Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - From Cursing to Confession | The Writings | Psalm 109

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

What's an imprecatory psalm? Are you honest about your own sin? Are you living a surrendered life? In today's episode, Tanya shares how Psalm 109 encourages us to let our anger lead us to the feet of Jesus. Prepare your heart this Advent with the 2024 TMBT Advent Calendar! Each day, receive a new prompt for Scripture, prayer, and reflection—designed to help you slow down and reflect on the Hope, Love, Peace, and Joy that Jesus offers. Sign up now to receive your free Advent calendar! Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 109

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. What do we do with our outrage? Psalm 109 is called an imprecatory Psalm. And in case you aren't familiar with that word, I looked it up. And it means the act of calling down a curse that invokes evil on someone else. And you'll love the example Wikipedia used. May your bed be full of fleas. But the word origin is Latin and the root of imprecatory means to pray. So it's not. just wishing them a bed full of fleas, but actually praying for it, praying that something evil would happen to someone. It may surprise us that there's a place in the Bible for someone to pray for a curse on someone else. But let's ask ourselves, why are we surprised? We live in an outraged culture. We see these kinds of things going on all the time. We see Christians barraged for believing in creation, for surrendering to God's laws for speaking up when people are hurt by sin and corruption. And it feels like there are only two very black and white choices

to be outraged and shot back or repressed and silently simmer. You've probably got your own recent example you can think of where this happened to someone you know, or maybe even you. See, today, when Christians have an opportunity to have one foot in the public arena, there often comes a time when their position or platform gives them an opportunity. And if what they do or say glorifies God but does not glorify popular opinion, they may get attacked. not by swords and weapons like David necessarily, but tweets and repost and mobs of people who lack the full story but want to see them canceled and humiliated. So the imprecatory Psalms shouldn't surprise us, but they do. They surprise us because it's another option. It's someone like David and Psalm 109

going to God with his outrage. David begins Psalm 109 with an all too familiar frustration. He is the king of the people, and while he's using his position and his voice, to praise God's name. Other people that he had done a lot for were actually using their mouths to slander God, and they were recruiting mods for an attack against him. And the goal seemed to be to just wipe out David completely and destroy his witness for the Lord. And so David's just honest here about the impact that this has on him physically and mentally. He's physically weak with exhaustion. But he's also outraged. And he wants retribution and justice for the people that have caused him to feel this way. Okay, let's just consider for a moment who David is. He's a king. He's in a position of power and

authority. So he could call in the troops. He could have people sent to prison. I mean, other kings in the Bible had baby boys thrown into the Nile. They had heads on platters because their wives wanted them. Why should David be different? What makes his request different? Well, there are two things that David understands that can help us live in a world that makes us feel like outsiders without being judgmental or outraged. Number one, David realizes he is a king, but not the king. And number two, David realizes we're all on the same playing field. So David begins his psalm, be not silent, oh God of my praise. David understands that where our head turns, our heart turns also, where we're orienting our mind is where we're orienting our life. So by calling on the

name of the Lord, David demonstrates his conviction that when the kingdom of God is attacked, we need the king himself to help us address the situation. I mean, let's be honest, what do you want to do when you're attacked or when your ideas are under attack? Do you want the people doing it to be embarrassed? Do you want to see them fall? Do you want to see them fail? Do you want them to have a public moment of reckoning? Do you wish for a moment of clarity? Well, they'll tell you that you are right after all. Let me ask it even harder question. Do you wish any of those things would happen to you? Because if we want that for someone else, we have to realize we deserve them also.

The playing field is even. Paul explains this in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. It says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

See, Paul levels the field. The words that describe all of us are death, children of wrath. The activities that define all of us are following the prints of the world with our bodies and our minds, doing whatever we want without regard. So here we go. Did you do anything to get yourself out of that playing field? can you do anything to get yourself out of that playing field? You might say yes. I started going to church. I began a Bible reading plan. I am in a small group. I am not nearly as bad as someone else.

But what would Paul say? See, he follows that right up. Verse four of Ephesion 6. He says, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us a lot. live together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. So, when to be honored and at the right hand of the true king, We have to quit making ourselves look good before ourselves and before others and be honest about our sin.

Our lack of ability to solve it and our need for a savior. And then Paul says, then you'll be transformed from dead to alive, from a child of wrath to a child at the right hand of the king. So if a father with adult children says, I don't know what's wrong with them. They didn't go to church this week. They don't go to church every week.

sigh, I just don't know what's wrong. If that father says this, maybe because he's embarrassed or disappointed, and doesn't also tell God every week or every day, I just don't know what's wrong with me. I do the things I don't want to do. I have a critical tongue. I'm quick to judge. Then the father doesn't understand that we are all on the same playing field.

It's that understanding that makes God's grace so utterly magnificent, his grace so overwhelming. we truly don't give what we deserve. When we understand this, we can see how David's response to his enemies was revolutionary. If he wanted to, he could satisfy his anger, but instead, he turned the responsibility of dealing with the people entirely over to God and God's power and prayer. He asked God to turn the tables on his enemies, so the world would see that the Lord is the true and living God.

Psalm 109 foreshadows the better king that will come almost a thousand years later. King Jesus would suffer even more than David, but would entrust his life into God's will completely. Jesus showed us that the surrender life has no conflict between justice and love, because the cross stands between them both. Jesus took on our punishment. Jesus did it out of love. We can turn back to the final verses in Psalm 109 to practice how to articulate our thoughts and words in the surrendered life. David wrote, with my mouth I will give great things to the Lord. I will praise him in the midst of the throng, for he stands at the right hand of the needy one, that's us, to save him from those who condemn his soul to death. So what can you do with your mouth when you're outraged? You can use it to talk about your need for God.

You can use it to thank God, to praise God. Will you just meditate on those thoughts throughout the day. How are you needy before God? How are you thankful before God? Let those be the words that are quick on our tongues. Dear God, please be nearest today. Let us remember our needs have been solved in Christ and remind us to bring our needs and our thanks before you always. Amen.