Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 109 | Date: June 29, 2025 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The King Betrayed

Psalm 109: The King Betrayed. The superscript tells us this is a Psalm of David.

“Be not silent, O God of my praise, for wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause. In return for my love, they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer. They reward me for evil, for good, and hatred for my love. Appoint a wicked man against him. Let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him come forth guilty. Let his prayer be counted as sin. May his days be few. May another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit. May the creditor seize all that he has. May strangers plunder the fruits of his toil. Let there be none to extend kindness to him, nor any to pity his fatherless children. May his posterity be cut off. May his name be blotted out in the second generation. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to put them to death. He loved to curse, let curses come upon him. He did not delight in blessing, may it be far from him. He clothed himself with cursing as his coat. May it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones. May it be like a garment that he wraps around him, like a belt that he puts on every day. May this be the reward of my accusers from the Lord, of those who speak evil against my life. But you, O God, my Lord, deal on my behalf for your name’s sake. Because your steadfast love is good, deliver me. For I am poor and needy. My heart is stricken within me. I’m gone like a shadow at evening. I am shaken off like a locust. My knees are weak through fasting. My body has become gaunt with no fat. I’m an object of scorn to my accusers. When they see me, they wag their heads. Help me, O Lord, my God. Save me according to your steadfast love. Let them know that this is your hand. You, O Lord, have done it. Let them curse, but you will bless. They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad. May my accusers be clothed with dishonor. May they be wrapped in their own shame as in a cloak. With my mouth I will give thanks to the Lord. I will praise him in the midst of the throng, for he stands at the right hand of the needy to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.”

Let’s look to the Lord. Our Father, we come to one of these imprecatory psalms which seem jarring to our sensibilities at certain times. We pray that you’ll give us an understanding of it and through it a greater appreciation of Christ and the great kingdom that he has come to inaugurate and will come to bring to consummation. I want us to learn from the example of David, to be faithful under persecution and suffering. Minister your word to the hearts of your people, we pray, in Jesus’ name, amen.

The superscript tells us this is a psalm of David. There’s no other specific information given to us regarding the historical setting. There may be some hints of that a little bit later that we’ll see, but this is a lament psalm. Verse 1 identifies it as a lament. Right off the bat, you have the direct address and the initial appeal to God or petition. “Be not silent, O God of my praise.” When you have the direct address to God at the beginning of the psalm, there’s a tip-off right away. This is a lament psalm. In this psalm, the king now is lamenting, as we’ve read, lamenting a betrayal by someone close to him.

Well, verse one, we have the introductory petition, the direct address to God. Verses 2 through 5, then we have the lament itself. Verses six through 20, we have the petition. And in this case, the petition—because this is what we call an imprecatory psalm—the petition in this case calls for God’s judgment to come on his enemies. David is not cursing his enemies himself; he’s calling on God to bring judgment against his enemies. Then verses 21 through 29, we have lament and petition again. Petition for his deliverance. And then finally, as we have in most of the lament psalms, it closes in verses 30 and 31 with an expression of confidence in God and a vow to praise God for his salvation and the deliverance that he will bring.

Introductory Petition

All right, let’s work our way through. We have in verse 1, as I say, the introductory petition. “Be not silent, O God of my praise.” When he says this, “Be not silent,” we have that kind of expression often in the Psalter, in the lament psalms. It implies that he’s been under some kind of opposition, some severe kind of suffering, and it’s evidently been prolonged. He’s been looking to God for help. He’s been crying for help, asking for deliverance. God seems to be silent in the whole thing. And so he asks God, “Don’t be silent any longer.” He petitions God for help. He’s done it evidently over and again, and it seems like God is deaf. So he’s suffering.

The Lament

Verses two through five then pick up on that, and he expresses his lament, and he describes his circumstances here. And the circumstances that we’ll find here in these verses is that of unjust opposition. Verse two: “For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues. They encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause. In return for my love, they accuse me, but I give myself to prayer. So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love.”

So the opposition evidently is one of slander. We see that in verse two; it’s wicked and deceitful mouths. They’re untrue, but they’re expressed, undermining him in some way, slandering the king, seeking to hurt him. At the end of verse two, they speak against me with lying tongues. They’re lying against me, they’re making up stuff trying to undermine me and to hurt my standing with the people. Verse 3, it’s just pure maliciousness. They encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause. And then verse 4, it’s entirely undeserved, he says. “In return for my love, they accuse me.” Verse 5, “They reward me evil for good and hatred for my love.”

Now, David doesn’t identify for us exactly the circumstances specifically involved behind this psalm. There are a number of potential guesses that we could have from the life of David. We have in 1st Samuel 21, Doeg, and we have in other places in 2nd Samuel, Ahithophel, Shimei, others. I tend to think there might be some connection here to what we found in Psalm 4 some time ago where members of David’s cabinet were opposing him and undermining him in a serious time of drought. You might remember that. And so they’ve come against him in seeking to take advantage of the situation for their own standing. We find that here in this psalm as well. We’ll see that these people undermining him are people of high standing in the kingdom. Perhaps then there’s a connection to Psalm 4. Maybe this is just another such occasion.

But they’re undermining him. They’re seeking to discredit him. And this is just the kind of thing that God tells us in Proverbs chapter 6 that he hates. He hates those who spread discord among the brethren. James chapter 2, James chapter 4, other places. This is the kind of sin God hates. It’s the kind of sin he condemns. Here in particular, though, this is not just any kind of slander against anyone. This is a slander against the king himself, opposing the Lord’s anointed, the one who belongs to God and is his to deal with.

David here insists that the opposition is undeserved. There’s no justification for their actions at all. Verse 2, it’s deceitful mouths. It’s lying tongues. Verse 3, it stems from hate without cause. Verse four, and that is in return for his love. He has loved them. He claims that he has been good to them and treated them with their best interests in mind. And in return, they seek their own interests at his expense. Verse five, “They reward me evil for good and hatred for my love.”

And evidently, although these slanders against the king are unjust and unfounded, evidently, they have proven effective and they have gained the upper hand. And David now has no recourse for himself, no way to undo the damage that’s been done. Only this, verse four, the end of the verse: “I give myself to prayer.” Literally here, the Hebrew is just simply, “I am prayer.” They’ve gained the upper hand. They have slandered me with others. They’ve undermined my standing with others. People have lost confidence in me because of what they have said. I have no way to oppose it anymore. All I have is God. And so I pray. And that prayer is this psalm. So verses two to five then, he expresses his lament and he lays out his case. This is entirely undeserved.

The Petition

Now then, beginning with verse six, we have the corresponding petition. You’ll remember that in a lament psalm, the petition is the heart of the psalm. He’s not writing his psalm or praying just to complain. He’s expressing his lament, his complaint, but with a point, and the point is to ask God for his help and for his deliverance. And so he’s calling now, beginning with verse six, he’s calling for divine intervention, and in this case, judgment. Verse six, “Appoint a wicked man against him. Let an accuser stand at his right hand.”

I’m not sure how much significance there is to it. The “accuser” here, Hebrew word satan, often in the—it’ll become especially later—it’ll become a personal name for Satan. We’ll see if there’s some significance to that later on. But he has an accuser. He has an accuser against him. Now notice here that we get to verse 6, the focus has shifted in his complaint to the ringleader. In verses two through four, he speaks in the plural. Wicked and deceitful mouths, lying tongues. Verse three, they encircle me with words of hate. Verse four, in return for my love, they accuse me. Verse five, they reward me evil for good. But now we get to verse six, and it’s “him.” Just who this “him” is, we are not told, and we’ll see if there’s some significance to that a little bit later.

So in verses six to seven, then, he’s calling for what we would call poetic justice. Verse six, “Appoint a wicked man against him. Let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him come forth guilty. Let his prayer be counted as sin.” So this man accusing me is wicked. So Lord, bring a wicked accuser against him. He has proven effective in his accusations against me. So bring a wicked man to accuse him and let those accusations be effective against him. I have been found guilty in the eyes of others because of his slander, so bring someone along to accuse him and let him be found guilty. This is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth applied.

Verse 8, he calls for a judicial death sentence. “May his days be few. May another take his office.” That expression, “his office,” evidently he’s someone of high status. In order to have this kind of influence in undermining the king, he must be someone of high standing in the kingdom. He’s in a place of leadership of some kind and a place of influence. So may his days be few and may someone else take his position in the kingdom.

Verses nine to 15, he includes his entire family in the prayer as well. Verse nine, “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit. May the creditor seize all that he has. May strangers plunder the fruits of his toil.” So evidently the accuser, on the one hand, the accuser has been seeking to enrich himself and advance his standing in the kingdom by undermining the king. And then also, evidently, the family is complicit in his efforts as well, and he’s praying so that God will make it such that they are unable to carry out their treachery after him. So put him aside, be done with him, be done with the family as well.

We get to verse 16, he lays out the ground for his plea for judgment. And again, it assumes that David’s accuser was in a position of influence. He used his position only for his own corrupt purposes and that at the expense of others. So verse 16, “He did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to put them to death.” So David’s call for judgment against this false accuser is grounded in justice. May it be done to him as he has done to others, and as he has done to me. Verse 17, “He loved to curse, let curses come upon him. He did not delight in blessing, now may that blessing be far from him.”

He continues, verses 21 and following, in his petition for deliverance, but he also mixes it with more lament, in verses 21 and following. Notice the expression at the beginning of verse 21, “But you.” You often see that in the lament psalms. Here he’s turned his attention away from his own plight and he turns his attention to God, and that “but you” is often the turning point in these psalms. Now he’s directing his attention upwards and notice the ground of his petition. “But you, O God my Lord, Yahweh my master, deal on my behalf for your name’s sake. Because your steadfast love is good, deliver me.”

So he’s asking God to help on the ground of who God is. Now behind this, of course, lies the promises that God has made to David specifically. God has promised his steadfast love to David. He has promised that David’s son will rule. David, therefore, cannot be overthrown. And David is appealing to God on that basis. Lord, you are a God of steadfast love. Show that to me and act on my behalf. For your name’s sake, your reputation is at stake in this. You’ve made a promise. Keep that promise.

There’s more lament, verse 22. He describes here his own condition after the success of his accusers. He says, verse 22, “For I am poor and needy. My heart is stricken within me. I’m gone like a shadow at evening. I’m shaken off like a locust. My knees are weak through fasting. My body has become gaunt with no fat.” So evidently David has—he said at the beginning, “Don’t be silent, Lord”—implies some prolonged period of suffering. Evidently now it has been a prolonged period of fasting as well. And David now is weak. He expresses it here in poetic imagery, but he’s withering, he’s faint, he’s even shriveled, he feels helpless, he’s at the end of his rope. “I’m poor and needy.”

And yet, verse 25, when his accusers see it, they have no pity. “I’m an object of scorn to my accusers. When they see me,” verse 25, “when they see me, they wag their heads.” He’s an object of ridicule. They mock his dependence on God. “You depend on God? Ha! Where is he now? You’re a big joke.” And so, verse 26, he returns to petition, and he again appeals to God’s gracious character: “Help me, O Lord, my God. Save me according to your steadfast love.”

And in verses 27 through 29, he asks that God would deliver him in such a way that his accusers will know that God has done it—not just some generic kind of making things better. He wants such a dramatic deliverance that his accusers will know that God was at work. Verse 27, “Let them know that this is your hand. You, O Lord, have done it. Let them curse, but you will bless. They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad. May my accusers be clothed with dishonor. May they be wrapped in their own shame as in a cloak.”

So he prays that God will turn the tables on them. That he’ll curse the cursers. And that when they express cursing toward David, those curses will rebound back to them. And they’ll learn that you can’t successfully curse God’s anointed and let it be brought back to them. Show them your steadfast love to me and deliver me in such a way that at the end of it they know you’ve been at work.

Confidence and a Vow to Praise God

And then finally, verses 30 and 31, we have what is a rather typical conclusion to a lament psalm where he returns to an expression of confidence and a vow to praise God after the deliverance has been given. So he looks ahead expecting, anticipating the deliverance to come. And he says, verse 30, “With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord. I will praise him in the midst of the throng.” That’s probably a reference to the thank offering that was given. Often the psalmist would make some vow to the Lord that if he brings deliverance, he’ll go to the congregation at the temple and they’ll have a sacrifice, a thank offering will be given. It’ll be a time of worship and he says, “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to the congregation and I’ll express praise for what you have done for me.” Verse 31, “For he stands at the right hand of the needy one to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.”

Now we should notice that the psalm then is framed. We’ve seen this, how the psalmist often will frame his psalm with a particular theme or particular words. We have that here in Psalm 109. This psalm is framed with praise. Verse 1, David begins his psalm with an affirmation of his continued praise to the Lord. “Be not silent, O God of my praise.” So here at the outset, verse 1, he’s about to give his complaint to God. Already he’s asking God for help, but already he’s expressing his praise, that “you are the God of my praise.” Implicit then is the anticipation that God will hear him. So verse one, he begins the psalm with an affirmation of his continued praise to the Lord. And then verses 30 and 31, he concludes with a more explicit expression of his confidence. “With my mouth, I’ll give thanks to the Lord. I will praise him in the midst of the throng.”

We have also then at verse two, another frame. The mouths of the wicked are opened against David with hate, but in verse 30, David’s mouth is opened wide with grateful praise. And so David frames his psalm with praise.

What Do We Learn From This Psalm?

All right, now, what do we learn from this psalm? After a brief survey of it, what do we learn from the psalm?

Well, one, we learn again what we learned from all of the imprecatory psalms, as they’re called. These seem shocking. It jars our sensibilities to imagine someone praying like this against his enemies. But keep in mind, as we’ve seen before, David himself is not executing any revenge. He’s not even cursing them. He’s calling on God to do it. And keep in mind that David’s call for judgment is grounded in justice. This is Moses’ law. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and here David applies it to himself. These people are evil. They’re persecuting the righteous. It remains true that God is righteous. It remains true that God is not mocked. It remains true, as we saw in Psalm 11, that God hates the wicked. And it remains true that the wages of sin is death. And there are a host of biblical passages that tell us that God will destroy the wicked. And all of that informs David’s thinking as he prays this way. He assumes all of that and he prays God’s judgment on them just as he said he would do.

We should also keep in mind with regard to these imprecatory psalms—this is perhaps the most important observation of it—and that is that to attack David was to attack God. Specific promises were made to David. He is God’s anointed. And to go against God’s anointed is to go against God himself. To go against the king is to go against God’s kingdom in the earth. And David has all this in mind as he prays for the judgment to come against his enemies.

Secondly, and we’ve seen this before as well, we should learn from David’s lament. David’s a model for us in suffering and how to suffer faithfully and even how to complain faithfully. In these lament psalms, David models for us the faithfulness that we ought to show in times of injustice even. He begins and he ends the psalm with praise. He pleads for divine intervention. He pleads even for divine judgment to come. But his plea for judgment is couched in praise. So despite the circumstances, he remains confident in God’s promises. He expresses genuine anticipation that God will do as he has said he would do. And so he couches it all in this context of praise. Martin Luther, the reformer, classified this psalm as a psalm of comfort to God’s people because of the confidence of the king even when he’s being falsely accused. Now this is always the takeaway from these psalms. David, faithful and trusting to the end no matter what. He always has an eye to the future. There’s always, even in his lament and his complaining, his heart and his tongue are tuned to praise. In all of David’s suffering, even in the extreme suffering like we see here, we never see David turning away from God. We always see David running to God with his suffering. And in fact, running to God with praise.

The Prospective Function of the Psalms

And then thirdly, we’ve seen this often in the Psalter as well. We should recall the prospective function of the Psalms. The prospective function of the Psalms. That David foreshadows his greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep in mind, the Lord Jesus Christ sang these lament psalms also. Hebrews tells us that in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears that God heard him. In fact, David himself recognized his psalms in that light, that he wrote his psalms recognizing that his experience and his words anticipate and foreshadow the experience and the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ve seen that often in the Psalter. Probably most famously we saw it in Psalm 22 where David speaks in exaggerated terms about his own suffering and those exaggerated terms are exactly descriptive of Christ’s sufferings on the cross. We see it in Psalm 69 where David was betrayed and he expresses the betrayal of his people in terms of their judgment. And we saw how that anticipates the Lord Jesus as well.

So the question then, is that the case here in Psalm 109? Is this—is David in some way here anticipating and foreshadowing the experience or the words of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, we might expect that that’s the case in one respect, just because of the position of the psalm in the Psalter. Psalm 109, we have the betrayed king. You familiar with Psalm 110, the next one? There we have the king exalted and triumphing over his enemies.

I said earlier that David leaves us in the dark with regard to the identity of his accuser. But can we know who it was? Who was the “him” in verses 6 and following? Verses 6 and 7 calls for a wicked man to accuse him, his false accuser. “Let an accuser, Satan, stand at his right hand.” It might be a little too much to read into that some reference to Judas. Luke chapter 22, we read of Satan filling the heart of Judas as he went out to betray Jesus. That’s a little strained, maybe. Verses nine to 15: David’s false accuser sought, by his false accusations and undermining of David, he sought to enrich himself. Is it too much of a stretch to say, well, Judas sought to enrich himself with the 30 pieces of silver. Is that too much? Is that thin reasoning?

Look at verse 8. “May his days be few, may another take his office.” You remember, after Jesus’ resurrection in Luke chapter 24, the Lord Jesus met with his disciples and taught them how to read the Old Testament and showed them how the Psalms speak of him. In Acts chapter one, after Jesus’ ascension, the apostle Peter is in the upper room with 120 of the disciples. In Acts chapter one, verse 16, he says, “Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus, for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called, in their own language, Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.” And then Acts 1, verse 20: “For it is written in the book of Psalms,” and here he quotes Psalm 69, verse 25, “may his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it.” And—and here he quotes Psalm 109, verse 8—”let another take his office.” And Peter says, “This was written of Judas and fulfilled in him.” And the other who took his office, of course, is Matthias, we read in the following verses in Acts.

So David’s false accuser foreshadows and is a prospective of Judas, who betrayed our Lord. Now if David’s false accuser here represents or foreshadows Judas, then David, the falsely accused, foreshadows and is prospective of Jesus himself. So verse three, “They encircle me with words of hate and attack me without cause.” That’s how Jesus spoke on several occasions, like in John chapter 17, hating me without a cause. Verse 25, “I’m an object of scorn to my accusers. When they see me, they wag their heads.” Well, Matthew picks up on that in Matthew 27. At Jesus’ crucifixion, those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads. “You depended on God. Where is he now? You’re a big joke.” Again, David’s perspective of the Lord Jesus Christ: both were maligned, both were falsely accused, and both suffered as a result in the extreme.

Now you might wonder then, if this is perspective of Judas—the false accuser’s perspective of Judas—if David’s suffering is perspective of Jesus, you might wonder then, what about this imprecatory psalm? What about this call for judgment? Jesus didn’t do that. Well, it’s true, he didn’t. But at the end of the day, who else can pray for this call for divine judgment against the wicked, but Jesus? The Bible is replete with passages that speak of David, David’s greater son, the messianic king coming with judgment against all of God’s enemies. We find it in Psalm 110, if you’ll just look down, perhaps the next page, Psalm 110, verse six. “He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.”

We’ve seen this in plenty of places in the Psalms. We saw it in Psalm 69, where David’s plea for judgment foreshadows the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in his bringing of judgment against God’s enemies. And then you come to the New Testament, it’s only ratcheted up. You’ll find people, of course, obviously, who say very often—with great confidence too—that the Old Testament is full of judgment, the New Testament is love and grace. And you know it immediately, they haven’t read their New Testaments very well, because the New Testament not only picks up on those themes of judgment, but it ratchets it up. He comes in flaming fire, Paul says, he’ll come in flaming fire against the wicked. Book of Revelation pictures it with apocalyptic imagery that is just shocking. Speaks of the Lord Jesus coming in wrath and in judgment and stomping out his enemies until the blood flows 200 miles, four feet high. Plenty of these kinds of passages.

The Lord Jesus returns for his people. For his people, when the Lord Jesus returns, it’ll be a day of glory. It’ll be a day of vindication. It’ll be a day of joy. I love the prospect of 2 Thessalonians chapter one. They’ll marvel at him in his return. You love to just dwell on that? What will it be like when Jesus returns? One thing we’ll do, we’ll sit there and marvel. “There he is.” We’ll see him in his glory and we’ll see him in his vindication and his triumph. And at last, this one whom having not seen, we love, we see.

But for his enemies, it’ll be a day of horror. A day of judgment. And that, of course, brings us to the urgency of the gospel. And so yes, on the one hand, David’s sufferings are paradigmatic. They are representative sampling of the opposition that the righteous have borne ever since Abel. The opposition of the evil and the wicked against the righteous is one of the marks of this age, Jesus tells us. There’s all of that discourse. But ultimately, David’s sufferings are prospective; they’re anticipatory. Prospective, they’re a dress rehearsal of the experience of his greater son, who endured the contradiction of sinners against himself. The words of Peter: he entrusted himself to him who judges righteously.

And in fact, David’s prayers for judgment also are anticipatory. In the last days, not David, David’s greater son will call down divine judgment on his enemies in terms of what we see in the next psalm in verse six. And when he comes, when the Lord Jesus returns in judgment and in wrath against his enemies, settling all the scores, make no mistake about it, for us—for us it will be an occasion of praise. The wicked won’t have the upper hand forever. The Lord Jesus Christ will not forever be the object of ridicule and hostility. His name will not forever be blasphemed. He’ll come and he’ll be in vindication and triumph over his enemies. And when he does, we’ll sing.

We may well hesitate to pray for God’s judgment on the wicked today. I don’t think that’s wrong to do that in every case; I think there’s room for that. But we may hesitate to do that today because who knows? Some wicked opponent of Christ may become the next Saul of Tarsus who’s converted dramatically and come to Christ to serve him. We don’t know those things. Psalm 109 with its call to judgment on the king’s enemies is framed with praise. And it’s followed by Psalm 110 with the promise of the ultimate triumph of David’s greater son over his enemies. And David’s prayer for divine judgment on the opponents and his enemies has to be understood in that context.

When the day comes finally for the enemies of Christ to be destroyed, we will cheer to see them finally silenced. To see their blasphemy stopped. To see the hostility quelled. You see that, by the way, in Revelation. Depicting the return of Christ in Revelation 11, Revelation chapter 19. The Lord Jesus comes in overwhelming power against his enemies. The imagery of Babylon the Great falling. And he comes in profound judgment against all this world kingdom, and it’s become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he brings judgment against them, and you remember what happens? All of the righteous, all of the redeemed, stand over the smoldering ashes of Babylon, and they sing, “Hallelujah,” with loud voice, “Hallelujah,” finally he’s vindicated, and finally the wicked are destroyed.

And if you like, verse 27 here, all the world will know the Lord has done it. This is his hand. There’ll be no question now that God has come in judgment. This is not some generic kind of settling the matter and making it calm. This is God come. When we read Psalm 109 in whole Bible context, it leaves us then with this eager anticipation like so often we’ve seen in the Psalter. It leaves us with this anticipation of the culminating phase of God’s kingdom come in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it leaves us, as so many of the Psalms do, it leaves us praying, “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Bring your kingdom to its consummation. Hasten the day when the world witnesses your vindication and your triumph. Hasten the day when blasphemy against your name is done forever. Hasten the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord.”

It is the hope of the Psalter. It is the hope of the church ever since today. David’s greater son will come and he will bring God’s purposes for creation, he’ll bring God’s purpose for history to a grand culmination. All evil will be eliminated forever. The Lord Jesus Christ will be worshiped and honored and adored as king over all the earth. And we, his people, will be safe and joyful, sharing in his reign and his kingdom forever. This is the prospect of the Psalter. This is our hope today. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, forgive us for getting so caught up in the evil of today and the temporary success of the wicked that we forget this great hope that you have purposed to bring all things to a climactic head in the work of your son. We ask that you’ll encourage our hearts with this prospect, and with that, you’ll keep us faithful until that day. We ask only, Lord, that you would hasten that day. In Christ’s name we ask, amen.