Psalm 58 Study Guide

Break the Teeth of the Wicked

Psalms (Vol. 7)

Psalm 58

The Text

Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?

Do you judge the children of man uprightly? (Psalm 58)

Introduction:

I’m going to say something today that you will not often hear me say: C.S. Lewis was wrong. I know I quote him a lot; so often that some of you say, “Was Lewis one of the Apostles?”

Nine times out of ten, Lewis captures the truth poignantly with punch and I love quoting him, but, alas, I cannot quote him this week.

In his book, Reflections on the Psalms Lewis devotes a chapter to the Imprecatory Psalms; these 10 or so Psalms which call down divine curses upon the wicked.

Lewis says these Psalms are: “devilish,” “contemptible,” “terrible,” and “diabolical”; full of “vindictive hatred,” “festering, gloating, and undisguised.”

For Lewis, the imprecatory Psalms showed the imperfection of the human authors of Scripture, and he argued that while they reveal evil, we should never use them as models of Christian prayer.

I want to argue this morning that not only are the imprecatory Psalms inspired prayers; they are also instructive prayers—they teach us how we ought to pray against evil in our own day.

Our shock at their content does not prove we have morally progressed beyond them. On the contrary, we have regressed. Modern Western cultures have become impotent at restraining evil precisely because we’ve forgotten how to pray like this.

Psalm 58 comes to us this morning and says: Christian—you must confront evil, comprehend its depth, cry out to God against it, and celebrate his judgment.

We Must Confront Evil (58:1-2

How Deeply Rooted Evil Is (58:3-5)

To Pray for Fierce Justice (58:6-9)

Why We Can Rejoice in the Day of Judgment (58:10-11)

1. We Must Confront Evil (58:1-2)

God requires humanity, as his image bearers and vice-regents on earth, to uphold his moral law, and to confront lawbreakers.

That’s what David does in this Psalm. He begins by identifying lawless rulers, who by their silence, allow wickedness to continue. Because the rulers are failing to confront evil, David does it himself in prayer.

Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? (v. 1)

The Bible often uses the word “gods” to refer to human rulers. Most scholars believe David is confronting the royal court surrounding King Saul, who was unjustly hunting the man God has already anointed as the next king.

In other words, these men refused to oppose Saul’s bloodlust. They remained silent as evil was committed in order to maintain their power and influence.

But David will not remain silent:

Do you judge the children of man uprightly?

No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;

your hands deal out violence on earth

David does not shy away from evil; he confronts it with ferocity.

Now, anytime a minister preaches an imprecatory psalm there’s a reflexive response: “But I thought Christians are called to forgiveness! Aren’t you supposed to love your enemies? Aren’t you supposed to turn the other cheek?” (Luke 6:27-36; Matthew 18:21-22)

If it’s true that Christians are to love their enemies (and it is true), how can we at the same time pray down God’s curses upon them?

That’s a great question, and to answer it we have to understand what love is.

Love is not “affirming whatever someone wishes to do.” Love does not unlock the door and make tea when the thief tries to break into your house.

Love, biblically defined, is treating someone lawfully from the heart. Treating them the way God’s law requires you to treat them. So, ask some questions:

Does God’s law approve of murdering the innocent? Does God’s law approve abuse? Does it approve theft?

Absolutely not, and therefore, when evildoers conspire to perpetrate murder or theft; when they purpose to break God’s law, the only loving response is to confront them.

You see, if you go back to Genesis 9—right after the flood waters have receded—God pours out judgment on evildoers and then establishes a covenant with Noah and all creation, a covenant that still stands today. In that covenant, God declares that if anyone sheds human blood unjustly, the rest of humanity is bound by covenant to hold that person accountable, even to the point of capital punishment.

So, while we are not to be vigilantes or seek personal vengeance, we are nowhere taught to lie down and allow evil doers to run roughshod over the innocent.

From the Noahic Covenant, through the Imprecatory Psalms, and even in the New Testament (Romans 13:1-4), God requires humanity to confront evil.

2. How Deeply Rooted Evil Really Is (58:3-5)

In verses 2-5, David describes these evildoers.

First, he says they are totally corrupt:

• ‘In your hearts you devise wrong” (Internal)
• “Your hands deal out violence” (External)

Second, he says they’re originally corrupt:

• The are estranged (go astray) from the womb.
• They wander from birth.
• They inherit a sinful nature from their father, Adam.

Third, he says they are Satanically corrupt.

• They have venom like the venom of a serpent.
• In Genesis 1, the enemy is the serpent. In Revelation the enemy is a dragon. From beginning to end, the origin of evil is Satanic.

Fourth he says they are willfully corrupt.

• They are like an adder, or viper, who plugs its ears to the charmer. They refuse to listen to the commands and warnings of God.

Psalm 58 says evil is more deeply rooted in humanity than we are willing to admit. We live in a time when people think “You know, people are basically good, and any bad decisions they make are really just the result of an imperfect environment. It’s not that the person is evil.”

But we’re the only generation in history to believe this. Every generation before us, even the non-Christians understood that humanity had a deeply rooted problem of evil.

The philosopher, Immanuel Kant, said, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

Even Sigmund Freud (who I disagree with on most things) said, “The inclination to aggression is an original, self-subsisting instinctual disposition in man… man is a wolf to man.”

Can I just say that the reason some of you still believe that humans are basically good, is because you just don’t look around. You live an insulated life in a place that’s relatively safe.

You’re like the little Hobbits in the Shire. They thought that because their town was safe, every town must be safe—until the Black Riders came dealing death and terror.

“The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.”

The only way to hold onto the belief that we’re all basically good is to insulate and isolate yourself from the rest of the world; to live a near-sighted life that never truly looks around, or deeply into yourself.

And this is the most important part, because the deeply rooted evil is not just “out there,” it’s “in here.”

The same David who wrote Psalm 58 also wrote Psalm 51:5

⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

and in sin did my mother conceive me.

The Scriptures teach that you and I, no less than David or the evil men who were persecuting him, were born in sin.

At the end of World War II, Albert Camus gave a speech called The Human Crisis at Columbia University. He expressed dismay that so many people believed the defeat of Hitler meant the problem of evil had been solved.

“It is too easy,” said Camus, “to simply accuse Hitler and to say, ‘Since the beast is dead, it’s venom is gone.’ We know perfectly well that the venom is not gone, that each of us carries it in our own hearts.”

What does Psalm 58 tell us? Evil is more deeply rooted in every single human than we realize.

Evil is not something that can be improved. It has to be judged by God himself.

3. To Pray for Fierce Justice

The strongest words of Psalm 58 are not David’s description of evil. The most bracing words come as David calls down divine curses on evil in verses 6-9.

Verse 6 & 7 ask God to remove the capabilities for evil from these rulers. He asks God to break their teeth and blunt their arrows. The teeth and arrows are the tools of death for the lion and the archer, so David says, “God remove their instruments of evil. Render them incapable of harming others.”

In verses 8 & 9, David asks God to end the evildoers themselves, “like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun.”

It often seems as if evil will never end; as if evil doers prosper while the innocent and the righteous are cut off. David reminds us, that in the grand scheme of eternity, the reign of evildoers will be shorter than the life of a slug.

Notice what David is saying. First, evil should cause us to run to God. I know it’s popular to say that evil disproves God’s existence, but it’s just not true. I don’t have time to give you an entire apologetic today. I’ve done that elsewhere.

But let me say this: if you don’t have a divine moral lawgiver, then you can’t even define what evil is.

Kurt Vonnegut said, “There is no reason to suppose that the world is fair. There is no reason to supposed that it is unfair either. It is simply there.”

In other words, if there is no God, then we have no hope of defining evil at all. And yet, we cannot live that way.

Psalm 58 says, when you see a gruesome death, when you see abuse, you should never look at that and say, “Well, that’s just the way it is.”

Creation has been tragically broken by human sin, and it needs fierce cosmic intervention.

Evil reveals our impotence, and calls out to God. God must break the teeth of the wicked. He must blunt their arrows. In other words, when you really stare into the abyss of evil, you realize how impotent you are to do anything about it.

You can kill a tyrant, but the venom isn’t gone. It’s going to come back. The history of the human race, since the Fall in Genesis 3 is a history red in tooth and claw.

Something is wrong with us. Something must be set right. Ultimate, cosmic, final justice from outside of the universe must come, otherwise there is no hope for justice. And it must come from a judge who is utterly good, perfectly wise, and powerfully sovereign.

Because David knows God to be good, wise, and powerful, he knows that God’s judgment on evil will shock and astound us with its ferocity.

If the judgments of imperfect judges are severe, how much more severe must the judgment be from a spotless and sinless judge. If we, who contribute to the brokenness of this world are disgusted at evil, how much more disgusted must be one who is faultless?

But this raises a problem for all of us, does it not? If God is so perfect, so wise, and so powerful, and if we carry the venom in our hearts, how will we escape his judgment?

You see here’s the real problem of Psalm 58:

If there is no perfect Judge, how can he end evil? But if there is a perfect judge, how can he end evil without ending us?

4. Why We Can Rejoice in the Day of Judgment

David concludes the Psalm by reminding us of the day of judgment; the day when cosmic intervention arrives. God will come in all his righteous fury and destroy evil from off the face of the earth.

Verse 10 says “he will bath his feet in blood.” At the end of the Bible, when the Apostle John is describing the final judgment, he picks up on this language.

He says Christ will return as a white rider, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and he has a robe dipped in blood. And he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God. There it is, the heel of Christ will crush and pour out the grapes of wrath. He will bath his feet in blood.

Friend, the day is coming when Christ will return. And one of the greatest lies evil men believe is that day will never come; that they have all the time in the world to do as they please, that they can commit evil and get away with it.

One of the greatest lies Christians believe is when Satan discourages us, causing us the believe that nothing can be done to stop evil, so we ought not even pray about it.

But the day will come when Jesus Christ will destroy all of his enemies; when he will judge evil. We ought to rejoice in the knowledge that the day of judgment has been decreed by God. It will come. There will be a final reckoning, a final accounting.

But why would that make us rejoice? If we are just as sinful as the evildoers of Psalm 58, wouldn’t we hate for that day to come? Wouldn’t we live in fear that all our secret sins would be found out and that God would destroy us from off the earth?

How can David rejoice when he thinks about the righteous bathing his heel in the blood of his enemy?

It’s because, 2,000 years ago, Christ came and bloodied his heel. In Genesis 3, God promised that a son of Eve would defeat the serpent. Though the serpent would strike his heel, that same heel would crush the serpent’s head.

When the Son of God came, he did not come to bring judgment, but to bear it. At the cross, all of the venom of our sin and the serpent’s fang sank into him.

2 Cor. 5:21 says:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

At the cross, two things occurred: Jesus Christ bathed his heel in the blood of the serpent’s head, and God poured out his fierce judgment against sin.

This is the answer to the question. How can God end evil without ending us? Because Christ has died our death. He has borne our penalty.

My friend, God hates sin and loves to pardon sinners. He has given his Son, Jesus Christ, for you—and Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost, those who draw near to God through him.

So, come to Jesus Christ, the Son. He is offered to you freely. Your sins will be forgiven. You will be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Because the fierce judgment of God against our sin has fallen on Christ, we can read the fierce words of Psalm 58 and say with confidence: “Surely, there is a God who judges the earth.”

Confront Evil – boldly, but not vengefully.

Comprehend its Depth – in the world and in your own heart.

Cry Out for Fierce Justice – pray the word of Psalm 58.

Celebrate the Coming Judgment – because in Christ, that judgment has already passed over us.