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, the fact that whatsoever was written aforetime is written for our learning, and that Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, I believe we have in these Psalms, known as the imprecatory Psalms, a prayer for perfect righteousness and justice. The word of God declares we weep what we have sown. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also weep.
And this perfect justice of God is also known by the term poetic justice. And we find this expression in the redeemed multitude in Revelation chapter nineteen. The book of the Revelation is a book of God's judgment. It is a book of God's judgment upon man during a period known as a tribulation. And when you get to Revelation chapter nineteen, I want you to turn to that and we want to see how this expresses itself in relation to the psalmist. And this will be bred out in more than one of the imprecatory psalms.
Verse one. The judgment of God comes to an end in chapter eighteen, with a judgment of Babylon. When you come to chapter nineteen, we have in this chapter the return of the Lord, and we see the church with the Lord. And the picture here is, and after these things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments, for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hands.
And again they said, Alleluia, and her smoke rose up for ever and ever. In other words, there is rejoicing in heaven. over the sure judgment of God upon earth. And here we see there is joy because of the execution of God's perfect and righteous judgment. Now I want to divide this Psalm. And first of all, I want to look at David's desire. And you have that in the first ten verses. The desire that David expresses.
And when you try to look over the life of David, we can learn much by studying God dealing with his servant David. King Saul had a deadly jealousy against David. It was a very natural thing with King Saul because it is not hard to make a person jealous. Jealousy? is a rotten disease. God says he's a jealous God. But that which is a virtue in God is a vice in man.
And the reason that God becomes jealous over his people is because a love relationship is affected. And in man when a love relationship is affected, If he isn't jealous over the one that he loves, there's something wrong with him. A man who isn't jealous over his wife and over her affection, there's something wrong with him. For he should protect that love relationship as God protects the love relationship that he has for the church. Now King Saul... was very jealous over David.
And it came natural to him because he was afraid of the giant. And David, as a young lad, in all probabilities, still in his teens, went down into the valley of Elah and he threw the giant. And then what made Saul jealous was Israel was happy. And when people are happy, there are singing people. And the women came out to greet the returning soldiers with dancing and with singing. And they sang, King Saul has slain his thousands. But David is tens of thousands. And because they ascribed far more glory to David than they did to him, he was exceedingly jealous.
You see, it came natural to him. He got more praise than I got. And that's hard for the old natural man to take. But then there's a second reason. King Saul had a son by the name of Jonathan. He became a very good friend to David. David's spokesman and David's protector in the court of Saul. In fact, David stripped himself of his revels. And he was willing to make David king rather than himself. He was interested in the glory of David.
And of course, that didn't sit well with King Saul. But people loved David. They loved him. And the people that David loved. And the people that David trusted were now poisoning the mind of Saul. If you want to be greater, if you want to climb up the ladder of success, one way to get up is to stand on something. And sometimes stand on people. You know if you stand on somebody else, it makes you look a little taller. A lot of times that happens.
And that was happening in the court of Saul. They're those who wanted to advance in the kingdom of King Saul. And David had become Saul's enemy. It wasn't David's enemy. It was Saul's enemy. And I can tell you one. A man by the name of Diab, the Edomite. And you read about him especially in another imprecatory Psalm number fifty-two. Psalm number fifty-two. And he became the reason for the slaying of the priests.
The whole family of the priests was wiped out, except the one that escaped the David. And of course, he was a whisperer in the court of David, and in all probability there were others. Now what does David desire concerning these who have treated him in this way? He enlists God, first of all, in his cause, and he tells God his desires for his enemies.Slander is a very difficult thing to deal with. It's one of the most difficult things that anyone ever has to deal with.
It is slander. And David was slandered before the king. Now the armor of communion... The armor that a child of God can wear at a time like this is constant communion with the Lord. And to desire what David did of the Lord. He desired that they would be defeated and destroyed. And you have that in especially verses seven and eight. He says, For without cause they have hidden, for me their net in a pit. which without cause they have digged for my soul.
Let destruction come upon him at unawares, and let his net that he have hidden catch himself into that very destruction, let him fall. And then David adds, and if that happens to him, my soul will be joyful in the Lord. He shall rejoice in his salvation. Who can pray like that? There's only one kind of a person that can pray like that. And that is a person who can speak like that to the Lord, is convinced of his own innocence.
And because he's convinced before God of his own innocence, he can go to the Lord and he can make known his desires. Now, he calls in the name of the angel of the Lord. In chapter thirty-four, the thirty-fourth Psalm, he speaks to the angel of the Lord. He says, the angel of the Lord encampeth around about them that fear him and delivereth them. And that expression, the angel of the Lord, remember it was the angel of the Lord who met Hagar, the maid of the Abraham, when she was fleeing from Abraham's house because of the abuse that she received from Sarah, Abraham's wife, and the angel of the Lord met her.
And he instructed her in a very definite way. You see, and there are many who believe that the expression, the angel of the Lord, has referenced to a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ. And there is much that can be said for that. But David's desires such an expression of divine justice as a fitting example of poetic justice. Let them reap what they sowed. But remember, and never forget, David himself is going to feel poetic justice in his own life when he sins against Bathsheba.
He's going to experience it himself in his later life. But David himself here desires not only concerning his enemies, But he has desires concerning his own personal fears. In verse nine of chapter thirty, of this thirty-fifth Psalm, he desires the joy of the Lord. For the scripture says, the joy of the Lord is your strength. And then, of course, in the tenth verse, he desires the justice of the Lord. Not only the joy of the Lord, but the justice of the Lord.
the Lord. Here we have the desires of the king. King David, he's not yet king, he has been anointed king, but he has to run like a fugitive because of the jealous rage of the present king. There was none who was ready to help King Saul more than David, but David was so jealous he couldn't confide in King Saul Or he couldn't confide in David, and yet David spared his life on two occasions. And he had to admit to David, thou art more righteous than I, I have played the fool and have earned exceedingly.
But we move from David's desires that we find in these desires for justice. to his deportment. How does he act under these circumstances? And how do we act and we act under circumstances which are adverse to us? You see, David didn't know from one day to the next where King Saul was going to strike. If you read the account of First Samuel, you find that he went to a city called Keelah. And the Philistines were fighting against it, and he delivered the city. And then somebody told King Saul, David didn't kill him.
So King Saul decides to come, and David spies told him, King Saul's coming for you. So David said, bring hither the ephod. And he inquired of the Lord, he says, will King Saul come? And the Lord said, Yes, he will. Will the men of Kila deliver me to King Saul? And the Lord said, Yes, they will. He never knew from one day to another where King Saul would strike. But what was David's resource? In verse nine, his resource was the joy of the Lord. Oh, my friend, there's nothing that can compare to the joy of the Lord.
in your own soul. And we find that in the life of David in a particular way. But then again, the justice of the Lord in verse ten. He tells the Lord in verse ten that his very bones shall rejoice in the Lord and shall say who he's like unto the Lord. His very bones will say this. You see, David could not take the hypocrisy of those in the court of Saul, who smiled to his face, but in their heart was deceit. And David is here.
In his deportment, he's telling the Lord about it. In his plea, he turns to the Lord, and he informs the Lord in verses thirteen through seventeen. These are verses that give to us how we should act and react if others treat us in this same manner. For verse thirteen he said, But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sacral. In other words, there was real sorrow in my soul concerning them. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned into my own bosom. In fact, They did the very opposite to me that I asked God to bless them for.
That is how David informs the Lord. And then he said, I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother. I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother. He informs the Lord in a very definite way. What a blessing it is to be able to take our problems to the Lord. There's an old hymn that I'll never forget the first time I heard it. Take your burdens to the Lord and leave it there.
The chorus goes, if you trust and never doubt, he will surely bring you up. Take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there. Now, in the midst of it all, David finds not only does he express his desires, not only does he express his deportment under the circumstances, but he expresses his delight. And I want you to notice a threefold delight that David had. First of all, he was a praising man. He praised the Lord in verse eighteen. He says, I will give thanks in the great congregation. I will praise thee among much people.
A person in this kind of a condition who finds that he can praise the Lord, that the Lord is the object of his delight. He praises the Lord under these circumstances. Nothing had changed awkwardly for David. Everything was still the same. But he said, I will praise the Lord in the great congregation. But David knew that he was innocent, and one day he would be vindicated. When we live before the Lord as the people of God, we know that there is going to be the judgment seat of Christ.
And now we should get everything straightened out as best we can. But we also know that what can't be straightened out will be dealt with at the judgment seat of Christ. Vindication will come if we're innocent of the matter. David praised the Lord. In other words, David's spirit was in tune with the Lord. First of all, he was a praising man. The second thing that we learn in this psalm is in verses nineteen through twenty one. He's a praying man.
David speaks to God very earnestly about the slander of Saul's men in regards to his activities. He just lays it out, as it were, before the Lord and tells the Lord to behold it. And then he tells the Lord, as he informs the Lord, that the hypocrisy of those who speak They're not a peace, but are deceitful. And he now brings that before the Lord again, and he does it in prayer in verses twenty and twenty-one. He says, For they speak not peace, but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.
The word of God says in the New Testament, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. In that text, it doesn't tell us to make peace. That text tells us that we are, by virtue of the fact that we're born of God, we are peacemakers. That's what it tells us. And David was a peacemaker. And there are those who acted as though they were peacemakers, but they were deceitful in their act. But then David invokes the Lord to answer.
In verses twenty-two through twenty-seven, he says, O Lord, keep not silence. So we find that he's a praising man. He's a praying man as he takes the matter before the Lord. And then he becomes a praying man, or excuse me, a proclaiming man in the last two or the last verse, verse twenty-eight. He says, and my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and thy praise all the day long. In other words, my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness. Just as the mouth of the church is universal in the nineteenth of the revelation in praising God because he judged Babylon, that wicked religious system.
You see, when these things happen to a child of God, When God answers prayer for his people, it's impossible to remain silent about it. It is absolutely impossible because we become proclaiming men for God is proved that he is righteous in all his ways and he is faithful to his people. One of the lessons What are the lessons? There should be lessons for the child of God in a portion like this.
Well, we don't find a contradiction, first of all, when we examine this portion of the Word of God, when slandered to take matters to the Lord for his judgment is a pathway for the child of God. I'd like you to turn to a verse in the New Testament. which instructs the words. Remember, David did not take things into his own hands. He put them into the hands of the Lord that he loved. He recognized that God is sovereign and God is working on his own will in regards to his life. I want you to turn to the twelfth chapter of the Romans. Romans chapter twelve.
And I want you to read Whitney verse seventeen. And here is the New Testament pathway for the child of God. He says, Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible. As much as riot in you, live peaceably with all men. It is impossible to live peaceably with everybody. It's impossible.
He says, as much as riot in you, live at peace with all men. It was impossible for David to live at peace with everybody. But David, when he had the opportunity to slay King Saul, and the devil was there at his right hand with a spokesman from his own group, saying, the day that you've waited for has come, do it, and you'll be king. David said, no, I cannot touch the Lord's anointed. He knew that in due time, God would vindicate him, and he didn't need to do anything. God is on the throne, friends.
And as a Christian Reformed church sing, sing to God Almighty, sitting on the throne. The Lamb or Lamb's victorious, sing his praise alone. God has brought salvation in his majesty. Who would not enthrone him, holy king of kings? You see, friends, the New Testament teaches. We have one to whom we can take our problems. Peter in his first epistle, chapter five, he says, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. So David did what the word of God tells him to do or tells us to do.
In his deportments, He loved these men, but he desired the judgment of God because his aim was for the glory of God and the vindication of God's righteous judgment. Now there's a second lesson. And the second lesson is this. To see our plea for poetic justice turned into praise. All to be able to take what we take to the Lord. and to turn it into praise as David did, and use the tongue to proclaim his righteousness is a great victory.
To be able just to sit back and relax and realize that God is in full control and in due time he will vindicate his servant. And to do this and to be able to rest here with God is a great victory. And we know that the victory was won by David. These imprecatory Psalms are difficult. I don't know of a hymn that's based on the thirty-fifth Psalm. In fact, I don't know of a hymn that's based on any of the imprecatory Psalms. They're difficult Psalms.
But I believe they're in and part of the Word of God. for the purpose that we live godly in Christ Jesus and recognize who God is and that he's able in due time to bring his mercy, his righteousness, and his judgment to life. Our God is King. Let's pray it again. And now our Father, we thank you for this word. We thank you for the righteousness of God. We thank you for the holiness of God. We thank you for the justice of God.
And we thank you for the love of God. Truly you have loved us with an everlasting love. And you have made us peacemakers. And because of that we should be expecting thy blessing as we seek to live righteously. and godly in this present world where thy dear son was despised and rejected of men. Receive our thanks. Bless the word to each heart as we commend one another to thee and to the word of thy grace, O God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.