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Imprecatory Praying

“Righteous retribution is one of the glories of divine character. If it is right that God should desire to exercise it, then it cannot be wrong for His people to desire Him to exercise it.”

R. L. Dabney
Discussions, Vol I; Theological & Evangelical

“The imprecatory prayers, invoking God’s judgment on the enemies, are appropriate on the lips of David and the martyrs in heaven. However, they are entirely out of place on the lips of Christians today, guided as we are not by the ethics of intrusion but by the ethics of common grace.”

Dr. Michael Horton

 

Psalm 137

 
7 Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, [a]“Raze it, raze it,
To its very foundation!”
 
8 O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed,
Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
9 Happy the one who takes and dashes
Your little ones against the rock!
 
“The cries of the Psalmist in this text do not reveal a wicked heart crying out for personal vengeance against an enemy, but they reveal an appeal to the Lord to bring swift judgment and destruction upon the Babylonians according to His will and promise (Is. 13:16; Jer. 51:56; Ez. 35:1-6). God retains His prerogative to do as he pleases. In His mercy, He has not destroyed us all, even though it is what we deserve as rebel sinners. God reserves the right to do with the creatures what He will, and even though it may be difficult for us to understand at times, God is still just and holy when meting out His judgment. While it may be difficult for our modern ears to read of such cries two conclusions suffice
 
‘In line with ethical standards, Psalm 137:8-9 appeals to Yahweh as the judge supreme to mete out justice according to His own edict. And since in God’s economy, no ransom was to be allowed for murder, the Psalmist cries out for divine judgment of compensatory bloodshed.’ (John N. Day — Crying for Justice, 68-69)
 
The principle of strict retaliation cannot be maligned without maligning the character of God, who established it and promised it.”
 
Sean McGowan
Psalms that Curse — p. 32-33
 
In the New Covenant, I would only add that we should pray for God to be merciful as we pray for God to be just. We should pray that God should be as merciful to His enemies as He was and remains merciful to us. As such we should pray for His and our enemies to repent. However, it is altogether proper and righteous to go on to pray,
 
“But O Majestic God, we beg of you that if the wicked will not repent that you will even now crush and destroy them and we pray that in keeping with how your inspired Psalmist prayed. We long for the destruction of all Kingdoms that oppose yours and we understand that those Kingdoms that oppose your Kingdom are not destroyed that their continued presence will continue to be an obstacle to our praying, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
 
For your justice’s sake destroy your and our enemies O great covenant God that the earth might be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Let not the wicked continue to detract from your glory by their seeking to pull down your Kingdom.
 
And then Father, by thy Holy Spirit give us a great joy to see your and our enemies utterly destroyed. In their destruction give us merriment and joy beyond speech that you have revealed your justice against all that opposes you.
 

And yet again, we would ask that you would be merciful on the wicked as you were merciful to us and that you would defeat them by causing them to see their sin and moving them to plead for clemency from you on the basis of the finished work of thy benevolent Son, Jesus Christ.

In wrath, remember mercy, O Sovereign God.”

Addendum

Clearly, this proves that Michael Horton doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Again.

The Popularity of Amillennialism as a Recent Phenomenon. Postmillennialism from the Greats

“The explanation is also greatly strengthened by this fact, too little pressed by Calvinists, that ultimately, THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WHOLE MASS OF HUMANITY, INCLUDING ALL GENERATIONS, WILL BE ACTUALLY REDEEMED BY CHRIST. There is to be a time, blessed be God, when literally all the then world will be saved by Christ, when the world will be finally, completely, and wholly lifted by Christ out of the gulf, and sink no more. So that there is a sense, most legitimate, in which Christ is the prospective Saviour of the world”

R. L. Dabney
Systematic Theology — p. 525

Charles Hodge famously remarked that “we have reason to believe … that the number of the finally lost in comparison with the whole number of the saved will be very inconsiderable.”

B. B. Warfield held that “nothing less than the world will be saved” by Christ, the world as an organic whole. Indeed, “the number of the saved shall in the end not be small but large,” and will far outnumber the lost.

In a sermon “God’s Immeasurable Love,” Warfield strongly opposed the idea that the elect is a small remnant of the world since they are the world. In this light, he wrote:

“Through all the years one increasing purpose runs, one increasing purpose: the kingdoms of the earth become ever more and more the kingdom of our God and his Christ. The process may be slow; the progress may appear to our impatient eyes to lag. But it is God who is building: and under his hands, the structure rises as steadily as it does slowly, and in due time the capstone shall be set into its place, and to our astonished eyes shall be revealed nothing less than a saved world.”

In “The Prophecies of St. Paul,” he describes the time from the advent to the parousia as “a period of advancing conquest,” Christ “progressively overcoming evil, throughout this period.” Furthermore, Romans 11 “promises the universal Christianization of the world,—at least the nominal conversion of all the Gentiles and the real salvation of all the Jews … the widest practicable extension of Christianity.” We should hope, pray, and work to that end.

Robert Letham
Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 882–883.

 

I Will See You, Your Culture, And Raise You My Culture

Newspaper Headline,

SOMALI SEX GANG SAY RAPING BRITISH CHILDREN “PART OF THEIR CULTURE”

The headline reminded me of a true story I read somewhere some time ago.
When the British became Colonial Masters of India they were exposed to the practice of Suttee rife in Indian culture. In suttee, a living wife would be placed on the funeral pyre of her dead husband and they would be burned together.

A British military unit happened upon this practice as it was happening. The English commander (Sir Charles James Napier) halted that particular suttee and rescued the widow. The Hindus cried out, “This is part of our culture.”

The English commander replied;

“We also have a cultural practice called hanging. And the first person who approaches this funeral pyre to light it will get to experience that particular English cultural delicacy.”

The Whip, The Whip Hand, & The Whip’s Sudden Absence

For some reason, there are times when memories from 5o years ago or more will come rushing back as unsummoned.

Today I found myself remembering Mom’s leather strap she would use to whip our backsides when we were out of line. The black strap was about 4 feet long and had little holes punched in one end. I suppose the holes were to enhance the stinging effect when the strap found its target.

Mom had, what turned out to eventually be, the unfortunate habit (for her) of keeping that belt in the different handy “go-to” place. Whenever one saw Mom head for one of those belt hideaway spots, one knew one was in trouble.

I have no complaints about the belt being overused. I’m sure whenever Mom drew it out, I deserved every lick I received. However, that is all in hindsight. Eventually, at a very tender age, I realized that the mere existence of that leather strap was my sworn enemy. And of course, enemies are made to be eliminated and so I determined to eliminate that blackstrap enemy.

So, at an age most tender, I went on a seek and destroy mission. I had no way to literally destroy the leather strap so I did the next best thing. I hid the damn thing in a place only God could find. Being satisfied with my work I returned to my cavalier boyish life.

You know where this story is heading, don’t you? I mean, it is not like I suddenly became an angel that did not need the instrument of learning applied to the seat of application. Yep… sure enough, the day soon came when I did that mischievous something that warranted the leather whip. However, I must admit that a certain relaxing strain descended upon me when I realized my mother had gone on the hunt for the belt. I knew the matriarch would not find what she was searching for and that my hindquarters were in no threat.

There I was, knowing that I was worthy of a whipping while also knowing that my poor mother was soon to realize that she was in a pickle. I watched her go throughout the house looking at the old haunts where she would typically hide the belt. As she headed in each new direction I knew that the end of her furious search would end in futility.

Pretty soon, she was worn out, and then it dawned on her as she glanced at me … I had a hand in the Sherlockian case of the missing black leather strap. It was like watching a light bulb literally going off over her head.

The poor woman was betwixt and beside herself. She was caught in a flurry of emotions ranging from anger at my hiding her dreaded weapon to laughter that I would think of doing such a thing at my tender age. She didn’t know whether to laugh in good humor at my resourcefulness or to go all nuclear for my boyish insolence.

Of course, she demanded to know where I hid the belt. And, of course, I insisted that I had no idea what she was talking about. Hey … in for a penny in for a pound right?

I honestly don’t remember how that encounter ended. I do remember that Mom bought many more belts over the years and that I, in turn, hid many more belts over the years. I am quite confident though, at the end of my childhood years, I didn’t miss out on any of the whippings that my Mother believed I deserved.

Harris On Christian Nationalism; McAtee On Harris

I would recommend this discussion by Jon Harris on Christian Nationalism. Because Harris is in transition and so is moving on this issue I don’t agree with everything he has to say but I think it is a serious attempt to discuss what has become one of the most hot-topic buttons out there.

https://podcastaddict.com/episode/132255196?fbclid=IwAR2FGV3joyGu8YaZFGTbqSBxSWUXvcasVylx06G-lpffrxfx8ldG1oI3FEA

Just a few random observations;

1.) Harris indicates that it is his conviction that it is a common faith that is the glue that holds a people together. He notes that shared ethnicity cannot be the prime glue that holds people together, observing that even though people like Sunnis and Shia can have the same ethnicity, their lack of a common faith puts them at one another’s throats.

However, we could just as easily make this observation about religion. In Acts 6 we have people who have a shared faith but who are in friction it can be argued because they don’t have a shared ethnicity. It is interesting that in Acts 6 the way this friction is resolved is by appointing deacons who share the same Greek ethnicity as the widows that are the occasion for the problem.

The idea that the glue that is required to hold a social-order together is both a common religion as well as a common genetic inheritance is seen in pre-enlightenment Christendom. This was a time when the major countries of Europe were all Roman Catholic, yet the dominant ethnic lines of England, France, Germany, Italy, etc., developed very different cultures. This is because, I would contend, because both a common faith in a shared religion combined with a common genetic inheritance is the glue that hold cultures together. The idea that culture equals faith plus ethnicity is easy to demonstrate. Another way of saying this is that culture is faith poured over ethnicity. A nation is a shared core religion poured over a core ethnicity. Both must be present. If both are not present chaos is the result.

Certainly one can have a nation that isn’t 100% ethnically homogenous or 100% shared faith, though moving away from 100% should never be the goal. The percentage of the shared faith ethnicity/shared faith must be very high. At least 80%.

So, Harris rightly says that a nation cannot exist on race / ethnicity alone. But he doesn’t want to say that a nation also can’t exist on a shared faith alone which isn’t homogenous in ethnicity. I don’t agree with that.

2.) Harris offers “the Left embraces its own form of nationalism.” I’m not convinced that is accurate. The left is internationalist (Communist). Of course, if the NWO gets its dream you will have national internationalism, which is to say that since the whole planet, in the NWO dream, will be of one mind and one lip (Genesis 11 language there) the whole planet will be one global nation and therefore in a very attenuated fashion one will have “global nationalism.”

3.) #2 above reminds me though that even Alienists are Kinists because Alienists proclaim that the stranger and the alien are their people. Now if the stranger and the alien are the people (the Kin) of the Alienist then in an extraordinarily inside-out fashion Alienists are Kinists. Like the Kinists, they have a special priority for their own people. It’s just that their own people, unlike the Kinist, are the Alien and the stranger.

4.) Harris argues against “America is an idea and not a place.” This is called Propositional Nationhood and definitely is the essence of what Christian Nationalists are fighting against. Props to Harris for getting this right. The Kinist insists that America is not only a place but it is a particular people as well. Pat Buchanan argues this wonderfully in his “Death of the West.”

In Propositional Nationhood, America as a nation becomes reduced to abstractions. Throughout our history, from the beginning, Americans have understood the idea that America is not a proposition but a place and a people. Here is a quote from Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge from 1896 I just came across last night. Many many more examples could be adduced.

“The Restriction of Immigration” 

“More precious even than forms of government are the mental and moral qualities which make what we call our race. While those stand unimpaired all is safe. When those decline all is imperiled. They are exposed to but a single danger, and that is by changing the quality of our race and citizenship through the wholesale infusion of races whose traditions and inheritances, whose thoughts and whose beliefs are wholly alien to ours, and with whom we have never assimilated or even been associated in the past. The danger has begun. It is small as yet, comparatively speaking, but it is large enough to warn us to act while there is yet time and while it can be done easily and efficiently. There lies the peril at the portals of our land; there is pressing the tide of unrestricted immigration. The time has certainly come, if not to stop, at least to check, to sift, and to restrict those immigrants… The gates which admit men to the United States and to citizenship in the great republic should no longer be left unguarded.”

In the end, if you will not have Christian Nationalism to govern your social order you will have either Marxist Internationalism or pagan Nationalism or Libertarian anarchy governing your social order. There are no other options.

Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

Give the interview a listen and tell me what you think. Harris is doing some good work by seeking to provide a definition of Christian Nationalism that all can converse about.