Psalm 5: Enemy, Love.

We are five psalms into the psalter and we have seen some of the currents that move the prayers of the people of God along.  Flowing underneath the surface are the preeminence of God, his rule and reign, rest as worship and rebellion, the temptation to subvert God’s authority by assuming his throne, and then there is the difficult matter of enemies.  For Christians, Jesus instructed us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.  But the psalter is laden with vitriol and curses (known as imprecations) all heaped upon the heads of our enemies.  Here in Psalm 5, David prays:  Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.

In 1 Timothy 2:4, Paul writes that the Lord wants all to be saved and to come to a knowledge of him.  David, on the other hand, seems ready to condemn all of his enemies to the grave.  The psalms then raise the question: how are we to pray these sorts of prayers and be faithful to Jesus?  The answers, as seems fittings, are as complicated as the question.  I want to focus on two angles to this difficult discussion.  First, this is a psalm of David, famous in the Old Testament for being “the one after God’s own heart.”  A quick survey of David’s life will yield many disturbing results that you would not encourage anyone to emulate.  David is a violent man who builds his reputation around his ability to kill.  David commits adultery which leads him into a tangled conspiracy resulting in David doing what he does best, killing.  So how can this at best morally ambiguous and at worst morally reprehensible man be seen as “the one after God’s own heart?”  Perhaps its his feelings towards enemies that gives us a hint.  David holds nothing back from God.  He does not hold in reserve his most exuberant praise as he dances like a fool before the ark of God in front of all Israel.  Conversely, David does not try to keep the dark corners of his heart from the light of God.  He brings it all out into the open of God’s all-seeing light.  He bears his soul completely before God in compete trust and vulnerability.  Is it not at least possible that this is the characteristic that the Spirit is beckoning us to pattern our own prayers after?  Perhaps this is what it means to be a woman or a man after God’s own heart?

Second, the psalmist writes in v. 9:   For there is no truth in their mouths; their hearts are destruction; their throats are open graves; they flatter with their tongues.  The second angle that I want to address pertaining to enemies is around the person of Jesus.  Jesus is the one who Christians are to see as our pattern in the world:  his words, his love, his beauty.  So who are the enemies of Jesus?  Perhaps this will give us insight into our own prayers regarding our enemies.  Well certainly, during his incarnate life recorded in the gospels there are many schemers: scribes, Pharisees, Herod, Pilate all trying to be rid of Jesus.  But when the temple guard comes to apprehend Jesus and Peter draws his sword to engage the apparent enemies of Jesus, Jesus stills his hand saying, “Peter, those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”  He even heals the ear of Malchus, one of the soldiers who assists in arresting Jesus.  Paul will say it this way in Ephesians 6v12:  For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.   Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection reveals our enemies.  Our enemies are not people, not even those who inflict violence upon us.  Our enemies are the sin and death to which those people are enslaved.  Thus, we pray.  We pray that our true enemies, sin and death, would meet their final end as Jesus triumphs over them and we pray that the people in our lives who may be acting as enemies would be liberated from the grip of their captors.

For meditation:   But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house (v.7)