Christians, Curses, and Laments
254 | “Weird Corner of the Internet”
Pray Honestly and Trust God’s Justice
Geektober is getting weird! This week, we're exploring the Bible's "ancient rage tracks"—the imprecatory psalms. How can followers of Jesus, who are called to bless their enemies, also pray these Spirit-inspired psalms that call for judgment? Are these just "flyover psalms" we should skip, or do they give us a powerful way to be brutally honest with God, process our pain, and trust His justice without becoming vindictive villains ourselves? Join us for a deep dive into the Bible's dark corner to find out!
Takeaways
The Big Idea: Honest prayer trusts God with our pain.
This Week's Challenge: Pray one imprecatory psalm this week (Ps. 58, 94, or 109). Bring your anger, grief, or injustice to God. Pray honestly — and then watch for the pivot into trust and praise.
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Introduction to Geektober and Episode Overview
Bryan: feel like geektober has become like the weird corner of the internet that Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Bible geeks podcast. This is episode 254 I'm Bryan Schiele
Ryan: I'm Ryan Joy.
Bryan: and thanks so much everyone for tuning in today on the episode.
Exploring Imprecatory Psalms
Bryan: We are talking about these weird prayers in scripture But they sound like they don't belong in our churches some of these prayers rage They plead for justice and they cry how long Lord yet These dark Psalms were written by the Spirit and sung by God's people So today we'll ask how can followers of Jesus who bless our enemies also pray the Psalms that call for judgment
Ryan: It's another Geektober dive into a strange and difficult part of the Bible. Are these imprecatory Psalms just ancient rage tracks we should skip? Or do they help us name real evil, process our pain and trust God's justice without becoming vindictive villains ourselves? Yeah,
Bryan: so here in geektober like we're deep into it
now It's been so exciting to see the passion and the excitement of some of these previous topics Like we just went on and on about AI it's I think it might be our longest episode that we've released at this point We had a lot to say about robots and things and then we get into this whole discussion about snakes and dragons And boy, like I did not expect us to go to the places we went and you know We're right in the middle of it.
So like on the horizon We've got some really exciting topics to discuss and like at the the core like anchored in the middle of geektober We're doing something different and when we were brainstorming for this you came up with this idea that you wanted to talk about Imprecatory Psalms and I was like cool. I mean sure and like I'm on board But this is an interesting topic that why do you feel like this lands so squarely in geektober for you?
Ryan: it's definitely weird and it's not something we talk about we talked about flyover books with Ezekiel a while back and this is kind of these are not only flyover psalms but like we get to the part of the psalm we'll sing the part at the beginning where it's all praise and drawing near and then it gets to and smash my enemies or something and we just skip that part like who wants to teach our kids to sing this and you know it takes some contextualizing and through the years I really wrestled with that and I've found now that the laments which we'll touch on and then these curses which is when we say imprecatory or psalms of imprecation we're talking about curses and how do we deal with that I find that that is a challenging idea that we need to unite with Jesus teaching and the teaching in the Old Testament about loving our enemies even but also I think that they are in the Bible for a reason and so we'll have to get into all of this I guess to answer your question why does it fit Geektober it is not only strange but it takes some time and thought to work through a passage like this and it's not your go to place for a devotional or even a sermon for most of us but I think in a in an environment where we have created the zone for dealing with the things we don't want to usually talk about in the Bible this is the perfect time to sit down and just reflect together on these really important psalms
Bryan: feel like geektober has become like the weird corner of the internet that Like you wouldn't want to bring this stuff out in like, you know a general forum, but we can talk about it over here Just don't tell too many people about it. So I think it's good I appreciate that context because I feel like this is Absolutely a connection to like those flyover books, especially in some of these Psalms it's like those verses that you definitely stop right before in maybe a song that you're singing through the Psalms or like in your Sermons when you might quote a verse from one of these Psalms You'll probably want to stop right there and maybe not talk about the rest of it So let's talk about the rest of it here in this in this episode But maybe before we do we're talking about being in a bad mood or maybe being angry in this episode And you know, we'll get into like all of the feels about all that stuff in a minute But Ryan when you're in your feels and you're you know down in the dumps or you're angry about something What is it that you turn to in terms of a song that can help you in that moment?
Personal Reflections and Secular Songs
Bryan: Because that's when we talk about the Psalms these were songs these were things that they sang So like you have a song that's one of your go-to's in those moments
Ryan: so I took it like secular like this icebreaker like looking for a secular song there's certainly worshipful songs that would be even more helpful but yeah I don't know my immediate thought was Smashing Pumpkins you know I'm a child I was a teenager in the 90s and so you know the song Today which is really a positive message today is the greatest day I've ever known but man it starts out with force and power so bringing you to that that moment of appreciate kind of like a lot of the psalms of imprecation or laments it starts out with force and fierceness but ends up in a pretty positive place what about you what are you thinking of when you think about sadness or anger when you need to just rock out and turn something blasting on
Bryan: Well, yeah, I I will echo your smashing pumpkins call there. I think that was solid Maybe the first time we've talked about smashing pumpkins here on on the podcast, but I do appreciate that one We we recently laid to rest my my wife's grandpa a few months back and he was boy like one of the biggest Johnny Cash fans in the entire world and Johnny Cash has that
Ryan: oh yeah yeah nine inch nails
Bryan: Yeah, it's so good. And like I love his version of that song and everything that he's you know He's talking about the pain and he's talking about things that are real and you get into that song and it's like yeah Okay, I connect with that that makes sense to me like and I feel like you know getting kind of moving on here I feel like that is what these Psalms do not just for the person who wrote them at the time They were meaningful, but they allow us to connect with somebody's raw emotions in a way that that really speaks to us because we Have those raw emotions
Ryan: yeah I mean that is what the psalms do for us there is not I don't think a human emotion that the Bible doesn't touch on and that the psalms don't touch on and really this is the lament psalms are probably the largest category of psalms I mean there's probably at least 50 psalms that are really just lament focused and then as far as psalms that have some level of
Daniel Nearbass who wrote one of my favorite books on this subject he estimates that about a hundred of the psalms have some kind of imprecation in it which is like there's 150 of them so two thirds of the psalms you're going to run into this all over even if that is a liberal estimate it is a big part of the Bible and all of the Bible is inspired
Theological Insights on Imprecatory Psalms
Bryan: so you have these Psalms of imprecation, right? You know, we're gonna use that term here But they're they're curse Psalms and there's a reason why it feels like we should skip over these I mean we sort of touched on it a little bit here
but there feels like there's a dissonance between Words like this in the Psalms and some things that Jesus said about blessing and forgiving our enemies I'm thinking about Luke chapter 6 maybe when he says Love your enemies do good to those who hate you bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you and so Jesus is is commanding us to love our enemies but the Bible has these prayers of Judgment and of cursing and boy like can we wrestle with that for a little bit?
are they wrong to have said words like that in the Psalms or is there something about them? That is not really relevant anymore in the New Testament or like what's going on here that we should learn
Ryan: so you can distill different ways people deal with this in three different ways I think first of all maybe they're just wrong you know C.S.
Lewis who certainly believed in the authority and inspiration of Scripture wrote that hey these are unreliable expressions that we shouldn't ever use no Christian should ever think that these are appropriate other people think maybe they're outdated maybe this is an old covenant only kind of way of thinking and now Jesus has taught us to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us of course 2 Timothy 3 16 is a key text all Scripture is profitable we don't cut out the dark Psalms they're profitable for something starting out just fundamentally
Bryan: and that they're breathed by the Spirit, right? Like these these are the Spirit inspiring these people to say these words But to write and capture these words for us for a reason
they're praying something that God wanted us to have and that God is like you said the Spirit is in the words
Ryan: whenever we pray we are handing things over to God and that's going to be a core part of how we think through this you know vengeance Romans 12 20 says belongs to God doesn't say God hates vengeance it says he doesn't want us to take vengeance you could live in the bitterness of it you could go and avenge yourself or you can work through it before God in prayer and trust him to handle it and so that's a part of this doctrine
Bryan: I think that that's a helpful way of thinking through this for me at least and it kind of goes back to our time episode and you know God is the one who who is responsible for the future and we're just responsible for the planting and the watering we can do now And it almost feels like that's the same way of talking about what you're just saying that God is the one who handles justice He's the one who handles punishment and judgment and all of those things not that he doesn't want us thinking about it But he doesn't want us acting on it.
and don't get me wrong we want to pray for God's mercy and God's love and God's blessing on these people and Jesus teaches us to do that God wants us to call down his love into the world but he also wants us to pray his justice into the world his righteousness his upholding of a righteous standard and tearing down evil whether it's evil powers or ultimately thwarting evil people and you know Jesus says in Luke 18 he tells the parable of the persistent widow who goes before that judge and then in verse 7 of Luke 18 he says and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night will he delay long over them and this is something we see throughout all the Psalms but also when we get all the way over to the book of Revelation in Revelation 6 we see all of the martyrs under the altar crying out how long oh Lord when are you going to bring justice down they're asking for God to to avenge which he does at the end of the story which Jesus brings about
Ryan: he's not going to say you know what since I love you all I'm going to just say nobody is condemned everybody's okay and so we shouldn't say that we should seek their good but we should call on God to handle bringing about the elevation of his name and the enactment of his
Bryan: I feel like anytime we get into a place where there's real like visceral tension between two ideas and like any Vacillation between them too far in one direction causes real problems, I feel like that is the big challenge sometimes for us as as good Bible students to wrap our minds around because boy it is So easy to just go from one extreme to another like I I only want to love And I want to bless and like almost this pacifist idea that like no matter what it's okay But you know on the other hand you could go so far the other direction where you're so focused on the justice and the you know the punishment of God andand it could really cause you to be like bitter and Angry and not Christlike in in really deep ways And so I think here we're talking about this tension trying to find that delicate balance between loving people Wanting their best, but if not, you know if they won't change And so I think that's the lesson that these Preparatory Psalms and these lament Psalms teach me is that there is a time for calling on God's justice But there's also a time for letting him handle that and really just focusing on our part of it Which is love you think about like Galatians 1 some of his language there about false teachers and people who are Really causing problems is very strong in in his words Like he calls them to be a curse to anyone who preaches a different gospel And so he's like I think calling on the same sort of language that we're talking about here in some of these Psalms So even the Apostle Paul would do it and I think we see this language even in the New Testament in other places There's some very strong Condemnations of people who will not change and that's that's I think the key like they will not change They've refused to change and so God let your justice be done towards those people.
Ryan: yeah yeah the same apostle who said bless those who persecute you bless and do not curse in Romans 12 also said what you just said or or in 1st Corinthians 16 you know be anathema be accursed you know or we could go into more examples of that and Paul is an interesting example of somebody who was an enemy who there were probably people praying in pre-catory Psalms about right I mean think about that like he was an enemy of God he was an enemy of God's people
he goes through the torment of seeing how much he has brought on other people and that's what we want for people we want we want people like Saul like Paul to become saved and living with us in eternity and great instruments of God but in doing that they're going to be pricked in the heart and understand these things
Bryan: I
I'm totally with you there and I think I Hadn't even considered the side of it that Paul was having these kinds of prayers prayed Against him to God by the the Christians. He was he was persecuting and that Wow I mean that that kind of changes the game a little bit thinking about his situation
Poetry in Motion
Bryan: But maybe it's helpful for us to go to a segment now that we have not done boy in a really long time But I'm excited to hear Yes.
Psalm 83: A Deep Dive
Bryan: It is poetry in motion We're gonna get back to the Psalms and I'm excited about this because we're going to Psalm 83 and Psalm 137 these are real quick reads. So if you get an opportunity to read through these we're not gonna we're not gonna read through all of them here on the episode, but what we're gonna break them down and Psalm 83 is definitely one of these imprecatory Psalms that starts out really focused on God's silence and Wondering why God is isn't doing anything right
Ryan: and so what we're going to see with a lot of these Psalms is there's this pattern of a problem introduced and brought to God and then a plea made and then it ends in praise and that's something that I've seen throughout this there's a flow not all of them follow that pattern and we'll get to 137 that follows a different pattern but a lot of them follow that which is helpful for us to remember the ending in praise the starting with the problem and making sure as we talked about recently that we make our requests to God and so he starts out like he said silence, don't be silent they're so loud God don't be silent the enemies are plotting against you and that's an important thing to remember the enemies of God become our enemies those who are opposing his righteousness those who are opposing his goodnessI'm not saying that you can't use it this way but the imprecatory Psalms are not just this person was mean to me Lord smite this person who just cut me off in traffic with a lightning bolt and kill them now you know that's not
Bryan: that's not what we're talking about
Ryan: that is not what we're talking about that is not Christ like imprecation but there is this devotion to God we have a zeal for his royal will for his kingdom and his reign and his name and these are plotting against you by plotting against us what does Jesus say to Saul?
Saul why are you persecuting me? whenever people are plotting against God's people they're plotting against us
Bryan: so we move from there
to the plea and so he calls on on God later on here bringing up I guess all of the stories that that he knows from his his childhood I suppose he goes in verses 9 through 12 here to talk about all of these examples from the book of Judges and first Samuel is asking God God do what you did back then and do what you did for us in the same way be the God who you were for Gideon and Deborah and Barak these judges like be that God for us today
it's not a like God Don't you remember who you used to be like I don't think it's that kind of language I think it has more to do with like an acknowledgment like God I know that you did these things and of course, you know that you did these things so do these things for
Ryan: we pray those kinds of prayers
we have to think God you have defeated evil before Jesus you have promised you are the king of kings who will conquer evil and we can ask him bring that into the world now we know in the end he's going to be victorious and we can pray for that but we can call on him how long oh lord that is an appropriate prayer and so I think that's a cool thing for us to remember that the psalmist that is not seeing a mighty hero in his town working like this you know empowered by God like Samson is saying God I know you're still the God that did this I believe those things were written for me to learn do that again because evil people are fighting against us
Bryan: It's a faithful statement we know you've got this just like you always have
Ryan: what you're bringing up there is I think an important tension to be aware of in our own prayers sometimes the complaint psalms sometimes we talk about it like it's a complaint it's a prayer of complaint which is different than complaining it's different than grumbling whenever we make a complaint prayer it's not my life is you know go how could you it's about bringing to God this concern that you you really are frustrated that God has enacted in this or you're sad or you're angry that this is happening and sometimes the psalms get all the way to you know disappointment that God hasn't done something it's not just these evil people and I mean I think we have to learn from it certainly don't be irreverent but he can take our honesty and that's a big part of this the lesson here God can take us bringing our rage before him rage is a real human emotion and rather than going out and acting ungodly with it the best thing you can do is bring it to God in prayer and work it out remembering all the while who God is that you're talking to the mighty holy maker of the universe who loves you who cares about these things who's more invested in good than you are and as you're praying then what you see is almost all of these prayers guide you like a pathway from the place of sorrow rage whatever it is it's like the Elijah lesson all the way to praise to recognizing him to hope to trust to surrendering these issues before him and saying look it's not making sense to me but I'm going to trust you because you are good and one of the things we've talked about before in poetry emotion segments is keep reading keep praying don't stop in the middle
Bryan: well we we've stopped in the middle at verse 12 So let's move on to the last here because we're talking about praise and that is the point of all of this And that's actually how this whole thing winds up from verses
Ryan: so here he speaks with images of dust and flame and tempest and the purpose he says is actually for their good and so not every psalm of imprecation prays for repentance for the enemy but it's there enough and maybe most notably here that you can see this is part of the Old Testament theology of praying these curses he says in verse 16 fill their faces with shame that they may seek your name O Lord that they may know in verse 18 that you alone whose name is Yahweh whose name is the Lord are the most high over all the earth and this is what we should pray for people who are persecuting Christians around the world you know is bring disgrace and shame that changes their hearts so that they can know you and seek you and experience the blessing that Saul of Tarsus did.
Bryan: Yeah, it It's almost an evangelistic psalm in a really weird way. Like isn't it? You know,which I don't always expect in psalms like this I guess
Ryan: these are people who are crafting plans against God's people so you certainly would expect a war cry to defeat them and well maybe we would expect something like the psalm we're about to read which is the hardest out of all of these psalms to deal with certainly and this is you know it's shocking and difficult
Psalm 137: A Difficult Lament
Ryan: psalm 137 so why don't we get into
Bryan: you were talking about the general structure of these in pre-catholic psalms How they they kind of tend to go from problem to plea to praise of course all about alliteration there that
that alliteration breaks down pretty strongly here in this one though Because the the problem starts out in the beginning which which the last one did as well But then we get into the middle section, which is a lament and then at the end we see this hope for the future This is not a psalm of David This is like years after in the captivity or you know in the second temple period Probably when these things are written as they were in Babylon as they're in exile, right and they're thinking about Zion They're thinking about home and they're just they're lost. They're they're weeping.
They're crying There's
They're not happy that they're in this this place.
And of course, they're just they're in a bad spot And so they're being made fun of they're being mocked and they're just like their identity is lost and that that is the problem If you could sum it up in a few words,
Ryan: and you got to think about what they have experienced at this point I mean it talks about their captors, their tormentors and think about the it's not just mocking because it's mocking after babies have been slaughtered in awful ways pregnant women you know I don't even want to talk about
what happened how do you deal with the pain and the bitterness and the and the hatred and this is the kind of thing I mean they have seen things in their generation that you don't unsee
Bryan: right,
Ryan: and it was at the hands of these people who are now laughing at them and telling them sing one of your songs of praise about how God has a special relationship with you in Zion you know sing us some of those psalms and so they are mocking their praise of God and so they ask in verse 4 how can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land and then he says if I forget you oh Jerusalem let my right hand forget its skill let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don't remember you if I don't set Jerusalem above my highest joy and this isn't just nationalism this isn't just hey they're patriots what can you do you know our team we love our team not your team this is about God this is about that was God's throne and it has been torn down this was we were God's people and there is afierce covenant loyalty happening there covenant loyalty to God and then we get to you know the hardest part at the end where there is hope there like you said but it's it's a particularly difficult hope right
Bryan: Yeah I mean he starts out here Remember Oh Lord against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem how they said lay it bare lay it bare down to its foundations how when they were being taken away from Jerusalem how the Edomites were there just Making fun of them their brothers who that who should have been, you know, these descendants of Esau They should have been at least connected in some way with them, but they they don't care They don't they didn't care and they mocked them they called for Jerusalem to be taken down to the studs down to its foundations and you know, we see then the remembrance not only of the Edomites and what they had done but also of the horrors of Babylon and basically calling on God to do the same things to Babylon that Babylon did to them and you know The language he uses here is very direct and very strong doomed to be destroyed Blessed shall be he who repays you with what you have done to us.
So then verse 9 blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock now That's probably the hardest verse in this in this Psalm
to read and it's the end It's the last thing that you read here
and that's I think the hard thing is like hoping in God's Repayment feels like two different things to me.
I don't I I'm with the language of this Psalm and I understand what it's saying but hope and Repayment don't always feel like they go together.
Ryan: yeah yeah yeah he because he he brings a blessing right blessed is the Avenger and he's making a legal case to God remember against them as in make sure that the prosecution of the righteous judge happens and I would note that this word little ones in verse 9 could mean children but it could mean all of Babylon children of Babylon like in verse 8 the daughter of Babylon that's some a way that often that word is used but they're hoping that someone repays them and I think the most noteworthy thing here is that they're asking for God to act and that's what we're told to do in Romans 12 is trust in the vengeance of God now I would feel better about this I would if we worked in some of the language we brought in in Psalm 83 of you know hey bring a blessing on them thwart their evil and then let them know you so they can be blessed and and this is difficult that this is all it is is this part but I think the main thing to take away here is that Psalm 137 never even entertains acting
is hard to think that you could have a God full of such love But not also have him take care of you,
Bryan: How difficult would that be to know that God was just sweeping it under the rug
that's not an academic thing It's not a like, okay You know connect the dots in some way like I think deep down when we sit in silence and think about these kinds of Psalms It totally clicks God has to be the God who is going to repay and who's going to be just and who's going to take Care of our enemies if I want to trust him at all And and I think that's that's exactly what these Psalms bring out for me Is that he's he's gonna take care of that part of it and I can trust him with
Ryan: to realize that is to also bring a soberness to our own lives right to those who are unrepentant he will bring judgment which is another fundamental doctrine of the Bible that we rest in that is good news that God will bring judgment in the end just like it's good news that he will save us and David in Psalm 7 prays in verses 3 to 5 if I have done this oh Lord my God if there is wrong in my hands if I have repaid my friends with evil or plundered my enemy without cause let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it and let him trample my life to the ground and then he says in verse 6 arise oh Lord in your anger lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies and so he's calling on him to answer and defend and protect his people but he calls the same curses down on himself knowing God is justice he's not playing favorites and saying you you're okay if you just live however you want no we come before a holy God to right ourselves with him ask him to lead us in his ways and then ask him to handle what we know he doesn't want us to handle
Practical Applications and Reflections
Bryan: Let's think about how to deal with some of this stuff in a more practical way like you're looking at Psalms where you know You're questioning why God is silent and calling on him to to strike down your enemies so that they could come to a realization Of who he is you're calling on God to to step in and save you in your time of lament How how do you use this kind of stuff in it in your day-to-day life?
And this is I think primarily in terms of prayer I'm thinking of how honest these people were in their prayers how they just they weren't holding back like they're not they're not fake They're not putting on a show for God in some way as if they're like sweeping it under the rug or hiding their their concerns Like they're just bringing it to God in such a raw way And I feel like I learned a big lesson about that, you know coming to God like what is there that I that I'm gonna Manufacture or bring some like artifice between me and God that's gonna do any good I have to come to him and be real
Ryan: yeah he already knows our hearts so what we're really being is dishonest with ourselves whenever we try to hide from the one who knows all secrets and so the more we are honest about our sin you know 1st John chapter 1 be honest about those things but also honest about our pain and lament and pray for God to act mourn before him I heard somebody say to cry is human to lament is Christian we come into the world crying shedding tears nobody had to teach you to cry but we do need to learn godly lament how to come before God so many things happen in the life of the church in the life of Christians that are tragic and if we just always put a happy face on these things then you know we aren't dealing in a healthy way but also in a holy way with these things this is what God teaches us is to be honest with him and to plead for justice and repentance you know let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven I think that is a a balm to our soul to ask those things for of God and trust him
Bryan: and really I guess that is the idea of entrusting vengeance to God understanding that my role is goodness my role is love and Mercy to people around me today even to my enemies but understanding God's role in our life through prayer is Huge I think in in how we view his role in these kinds of moments of difficulty that we go through
Ryan: I love what you said about seeking their good like praying the goodness will come into their life we are we are blessing bringers as the priests of God here but whenever someone repents it is easy to forgive and reconcile whenever they have sinned against you whenever they're do they've done something evil against you or someone else and then you go and you do the work and you talk to them and they repent and then you're together with them again whenever I shouldn't say it's easy it's not easy but it is much more reasonable but whenever someone refuses to repent and they persist you know someone who has been an abuser someone who has brought trauma someone who has done awful things and now you are having to do this work of seeking the blessing on them forgiving them and you know not holding bitterness in your heart against them it really is helpful to have these kinds of psalms to pray for God to do his work look I forgive them I want their good in the end but I know you're going to do right with them and if they continue in this you know I don't have to hold on to how wrong it is that they're getting away with it and life is so great for them you know tempted and tried we're off made to wonder but I can know whether it's now whether it's later you're going to handle it and then I can respond with goodness like David with Saul like Jesus in suffering you know David says the Lord will judge between you and me and
Back to Jesus
Ryan: so he can he can do good
Bryan: Okay, so we started this whole conversation kind of talking about Jesus and his Statements in passages like Luke 7 where he's telling us to love our enemies and these kinds of things Maybe it'd be helpful as a as sort of a wrap-up to this conversation to start getting back to Jesus here and seeing how he Viewed the this kind of language and you know when we're talking about God dealing with people Justly and you get to a passage of course like first Peter 2 verse 23 when he was reviled He did not revile in return when he suffered he did not threaten but continued Entrusting himself to him who judges justly and I think that's kind of what we've been saying here in this section We were just talking about it covering how we're entrusting God to to avenge us, right?
And of course the last thing that Jesus could have done or should have done on the cross Was made it about him and that's not my natural way of reacting if I was in Jesus position I absolutely would have made it about me But he he was not calling on God to you know, strike these people down In fact, he was doing the exact opposite forgive them But they don't know what they're doing and I feel like all of the work that Jesus could have done Could have been thrown out the window if he acted poorly in that case But it's not to say that that Jesus wasn't about God's vengeance or about his justice because that's what he was trusting God to do So again, I think even Jesus understood the division of labor in that case Like his role was to be good and to be the perfect sinless lamb of God on the cross and and God's role was to Do the justice side of
Ryan: and Those two sides of God are very important and on full display in Acts like this of Jesus how he trusted God and also I think in these psalms that we've been talking about I've I've been encouraged by this conversation.
Bryan: Just you know, it's it does not sound like on the surface We should have been but I do feel like I can walk away from this really understanding how you know God brings us joy in the fact that he promises to avenge us and protect us and also that's a fearful thing if we don't Follow him,
Ryan: the heart of this conversation we haven't really talked much about defining blessing and cursing but at the heart of it is God brings inherently brings blessing on us evil is an absence of God and his goodness God didn't create evil he is not present in evil his goodness isn't there and cursing is not God just like bringing down something it's God removing his protection his blessing his life all the goodness that he in the beginning poured into this world is from him it's his blessing all of the things that Jesus brings us by bringing the curse on himself and letting the blessing flow forth to those who would trust in his salvation that comes as as an outpouring of his goodness and it only comes when we turn to him otherwise we have brought the curse on ourselves so it's a very complicated subject and I appreciate you walking through this challenging issue with me I do think that we need more prayers of lament and even carefully worded, thoughtfully prayed prayers of imprecation in the church where we can pray through, not to, the imprecation asking God to thwart evil all over the world
Bryan: think that's well said. All right, and you talked about this being challenging.
The Challenge
Bryan: Let's get into our closing challenge
So maybe it would be helpful for us to pray Psalm 83 or any of the other Psalms of curse or lament take some time to work through this on your own with your own griefs your own pain bringing those things before God and then observe how easy it is and how important it really is to pivot to Praising God through all of this.
I think that's helpful for us, especially in difficult times I mean we definitely live in a world right now that goes through some stuff that people are dealing with things at a National level at a worldwide global level, you know But even kind of on our own day to day stuff that we're going through we can always Lean into these things like you were just talking about praying these Psalms of curse or lament like from Psalm 83
Ryan: before we recorded I brought up some things in the news before we recorded this and how people are dealing with anger and feeling of enmity and sadness and you said couldn't that be any time
in our lives and that's so true we're just constantly seeing that flame fanned and I would say before you go on social media and rant, go to God in prayer and pray through your anger, your sadness, work through it so that whenever you do show up in the world you can have the kind of spirit of somebody who is bringing these things before God and working through them
Bryan: if that was your hot take for the episode I think that was fairly mild before you go on Facebook, maybe dot
dot [
Ryan: [laughter]
Bryan: All
right.
Ryan: psalms yeah, I
Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
Bryan: I'm really appreciating Here how we see that God has both sides of the the issue covered and I think that just really helps me to Accept that God is a God who will punish others for their for their sins and for the things that they've done against us as as Believers and and of course I have a certain fear about that if I were to ever turn on the Lord I mean that's something I need to remember but also the the comfort that it gives me the how it frees me up to just Worry about my stuff today and to worry and not you know Not be overly concerned with having to make sure that that person gets their comeuppance someday or whatever God's got that in his hands and he'll take care of it.
Ryan: part of being human is to have sadness, to have frustration, to even work through from something we could resent or want to avenge and go down into the valley and keep praying to the other side where we've worked through it to give it to God and there we find that joy that is abiding through all of the difficulties because we know who Jesus is, because we know who God is right?
And we keep turning to him in trust and confidence and not you know, hiding these parts of ourselves in the corner.
Bryan: I mean he already sees it He sees it right there on full display and it what does it say to God when we're unwilling to talk about these things? In our prayers to him like why why don't we trust him with these kinds of thoughts? It's a good question that maybe we should tackle more than we do. So Thanks everybody. This episode has been all
Curses and laments and what they have to do with us as Christians on the next episode We are going to talk about the Bible and how we got the Bible and all of the human hands that have been on The Bible will not all of them.
We're gonna cover a few of the hands We're gonna talk about scribes on the next episode scribes get thrown under the bus quite a lot in our conversations in Christian circles We're gonna talk about all the good work that these scribes had done in Protecting what we now have as this great book that we love so much.
Thanks everyone for tuning in This has been the Bible geeks podcast. You can find us on our website at Bible geeks dot FM You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast player or there on our website as well get in touch with us We would absolutely love it If you'd reach out and let us know what you want to hear about on an upcoming episode What brings you joy in your life that you want to hear us talk about?
We'd love to do that. And if you're in the in the mood to read some stuff, we've got a blog You can go check out that as well on our website and until the next episode everyone May the Lord bless you and keep you.