From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We're still considering the words which are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Romans in chapter 11, reading from verse 7 to the end of verse 10. "What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway."

Now, we've expanded those words and indicated that there are some four great principles, four great matters of doctrine if you like, or four great lessons taught us here which we must consider. They have a relevance to the argument of the apostle, the particular argument that he is deploying and opening out before us here. But over and above that, they have a very great relevance to the whole state and condition of the church at the present time, as we've already been seeing.

What the apostle is really showing here is what he was setting out to prove at the beginning of this chapter in this first section. That though it was true that the majority of the children of Israel, the Jews, were not in the kingdom of God, were outside the church and rejecting the gospel, that nevertheless, it wasn't a total rejection. Having put his argument before us, he sums it up in the seventh verse by saying, "What then? What's the position?" It is this, that Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. Then he substantiates it all in his customary way by giving these quotations from the scripture.

The first great lesson, therefore, that we are to learn was the importance of seeking the Lord and seeking His salvation in the right way. That's obviously the first lesson. But then immediately we were confronted by a second great lesson, and that was this whole matter of judicial blindness, the thing that's put before us in the eighth verse where he quotes from different passages in Isaiah and, as it were, conflates them into one statement: "God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear."

We spent last Friday evening in examining that and tried to show how what really happens is this: that God never makes anybody a sinner. God never created a sinner. God never created evil or sin, but that He does bring out, or if you like, exaggerate that sinfulness that is innate in all mankind as the result of the fall, as we have already seen in the ninth chapter in the case of Pharaoh.

Now, it has been brought to my attention, and that very rightly, that somebody has raised an interesting query. Doesn't it say in Isaiah 45:7? Don't we read there that God says, "I create evil"? And yet I said with emphasis that God doesn't create evil, never has done, and never can do. Now, I do remember very well when we were doing the ninth chapter in that portion concerning Pharaoh, that I actually quoted that statement then myself. I would assure you all that I haven't forgotten it, but it was very much in my mind. I try not to repeat more than is essential. But if that is a difficulty to anybody, I felt perhaps that I'd better put the thing quite clearly.

When you face a statement like that where we are told God says, "I create evil," look at the statement, Isaiah 45, verse 7: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." I'm reading here from the Authorized Version, and I think you'll find that you've got the same in the Revised Version, but not in all other versions. Now, how do you face a thing like that? Well, the way to do it is what I was doing last Friday night. There are certain things that one can say with respect to God without any hesitation and with complete confidence. It is impossible, I speak reverently, it is impossible for God to create evil. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

As I reminded you last Friday night, He neither can be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man with evil. It is inconceivable because God is God that He should ever have created sin or evil. So how then do we deal with this statement in Isaiah 45:7? Well, the answer is that the word that has been translated here by the word "evil" is a word that is never used in the scriptures to convey the sense of sin or evil. It's unfortunate that the Authorized translators should have put it like this, but I do suggest that the context, as is generally the case, makes the meaning quite plain.

What it means is this: that God creates the evil consequences of sin. In other words, God has so ordained matters that sin leads to evil consequences, and God sees to it that it does lead to those evil consequences. For instance, you put your finger in the fire, and it'll burn, and you'll get pain. God has ordained that. Now, God never ordained that you should put your finger into the fire. That's sin, you see, but He's ordained the consequence.

Now, let me prove this to you beyond any doubt. The same word as is used there in Isaiah 45:7 is used in many other places. In Psalm 141:5, it is translated as "calamity." That's it. "I create calamity." It doesn't mean that there's anything evil in what God does, but God punishes sin by means of calamities. In 1 Samuel 10:19, Psalm 94:13, and Ecclesiastes 7:14, it's translated as "adversity." "I create adversity."

In Nehemiah 2:10, in Proverbs 15:10, Ecclesiastes 2:17, and Jonah 4:6, it's translated "grief." "I create grief." One of the results of sin is grief, and God has ordained that one of the results of sin should always be grief. In Numbers 11:11, it's translated as "affliction." In Ecclesiastes 8:6, it is translated as "misery." In Psalm 41:1, it is translated as "trouble." In Deuteronomy 6:22, it's translated by the word "sore." Ezekiel 14:15 and 21, "something noisome." In Genesis 26:29, "hurt." Numbers 11:15, "wretchedness." It is also translated as harm, ill, and mischief.

Now, those are the meanings of the word. Of course, to the sinner, these are evil things, and that is what Isaiah is saying. What God is saying is He's over all, so that men cannot act independently of Him. When men rebel, as that whole section shows, well, he's going to reap certain evil consequences to himself, and God has ordained that so it's going to be. So the statement still stands that God has not, God cannot create evil or sin. That is the work of the devil and his fallen angels and all who've listened to him. There would have been no evil but for the rebellion of Satan.

Very well, this is an important point, and therefore I've given you those quotations to show you the meaning of the expression. God neither tempteth any man nor can be tempted. He is the Father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. He is of such a pure countenance that He cannot even look upon sin. Indeed, this is all so important because it leads up now and is in a way an essential background to what we are now going to look at, which is the question of the imprecatory Psalms.

Now, here's the third big doctrine that's involved here, and of course it arises inevitably in view of the quotation from Psalm 69 which we have in verses 9 and 10. "And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway." Here is a quotation, as you will have seen from the reading at the beginning, from Psalm 69, especially verses 22 to 28.

Now, this is not the only Psalm which we put into this category of imprecatory Psalms. That means that there is a kind of imprecation or a desire expressed to God that certain evil consequences should come upon certain sinners. See, it's the same idea of evil consequences as the result of sin, and it is the expression of a desire on the part of the Psalmist that this should happen to these people. "Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them," etc.

Now, this is not the only Psalm which goes into that category. There are others. Here are some of them. Psalm 58 is another one. You've got a similar expression in Psalm 58:6. You've got the same kind of expression in Psalm 109, the 10th verse, and you've got it in Psalm 137, verses 8 and 9. Now, I remind you of that because what we are going to say about this Psalm 69 applies in exactly the same way to the others also.

Now, why is it important that we should look at this? It is, and that is the business of teaching, is to call attention to things like this. You shouldn't read a statement like this in the scripture and just pass over it. It's a very striking statement, and it's important we should look at it because this is the sort of thing that creates profound difficulties in the minds of many people. There are many unbelievers who rest practically the whole of their case upon statements like this. But there are many believers also who, while they don't reject it, are unhappy about it and are in trouble with respect to it. The devil uses it in order to shake their confidence and their assurance.

Now, what are the things that are generally said about this statement? Well, these are the things that are said and are said very frequently. I was only reading somebody who very kindly gives me cuttings from newspapers, and there I saw a cutting of what is called a sermon in the Sunday Times recently by a well-known preacher. This was just the whole point of that statement. It was really making fun of this kind of statement and showing how wrong it was and how impossible. This is the sort of thing they say. They say this is nothing but a manifestation of sheer prejudice and passion. This is just a man in a temper. This is just a man who's annoyed. It's simply asking for personal vengeance.

They say somebody's been unkind to him, and he calls upon God to punish them in this violent manner. It's just a very crude and bad and sinful manifestation of prejudice and passion and a desire for personal vengeance. Then, you see, this is the thing that they always make a great deal of. They say, "How different from the teaching of Jesus!" Incidentally, one observes that the people who bring this sort of criticism always refer to the Lord Jesus Christ as Jesus. These things go together, these clichés, these statements, they belong to a certain family. You'll generally get them from the kind of people who are obviously in grievous trouble about the person of our Lord and His work of atonement.

But that's what they say. They say, "Take that and contrast it with the teaching of Jesus and with the love that He manifested." Well now, those are the charges which are put in various ways, but those are the essential charges. Now, how do we approach this? Well, it seems to me the way to approach it is this: What are the questions that are raised by that kind of statement? You see, you read a statement like that. What are the questions that a man speaking like that or writing like that is really raising? Well now, here it seems to me are the vital questions that he's raising.

The first is the whole question of the Old Testament. That's what he's really raising. You see, quite early in the history of the church, a heretic arose and had quite a number of followers who more or less rejected the whole of the Old Testament. He said the church made a mistake in attaching its new documents to it, that the Old Testament has got nothing to do with us at all, that it's something that's passed out of being, and in any case, was primitive.

That comes up in modern form. See, there's nothing new about saying that the Old Testament is not to be believed. It's a very old heresy this, but it's a very popular one at the present time in a day like this when men are not interested in doctrine and just talk vaguely, loosely about the love of God. It's the obvious thing to say. These men really reject the whole of the Old Testament, and they talk about that God sitting on top of Mount Sinai. That's not the God of Jesus, they say. That's a tribal god. And this is the sort of thing that you get with that kind of religion. So they have no use for the Old Testament.

They elaborate this, some of them are so, I nearly said refined, I ought to say perhaps refined, that they find it rather shocking to have to read a bit of the history of a man like David and so on. They're so delicate and sensitive, so pure. Fancy asking Christian people, they say, and especially children to read the Old Testament with things like that in it. But this, they say, is even worse than that. You can excuse that in a sense, natural failure, but this is sheer vindictiveness. Ah, but they say that's the Old Testament outlook. Nothing to do with Christianity at all. So they dismiss the whole of the Old Testament because it contains statements like this.

Secondly, the next question that obviously they're raising is the whole question of inspiration, the inspiration of the scriptures. The moment you make a criticism like this of any portion of scripture, you are raising in acute form the whole doctrine of the divine unique inspiration of the writers of the scriptures, both Old Testament and New. And of course, these critics are in no trouble about that. They don't believe in the inspiration of any part of the Bible. I mean by that that they say, as I heard this same man saying once myself, the man whose supposed sermon in the Sunday paper said he believes the Bible's inspired, but so is Browning, so is Wordsworth. He only believes in inspiration in the sense that a poet or an artist or a writer can, as it were, be inspired. Or you say sometimes about somebody singing in an unusually good manner, they were inspired that night when they sang. Now, that's what they mean by inspiration.

But that is not what we mean by inspiration, that's not what the Bible means by inspiration. Bible means by inspiration that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, 2 Timothy 3:16. All scripture is God-breathed, breathed in by God. Or as Peter puts it in the first chapter of his second epistle in verses 20 or 21, "holy men of God spake as they were moved, carried along, controlled, you see, by the Holy Ghost." Now, that's what the biblical teaching concerning inspiration is. Therefore, the moment you bring a criticism like this, you are raising in acute form the whole doctrine of inspiration. That's the second point that's raised.

Then thirdly, and this is still more serious, you can't say a thing like that about the Old Testament or any portion of it without raising immediately the whole question of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and His authority. That's involved. It's a very serious thing to say anything about the scriptures, and we should always be very careful in what we do say. Because, as I'm going to show you, you can't do that without immediately involving the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Now, let me show you how there's some of the wider relevance of this. I'm going to deal with this in particular, but you see, it arises even like this. Take the early chapters of Genesis. You may say, "Oh well, now here this is a pure matter of science this." It isn't, you know. Our Lord is involved even in that. He's involved everywhere with respect to the scriptures. So we should speak with great caution and be very careful when we come across a passage that seems to us to be wrong, as it were, on the surface. We should be very careful. We should think many, many times before we speak or give expression to our opinion.

But then ultimately, the fourth question that is really raised is the whole matter of the character of God, the being of God, the attributes of God. In other words, the whole question of punishment is raised. And you can't raise the question of punishment without raising the whole question of the being and the character of God. And of course, these critics, they do so, and they do so as I've been indicating quite openly. They say quite blatantly they don't believe in the God of the Old Testament. One of them who was a bishop of a certain church in the United States of America put it in print and said it many times: he regarded the God of the Old Testament as just a bully, a bully.

Now, you see, that's the kind of thing which they say, and they therefore draw this supposed distinction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who to them is nothing but a God of love. Well now, then there are the great questions which are raised by this kind of difficulty or objection to this sort of quotation.

Now then, what do we say about this? Well, let's start at the lowest level. Let's start with David. "David saith." And David wrote that 69th Psalm. And as I say, the criticism of him is that he was just a prejudiced, passionate person, just a vindictive person, a man filled with a spirit of vengeance and says, "They made me suffer, let them suffer. Let their little children suffer," as he says in another place and so on, and he prays down upon them this curse from the hand of God. What a poor character they say.

Well now, what's the reply to that? Well, as I say, start with David himself. And it's very interesting how the answer to many difficulties is really just to know your scriptures. What sort of a man was David, the man who wrote these words? And I think that any fair-minded person, any detached person, if you put it to a tribunal of judicially minded, impartial men who've got no axe to grind and who simply want to arrive at the truth, ask them to read the historical accounts which we have of David and ask them to give a verdict at the end as to what sort of a man David was. What was his attitude toward people who dealt very harshly with him and very unkindly and very badly?

And you know, there's only one answer, there's only one verdict you can bring in. David was one of the least vindictive men that ever lived. How do I prove that? Well, we've got some incidents. Look at the way he was treated by King Saul. Saul treated David in a most abominable manner. But look how David treated Saul. He could have killed him several times quite easily, but he didn't do so. He bore it all with extraordinary patience. He was insulted, he was cheated by Saul. Saul tried to kill him many times and in many ways, but David never showed the slightest vindictiveness. He never showed the slightest desire to vengeance upon him. And when that unfortunate fellow came to him and told him that he'd actually thrust a sword into Saul, David punished him and he said, "You think you're giving me good news? You're not." He was grieved, he was sorrowing. There was never a more magnanimous man than David.

The case of Saul is really enough in and of itself. But then you remember he had a son who treated him in a most abominable manner, his son Absalom. And Absalom tried to kill him, tried to destroy him, take the kingdom from him. He did everything he could to insult him. But you remember David's attitude toward Absalom? Not only was he patient, not only was there an absence of vindictiveness, when David was sending his expert generals to deal with the rebellion and the insurrection, he said, "Don't do anything to the lad, don't harm my son. Spare Absalom."

He gave them specific instructions. And when Joab, who was one of his generals, came to him and told him what he'd done, and when the information reached David, David was overwhelmed with grief that they should have put his son to death in that way by pushing that kind of dagger through his heart as he was suspended there in the trees. Now, you see, that's the story of David. If ever a man had a right to feel a certain amount of vindictiveness and a spirit of vengeance within him, it was surely David with respect to Absalom. But the whole story is the exact opposite.

Indeed, for me to sum it all up, there's nothing to me more wonderful about David than the way in which he keeps on complaining about those vindictive men, the sons of Zeruiah, Joab and his brothers. He says, "You sons of Zeruiah, you be too hard for me." They murdered a man called Amasa, you remember, who'd been fighting against David. But when the man came to David and told him that he was sorry, David not only didn't put him to death, but he promoted him. But these other men, Joab and his brothers, they murdered him as they murdered several others. And they thought they were pleasing David, but David was distressed, he was made thoroughly unhappy.

Now, I think I've told you enough, but read the stories for yourselves. I've said enough to show you that David seems to display in a most astonishing manner a complete absence of any spirit of vindictiveness. And yet this is how he writes in Psalm 69. Very well, it can't be explained then in terms of David's bad, evil, vindictive character. He wasn't that sort of person.

But secondly, as I say, this whole question of inspiration is involved and is raised in an acute manner. And we've got a complete answer here. This is what you read in Acts 1, verse 16. Take 15 first. Acts 1:15 and following: "And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,) Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus."

Notice, it's the Holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of David. "For he was numbered with us and had obtained part of this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, [Psalm 69] Let his habitation be desolate and let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric let another take." The Holy Ghost spake that through David.

So you see, you can't get rid of this by saying, "Oh, it was just that terrible man David." It isn't David. This is the Holy Ghost. David was an inspired writer. When he wrote his Psalms, it wasn't merely David with a poetic gift; it was the Holy Spirit. Here's a specific statement with respect to that. And that, of course, is what we are taught everywhere about all the scriptures.

So that the problem isn't as simple and as easy as it appears to be. These statements, however you're going to explain them, you've got to reckon for the fact that they are statements which are indited and inspired by the Holy Ghost Himself. And then that brings me, of course, to the next, the third point which is this: our Lord's attitude to the Old Testament. And there is no difficulty here again. Our Lord accepted the whole of the Old Testament. He quotes from it freely, clearly. Having been brought up in it, he knew it and he was able to use it and to quote it to the Pharisees and to others. But we've got His specific statement in John 10:35, which reads like this:

Our Lord is making a most important statement. "Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?" This is quoting from a Psalm. "If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken," that's the phrase. "Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" There is our Lord quoting from a Psalm and He says, "The scripture cannot be broken." He refers to the Psalms as the law. In other words, the whole of the Old Testament is a manifestation of God's person and His laws and His purpose. And so you get these different terms applied to different parts of the Old Testament, and sometimes the whole of it is summed up in the word "law." The law was given by Moses, that includes more than the actual giving of the law. It sometimes includes the whole of the Old Testament. Here He says specifically, "The scripture cannot be broken," in referring to one of these Psalms.

And as I say, it is perfectly obvious that our Lord accepted the whole of the Old Testament as the divinely inspired Word of God. Now that includes, as I said just now, the early chapters of Genesis. So you see, you've got to deal with that. Ah, of course, say these modern critics, there's no difficulty at all. Jesus was a man of His time and of His age. He was ignorant, He didn't know certain things that we know now. All right, are you going to say that? Was He fallible? Did He make mistakes? Did He say things that were wrong? If He's wrong about these things, how do you know He's right about anything? You see, you can't pick and choose in these matters. You've got the person of our Lord as He is, and you've got to take His attitude toward the Old Testament when you're discussing a matter like this. He calls the Psalms, the book of Psalms, the law of God and the scripture, the sacred writings, and He says it cannot be broken.

Now then, so you see, our Lord Himself is involved in this difficulty, in this doctrine. So we advance to this point. And this is really the explanation of these statements in the imprecatory Psalms. It's an inevitable deduction. It follows logically from what I've just been saying. These statements made here by David are not personal at all. David here was not speaking from a personal angle. He was not concerned about personal vengeance at all. Something else is involved here. David was not only inspired, but David was given a revelation, as all these writers were given a revelation.

And what David is looking at is not himself and his personal sufferings. I've shown you what he thought about them and how he reacted to them. But what he's doing here is he is looking at what the enemies of God are doing to him simply because he is the representative of God. In other words, he is looking at what the enemies of God are doing to God. Not personal at all. He's not interested in it in a personal sense, but he does have a zeal for God and His glory and for the house of God and for the cause of God. And that is the thing that David is doing here. He is speaking not in a personal manner but in a judicial manner. He's speaking objectively. He is here expressing what he feels about the enemies of God and their whole position under God. So we must get rid of the personal, vindictive, vengeance idea altogether and see that David is here as an inspired man and prophet of God speaking judicially about the enemies of God and what they deserve so richly.

Now, that's a very vital and a very important distinction. Now, you and I have to do the same thing. A man in preaching has to do it quite often. What the scriptures say and what a godly man should feel about the enemies of God is nothing personal at all. You look on this in a judicial manner. You look at it objectively. You look at it in terms of the glory of God. Now, you've got endless examples of this. Take one which always strikes me as being a very graphic one at the end of Psalm 104.

The Psalmist has been giving that amazing description of nature and creation, showing its wonderful harmony, how everything works and coordinates and works with its absolute perfection. And then in the last verse of the Psalm, he suddenly breaks out and says this: "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more." Then he turns round and says, "Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord." Why does he say that about the wicked? "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, let the wicked be no more."

Well, you see, he does it for this reason. Here he's been celebrating the glory and the perfection of creation and all its glorious harmony, the rivers and the streams and the animals and so on, and then he looks at sinful man and he says, "Oh, what a shame that man of all God's creatures should have brought this element of disharmony and misery and unhappiness. Even creation has suffered as the result of it. Let them be consumed out of the earth."

Now, that's not personal. That's a man filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit, having this vision of God's glory and His perfection in creation, seeing this other thing. He says, "Oh, that it might be got rid of altogether, so that there should be nothing but the harmony and the perfection and the glory of God." Now, it's exactly the same thing in Psalm 69 and in the other imprecatory Psalms.

Very well, that leads me to the fifth answer, which is, of course, again extremely important, and that is the prophetic element in all this, the prophetic element. Now, you see, the apostle Paul quotes it here. And in quoting it in this way, the apostle is teaching us that when David wrote that, he was not only and not merely and not even chiefly writing about himself and his own times. He was looking forward. He was being given a preview. He was writing under a revelation. And he saw what was to come.

In other words, as you must have noticed in reading the Psalms yourselves or as I read it at the beginning tonight, it's so obvious that this Psalm is about the Lord Jesus Christ, mainly about Him. And David is really looking forward to the world rejecting Him, and especially the Jews as they cried, "Away with Him, crucify Him," and as they mocked and jeered at Him even as He was there suffering that agony upon the cross. They spat at Him and jeered and mocked and said, "Thou who savest others, come down and save thyself," and so on, and all the raucous laughter. David was seeing that and he's really writing about that.

Now, some of the authorities on these matters say that actually these statements should be translated in a different way, and that they should be put into the future rather than an imperative. Instead of reading, "Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingstone, and a recompence unto them; Let their eyes be darkened," they say that it could be translated like this and indeed should be: "Their table will be made a snare and a trap and a stumblingblock and a recompence unto them; Their eyes will be darkened and they shall not see." In other words, that it's a pure bit of prophecy and that David prophetically is looking forward and saying, "When the nation in its evil comes to do that, this is what will happen to it."

And of course, Paul is concerned to say that's the very thing that has happened to it. He's told us that in verse 8, and here he's showing us how David saw this and in prophecy desired this, consumed as he was with the sense of the glory of God. So the prophetic element is tremendously important. It gets rid of this whole notion that David is just speaking about himself and his own personal desire for personal vengeance.

But lastly, my sixth answer raises the whole question of punishment. And that is, of course, the ultimate difficulty. I say difficulty to these people who don't accept the inspiration of the scriptures and who put their opinions against revelation. That's all. That's what it really comes to. These people have got no authority except what they think. It's their idea of God that they put against this. They say, "Is this kind of thing compatible with the love of God?" They don't believe in the wrath of God against sin. They reject it. They say it's incompatible with the love of God, so there's no punishment. It's inconceivable, they say, that God should punish. That's why so many of them are what are called universalists and believe that in the end everybody's going to be saved, the devil included. Universal salvation, nobody lost at all.

Well now, what do we say to that? Well, what there's only this to say about this whole matter of punishment and the wrath of God. It is something that is taught in the whole Bible from beginning to end. You can't take it out of the Bible and have a Bible left. It's integral to the whole message of the Bible, from the very beginning of the creation of man, the possibilities were put before him and he was told that he would be punished if he disobeyed, and it's gone on ever since. It's repeated in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

Secondly, the particular form that the punishment takes shouldn't trouble us. People are troubled sometimes by saying that the imprecatory Psalms not only desire the death of the men who've done this, but the women and the little children. They say, "Fancy praying that little children might be destroyed." Well now, of course, to us that seems terrible, doesn't it? But you see, the moment you begin to look at all this in terms of eternity, the time element doesn't matter at all. To us that somebody should die in infancy rather than become an octogenarian seems a tremendously important thing, but in eternity it's nothing, nothing at all. Our whole life is but as a vapor, says the Bible.

So you see, there's nothing in this at all: "Oh," we say, "fancy dying in youth or in infancy." But my dear friend, look at it in terms of eternity. It doesn't enter in at all. Or the particular form in which the punishment takes, it shouldn't trip us. Because here again is an important principle. God, in His infinite wisdom, in giving His revelation, gives it in thought forms which always suit the particular age and generation in which He gives it. Now, that doesn't change the principle. It doesn't change the thing taught; it's simply the form that changes.

And so you will find the same thought put in a different form in the Old Testament and in the New. The man blessed by God in the Old Testament is the man who's generally got thousands of sheep and cattle and so on. That isn't so in the New; it's more spiritual, but it's God's blessing in both. That was how they thought in those times, and God condescending to man in order that he might understand, puts it into the form, the thought form that he can understand.

So the thought forms vary, and life was more violent then than it is now. That doesn't mean that we are better now; we're not. We sound as if we are better, but we're not, you know. The age of the atomic bomb has got nothing to say to David or anybody else. If you're talking about brutality, well, I think you'd better stop and think before you say too much, living in this 20th century of ours. No, no. But in any case, I say that's the general principle, that the form of expression varies in order to help people to understand.

But finally, with regard to this whole question of punishment, again I use the same argument I've already used. Our blessed Lord Himself not only accepted the Old Testament teaching with regard to this; He taught it Himself. He taught eternal punishment. "Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched," and in many other places. And then, you see, you come to the epistles where it's taught so plainly, the book of Revelation. We're none of these men inspired? You see, you're not only concerned with inspiration of the Old Testament; you're concerned with inspiration of the New Testament. "Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord," says the apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1.

You see, in the end, nothing is inspired, and you don't know anything at all. You believe what you choose to believe, and your idea of God is what you think God ought to be. Oh, the tragedy that men should be talking so loosely and glibly and lightly. In other words, look at it like this: it's a very precarious thing always to talk about God. What do we know about God? He is in heaven and we are on earth. Let our words be few. Let us be careful. Poor old Job, he came to see it at the end. He talked so much, he ventured to criticize God. He says, "I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now," and puts his hand upon his mouth.

And the more you think about these things, the more you realize that you're really discussing the character and the being of God. Let's be careful, my dear friends, lest we try to intrude ourselves into matters that are too high for us. But I end with this on this whole question of punishment, the wrath of God. How do you explain Calvary? Why did the Son of God have to endure and suffer? Why did He have to endure that buffeting, that cruel scourging, that agony, that thirst? Why did He ever have to offer up the cry of dereliction? Never has anyone suffered as He suffered. Never, never will. Never has there been such suffering.

But why? Why was He treated like this in the way that that Psalm describes, the 69th Psalm describes, and the 22nd Psalm describes still more in detail? Why? Why did it ever happen? How did God ever allow it to happen? That's the question you've got to answer. And there's only one answer to the question. It was the wrath of God against sin that demanded this. There was no other way of salvation, no other way of forgiveness. If there had been, God would never have allowed His Son to suffer. There has never been such agony. His heart was broken. "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" You can't conceive of it. There's suffering.

He suffered more in that moment than the whole universe can ever suffer. Why did it happen? There's only one adequate answer: it is because of the wrath of God against sin. The apostle has told us this in the 18th verse of the first chapter of this great epistle to the Romans: "For the wrath of God from heaven is revealed, has been revealed, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men that hold down the truth in unrighteousness." The ultimate proof of the wrath of God upon sin is the death of our Lord upon the cross on Calvary's Hill. It is the greatest manifestation of the love of God; it is at the same time the greatest manifestation of the wrath of God. Many things met at Calvary. "Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?" Glory and ignominy. Love and wrath. Righteousness and mercy. And you don't see the cross truly unless you see God's holy wrath upon sin and against sin, the very thing that David felt in a measure at this moment of being taken up by the Spirit in revelation and inspiration. God's abomination of sin; he had a glimpse of it, and that is why he gives expression to that desire that all who are so guilty should receive the punishment, the condign punishment that they so richly deserve.

Well, may God keep us humble and give us a measure of understanding into this whole question of the imprecatory Psalms. Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, we again come unto Thee, realizing our smallness, our insignificance, our unworthiness. Oh Lord, how small our minds are, and yet we've all been guilty of daring and venturing to question and to query Thy perfect ways. Oh, it is of the mercy of the Lord that we are not consumed, and we acknowledge it humbly before Thee and praise Thy great and holy name. Now, oh Lord, we commit and commend ourselves unto Thee, praying that Thou wouldst take us and guide us and use us to Thy glory and to Thy praise. Especially we pray for grace and strength to help people who are stumbled by certain things in Thy Word and are tempted of the devil to jump to rash conclusions. Lord, give us this ability to help them and to save them from the snare of the devil and from unconsciously thinking and uttering thoughts which are blasphemous. We bless Thy name that with Thee there is mercy that Thou mayest be feared. Plenteous grace with Thee is found, grace to cover all my sin. Oh Lord, how can we thank Thee enough? And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us, now this night throughout the remainder of this our short and uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and evermore. Amen.