Broken Bows and Slaying Swords, Part 2 (Psalm 37:12-15) | Worship Service

Well, good morning and welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad you're here today. Would you please stand as we begin our worship service this morning with a call to worship from the Book of Psalms. In chapter 91, verses 1 to 4, and it says,.

He who abides in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to Yahweh, my refuge and my fortress, my God and whom I trust. For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the destructive pestilence.

He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you will take refuge. His truth is a large shield and bulwark. And I read the wrong verse. Let's try this one more time. Deuteronomy 32, 3 to 4. For I proclaim the name of Yahweh, a scribe greatness to our God.

The rock, His work is perfect. For all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He. And we're going to sing the right song this morning, How Firm a Foundation.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord. It is laid for your faith in His exodus made. Though still the mission shall be alone. I strengthen this cornerstone, this solid ground. Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace. When fears are stilled, when strivings cease. My comforter, here in the love of Christ I stand. Hopeless faith, this every sin. His body laid, light of the world by darkness slain.

You have all of announcements here this morning.

First of all, we have an annual business meeting and members meeting coming up on February 2nd. So take note of that in your bulletin. And then we have here with us today, Joel Baker, who mentioned several weeks ago.

We are considering bringing you on as a biblical counselor, part of Kootenai Community Church Ministry. Joel and his wife and daughter are here, Joel, Jessica and Bria. And Joel, we stand up just so people know where you're seated this morning.

He's the new guy in church. So if you want to meet him after the service today, you can. And if you weren't here for adult Sunday school class, in adult Sunday school class, we had a Q &A to get to know Joel, ask him some questions, kind of an enjoyable time.

So feel free to go back and watch that on our YouTube channel if you want to see that. And then we're going to, I'm going to call a little bit of an audible here. So I'm going to have you remain seated for the prayer time.

And then I'll ask you to stand for the reading of scripture. So when I ask you to stand, the worship team can come up here. So we're going to pray first, and we're going to pray for the devastation, the people who are devastated down in California.

So let's bow our heads. Our Father, our hearts are saddened and broken for the state of those who are in Southern California with these fires that are raging. We are reminded again that you are sovereign over all things.

Everything rests in your hands and happens and unfolds according to your sovereign will. You could put these fires out at any moment. We know that that is possible. We also know that because you are wise and good and holy and righteous and just, that you are accomplishing your purposes, both temporal as well as eternal, through this destruction.

And our hearts are saddened by this, and we are broken over that. It is our prayer that you would be accomplishing your purposes through these events. And for those who are there who are believers, for we know that believers have been affected by this, it is our prayer that you would use this to sanctify them, to set and focus their attention and their hearts upon eternity.

We pray that you would draw near to and comfort your people in the midst of this tragedy. We pray that they would be equipped to reach out with the gospel and the message of eternal salvation and eternal life and forgiveness and escape from the wrath that is to come with all their neighbors, their friends, co-workers, people around them.

We pray that you would meet the needs of your people by your grace and that you would use those who have the means to reach out and to provide for others. May this be something that you use to strengthen and to expand your church, to glorify your name, to sanctify your people, to comfort your people.

And so we pray that they would be comforted in their afflictions so that in the times to come, they may see, looking back upon this, your hand in their lives and would be used by you to comfort others in future afflictions.

We pray for those who are not believers, who have lost all of their possessions as well, we pray that this would remind them that life is temporary, that everything can be taken away from them and that there is a fiery judgment that is to come.

We pray that in the midst of this that they would lose all of their hope and confidence in the things of this world, the treasures and the pleasures, the reputation, the lands and houses and that they would at least hear the message that in a moment everything that they have saved and worked for can be taken away and their soul can be required of them.

And so we pray that as they think about those things, that you would bring into their lives people who understand and know the gospel to share the hope of eternal life with them. We know that you're accomplishing your purposes not just for individual believers as well as individual unbelievers, but for your church and for your nation.

And we pray that whatever it is that you are doing here, that it may be for your glory, that it may be for the hastening in of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it may be for the strengthening of your church, that this may be something that you would use to spark revival in the hearts of your people and in this nation, to turn this nation away from its wickedness and sin, remind our entire nation of how temporary things are and how necessary it is to know the one and living and true God.

We know that you can do this through these events. We pray that you would. We are grateful that given the size of all of this devastation, that the loss of life has been minimal comparatively. And we would pray for those who are laboring so diligently to put out the fires, to keep more from starting, that you would bless those efforts and bring this tragedy to a swift conclusion.

Only allow as much to unfold as is necessary for you to accomplish your purposes and then make it stop, we pray. We pray again that you would be glorified through it and we pray that as we remember these things, that we would learn the lessons that this tragedy should teach us from afar and that our hearts would be humbled and drawn near to you through this.

We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Will you turn now please to Psalm 7. Psalm 7 for the scripture reading. This is a psalm that deals with the wicked and the judgment on the wicked. And it is not my intention to connect this psalm in any way to people who are suffering in California.

As if, I mean I joke about California, but my heart is truly broken for that. So this is not intended to be connected to that at all. This is intended to be connected to the passage that I'm preaching on today, Psalm 37.

So Psalm 7, will you stand with me as we read. The Shecheyan of David when he sang to the Lord concerning Cush of Benjamite. O Lord my God, in you I have taken refuge. Save me from all those who pursue me and deliver me, or he will tear my soul like a lion, dragging me away while there is none to deliver.

O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is injustice in my hands, if I have rewarded evil to my friend, or have plundered him who without cause was my adversary, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life down to the ground, and lay my glory in the dust.

Arise, O Lord, in your anger, lift up yourself against the rage of my adversaries, and arouse yourself for me. You have appointed judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples encompass you, and over them return on high.

The Lord judges the peoples. Vindicate me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and my integrity that is in me. O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous. For the righteous God tries the hearts and minds.

My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day. If a man does not repent, he will sharpen his sword. He has bent his bow and made it ready.

He has also prepared for himself deadly weapons. He makes his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, he travails with wickedness, and he conceives mischief and brings forth falsehood. He has dug a pit and hollowed it out, and has fallen into the hole which he made.

His mischief will return upon his own head, and his violence will descend upon his own pate. I will give thanks to the Lord according to his righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's sing together, He Will Hold Me Fast.

I fear my faith will fail. Christ will hold me fast. When the tempter would prevail, He will hold me fast. I could never keep my life's fear. Most all those he saves are his delight. Christ will hold me fast.

Precious in his holiness, Eshawat, such a kindness has been said. Savior loves me so.

This may sound familiar, but Psalm 91. He who abides in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to Yahweh, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. For it is he who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the destructive pestilence.

He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will take refuge. His truth is a large shield and bulwark. Let's sing together, He Will Keep You, Psalm 121.

I lift my eyes and see. I need not be afraid. All my help comes from the Lord, who the earth and sky has made. He will keep from all behind, will sustain through this journey from now. My step is the song, will sustain, sustain.

Will you now please turn your Bibles to Psalm 37.

Psalm 37. And before we begin, let's bow our heads and ask the Lord's blessing on our study. Our Father, it is our earnest desire today that we would hear from You in Your Word, that You would speak to us in the pages of Scripture, that we would learn the lessons that we ought to learn from the warnings that are given to the wicked, that we would be encouraged as those who have found refuge in Christ to cherish that refuge and to look forward to the hope that You have laid up for us in Your Son in the future.

We thank You for Your mercy. We thank You for our time here. We thank You that we can gather together and worship in freedom and in comfort. And now we ask that You would be glorified through the proclamation of Your Word and through our understanding of it.

For Christ's sake, amen. Psalm 37, we're going to read together verses 12 through 15. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him, for He sees His day is coming.

The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy, to slay those who are upright in conduct. Their sword will enter their own heart, and their bows will be broken.

This is the passage that we started last week. We got partway through it, looked at verses 12 and 14 to consider together the description there of the wicked and their violence against the righteous. Today, we are looking at verses 13 and 15.

We're taking them in that way, 12 and 14 and 13 and 15, not just because we're grouping odd verses together and even verses together, but because there's a pattern here in this chunk of the psalm that unfolds here, and the intention of the author is to restate in verses 14 and 15 what he says in verses 12 and 13.

Verse 12 makes the statement about the plotting of the wicked and the anger of the wicked, then verse 14 unfolds that a little bit, gives more detail. The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy and to slay those who are upright in conduct.

Then verse 13 describes God's response to that, His judgment, which is the Lord laughs at them. Verse 15 adds more detail to that. There's this alternating pattern in the psalm, and we are grouping together verses 12 and 14, because they both describe the pernicious plans of the wicked, and we saw there last week the anger and the hatred, the violent intent and hostility of the wicked toward the righteous.

We saw that last week that that war, that hostility, goes back to the garden, and it is really a tale that is as old as time itself, the war that is unfolding between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

That is really the tale of all of Scripture. We saw in those verses 12 and 14 that the wicked have not only violent hatred and hostility towards the righteous, but they also have the means to carry out their nefarious ends.

They have drawn their sword, they have bent their bow, they are ready to draw blood, ready to destroy. So their anger and violence is not just a pipe dream, it's not just something that they hope for, it is actually something that the wicked have within their means to inflict on the righteous.

We saw there that the righteous are their target, the wicked go after the vulnerable, and those who are without the means to defend themselves in order to destroy and to despoil the righteous. And then we saw that the central idea of this part of the psalm, these four verses, is that God in His judgment.

On the wicked.

Will turn the evil of the wicked and all of their plots and intentions back upon their own heads. There is a poetic justice that is to come. And that's what these four verses are describing. So verses 12 and 14, the pernicious plans of the wicked, and now we pick it up almost like this is part 2 of last week's sermon, which it is, with the poetic punishment on the wicked in verses 13 and 15.

Let's read verse 13 and 15 together and notice how verse 15 repeats and gives added detail,.

I should say,.

It doesn't repeat, it gives added detail to what we find in verse 13. Verse 13, the Lord laughs at him, that is at the wicked,.

For he, the Lord,.

Sees that his, the wicked, his day is coming.

Verse 15,.

Their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken. Psalm 13 describes God as laughing at the wicked. Now you remember, this is not the first time that we have seen this in this time that we have spent in the psalms.

We saw this back in Psalm 2,.

Verse 4,.

He who sits in the heavens laughs, he scoffs at them. This word for laugh in verse 13 is the same word used for laughter back in chapter 2, Psalm 2, verse 4, describing how the Lord responds to the wicked of Psalm 2.

In verse 4.

The word translated laugh here describes mockery and derision. It means to make sport of someone or to hold them in ridicule. Now that might make you slightly uncomfortable to think of God doing that to the wicked, but I want to briefly lay out for you the case that this is entirely justified and entirely righteous mockery and derision.

This is the judgment upon the wicked. Now there are different kinds of laughter and we recognize this. I mentioned these, I kind of expanded on this a little bit in Psalm 2. There are different kinds of laughter.

There is the laughter that finds something funny because something is unexpected, like the punchline of a joke or a situation that unfolds that has a certain note of irony in it or we see something that kind of catches us out of the blue and so we laugh at that because it's kind of humorous.

That's one kind of laughter. There is another kind of laughter that is a coping mechanism. You laugh at something that is not necessarily funny. We wouldn't find it humorous, but in order to cope or to vent sort of something inside of us, we sort of laugh at it as a way of just coping with reality when reality gets tough.

Or sometimes we laugh to relieve tension or we laugh because we are nervous or anxious. There is a nervous laughter, kind of a, you don't know what's coming, that kind of a laughter. You're not sure what's happening.

Somebody gives you a gag gift. You're not sure what you see coming so you kind of laugh nervously at it. But none of that is the kind of laughter that God has with the wicked. He's not surprised by what they're doing.

He certainly doesn't find it humorous. Oh, the wicked are oppressing.

The righteous.

They're trafficking people. They're oppressing people. They're stealing things. They're looting. They're murdering. They're going to war. They're heaping up their possessions and just spoiling the righteous.

Isn't that funny? I didn't see that coming. That's not the kind of laughter. Nor is it God coping with reality or relieving tension. Nor is this a nervous or anxious kind of laughter. This is the type of laughter that is what it is described as here, a scoffing and a derision.

The Lord holds them in contempt in the sense that He makes sport of them or mocks them. Consider, if you would, going back to Psalm 2, not turning there, but I mean if you were not here for the messages on Psalm 2 and this is something that perplexes you, how can God laugh at the wicked?

Go back to that Psalm and watch how we unfolded this. This is a just God. For God to scoff or deride or to ridicule those who have scoffed at and derided and ridiculed His truth and His Son and His kingdom and His righteousness and His law, that is entirely just, entirely righteous, entirely appropriate.

I would say to you, if your view of God.

Does not have room for that kind of theology, you have a small God. You need to understand that this is, in fact, God doing to the wicked the very thing that they have done to the righteous, to His people, and to His truth.

And God is simply turning back upon their own heads the very thing that they deserve and warrant for what they have done. This is justice of God inflicting upon them what they have inflicted upon Him and upon His people.

Psalm 2, the parallels here are quite striking because in Psalm 2 we see something similar happening that we have happening in Psalm 37. Namely, the wicked are plotting against the righteous, raging in their hatred and their animosity and enmity against God and His people.

To persecute.

Through violence, to cast off, to throw down,.

To destroy,.

To despoil people. In fact, Psalm 2, verses 1 through 3, says, why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? Remember what Psalm 37,.

Look at verse 12,.

Says,.

The people's plot or the wicked plots against the righteous. You have the same kind of plotting in Psalm 2, but in Psalm 2 it is not the wicked, generally speaking, in Psalm 2, it is the rulers and the leaders and the kings of the earth who are doing this plotting against the Lord and against His anointing.

Verse 2, the kings of the earth, this is Psalm 2, the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointing. There is a plotting and a planning.

There is a particular target that is imbued, namely, the Lord, His truth, His kingdom, His law, His word, His righteousness, and His anointed, which is the king.

That would come.

From David's line. They are really persecuting or prosecuting Christ in Psalm 2. So that is the activity of the wicked there. It is obviously a violent, angry, rage-filled rebellion going on in Psalm 2.

It is described in verse 3, let us tear away.

Their fetters.

And cast away their cords from us. There is this rash thrashing about, casting off restraint in almost a violent way that is described in Psalm 2. So the psalmist in Psalm 37 describes that type of rebellion, anger, violence, and hostility.

And then he says in verse 13, the Lord laughs at him for He sees His day is coming. In Psalm 2, the psalmist describes that same type of violent anger and hostility and rage against the Lord and His truth.

And the response in verse 4 of Psalm 2 is the Lord laughs in them. He who sits in the heavens laughs, not because He finds it humorous, not because He is relieving nervous tension, but Psalm 2 verse 4 says the Lord scoffs at them.

This is a scoffing laughter. Consider also Psalm 59 verse 8,.

But you, O Lord,.

Laugh at them. You scoff at all the nations. This is an appropriate response. And notice how appropriate this response is. Let me back up a second. There is an intentional mirror of the act with the response in this passage.

So what is the act? The act in verse 13 is the wicked gnashing their teeth at the righteous.

Did I say that?

Gnashing their teeth. You can see the jaws clenched and the mouth shut and the teeth grinding. You can see the anger and the hostility in the countenance.

Of the wicked.

Through that description. The Lord's response is to laugh at them,.

Which highlights.

The countenance and the face of the Lord. Not that the Lord has a face, not that He has a mouth,.

But the idea of God.

Laughing puts in your mind the picture of somebody laughing with their mouth and with their face. So the wicked gnashing their teeth. The Lord laughing at that. You see the contrast there in those two images?

It's an appropriate imagery, an appropriate response. The wicked use their tongues as swords and gnash at the righteous and the Lord uses His mouth to condemn the wicked and to laugh at them and that in fact is their judgment.

Yahweh laughs at the wicked. Now, if you are the righteous and you are suffering at the hands of the wicked, you might be thinking to yourself, Jim, it's great that the Lord laughs at the wicked, but I would like Him to do something more than just laugh at their wickedness.

In fact, Calvin in his commentary on this passage says the fact that God doesn't seem to be doing anything to counter the wickedness.

Of the wicked.

And appears to us only to be laughing at it tends to bring us little comfort and little consolation as we reflect upon what the wicked do to the righteous, right? You might wish, why doesn't God do something?

Move, rise up and to defend the righteous? Rise up and destroy the wicked even now? I mean, laughter seems like an inadequate response given the reality of their evil. It feels as if God should come forth armed for our defense to Himself come out with His sword drawn and His bow bent and all of the armies of Heaven to defend the righteous whom He loves and whom He has died for.

So the imagery that He sits in Heaven and merely laughs at the wicked would tend to conjure up within us this desire to see Him do far more than simply laugh at them. The fact that God is waiting in that laughing and waiting to deal with the wicked is what tries our patience in a difficult world.

That is what is difficult for the righteous to deal with. It's the Habakkuk problem. Lord, this is what I see going on around me. No justice in the land. The wicked just flourishing in all that they do.

The kings are promoting immorality and wickedness. People turn against your law. The priesthood is corrupt. The monarchy is corrupt. The people are corrupt. I feel like I'm the only righteous one in all of the land and I cry to Heaven and you seem to be silent.

You seem to be doing nothing. You're just waiting and waiting for what? That's the angst of Habakkuk 1. It's also the angst of Psalm 73. Why is it that the wicked prosper and the righteous seem to have nothing?

God seems to do nothing in this. There seems to be this reality in our world where this happens for the wicked and this is happening to the righteous and God seems content with that circumstance for both the righteous and the wicked.

And we want God to do something more than simply laugh at it. And again, He's not... It helps us if we remember that the laughter is not finding it humorous. The laughter is itself the certainty of their judgment.

Notice what verse 13 says. He sees His day is coming. God laughs at them because God sees the day of the wicked is coming upon them. And from God's perspective, it is not a long time. For us, it feels like a long time.

From God's vantage point, it is not. And listen, brethren, I want to promise you something. There will come a time when you will look back upon this time and you will say, you know, it wasn't that long after all.

It felt like a long time in the moment. But boy, those events unfolded quickly like that. And my suffering was not really that much. My suffering was not really that long. It was a whole lifetime. But you're going to be dead a lot longer than you will be alive here.

Now, eternally speaking,.

In terms of resurrection, you're going to be alive a lot longer than you will have been dying. You understand that? But I mean, when you die, you're going into eternity and you're going to look back upon this life and you're going to realize that the Lord laughing at them was just the Lord preparing for their judgment.

That is what the psalm is teaching. The Lord laughs at him for He sees His day is coming. His day of judgment and the destruction of the wicked. And given the parallelism of the passage, verse 15 describes that judgment.

We're not there yet. But the plans of the wicked are destined to fail. They cannot succeed. Their triumph is temporary. And their resistance is futile because the wicked have an appointed day. And this is how Paul wrapped up his sermon on Mars Hill.

In Acts 17.

God has overlooked the times of ignorance in the past, but now He is declaring to all men everywhere that they should repent because He has fixed a day upon which He will judge the world in righteousness.

And He has furnished proof to all men by raising that judge from the dead. That's Acts 17, 30 and 31. God has fixed a day. That day is coming. It is unalterable. It cannot be delayed. And every day that we live brings us one day closer to that final day.

But it is certain. The judgment and the execution of justice upon the wicked and the exaltation of the righteous is as fixed and certain as anything could be fixed and certain. And therefore God is able in His judgment to laugh at the wicked.

And while we wait for the wicked to be cut off and the righteous to inherit the land, that is the repeated promise of Psalm 37, remember. So while we wait for that to happen, the wicked plot and scheme.

They plan destruction and unrighteousness and seek to overthrow the righteous and to destroy them. But the wicked might as well plan to put out the sun with a cup of water because it will be just as effective.

They can't do it.

And they won't do it.

So everything that they have plotted will eventually come to nothing. And the wicked do not see just how close they are to ruin. That's one of the underlying implications of the passage. The wicked don't see just how close they are to ruin.

They are sinners in the hands of an angry God plotting against God's people. And there is barely a hair's breadth between them and their eternal damnation. And they march along in their folly and rebellion acting as if they are the rulers of time and eternity.

And every breath that the wicked take, they take by nothing less than the bare permission of a God who is long-suffering and patient with them. And every heartbeat that is theirs is the only thing that separates them from everything they have and instantaneous and eternal loss.

It's the only thing between them and eternal destruction. And once that day has arrived, all their evil will turn back upon their own heads. It will return to their own pate, as the Scriptures say. Now this is what, this returning back upon them, is what we would refer to as poetic justice.

Matthew Henry says this, Men have their day now, but God will have His day shortly, a day of recompenses, a day which will set all to rights and render that ridiculous which now passes for glorious. That's a great phrase.

God will render that ridiculous which now passes for glorious when He makes everything right. This is poetic justice. Verse 15 says, Their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken.

Now given the parallel structure of this part of this psalm, 12 and 14 are paralleling one another. 13 and 15 parallel one another. Verse 15 I think is the explanation of the kind of judgment that is coming that is mentioned in verse 13.

For God sees His day is coming. What is that day? Verse 15, Their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken. The symbols, the bow, the sword and the bow are the symbols of their strength, symbols of their military prowess, their ability to do harm, their violence.

Their might is being crushed here in verse 15. The tools of their oppression are brought to nothing and their violence is inflicted upon them. Judgment here is described as the undoing or the reversal of their plots.

Remember verse 12 says,. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes at him.

No, sorry.

Verse 14, The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy and to slay those who are upright in conduct. Their sword will enter their own heart and their bows will be broken.

So verse 15 is the reversal, the undoing of verse 14. The wicked have drawn their sword. They have bent or walked back their bow, stretched it out and they are ready and aiming at the righteous. And the judgment that is mentioned in verse 13 is that judgment which turns those instruments right back upon them so that their sword pierces themselves, not the righteous, and their bow is ultimately broken.

This is the judgment. The total destruction of the means that they use to oppress the righteous. Their sword enters them and their bow is broken. Now, if you've ever had a bow break on you in the middle of pulling it back and stretching it back, you know that that in itself can be very painful, right?

When I was a kid, I used to shoot a slingshot all the time. And it had the surgical rubber that we used for the bands on the slingshot. Made it out of a tree. It wasn't one of the slingshots that you get that sort of wrap around your wrist, come up and you hold onto it that can never leave your wrist.

We just, those were for sissies and pansies. None of my friends ever shot those things. We mocked and ridiculed, scoffed at and laughed, just like God laughs at the wicked. We scoffed at and laughed at the kids who used those.

We had the chunks of tree that we held in our hand and we made our own slingshots. And I was wicked good with that slingshot. Because you used to go practice all the time. We could go, back in my day, you could go to the landfill and you could go down into everybody's garbage and pull their stuff out and shoot stuff, rocks and marbles at it and shoot them with the guns.

You could throw bottles up and shoot them out of the sky with your shotgun. We lived in a good country once. We lived in a great country once. Never forget what they have taken away from you. That was great.

Because you could do.

Your target practice and your Christmas shopping all at the same time, in one place. It was a great time to be alive. But with that slingshot,.

You would pull that back.

And if that surgical tubing broke,.

It would,.

In the twinkling of an eye, it would twist that in your hand, pull it out of your grip and that chunk of wood would come hurtling back at your head before you could even blink and it happened quite frequently when I was a kid.

Quite frequently. I used that thing constantly and always tried to get more out of that surgical tubing than anybody should have gotten out of that surgical tubing. So if that happens with a slingshot, that's the type of destruction.

That's the type of thwarting and judgment that is pictured here. They step it back and when that bow breaks, it crushes in on them. They get the effects of that. They are the one who is wounded by that.

They are the one who is destroyed by that. That is poetic judgment. The very thing that they sought to do to somebody else comes back upon them when God destroys the wicked. This notion of poetic judgment is sprinkled all the way throughout scripture.

Obadiah 15, I call Obadiah the prophet of poetic judgment. I borrowed that from somebody somewhere. I'm not sure who it was. Obadiah 15 says,. For the day of the Lord draws near on all the nations. Now listen to this.

As you have done, it will be done to you. Your dealings will return on your own head. That's poetic judgment. Now Obadiah is pronouncing judgment against the Edomites. And the Edomites, if you read Obadiah and understand the context of it, mentions this.

The Edomites, which came from Esau, that was Jacob's brother, they stood back and allowed the invading armies to come in and despoil God's people, the Israelites. And they actually sat there and kept the Israelites from escaping that.