Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 58 | Date: September 1, 2024 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Psalm 58: Evil in High Places

Psalm 58. Psalm 58, we continue our expositions through the Psalms. Psalm 58 deals with the subject of evil in high places. We may learn from it how we can pray in light of that. This is a mictam of David, the superscript tells us. I’ll begin with verse 1.

“Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of men uprightly? No, in your hearts you devise wrongs. Your hands deal out violence on earth. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter. O God, break the teeth in their mouths. Tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord. Let them vanish like water that runs away. When he aims his arrows, let them be blunted. Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun. Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away. The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. Mankind will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

Then the postscript to the choirmaster with evidently a tune title, “Do Not Destroy.” Let’s bow together for prayer.

Our Father, we come to one of these imprecatory psalms, the psalms that call for judgment on your enemies. It is, for us, in our day of sensitivities, very awkward. It strikes us as something that maybe we should be embarrassed about. We pray that you’ll give us a right understanding of it and help us to shape our thinking and our hearts and our affections according to what we learn from your word. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Among the marks of our age increasingly, it is the fact of an advancing injustice. That’s the theme of a song, and I want to give you just a few observations that bring this into our own context. Political parties advance their cause by lies and deliberate deceit. Corrupt lawmakers are routinely influenced by money rather than law. Judges rule directly against the Constitution and impose their own ideals on citizens. A woman sleeps her way to the top and everyone knows it, and she becomes vice president, possibly president. Meanwhile, a mother who protests at an abortion clinic gets a three-year prison sentence. Free speech is stifled on public platforms. Exposing accepted but false narratives is not allowed. Criminals are allowed more rights than their victims. A man finds himself in prison because he shot an armed burglar breaking into his house. A family leaves for vacation, returns to find squatters in their home, and they have no recourse because squatters have rights.

At work, a man more qualified for promotion is overlooked. Position is given to a trans person because the employer knows he’ll have legal trouble if he overlooks the trans. In medical clinics, helpless babies are torn painfully from their mother’s womb without legal defense. Meanwhile, a man outside is arrested for praying. And more recently, an 89-year-old woman sentenced to 10 years for talking to girls on their way in. Progressive idealists are crazed by the latest fads. They take advantage of gullible children and impose their ideals on them, and they sterilize, even mutilate young bodies, children, and destroy any possibility of a normal life for them. In the public arena, a businessman dares to speak in honor of marriage. His business is canceled. A Christian man refuses to decorate a cake celebrating gay marriage. He finds himself in court. The righteous in the public square are slandered as troublemakers. They’re misrepresented, falsely accused, and sometimes hauled into court.

Well, that’s just some sampling of what you see in the news every day, that injustice and evil are increasingly shaping our culture. It’s just a mark of our age. We feel like this is something new, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” kind of thing. America has been blessed with a Christian heritage. Our founding documents uphold a clear sense of right and wrong in very important ways. But this matter of an increasing opposition to righteousness and the increasing advance of evil is really nothing new at all. It is as old as the garden. This is Satan against humanity; this is Genesis 3, this is Genesis 4, Cain against Abel, the wicked against the righteous. This is Ephesians chapter 2, the world walking in lockstep with Satan, or 1 John, the world lies in the lap of Satan. This is Revelation chapter 12, Satan, the dragon, chasing the church into the wilderness and bringing it under persecution. It’s the seed of the serpent against the woman, and the serpent is always on the advance. And that’s the atmosphere of Psalm 58.

You see it right at the beginning, verse 1. “Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of men uprightly?” And we have it, our translation, the ESV has it translated, “you gods.” The NIV smooths it out with “you rulers,” or Christian Standard Bible, “you mighty ones,” translates it that way. The following verses, obviously, reveal it is human judges who are clearly in view, and so they’re called gods here, probably because they’re the authority that they’re supposedly representing and administering. Perhaps because it’s a larger perspective in view, we find some of that in scripture, like in Daniel chapter 10, where we have the angels of Greece and the angels of Persia, and so on, striving with one another, and supernatural powers, and so on. Paul refers to that in Ephesians, the principalities and powers, but perhaps that’s what’s in view. That is probably what is in view in Psalm 82, where judges are referred to again as gods, and Jesus quotes that in John chapter 10. But here we have those in authority mishandling their position and administering evil instead of justice, as they’re called to do. And so we have injustice on the part of the authorities.

Now that raises a question. And that is, what’s the setting of this psalm? There’s no historical setting stated in the superscript that we have in, I think it’s 14 other of the psalms, a historical setting. We don’t have that here. We have it told us only that it’s a psalm of David. You’ll find that in Psalm 58 through 65 here. These are Psalms of David. This is book two of the Psalter. They are not all Davidic Psalms, but here’s a cluster of them here, Psalms 58 to 65. But that raises a problem of its own, because if this is a Psalm of David and he is decrying evil in high places on the part of those who are in authority, that certainly does not reflect or seem to reflect anything during his reign. He survived attempted coups and all kinds of things like that, but this matter of injustice on a wide scale on the part of authorities doesn’t sound like David’s reign.

In the surrounding Psalms, we find David under attack from King Saul. So this is earlier in David’s life. We find that in the superscripts for Psalm 57, and again for Psalm 59. Earlier as well, Psalm 52 and 54, these are references to situations and circumstances that David endured while he was on the run from King Saul. And so Psalm 58 is probably best understood in that kind of a context. That’s probably why the editors of the Psalter placed it where they did. In the postscript we have here, “to the choirmaster, according to Do Not Destroy.” That’s the postscript for Psalm 56, for Psalm 57, as well as Psalm 58. Presumably it’s a song, a tune of some kind, a genre of songs perhaps, and it seems to be a plea to God not to destroy his people, not allow them to be destroyed.

Overview Of The Psalm

By way of overview in the psalm, we have here a lament petition psalm, where David is lamenting the circumstances he is in. And at the heart of lament psalms are the petitions that David will make. And so we call them lament petition psalms. In verses one to five, the lament takes the form of a prophetic indictment against these wicked tyrants that David is decrying. Verses six to eight, we have the direct address to God that is typical of the Lament Psalms, and we have his petition. And here we come to the—to use the common word to characterize these psalms—the imprecation.

An imprecation is a call for a curse on people. This technically is not an imprecation, but that’s the class of Psalms. That’s the word that’s used to describe it. But he’s not calling for a curse. He’s calling for judgment. He’s calling for vengeance on the people who have opposed the people of God. And this then, verses 6 to 8, is that heart of the psalm where he calls on God to effect justice in light of the evil of those in authority. And then we come to verses 9 to 11. We have the typical section of the Lament Psalms, and that is the section of confidence plus praise, or trust plus praise. And here he anticipates the time when the righteous will celebrate God’s final vindication and triumph.

So that’s my way of overview. Let’s work our way through it quickly, and then I want to go back through it and make some observations from what we’ve learned.

Indictment On The Wicked Rulers

Verses 1 to 5, we have the indictment on the wicked rulers. Verses 1 and 2: “Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of men uprightly? No, in your hearts you devise wrongs, your hands deal out violence on earth.” So these people are inwardly corrupt, they have no concern for the well-being of others, they promote evil, they promote violence, and they don’t care what effects it has on those under their rule.

So verse 3, he says, their evil is inbred. “The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth, speaking lies.” These people are evil from the very beginning. From their very birth, they’re depraved. That’s verse 3.

Verse 4 and 5, they’re like snakes. “They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder [or a cobra] that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or the cunning enchanter.” So they’re settled. They’re determined in their evil. They won’t listen. You try to reason, you try to plead with them, they won’t hear it. They will not be told otherwise; they’re intractable, and they refuse to listen to anyone. They’re set in their evil ways and don’t get in the way. So it’s implied then, in verses four and five, there’s no remedy. The only solution that’s left is for them to be destroyed.

The Petition For Judgment

And that brings us to verses six to eight, where we have the petition. And here he calls on God to judge these evil rulers. Verse 6 is actually the center line of the psalm. It’s a pivotal line. Verses 1 to 5, we have the lament. And then verses 7 through 11, we have the hope that’s expressed of what God will give. And right between them is the pivot; he calls on God for vengeance to destroy the wicked. He portrays them now not as snakes, but in verse 6, he portrays them as lions who seek to tear apart their prey. “Oh God, break the teeth in their mouths. Tear out the fangs of the young lions, oh Lord.” So he calls on God to neutralize them. They’re lions, but give them no bite. Take out their teeth.

Verse 7 takes a step further. He’s saying not just neutralize them, but destroy them altogether. “Let them vanish like water that runs away” so they evaporate like water poured on a desert sand. Let them just evaporate. “When he aims his arrows, let them be blunted.” So make their arrows of no effect. Whatever their attack, neutralize it.

Verse 8: “Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime.” Probably the reference here is that trail of slime that a snail will leave behind and it just dissolves in the sun. “Like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.” That is the idea. So destroy them. So destroy these people that all that they have done will be gone. It’ll be as though they never lived at all.

Confidence And Praise

Well, there’s his petition. We come then to verses 9 to 11. We have the confidence section, or the trust, and his expression of praise. Verse 9, “sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away.” The Hebrew here in the original is uncertain. It’s notoriously difficult to translate. You’ll see some various translations in the marginal notes of your ESV, the NIV, if you have that. Translations differ. But the obvious meaning of it, the bottom line is obvious enough, and that is he’s speaking of the swift destruction of the wicked. It’s like weeds in a pot or thorns in a pot; you light it up and they’re gone. It won’t take long at all. Sweep them away, or as he says at the end of verse 9, sweep them away like in a storm. Blow them away.

So the idea here is the swift destruction of the wicked. This is a major theme of the scriptures. Old Testament and New Testament were cautioned about this at the very outset of the Psalter. You remember in Psalm 1, the way of the wicked will perish. Remember the caution in Psalm 2: “Kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.” This is a major theme in the Bible: God’s swift destruction of the wicked. In the day of the Lord, you’ve had your day. The wicked have had their day. But in God’s day, he will step on center stage. He’ll take over and everyone will know it is his day. And when he moves, he moves in judgment. And it will be nothing. And those who oppose him will be brought to nothing.

Let me give you some examples of that. Isaiah chapter 63. We have a messianic prophecy here. The time of the coming of God in judgment. Messiah is portrayed as judging the nations. Isaiah 63, beginning with verse 1: “Who is this who comes from Edom in crimson garments from Bozrah? He who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength. It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red, and your garments like his who treads in the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me. I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered on my garments and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help. I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold. So my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in my anger. I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

Lest you think this is just Old Testament stuff, let’s just take an example from 2 Thessalonians 1. God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted, as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord.

So his confidence is that God will in fact move in judgment and in the end he will be vindicated, destroying the wicked. And verses 10 and 11 then, when he at last executes that judgment, it will result in praise. Verse 10, “the righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.” Now that last part of verse 10 has got to be troubling for some. He’ll bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. It’s a traditional ancient Near Eastern metaphor for victory, utter defeat of the enemy. They’re not actually taking a bath in their blood, but it pictures the aftermath of the battle. And as they walk across the battlefield, they step on the blood of their enemies. And the point is that in just vengeance, God will bring the wicked rulers to an end in justice.

Verse 9, the wicked tyrants will be swept away. They’ll be eliminated forever. So he’s speaking that one day the righteous will rejoice in the final destruction of the wicked, and they’ll rejoice in their own vindication. So as a result, verse 11, “Mankind will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

Comparatively few people say that today. Comparatively few people say, “Oh yeah, there’s a real advantage to being righteous. It pays off to be righteous.” What we hear today is, “Well, what’s the point of that? What’s the point of being righteous? Do it your own way.” The righteous are not seen to be vindicated, and the wicked, in fact, as we have seen in so many of the Psalms, are seen to prosper. But David takes confidence in the fact that a great reversal is coming. The wicked will be destroyed forever, swept away. Never again will there be a challenge to the majesty of God. Never again a challenge to his lordship. They’ll be swept away. And in fact, verse 11 tells us the righteous will rejoice in that destruction; they’ll rejoice to see it, and they’ll rejoice in their own vindication.

So notice now, verses 1 and 11. First, in the last verse of the psalm, the idea of judgment brackets the psalm. Verse 1: “Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of men uprightly?” And then verse 11: “mankind will say, surely there’s a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth.” “Judges” is sort of the catchword that brings verse one and verse 11 together, framing the psalm. The whole idea of verse one and then verse 11 frames the message of the psalm. There’ll be this reversal in judgment. What began the psalm as a lament of unjust judgment in the earth on the part of its evil rulers now is ending the psalm as a word of praise that that judgment will be reversed as we see God acting in judgment on the wicked.

And so here we have the message of the psalm. Verses 1 to 5, we have a display of the wicked in high places. Verse 6, we have the king praying for God to execute judgment. Verses 7 to 10, the wicked are eliminated as a result of that prayer. And then verse 11, the righteous are rewarded and all humanity sees that Israel’s God is a righteous God. And there’s the psalm.

Now, as I said, I want to go back through it with some observations. What can we learn from a psalm like this, one of these imprecatory psalms?

David Laments The Injustice And The Wickedness Of Evil Rulers, But Never For A Moment Does He Doubt God’s Lordship Over It All

Number one, David laments the injustice and the wickedness of evil rulers, but never for a moment does he doubt God’s lordship over it all. In both his lament and in his petition, David assumes that God is Lord over it all, and that therefore God allows this for the time being for some purpose of his own. But never does he doubt that God is in control. It’s the whole ground of his petition. It’s the assumption throughout.

Now David may not know why God allows it for this time. He may not understand what God’s purposes are. We seldom do. But the whole ground of his encouragement is that God rules over all of it. We sing that: “This is my Father’s world. Let us ne’er forget that though the wrong seem oft so strong, he is the ruler yet.” So I began the message by highlighting the evil in high places that we see in our own context. We are right to see that. We’re right to point it out. We’re right to decry it. We’re even right to complain about it. David does that very often in his Psalms, but we are never right to despair as though God has lost his grip. David laments, but he’s not in a panic.

What we see today is not the whole picture. As we see manifestly evil people promoting manifestly evil causes, we must remember this is not the whole picture. Another day is coming. This is only for now. God is amazingly patient, and we must be patient as well. For purposes of his own, he’s allowing it for now, but God has not lost his grip. Even in a culture in which evil is advancing, as ours is, at breakneck speed, God is the ruler yet. And so David is not in a panic. That’s first.

The Propriety Of The Imprecatory Psalms

Second observation here, and that has to do with the propriety of the imprecatory psalms. Is it proper to pray a psalm like this? Something about all of this makes us feel a little squeamish when we read through a passage like this. Wading in their blood. God bringing such total, total destruction against his enemies.

Well, we spent some time, some time back, and we took time to look at the imprecatory Psalms. There’s much to say about that, but just a couple of things here to bring back to mind. One important consideration to keep in mind here is that David, when he prays this, is not speaking in mere self-interest. David is not speaking in mere self-interest. His enemies, in fact, are God’s enemies. Their success against David would be their success against God and against his kingdom on earth. And David’s sympathies are with God.

David has sided with God. He seeks God’s honor. He has sided with God and so wants to see the advance of his kingdom. And if these wicked rulers continue in their attack and they succeed in their attack on God, that will reflect poorly on God. Isn’t it important that these people be punished? Isn’t it important that they be stopped and that they be destroyed? God’s honor is at stake. God’s kingdom is at stake. God’s reputation is at stake. David is seeking God’s honor in these. If they continue unchecked in their assault on righteousness, we are going to be left with questions: Does God actually rule? And if he does, is he righteous? And will righteousness ever prevail?

So David is zealous to see God vindicated. And that’s verse 11. When God finally acts in judgment, mankind will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth.” In the day of judgment, God will be vindicated. In a day of judgment, God will be honored. Jesus picks up this theme and personalizes it. You remember in John chapter 5: The Father judges no one. He’s committed all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son as they honor the Father. That is to say, at last, in judgment, the Lord Jesus will be given the honor that he deserves. Mankind will say, verse 11, “Surely there’s a God who judges on earth.” Final judgment is not an embarrassing teaching of the scriptures. It is a necessary one, and it is a good one. God will not be ashamed in judgment. He will glorify himself in the judgment of evil.

Now, I want to take just a moment here and digress just a little bit and take on a related idea that I am sure all of you have heard, and that is the supposed distinction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. And it’s portrayed as though the God of the Old Testament is mean and cruel and full of judgment, while the God of the New Testament is kinder and gentler, and he’s a God of love. God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament. Every time I hear that, I shake my head. The first thing that comes to mind is just the sheer ignorance of the person bringing up the objection. You know in a moment the person has not read his New Testament. It just never ceases to amaze me how people who have never read the New Testament or taken it seriously at any length can speak with such authority and make pronouncements like that.

But let me give you a sampling of what the New Testament has to say in this regard of God’s judgment. Revelation 14 verses 19 and 20: “So the angel swung his sickle across” (this is apocalyptic imagery) “the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, four feet high and for two hundred miles.” Kinder, gentler.

Or if you like, Revelation 19, verses 15 and following. This is depicting the scene of the return of Christ. “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.” Then angels with a loud voice called to the birds, “Come gather for the great supper of God to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their rulers, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.” And you remember the scene. Christ comes in his glory, in his triumph. All of his enemies are destroyed. And there are these two feasts. You have the marriage supper of the lamb, and then you have this bird feast. The birds come and feast on the flesh of all of God’s enemies.

And if that’s not enough for you from the book of Revelation, think of Jesus himself. Some of the worst, most awful, graphic depictions of the final judgment that we have are from the lips of the Lord Jesus himself. “It’d be better for a millstone to be tied around your neck and thrown in the ocean than to hurt one of my little ones.” “Oh, but woe to you, Bethsaida, Chorazin. It’ll be better off for Sodom and Gomorrah in judgment than it will be for you.” I think of his descriptions of hell. Full of pain and torment and fire. The worm doesn’t die. It’s perpetual. It’s ongoing forever. Perishing in pain and in torment in the lake of fire made for the devil and his angels.

Divine vengeance being meted out is not just an Old Testament theme. It is a New Testament theme entirely. And what we find in the New Testament is not simply a kinder, gentler God. What we find, in fact, is that both God’s justice and his love in the New Testament are ratcheted up. He’s more loving than you ever thought, yes, but he’s also more just than you ever imagined. The objection forgets entirely the infinite justice of God that must be satisfied. Biblical writers never shy away from it, never find it embarrassing; they find it essential, and in fact the biblical writers glory in the doctrine that God will honor himself at last in judgment. And all that to say you cannot just dismiss these imprecatory songs.

Rejoicing Of The Righteous In The Destruction Of The Wicked

That brings us to a third observation and that actually is a little more difficult. What do we say about verse 10 in this matter of rejoicing, the rejoicing of the righteous in the destruction of the wicked? Does that seem right? “The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance.” So God moves in vengeance, and he destroys those who have opposed him, and the righteous, in response, cheer. Not only is there a totality of destruction that is the wading in the blood of the enemy’s utter defeat, but there’ll be joy and rejoicing, a satisfaction that God has at last moved in vengeance.

You find that embarrassing? If you find this teaching embarrassing, I have to ask you, whose side are you on? Where are your sympathies? Are you not zealous for God and his honor and his vindication? If God will, in fact, glorify himself in judgment, how could we not rejoice for him in it? We’ve taken sides with God at some point. At some point, we have to take sides against the wicked, and we have to call for their destruction. God is patient. We must be patient, and it’s not ours to execute the judgment. It’s God’s to bring about the judgment. It’s not ours to do that. But in the end, he will be glorified and he will honor himself in the destruction of the wicked. And when he does so, we will rejoice for him in it.

Too long, the world has mocked God and blasphemed his name. For too long, our culture has tried as though they could cancel the Lord Jesus. For too long, they have strutted in their arrogance and assumed autonomy that they can behave as they will without consequence. For too long, that’s gone on. And at some point, the righteous have to say, “God, put an end to it and destroy this evil.”

This rejoicing of the righteous in the destruction of the wicked is vividly portrayed for us in Revelation chapter 19. In fact, let’s take a moment and go there. Look at Revelation chapter 19. In chapter 18 of the book of Revelation, remember again, this is apocalyptic imagery. We have this depiction of the great world city, Babylon, this great city Babylon, and she’s called the mother of harlots. She’s called the great whore. She’s drunk with the blood of the martyrs of the saints. We come to the end of chapter 18 and Babylon is brought to complete destruction. And we come then to chapter 19.

“After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out,” (Oh no! You’ve destroyed the world city Babylon! It’s terrible! No, what we see is this great multitude in heaven crying out), “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just, for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her the blood of his servants. Once more they cried out, Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever. And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God, who was seated on the throne, saying, Amen, Hallelujah. And from the throne came a voice saying, Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, the roar of many waters, like the sound of many peals of thunder crying out, Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns! Let us rejoice and exalt and give Him the glory, for the marriage supper of the Lamb has come.”

So here it is depicted for us. Believe it or not, this is what the righteous will do when judgment finally comes. The demands of God’s justice have called for the destruction of Babylon all along. She’s been warned, she’s been warned, she’s been warned. The righteous have been, in this scene in the book of Revelation, faithful with the word of their testimony. She’s been warned and she’s been warned. And when finally she falls, mark it: God will be right in judgment, and he, not just we, God will be vindicated. And because all of our sympathies are tied to God and his kingdom and his glory and his honor, when finally that judgment comes and he is vindicated, our hearts will swell with joy and we will cheer.

The doctrine of the judgment of the wicked is not an embarrassing thing. It is a good thing, a good teaching and a necessary teaching. And when that judgment comes, it will be a display of God’s righteous wrath. It’ll be a day for rejoicing in God’s people. We have cultural and political leaders who at every turn—we see it on the news every day—at every turn, are seeking to advance sheer evil. They will lie and they’ll cheat to do it without shame. They’ll promote agendas and enact laws that will result only in hurting countless people. They do it without conscience. They mock righteousness. They mock the righteous. As far as they are able, they will seek inventive ways to persecute the righteous, to prosecute the righteous in court as they can, without any kind of conscience at all. They will abuse, imprison, and in any way they can, destroy the lives of the righteous who get in their way.

Yes, yes, yes, we pray that God will intervene in grace and save them. We pray that. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if we could see another King Manasseh converted? But when, as we see here in Psalm 58 verses 4 and 5, these people prove to be intractable, at some point we have to pray for their destruction. And that is what we pray every time we say, “Your kingdom come.” We’re saying, “Lord, I’m sick and tired of hearing people blaspheme your name. I’m sick and tired of seeing this advance of evil. I’m sick and I’m tired of seeing people strut as though they can flout your law without consequence. Your kingdom come, bring your creation kingdom to its great climactic end and let the whole world see that Jesus Christ is Lord. Remove evil. Establish righteousness. Destroy the evil. And bring your kingdom to its full display in the earth.” And Psalm 58 now leaves us with that wonderful prospect: the rule of God asserted and re-established in the earth. It’s the theme of the Psalter. It’s the theme of the whole Bible. It is the hope of every Christian. God will bring his kingdom and his rule to full display at last in the earth.

A Reminder Of Grace

But we can’t end with just that. One more observation. Number four: we have in Psalm 58 a reminder of grace. Now that may strike you as odd. How do we see a reminder of grace in an imprecatory psalm? Really? Follow this with me. Look at verse 3 again of Psalm 58: “The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray from birth, speaking lies.” Who is he talking about there? He’s talking about every child of Adam.

We saw that in Psalm 51. Or David complains in his lament, “I’m a born sinner, from my conception I’ve been a developing sinner.” We saw it in Psalm 14, that not one of us, not one of us has ever bowed before the Lord Jesus Christ just because we’re so naturally inclined. None seek after God. The only reason that you and I are not counted among the wicked of the world who will be judged is because God has amazingly intervened in grace and he has sent us his Son. He has taken the place of sinners. He’s borne the judgment that we deserve in our place. And he has sent his Spirit to repair our hearts and to cause us to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus. And he’s written his law in our hearts and he’s changed our “want to.”

It is not with some sense of superiority that we anticipate the judgment of the wicked. It’s with a sense of surprised wonder that we find ourselves in that day of judgment on God’s side. And finding ourselves on God’s side, what we want more than anything else is to see the Lord Jesus Christ honored. That’s what we want more than anything else. We want to see him honored before the eyes of all; to see Jesus honored in salvation and in judgment.

And so we pray. Come, Lord Jesus. Bring your kingdom to full display. Let the whole earth see your glory. Bring every knee to bow before the Lord Jesus. When that day comes, the Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified before everyone. And verse 11, the anticipation of verse 11 will come to pass: “Mankind will say, Surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

Amen. May that day come quickly.