A Biblical Defense Of My Imprecatory Prayer On 9/11 – Part 2

Some argue that imprecatory prayers were suitable for the Old Testament (OT) saints, but not for New Testament (NT) saints¹. Not only would this violate the unity of the Scriptures as the Book of the Covenant, but it would postulate that God changed or that His Old Testament ethics were inferior to His in the New. This is totally impossible since God plainly declares He does not change (Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8).

While it is true Jesus as Messiah also fulfilled certain aspects of the OT law that pointed forward to Him, the substitutionary atoning sacrifice He would give and the worldwide kingdom work He would accomplish, Jesus fully endorsed the Old Covenant’s ethical standards as eternally transcendent and binding for all nations (Matthew 5:17-19; 28:16ff) and that by which all men will be judged on the last day – John 12:48).

Further, the Holy Spirit in His commentary on the OT wrote “every transgression and disobedience received a just reward” in the OT (Hebrews 2:2), clearly showing God’s just laws and the sanctions God required are to be considered by NT Christians not as unjust, archaic or imperfect, but as David said: “I have seen the consummation of all perfection, but Your commandment is exceedingly broad” and “all Your precepts concerning all things I consider to be right; I hate every false way.” (Psalm 119:9, 128).

This makes perfect sense if God’s word and law are an expression of His righteous heart and personal Being. God’s law perfectly reveals God’s own personal, holy attributes (Lev. 19:2; I Peter. 1:15; I John 4:16).² God’s law binds all men and nations at all times. “Obedience to the moral law is God’s requirement of all people of all nations of all religions for all times.”³ God is love, so He commands us to be like Him: to love Him who is the Giver of all good things with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Deut. 6:5).

As well, to love those created in His image like us as ourselves, yes, even our enemies (Lev. 19:17; Ex. 23:4; Prov. 25:21; 2 Kings 6:18-23; 5:1-3; Matt. 22:23). Thus, while God’s law is all about loving God and one’s neighbor, and thus on the one hand forbids taking personal vengeance (Lev. 19:17; Deut. 32:35) since it is God who is the final Judge for all, and those who are to avenge are to be God’s appointed ministers acting under His authority and according to His law (cf. Romans 12:19-20 and 13:1-4), nevertheless, God’s love – while to a degree long-suffering towards evil creatures in rebellion against Him (whom we all are as considered by nature in Adam)- is not at the same time without mercy towards the oppressed, without justice toward the evildoers, nor without the purpose of honoring and loving God Himself who fashioned all things that we might know, love, enjoy and praise Him.

Thus, God’s character while slow to anger is also such He will not be provoked continually but will righteously and justly repay His adversaries (Ex. 34:6-7). Even if there were not a single New Testament text then remotely suggesting by example or instruction that we ought to pray imprecatory prayers, the Old Testament’s abounding with instruction and examples of them would be more than sufficient basis for New Testament Christians to pray them. Yet, the New Testament itself abounds with both instruction and examples of imprecatory prayers and imprecations.

 

• Matthew 6:9-13: Jesus taught us to pray using His provided (Lord’s) Prayer as a model. In it, His language picks up the very concepts from the OT Scriptures that first century Jews would have undeniably understood in terms of kingdom: the evil one’s kingdom must be overcome and destroyed in order that God’s rule and kingdom may fully come and be manifest in all its good fruits⁴.
  
• Matt. 21:19: Jesus cursed the fig tree (which commentators have seemed to make a case represented Israel in apostasy: looking good externally but not bearing the fruits of righteousness).

• Mark 11:23-24: Jesus teaches that His followers may as well ask God to do just such things (also curse) in prayer.

• Luke 6:37, 42-49 (Cf. Matthew 7): Jesus teaches us not to be harsh, judgmental and condemnatory, yet requires us to examine, evaluate and make judgments about people.⁵
  
• Luke 10:10-12 Jesus commands His disciples to use prophetic curses and directly thereafter does so (vv.13-16) as our perfect Example.
  
• Luke 18:1-8: Jesus calls believers to persistent and go on in praying for just vengeance against their human oppressors and assures them that when they cry out to God for vengeance, He will be very attentive to their cries: “Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying: ’There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him saying, ’Avenge me of my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’ Then the Lord said, ’Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily….” I testify: God does answer speedily! Jesus is right! You might ask: why don’t we ever hear about such things? You have now. According to Scripture, there are at least two reasons why most Christians do not see God judging/avenging those who are murdered in our nation. First, because the church herself is not like this widow who plead her case from an innocent’s standpoint. Surveys show that immorality, pornography, divorce, compromise and many other evils happen as much in evangelical churches as in the world. To ask for judgment would be to invite it on ourselves too. Second, we do not see God the Judge avenging evil because we do not implore Him to do so. The church generally has been negligent of imprecatory prayer for the last 50-100 years. Ever heard a pastor pray this way? Yet Scripture shows saints in both Testaments doing so! The apostles and early church repeatedly used the War Psalms. Paul who almost undoubtedly had such prayers prayed against him before his conversion was ready to pray such prayers (2 Tim. 4:14-16; Acts 23:3; Gal. 1:8; 5:12). If we’re different than the saints in the Bible, who should change? Them, or us? Scripture’s imprecations give us a thermometer by which to measure our spiritual temperature. If we are not righteously indignant about evil and oppression and the lack of glorifying God’s name, it shows we do not understand God’s holiness, justice or jealousy. We’ve become lukewarm. Not too long ago, a well known preacher said: ‘the church is a bunch of mild mannered people teaching other mild mannered people how to become more mild mannered.’ Is it any wonder God’s people are incrementally losing battle after battle in America? Unless we 1) repent and get innocent again; and 2) pray imprecatory prayers like the saints did, we cannot expect great victories. We are compromised and will only get further corrupt, as the culture does. Where is zeal for God’s holiness and cause? Isn’t Jesus here calling us to stop being so mild mannered? Stop compromising, and, as necessary, start praying for judgments. If Jesus believed the Bible, He believed in asking God for vengeance. To believe otherwise is to believe that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit (who inspired God’s word) disagreed though they are One God with the Father. Jesus teaches us in Luke 18 that we have a clear cut duty: we are to ask our righteous Judge for justice. Like the widow who brought her case before an unrighteous judge for prosecution, so are we to do. If it is not wrong for men to be prosecutors and to seek justice in faulty human courts, why is it wrong for me to be a prosecutor and to seek justice in a faultless divine court? Why don’t we hear of more answers to imprecatory prayers? Because we’re not praying such prayers. Just as the Holy Spirit says in James 4: “You have not because you ask not.” Its there for the asking! But we have to be involved in the trial, or we may not expect the Judge to give just judgment. In effect, it was this just vengeance that I asked God to show a little bit of on 911. I did not want Him to give us the “life for life” judgment His word (cf. Numbers last chapter) shows we deserve, I only wanted about a drop, just show us Lord what its like for You to see thousands of little ones murdered each day in the womb. And so I united my voice with and gave voice to the millions of my innocent fellow Americans whose blood had been so unjustly shed. Jesus assures us that if we pray persistently and with faith, such vengeance will come speedily, not slowly as is so often the case with unjust judges.
  
• Acts records Jesus’ disciples obeying the Lord Jesus’ commands. In Herod’s case, the church prayed against him (Acts 4:27) and the Lord sent an angel to kill him for his sins (Acts 12:23). As well, Christians used prophetic curses as in Acts 13:9-12 where Paul (“filled with the Holy Spirit”) cursed a sorcerer with blindness with the result that “the proconsul believed” ⁶. See as well Acts 13:51; 18:6 and 23:3. Acts 4 is noteworthy in that the early church’s prayers based on Psalm 2 (which promises God’s distressing wrath on those who rebel against His Son) and God’s answer in Herod’s death reveal what is almost without doubt how the church prayed just as well about Saul their cruel persecutor. Yet, unlike Herod, in Saul the cruel persecutor’s case, the sovereign God chose to make Saul His Paul, missionary to the Gentiles. This in part answers the “love objection” used against God’s intervening in history and eternity with His perfect justice. People cannot stomach that God would have us pray to Him for justice in imprecatory prayers. Those Christians who follow Scripture and Christ in praying them are attacked with the accusation: if you pray/prayed such prayers, you do not have Christian love in your hearts. One elder I talked with told me he was praying the economy worsens so America will get on her knees before God. Is it loving to pray that I asked? He replied: what is love? Is it loving to deny God His glory? Would it be loving to allow tyrants to persecute or silence the church with hate crimes “laws”? To allow Nazis to kill Jews? To permit murderers to go on cutting up unborn babies? Is it loving when the abortionist is ready with scalpel in hand to cut to pieces another unborn baby – legs and thoracic section and arms, to only pray for the abortionist’s salvation if that is God’s will? Read the Bible and see that sometimes judgment is the most loving thing that can happen to individuals or nations, because it is often used (but not always) to bring people to repentance. Besides, the Bible shows that God answers such prayers one of two ways: either by leaving the obstinate sinner prayed against in his sin and thus to suffer the righteous judgment, or, to pull the judgment-deserving sinner out of his sin because Christ suffered the tragedy of God’s wrath for him/her. To deny that the wages of sin is death undermines the death of Christ. To deny that nations going on in sin deserve death is to deny the death of Christ. But praying for such judgment- if its God’s will at the time and for the ultimate redemptive purpose of all nations one day find out and respond in faith to the gospel that Yahweh is God and Jesus His Son sits at His right hand and is ready to be merciful to us despite our deserving infinite wrath- such prayers are absolutely God approved and God commanded. In God’s book, praying for judgment can be very redemptive and very loving. Either way we are praying as God instructs us to, leaving the outcome up to Him. Duty is ours, results are God’s. Examples in Scripture show us how saints pray and God answers according to His sovereign good pleasure. David loved Saul. He tried to minister to him and hoped he would repent. Yet he also did His Holy Spirit given duty of praying imprecatory Psalms against him. You know the outcome. Yet in Saul of Tarsus’ case, the church undoubtedly prayed against that murderous persecutor, asking for vengeance on the blood of innocents he shed. God acted this time to save him by Jesus’ blood atoning for Saul’s sins and blood-guilt, and used him to magnify His name. So, the outcome is up to God, but He commands us His soldiers to employ both prayers for just judgment and prayers for merciful salvation. Maybe it is hard for us to understand how the two can both be good and true, but that’s true of other Scriptural doctrines as well – the Trinity, Incarnation, Scripture as the Word of God, the sacrificial, atoning death of Jesus and His bodily resurrection, His physical, visible return to judge the living and the dead and the life everlasting for the believing/righteous and eternal punishment for the wicked, etc.
  
• Romans 11:9 in answering the question whether God has cast away His people Israel, resoundingly answers “no” and cites Elijah’s day when God kept a remnant of 7000. Paul further records how up to this present time God has always been gracious to preserve a remnant of the Jews/Abraham’s children who believe His Messiah. Yet Paul also shows the rest “were hardened”. He then proves what he has written came as a result of Messiah’s imprecation, as he quotes from a Messianic Psalm’s imprecation: “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block” (Psalm 69). In John 15:25 Jesus applied this Psalm to Himself as the anti-type David, God’s anointed king. Psalm 69:21 also directly pertains to Christ (Matthew 27:34) so we infer correctly that as the perfect man and image bearer of God (in fact the express Image of Him- Hebrews 1:1-3), Jesus both exemplified God’s mercy (as in His prayer at the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”,) and His justice: Scripture proves He also prayed as David did in Psalm 69 with the result that God punished those who -as they did David- hated Him without a cause (69:4). It was for the Lord’s sake, and His people’s (v.9) that God’s Anointed Servant King endured much suffering, reproach, shame, estrangement, and alienation, because He was zealous for God’s house (cf. John 2:13-25 and other gospel accounts of His temple cleansing predicted in Malachi 3:1-5) and refused to treat Him as He was: God’s anointed Servant (69:17). We see God the Father answering His Son, matching His requests for justice and mercy. Mercy is seen in His pouring out His Spirit on many priests and Jewish unbelievers (Acts 2, 6) and always keeping a remnant of Jewish souls for Himself the last 20 centuries, even while at the same time fulfilling God’s word through Moses and the prophets that when Israel rejected God’s Prophet and Messiah/Servant (predicted Deuteronomy 31-32; Psalm 22; 118:22-28; Isaiah 49:1-7; 52:13-53:12, God would turn to the Gentile nations and favor them with His Salvation and Light (see just cited texts) in order to provoke to jealousy the Jews who had rejected Him (see especially Deuteronomy 31-32, Moses Song). The last twenty centuries demonstrate that just this has happened: “look, there you see it” on the pages and annuls of history. Justice is seen in His pouring out His wrath on many of the Jewish leaders and rank and file unbelievers in the AD 70 Temple and Jerusalem destruction (predicted in Daniel 9:24-26 and by Y’shua in Matthew 24 and Luke 21:20-24) as well as the ongoing punishment of being estranged from God (without Temple⁷) in dispersion among all the nations of the earth (in fulfillment of Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28 and 31-32, particularly the Song of Moses which predicted they would reject God and their Rock (a term for God also used of His Anointed who would ascend to His right hand in heaven per Psalm 110:1; cf. Psalm 18:1). All of these fulfill the desires of Messiah’s heart, a heart perfectly fashioned and like His Father’s (Psalm 21:1-2; 37:4). The last twenty centuries thus evidence God’s answering both His faithful Son’s intercessory (for merciful salvation) and imprecatory (for just judgment) prayers, confirming on the pages of history the truth of what He said from heaven: “This is My Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17).⁸
  
• I Corinthians 16:22: Paul says: “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come!” Do we say “Amen” to Holy Spirit’s abiding inspired word?
  
• Galatians 1:8-9: Paul wrote concerning those teaching a gospel that denies the fundamentals of the true Christian gospel: “let him be anathema”, that is, eternally cursed/sent to hell. There are many cults as well as false churches (such as the Roman Catholic Church) whose official “gospel” twists, perverts and corrupts the truth that is really in Jesus. “Gospels” that deny the Trinity, justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, that deny that good works proceed as the necessary result of a converted/regenerated individual, etc, all deserve such imprecations.
  
• Galatians 5:12 where Paul, speaking of the false teachers who said circumcision as removal of human flesh was required in order to be saved, said: “I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off!”
  
• Ephesians 6: commands us to pray “all kinds of prayers” in spiritual warfare. What kinds of prayers are we to understand this to be? How does one know what this command in the Holy Book means? By interpreting this verse in light of the whole book of Scripture, which lists many imprecatory prayers Old and New Testament, we see we are commanded to pray imprecatory prayers as well as others.
  
• II Thessalonians 2:5-12: Paul tells the Thessalonian Christians that he prays always for them that they may be glorified in Jesus on the “Day” of judgment – when He comes “in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul said the wicked who were persecuting them God would manifestly evidence His righteous judgment against. If it is righteous to pray for that Day of Judgment⁹ which Judgment on the last day of history will be exceedingly far worse than any could think or imagine compared to this life’s judgments, then it is also righteous to pray for lesser judgments in history against the wicked.
  
• II Timothy 4:14-16: some of Paul’s last words were: “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works.” Paul looked to the Lord to punish Alexander.
  
• If nothing else convinces us of the righteousness and justice of praying imprecatory prayers as New Testament saints, the prayers of those who are saved in heaven ought to and must! According to Hebrews 12:22-24, these are “the spirits of just men made perfect” in “Mount Zion.. the heavenly Jerusalem”. Do the redeemed saints in heaven pray imprecatory prayers against those who had shed their own innocent blood? Revelation 6: 9-11 shows they most certainly do: “When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.” God did not rebuke these saints for asking for judgments on those who had murdered them. He only told them “wait a while”.
  
• God commands His people to rejoice when He sends judgments on the wicked: “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her.” (Revelation 18:20) That is no less a command than the command “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4).

 

 

2A quick review of the Ten Commandments reflects this truth about our eternal God and His eternal law. He is the only God, so His first commandment forbids us from having any other gods before Him. Who He is is perfect, and His revelation of Himself is perfect, so the 2^nd commandment forbids any imaginations/images of Him from out of man’s head, heart or hands. Who He is is and has revealed Himself to be is wholly deserving of our love and praise at all times and in all places, so His 3^rd commandment forbids dishonoring His revelation/Name at all times, and requires the praising and enjoying of Who He is. As our Creator God in whom we live and move and have our being, He deserves we live every moment of these lives He has given us for and through and to Him, so His 4^th law is that we give all our life’s time to Him as He in His goodness ordained for us His image-bearers and children: we like Him are to work six days per week and to rest and be refreshed, humbly, thankfully, happily, lovingly consecrating all the creation and our work and lives to Him who made and redeemed us. He as King made and rules us through means, parents, whom He requires us to honor and obey in order to obey Him (5^th commandment). He created man a living being in His own image such that man’s life is to be honored and protected in a special way and murder is prohibited and a death penalty is attached for violating it (6th law). As Christ and His church are one, and as the great Three in One who made us in His image to be male and female have a dim reflection of His covenant unity/oneness, so He made man and wife to be one flesh and taught not to adulterate this special covenant relationship (7^th commandment). As the Giver/Possessor of heaven and earth, He gave each one a measure of things to use so as to keep His commands and so prohibits taking the private property He entrusted to others (8^th law). He is through and through Truthful and trustworthy and we His image bearers are to reflect this in all our communications and relationships so He forbids lying. And He is the One who Himself is and provides all His creatures need to be satisfied, so He forbids coveting and desiring what He has not appointed for us (10^th commandment). Yes, the commandments of God reflect perfectly the attributes and things that are true about God and His personal Being.

3Francis Nigel Lee, “Christocracy and the Divine Savior’s Law for All Mankind”.

4This is the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer’s 2nd Petition as explained by the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 48 Q & A 123 Q. What does the second petition mean? A. “Your kingdom come” means: Rule us by your Word and Spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to you.1 Preserve your church and make it grow.2 Destroy the devil’s work; destroy every force which revolts against you and every conspiracy against your holy Word.3 Do this until your kingdom fully comes, when you will be all in all.4 with corresponding footnotes listing the following texts to support: 1) Ps. 119:5, 105; 143:10; Matt. 6:33; 2) Ps. 122:6-9; Matt. 16:18; Acts 2:42-47; 3) Rom. 16:20; 1 John 3:8; 4) Rom. 8:22-23; 1 Cor. 15:28; Rev. 22:17, 20.

5In all things, Jesus taught us to be like God (just, longsuffering, and merciful).

6Just as in the Old Testament, so in the New, these imprecations had the long term and larger goal in God’s design to work towards and accomplish the redemption of His creation.

7In fulfillment of Hosea 3:4-5: “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king of prince, without sacrifice [which according to Deuteronomy 12 could only occur at the Temple in Jerusalem], or sacred pillar, without ephod [the garment of the priest] or teraphim. Afterward [after the time they are without God and His temple in contrast to the Gentiles who were once without God in the world- cf. Ephesians 2:11-22] the children of Israel shall return, eek the LORD their God and David their king, and fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.”

8I attest that my prayer on the 11th of September 2001 to God- motivated in its request so that people might know that Jesus Christ is God’s Son as Psalm 2 describes Him- prayed to Him and His Anointed Son Jesus, proves and is corroboration of the Scriptures that Jesus is the Son of God! That 2nd Psalm predicted not only the rebellion of the Gentile nations along with Israel (2:1 “the people”) “against YHWH and against His Anointed” (v. 2) in seeking to “cast away Their cords” [Their laws and God’s provision of atoning sacrifice- Lev. 17:11; Psalm 118:21-29; cf. Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 and the wrath that consumed them] but also predicted, based on the infallible promise of YWHW God to His Anointed and Begotten Son (v. 7) that upon His request to the Father He would give His Son “the nations for Your inheritance and the ends of the earth for Your possession” (v.8). Among the nations of this earth, and in and among “the ends of the earth” is that parcel of land known as Israel and that precious, chosen and well beloved people, Israel, the Jews. The Spirit of God by whom this Psalm was written then “instructed” the nation’s leaders how they ought to respond: “Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in him.” God thus counsels That prayer on 9-11 also ended with a heartfelt petition that the Lord would somehow use it to bring about the salvation of Israel as He promised in Romans 11. Is God about to be merciful to answer such prayers for Israel’s salvation (cf. Paul’s prayer in Romans 10:1)? Judging by the fact that what Y’shua predicted in Luke 21:24 (the holy city Jerusalem – after being trampled down by Gentiles for twenty centuries – would return to the controlling hands of Israel) was in at least significant measure fulfilled in 1967 (for footage see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15YesIVc5FM), and judging by the fact there is more sympathy for Y’shua among the Jews as one of their own Jewish Rabbi , judging by what seems to be the moving of God’s Spirit in causing many Jews to repent of their sins and be reconciled to God through trusting in His Son (Psalm 2:12) and many more hungry for the good news about Messiah Jesus and how to be restored to God, but more, and most importantly, judging by the promises of God’s word that predicted God would in grace1 both restore His people to the land promised to them and their forefathers (Psalm 105; Ezekiel 34:11-31; 36:1-15; 37; 39:21-39) and restore/return them to the LORD and His Anointed One/King/Christ/greater David (Hosea 3:4-5; Ezekiel 36:16-38; 37; 39:21-39; Psalm 102 with 22, 67, 68, 72, 138).

9Revelation 22:20 shows us we are to pray for that Day of Judgment: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” Paradise was all righteousness. Sin disrupted it. Sin is rebellion and violation of God’s law. It must be judged and destroyed. Without such just judgment and destruction, there can be no sinless, righteous paradise. Thus, from Genesis to Revelation, we see that every time the very good (Genesis 1:31) Creator God comes to restore things in mercy, He also comes bringing just judgment: Genesis 3:15: promising to save fallen mankind through the woman’s Seed, He says it will be in connection with the serpent’s being justly punished (cranium crushed) and the just judgment and sentence of death His redeemed ones deserved suffered by the Seed of the woman (Jesus); Noah’s flood (judgment on the wicked amounted to mercy for the believing); the Ten Plagues; the Red Sea (Israel could not be mercifully delivered without the wicked oppressor Pharaoh and his cohorts being destroyed; see archaeological evidence of this justice-mercy event at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnMwW-GAKvA and on and on it goes. Psalm 136 retraces Israel’s path and God’s mercies to her, constantly destroying (justly) her enemies and saving (mercifully, we don’t deserve it according to justice; only through the sovereign election of God to decide to punish the Just One for the unjust can this be- it took inscrutable and otherwise impossible wisdom, God’s, and great beyond infinite measure- love- to give His only begotten Son for sinners like us deserving of His infinite wrath). The crux of this justice-mercy matter is at the crucifixion of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. Without His having suffered the justice of God in our eternal death, we would not have entered relationship with God in His mercy.

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