Thu Feb 12

Listen up, little ones

Especially for the littles in your household.

Listen for the words their and them.

Reading

Psalm 5:1-10—Punish Them, God

Optional Reading

Luke 19:41–44

Keys for Kids

Also for the littles. Young households might choose, after Keys for Kids, to go directly to praise and prayer.

We have to always handle God’s word carefully.
Such is required in judgment phrases in the Psalms.
We can only pray/sing these in Jesus.

Questions

(some read the ?s before notes, then ask them after)

What is an imprecation?
What is the difference between cursing someone and asking God to execute just judgment on them?
How can we pray/sing these judgment phrases in the Psalms?

Notes

(See Saturday for authors. )

Psalm 5:10 asks God to punish the Psalmist’s enemies. Such prayers are often called imprecatory prayers. And they are challenging for us to think about as Christians.

Can Jesus Christ pray “Imprecatory” Prayers?” is the title Christopher Ash gives his chapter on imprecatory psalms. Ash takes up the idea that these psalms are imprecations, which means curses. He concludes, these psalms have nothing of this character [of curses], for they are all prayers to God or desires expressed in the presence of God. There is a great difference between letting loose a curse against someone and praying for God to execute his just judgment on them; in the former, it is a battle between me and my enemy, while in the latter, it is a plea that God, who knows all things and acts with perfect justice, will bring about that justice.

Ash goes on to point out how we can interact with these prayers: First, we hear these prayers as fulfilled in the prayers of Jesus Christ. … Second, we take comfort that this judgment has fallen, for believers, on Jesus Christ. … Third, with great caution and humility, we need to learn to let Jesus lead us in these prayers, which are all expressions of the petition “Your kingdom come, / your will be done, / on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). We may pray them in our praying of the Psalms but only in Christ our covenant head. We do so with hesitation, deeply aware that they can be sullied by our mixed motives, and yet we do join with Christ in praying, “Your kingdom come,” in the words given us in the Psalms.

Swedish Method questions

See the Sunday notes for meaning of the symbols.

Praise

Psalm 104e, 65c

Prayer

Give thanks that your deserved judgment has fallen on Jesus.
Pray for the preparation for preaching God’s Word this Lord's Day.
Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.