Reforming Students

I received a virus on my computer yesterday about an hour prior to preaching, and I was in need of my computer! I quarantined it enough to where I could use the programs I needed and spent several hours getting rid of it later last night. Talk about a headache! That has caused me to meditate today on the use of the imprecatory Psalms.

According to the Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, imprecatory Psalms are “Psalms which contain curses (imprecations, maledictions) against enemies. These elements do not make up an entire psalm, but verses of this nature appear in more than a dozen (5, 17, 28, 35, 40, 55, 59, 70, 71, 79, 80, 94, 129, 137, 139, 140). A number of other psalms express the same ideas as future or accomplished acts of the Lord. Usually these expressions are couched in the form of a prayer or a wish. They voice the desire that evil may come upon an enemy as judgment or retribution.”

I told everyone last night that were I to pray like the imprecatory Psalms, I would pray that God would “infest the armpits of the virus creator with the fleas of a thousand camels!” But, as Baker points out, “evidently the enemies against whom the psalmists prayed had reached the place of judgment, and the imprecations of the writers coincided with the judgment of God.”

I have no way of knowing if the virus creator has reached their “place of judgment”, so Instead, I need to pray “Lord, please have mercy on the person who would spend the time and effort to sabotage someone else’s expensive equipment and hard work — save them from evil — cause them to repent and believe in Christ.”

The Lord is faithful to give me opportunities to love others, including my enemies.

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Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, Map on Lining Papers. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1988), 1023-24.