Psalm 10
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One of the main reasons that we’ve committed to studying the psalms every summer is because we believe that the psalms teach us how to pray. This book was the prayerbook of Israel. It was Christ’s prayer book, and so if we want to learn how to pray, the book of Psalms seems a great place to find quality instruction.
But as I opened up Psalm 10 this week in preparation for this morning, something immediately jumped out at me. This prayer sounds nothing like how I pray. It feels foreign and unfamiliar. There are times when the world of the Bible seems so distant from the world where I am living out the days of my life, and this is one of those times. Here the psalmist is crying out to God because wicked men are hotly pursuing the poor and sitting in ambush to murder the innocent; they are stalking the helpless like a lion, seeking to seize them and crush them with no fear of reprisal or accountability of any kind.
Meanwhile, I live in the suburbs of a major city in the wealthiest nation on earth, where my biggest problems are the price of gas and keeping my toddler from destroying the house. Of course that’s an understatement, because we all have much greater issues going on in our lives than what we say publicly, but I think few if any of us would say they are facing a situation that is remotely similar to what David is describing in this psalm.
And that is because frankly, few, if any of us, are poor. Few, if any of us, are without any means of help. We are not orphans, nor are we oppressed. Most of us have power and authority and a voice and means and support; and so we come to Psalm 10 and the prayer that we find here is not one that comes alive in our social or economic context.
And because of that, we don’t really know what to do with it. And so we overtly spiritualize it. We take the prayer out of its social and economic context, and make it a vague cry for divine help when life isn’t going well. But this morning, I don’t want to overly-spiritualize this prayer. I think it is important to keep it in its social and economic context, and here’s why.
This is a prayer for the poor and afflicted and the helpless and the oppressed. And even if that isn’t our life’s circumstances, as members of the community that Jesus founded and to this day empowers, we are called to join the poor and the helpless in their earnest prayer for justice. Even if this isn’t a prayer that hits upon your particular station in life, as a follower of Jesus, you are called to pray this prayer alongside the poor and oppressed. After all, this is the population that Jesus is most concerned with.
In Luke 4, when Jesus is just beginning his public ministry, he kicks things off in his hometown of Nazareth. One Sabbath day, he went to the synagogue and stood up in front of everyone and explained to them the purpose for his ministry, using a passage from the book of Isaiah, saying:
““The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”” (Luke 4:18–19, ESV)
So we can see that Jesus had a special affinity for the poor and oppressed. And so, if the church is the community that has been tasked and empowered to continue Christ’s mission on earth until he returns, than surely one of our chief priorities must be to move in love towards marginalized people and share the good news of Jesus with them - with our words and our actions.
But it starts with our prayers. There is an old latin saying, lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. How we pray is how we believe is how we live. In essence, the way that we pray has a direct impact on the way that we live. When you are praying for healing for a loved one, you are far more likely to to send them encouraging messages and to check-in with them. Jesus understood this. In the Sermon on the Mount he tells his disciples, “Love you enemies. But what comes next? And pray for those who persecute you.” Why does Jesus link praying for one’s enemies with loving one’s enemies? Because how we pray affects how we live.
Therefore, if we are to be a community that cares for the poor, we must be a community that prays for the poor. This is why keeping Psalm 10 in its social and economic context is so important. It teaches us how to join the poor and oppressed in their prayer for justice.
So let’s dive in.
The psalmist begins with exasperation and questions.
“Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1, ESV)
This is perhaps the most relatable sentiment in the entire psalm. Whether it has been a time of personal suffering or walking with a loved one who is suffering. If you’ve ever been in a place where you had no control, no means to fix the situation, and all you could do was cry out to God, you have probably voiced the opening to this prayer. “Where are you God? Do you see what’s happening? Why have you left me at this critical moment?”
The very first thing we need to learn from this psalm is the fact that it is okay to be exasperated with God. It’s okay to ask him questions. It’s okay to protest our life’s circumstances to God. This is hard for us to take to heart because in our modern Christian music and even in the old hymns, we sing these strong statements of faith and adoration - which is great! But you don’t ever hear a song in church that poses a question to God or a complaint. And yet, as one writer put it, “Merely prick the Psalter and it will bleed the cries of the oppressed pleading with God to act.” That is to say, posing questions and submitting complaints and protests to God is a common feature in the psalms. In fact, more than half of this psalm feature the psalmist mourning and protesting how things are going in the world. And so there is freedom for you and I in prayer to wrestle with these questions that we have. It’s actually good for us to do so.
So what has caused the psalmist to question the nearness of God? Well, verses 2-11 lay out the complaint:
“In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised. For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” His ways prosper at all times; your judgments are on high, out of his sight; as for all his foes, he puffs at them. He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.” His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression; under his tongue are mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages; in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket; he lurks that he may seize the poor; he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might. He says in his heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.””
The psalmist focuses on two things: the heart of the wicked and his actions. What lies at the heart of the wicked? What makes up his thoughts? To sum up what the psalmist says in these verses, the subject of his complaint are these men who believe in their heart that God will not hold them accountable for anything that they do. Verse 6: “I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.” Verse 8: “God has hidden his face, he will never see it.” At the center of their being is the belief that their actions will not be judged.
And therefore, what kind of activity has that belief given birth to? The worst kind. These men hotly pursue the poor, their mouth is filled with curses and oppression, they murder the innocent, and seize the poor. Verse 10: the helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might.” As is so often the case, the ones that suffer the most are the ones who are most vulnerable.
And perhaps worst of all is what we hear in verse 5: These men who think and act in this way, their ways prosper at all times. They seem to flourish while the poor and helpless are crushed. This is why the psalmist asks, “Where are you, O God? Why do you stand far off?”
And the reality is that this is our world now. This state of affairs that the psalmist describes isn’t unique to ancient Israel. It’s accurate of our world and our society. The problem is that our culture is set up in such a way as to allow most of us to avoid seeing the problem. But when you talk to the people who daily interact with the poor and marginalized - like the folks at Home of Hope or the Lawrenceville Coop or Family Promise - they’ll tell you how it is. Often times you can see it on their faces. They feel the exasperation at how things seem to be stacked against the poor at every turn. You can almost see the question written on their faces, “Why have you hidden your face, O Lord?”
So what is our prayer? What is the prayer that we can take up to join the poor and helpless in their desire for justice? Well, we find it in verses 12-15.
“Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”? But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless. Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.
At the center of this prayer is a call for God to act. It begins with a command: Arise, O Lord, lift up your hand! Act! Do something about this situation! And then right there in the middle, in verse 15, we hear what the psalmist wants done: “Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.”
Break the arm of the wicked is a phrase that means break their power or strength. A fighter with a broken arm can do very little harm in the ring- and so in the same way, Lord take away the ability for the wicked to harm the poor. Break their power and hold them to account, because you are king forever and ever. This is the central prayer of the poor. Deliver us from the hand of these men. Break their power and hold them accountable.
Now, the psalmist obviously wrote this prayer before the arrival of Jesus, but in Jesus we can see God’s unswerving commitment to this. Because God does not stay far off. He does not remain hidden from the injustice that is going on in the world. He sees. He takes note, and he has taken it up into his hands. We worship and confess loyalty to a king named Jesus, who entered into the suffering of the world and himself suffered greatly at the hands of evil and wicked men. He gave himself over to their will and was beaten and killed for our salvation.
And so all those who are hurting, whether that’s you who are here today or the Lawrenceville family that is living in their car, or the child who’s main meal of the day comes from her school lunch, whatever suffering you are experiencing, you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is not oblivious to it. Injustice is not an abstract concept for him. He knows it well, because he chose to enter into it for your sake, that he might bring justice to the world once and for all.
Jesus has broken the arm of the wicked because by his death and resurrection he has broken the power of sin altogether. Upon the cross, he has decreed their ultimate demise and end - which is good news for the poor and it is good news for us as well. This is the hope of the poor that can never be taken away.
It’s remarkable how faith keeps breaking through in Psalm 10. Even with his complaint and protest and mourning, the psalmist can’t help but confess his faith in God, as his prayer ends with a confession of faith that God will indeed do justice to the poor. Verse 16-18:
“The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.”
So, how can we stand alongside the poor and oppressed? How can we join them in their prayers for justice? How should we pray? Psalm 10 gives us the language. Arise, O Lord, and lift up your hand. Break the power of the wicked. Render them harmless, for you are the king forever. It is my hope that as we continue and grow our ministry at Redeemer, this prayer would always be upon our lips as we commit ourselves to what Jesus commited himself to: justice for the poor. Because how we pray is how we live.