Psalm 5:10
Declare them guilty, O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall. Banish no them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.
So far in the psalm we've seen prayers of lament, request
and worship. All things that are probably quite common in our prayer life, too. But what on earth is this verse? David is praying for the judgement and banishment of his enemies - we probably don't even know what to call that! (I had to look it up. The technical term is 'imprecation' - calling down a curse/judgement on someone). Isn't that a bit, well, judgemental? Who is
David to decide who should be banished from God's presence? Isn't he being just as bloodthirsty as they are? But look
carefully - David isn't asking God to take revenge on these people just because they've attacked David. He's not asking God to take sides in a personal disagreement. These people are God's
enemies. And so he asks for God's righteous judgement to take effect in their lives. Do we care enough about God's
honour to want to see his enemies held to account? Not simply because they make our lives miserable, but because we are loyal to our king and don't want to see rebellion against him go unchallenged.
Actually, we DO pray this, maybe more often than we realise.
Every time we pray the Lord's Prayer, in fact: 'Your kingdom come. Your will be done'. God's righteousness and holiness and majesty require that his enemies should be punished. Opposition to God should be stopped. Rebellion against him should be brought to an end. God wills that it will be. Sometimes that happens in small ways now, when the wicked are brought down by their own schemes, as David prays here. It will certainly happen on the final day of judgement, when all God's enemies will face justice. We should also pray that God would have mercy on them - as he has done on us - and change them from his enemies to his children before it's too late. As we'll see in tomorrow's verse, there is always the hope of salvation. But let's be those who share David's confidence that God always acts justly in judging his enemies. So we can pray along with him: Your
kingdom come. Your will be done.
