Psalms That Curse

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:02

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. It is a joy to be here today.

00:07

I have a special guest with me, Pastor Sean McGowan, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the imprecatory Psalms.

00:13

Before we do that, just a few announcements. I've been traveling a bit. I'll be actually in New York City next month for those who are in the

00:20

New York area. You can go to worldviewconversation .com. You can check out upper right -hand corner.

00:25

There's a tab that'll show you where I'll be. And I wanted to also thank everyone for the generosity.

00:30

I'm just blown away by Christians' hospitality, their generosity across the country. I've gotten to know some really just great people that love the

00:39

Lord. And you can tell when you walk into a church and the Spirit's there and people are fellowshipping, it is such a joyful thing.

00:47

And you can just tell. You can tell the difference between that and a church that has strife and tension and the

00:54

Spirit's not there. I mean, it's just night and day. So just wanna thank everyone. All the places

00:59

I've been so far have been tremendously encouraging. Quick item of business, just two things.

01:05

They're not really business, but just an announcement. One, American Monument is out. I know I've pushed it, but please check out

01:12

American Monument on YouTube or Rumble, Last Stand Studios channel, American Monument.

01:18

And I think we have something good there. I actually had someone contact me from a major media, conservative media organization that wants to use it, which

01:26

I just praise God for. And then also Christianity and Social Justice, Religions in Conflict, it is out.

01:32

People are reading it and benefiting from it. I'll probably sit down next week, probably next week, and start doing the

01:39

Audible recordings for it. If you would though, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or both.

01:46

That would be the best, both, or Google. Amazon's probably the most important one. But even if you bought it from me, you didn't get it from Amazon, you should still be able to go and leave a review there.

01:56

And just let people know what you thought about it, how it helped you.

02:02

It helps drive more traffic to the book, apparently. So I need to say that, and the publishers want me to say these kinds of things.

02:08

So I needed to get that out there. Today though, we're not talking about any of that. We're gonna talk about this book by Pastor Sean McGowan.

02:15

It is called Psalms That Curse, A Brief Primer. And I gotta say, this is something that I've been asked about a few times from people directly.

02:25

What do you think about imprecatory psalms? In times like these, can we pray those kinds of things?

02:31

What is an imprecatory psalm? So all these things will be questions I'll ask the author,

02:37

Sean McGowan. Sean is a pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee, Florida.

02:44

And I know, Sean, you've published, I think, some other books as well, right? I have, that's correct.

02:51

Yeah, I was on your show, goodness, probably years ago now with the forward

02:57

I wrote to St. Patrick. And I did publish a book also on infant baptism, which

03:03

I know you have read and love. But no, that's about it. That is one

03:10

I actually haven't read yet. I do want to. But tell everyone a little bit about yourself.

03:15

You're a pastor, you're writing books here on the side, I guess, so tell everyone about what you would want them to know about you.

03:24

Yeah, I'm a pastor. I've been at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tallahassee for a little over a year now.

03:32

Before that, I taught in Christian school and also secular school for over 13 years.

03:40

I've taught history, world history, American history, Bible, theology, and things like that.

03:48

So I've been kind of on the academic side, but the desire to be in pastoral ministry was in Huntsville, Alabama for a while, at Westminster there as well.

04:00

I think I told you, John, Presbyterians don't have diversity of names much. So I went from Westminster in Huntsville to Westminster in Tallahassee, and it's been a joy serving the congregation here.

04:13

Praise God, that's awesome. Well, you and I have, we connect,

04:19

I can't remember when. When did we connect? It was three years ago, maybe, four years ago. Probably, yeah, 2017, 2018, somewhere around there.

04:27

Yeah, so we've been friends for a few years, and I know I've called you a few times. You've been gracious. I think the last time

04:32

I called you, we talked for like an hour, and I was just like, explain the Presbyterian Church to me, please, because I don't always understand as a

04:39

Baptist, what the polity and just, it's so different in some ways.

04:46

So you've been gracious in kind of walking me down the garden path to understand some of these things. I wanna talk, maybe we'll get into some of that.

04:53

Maybe we'll get into some PCA stuff, but I wanna talk about your book, because it's out. People can get it.

04:58

Where can they get it, Amazon? Amazon for now, yeah, it dropped a few days ago, and that's probably the best place to get it at the time being.

05:08

Okay, so after you leave a good review for my book, go and leave a good review for Sean's book on Amazon, and it's available in Kindle as well?

05:15

That's right. Cool. Okay, so, well, I read this this morning. It's a short book. You can do it in one sitting.

05:21

If, I don't know, it took me maybe an hour or so, about, with all the scripture and everything you have at the end,

05:27

I think it's like 80 pages. And you go through kind of, you take something very hard,

05:33

Sean, that I've seen Christian apologists at university campuses in debates kind of fumble the ball on.

05:42

They really have a hard time dealing with this reconciling imprecatory

05:47

Psalms with the Jesus that is so gentle and meek and all these things that we attribute to him and some of the things that he genuinely really is.

05:57

And they, and atheists love to go to these passages and say, look, look at the harsh things that Christians endorse on some level.

06:07

So I'm gonna just give you the floor and let you talk about this. What are imprecatory

06:12

Psalms? And then, you know, maybe just enter into that fray a little bit.

06:18

If an atheist was coming to you and just saying, how can you support a Bible that has these?

06:23

What would you say? Yeah, so imprecatory Psalms really are those

06:29

Psalms that are really scattered throughout the Psalter. Really talk about, you know, cursing of enemies and calling

06:39

God to bring judgment upon enemies and things like that. And really imprecations in general are not just in the

06:49

Psalms. I mean, one thing, you know, when I was writing this book and studying this years ago, one thing

06:55

I realized was that imprecation is all over the Bible, you know, not only in the

07:00

Psalms, but in the Old Testament, not only in the Old Testament, but in the new as well. So it's a major theme in scripture.

07:08

And one thing I realized, especially when tackling Psalm 137, which was probably one of the most challenging

07:16

Psalms to read, is that the psalmist is actually invoking something or calling

07:24

God to do something that he's already revealed he would do in the prophets. And particularly with the

07:29

Babylonians is destroy the Babylonians and their children. So what the psalmist is doing is actually calling on God to essentially fulfill the judgment that he has already said he would do.

07:43

So that was interesting to me when I read through that and just saw that theme throughout the

07:50

Bible. And in regards to the fact that, you know, how can we read these and agree with them and things like that?

08:01

Well, I think if someone asked me that, you know, especially an atheist, you know, the reality is, is that fundamental to this question is that of worldview.

08:10

That is, is there such thing as justice? Is there such thing as judgment? Obviously from an atheistic perspective,

08:17

I would suggest that they have no basis to say that justice and judgment are real, given the fact that there is no

08:25

God and there is no purpose and meaning and things like that. But from a

08:30

Christian perspective, in our worldview, we do understand that there is ultimate justice.

08:36

There's ultimate right and wrong because God has established that in his law.

08:43

So the concept of God bringing down judgment on people is actually an expectant thing in the

08:49

Christian life, is that God will render judgment on those who have rebelled against him and rebelled against his law.

09:01

So the idea of imprecation actually fits into the Christian worldview. So I don't think

09:07

Christians should be afraid of that, should kind of shy away from it, but we should proclaim it, right?

09:15

There is a God and he has given us his law and those who rebel against him will incur judgment.

09:23

And obviously the gospel in that is, we all incur judgment, right? But Christ has come and Christ has taken on that judgment and fulfilled the justice necessary for those who flee to him, who trust in him.

09:38

So judgment and things like that, we shouldn't shy away from.

09:45

And what I noticed in the theme of imprecation is that as it flows through the

09:51

Bible, so does this idea of enemy love, right? Loving your enemy. One of the objections to using these in the new covenant era is that, it goes against Jesus's command to love our enemies.

10:08

Well, the reality is, is that that idea of enemy love was present in the

10:14

Old Testament as well, right? It might not have been the wording, but the expectation to show love to your enemies was there and yet so was imprecation.

10:25

So I don't think we can suggest that there's some incompatibility between the two, unless we're ready to go far enough to say, well, the

10:32

Bible is just inconsistent with itself. I don't think that's the case. I think it is consistent with itself.

10:40

And I think enemy love and imprecation are compatible. They do harmonize. And the clearest place that they harmonize, in my opinion, is in the person of Christ.

10:52

The one that epitomized enemy love also invoked imprecation.

11:00

So I think when we talk about the two, we're really talking about apples and oranges because really imprecation has to do, not with our own personal enemies, it has to do ultimately with the enemies of God.

11:13

And we understand that we want to see God's justice established. We wanna see him bring down judgment against those who hate him.

11:24

So we're actually, in one sense, we're really pushing the burden off of us.

11:31

It's a relief to push this desire for personal vengeance off of us to the throne of God and say, we wanna see

11:40

God's justice established. Lord, bring down judgment upon those who hate you.

11:47

So I don't think they're incompatible. I think they harmonize nicely when you understand the context of what an imprecatory psalm actually is and the fact that both ideas flow throughout scripture.

12:04

So two things, really. You say that someone who would come to you and try to object to these, they're leaving out another side of the story, that there's also a theme of enemy love, not just judgment on enemies, but of crying out for repentance and desiring that for those whom, well, think of the

12:25

Sermon on the Mount in this, to help your enemies even when, and you rightly point out in the book that that's even in the

12:32

Old Testament. So leaving out that side of the picture is one of the maybe tricks that's used.

12:39

But the other thing is that there's a difference between, it sounds like what you're saying is revenge and then justice.

12:45

So desiring God's justice isn't the same thing as having a personal ax to grind with someone and then wanting to go out and exact that revenge or see bad things happen to someone just because you hate them for something they've done.

13:01

It's more that they violated God's law, that they're enemies of him.

13:07

Am I getting that right? That's right, yeah. So it really goes down to, it boils down to the fact that, we desire to see

13:17

God's justice established here, right? So we want to see

13:22

God bring justice and that a by -product of that is bringing down judgment upon those who are committing injustice.

13:31

So yeah, that's right. It's not, you read through the imprecatory Psalms, it's not these personal vendettas.

13:37

One of the objections to using them this side of the cross is when

13:45

Paul says to not pay back enemies in Romans 12, when he talks about not taking personal vengeance.

13:54

Well, again, that actually complements what we're saying. It's not that we're looking to pay back enemies or get personal revenge, it's that we're leaving vengeance in the hands of God and we're calling on him to bring down that vengeance that we know is going to happen.

14:13

And you see that not only with Jesus, but you see that with Paul, you see that with Peter. An interesting one actually is the saints in heaven in Revelation, when they're calling on God to bring judgment, they're calling on him to bring justice.

14:28

Now, these are people that the indwelling sin has been removed, right?

14:34

So they're not sinning in doing this, but they're calling on God to bring judgment upon those that dwell on the earth.

14:43

So clearly this can be done in a way that's not sinful in doing it.

14:49

And I think that's seen when we're not doing this in any way to get personal vengeance or personal gain, it's desiring

14:58

God to fulfill his will, what he's told us would happen is that justice would be brought down.

15:07

So I try in the book to really kind of just give a brief introduction to the Psalms, introduction to the imprecatory

15:14

Psalms. I give an exegesis of Psalm 137, and then really just ask the question, can

15:23

Christians pray these today? Can we utilize these kinds of prayers?

15:28

And if so, what are some pastoral guidelines that would be helpful to make sure that we're actually not sinning in doing it?

15:38

That's the essence of the book. Let's get to that, the implications for today.

15:44

But before we do it, let's just talk about Psalm 137, because for people not familiar with this, they may not know kind of how harsh some of this language is.

15:53

And this is one of the ones, I've seen Richard Dawkins go after this and some other new atheists.

15:59

I can't remember who it was. I think it was a debate Doug Wilson had years ago, Dan Barker, I think

16:04

Dan Barker and him went back and forth about this forever. And so I'm in your book, page 17, 17 and 18, you have

16:13

Psalm 137 coded there. And it's talking about being in exile and not being, basically being taunted by the enemy to sing songs in a foreign land and they're depressed and how can we do this?

16:26

And it was just really this lamentation. And then you get to verse seven and it kind of switches.

16:34

Remember O Lord against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said lay it bare, lay it bare down to its foundations.

16:40

O daughter of Babylon doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us.

16:50

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks. And of course, verse nine is the one that's often quoted is that, hey, the

16:59

Bible is pro killing children in this cruel, harsh way. And I think when

17:04

I heard this exchange between Doug Wilson and Dan Barker years ago in the nineties I think

17:10

Doug Wilson said, are you angry at God for being pro -choice? And the crowd kind of laughed a little bit and saw the hypocrisy of taking a pro -abortion stance and then having a problem with this.

17:22

But I wanna just ask you directly, when you first read that Psalm and that verse did it kind of bristly a little?

17:31

Did you get shocked or, I don't know. Some people when they hear this kind of thing and they're not familiar, they think, oh my goodness, that is so horrible.

17:41

Yeah, I mean, that's really the main reason I actually wanted to study this more was it did shock me.

17:49

Like anybody else, I'd have my devotional reading and read through the Psalms and that jumped out at me.

17:55

And I said, well, wait a minute, how can someone be blessed that does that? And that led me to get into the context a little bit more, read through the rest of the

18:09

Old Testament to see if there was any insights, particularly in the prophets. And also just reflect on the character of God and things like that.

18:20

And so, yeah, it did, it did shock me. I think it would shock any sensible person when you're first reading this.

18:27

But there's things in the prophets, particularly that help you understand this, right?

18:33

This is obviously an exilic Psalm, one that, or at least post, maybe post exilic.

18:40

It sounds like it's fresh, right? It sounds like it's something that it just happened.

18:47

And this Psalmist is reflecting upon the destruction that the Babylonians committed upon Judah in Jerusalem.

18:57

So it sounds like it's something he's remembering, he's seeing, and it's pretty close to the actual event when it took place.

19:05

But if you read through the prophets, which you quickly realize is that Yahweh has revealed what would happen to the

19:11

Babylonians, what would happen to the Edomites. And it talks about the judgment he would bring on them.

19:18

God revealed that he would lay Edom to waste and desolate because they gave

19:25

Israel over to the sword. So the

19:31

Psalmist there is invoking God to fulfill what he said he would do to the Edomites. You know, it says in Jeremiah that Yahweh would punish the

19:41

Babylonians. And it specifically talks about what he would do to their children, right? He would destroy their children.

19:47

So the Psalmist, contextually, it seems, is remembering these promises, remembering these particular prophecies that God would do.

19:59

And he's calling on them, or he's calling on God to fulfill those promises.

20:05

And I get into it in the book a little bit. You know, a helpful way to understand this particular

20:10

Psalm is the concept of the lex talionis, right? The eye for eye principle in the Old Testament.

20:16

You know, it evolved in Jesus's day and people utilized it as justification for personal vengeance.

20:24

But reality was the eye for eye principle was actually to limit unjust punishment, right?

20:31

It was actually to limit punishment and make sure that the punishment fit the crime. So, you know, that plays into the

20:37

Psalm a little bit as well. You know, the Psalmist is calling on God to make sure the punishment fits the crime in what has happened here, right?

20:46

The Babylonians destroyed their children. So there's a lot going into this

20:52

Psalm. But again, I do think that there's godly anger from the

20:57

Psalmist. I don't think he's just a Stoic that's just kind of, you know, has no emotion in this, but it's godly anger.

21:05

It's certainly directed at the Babylonians who've destroyed God's people. And the

21:12

Psalmist is calling upon God to fulfill the judgment that would come upon the

21:17

Babylonians. So again, it's the Psalmist, you know, he's angry, but he's bringing this anger to the

21:26

Lord and asking the Lord to fulfill his purpose in what he would said he would do to the injustice all around him.

21:36

I think that's different than, you know, than someone just trying to take out personal anger for someone that, towards someone that did something particularly to them.

21:47

Yeah, no, that's great. That's good. I totally agree. Here's the thing that I think bothers a lot of people when you really dig down deep into the

21:56

Psalm. There's other places in scripture where God condemns child sacrifice, and this is supposed to be a shocking, horrible thing.

22:07

We see, I mean, even in Egypt with the midwives saving the children and with what

22:13

Herod did in killing children and say, you know, Jesus is saved from that. And there's just a lot of stories and a lot of even commands that seem to indicate that this is a horrible thing to take children who are quote unquote innocent.

22:29

We know no one's innocent, everyone is evil if you believe in original sin, which is the Bible teaches. But that, you know, there's no crime though that would merit punishment, at least in a human court for people that haven't had even the opportunity to go and commit a civil penalty.

22:47

So this is a grave injustice, right? And so to almost be looking forward to someone coming in a conquering army and taking babies and killing them, that seems to just fly in the face of this.

23:03

What do you say to that? Because that is the root objection that I've heard atheists use against Christianity is really this one little verse that, you know, yes, it's justice.

23:14

Yes, it's lex talionis. Yes, God's gonna commit judgment, but why on the children? Why not on the adults, right?

23:20

That's the apprehension people have sometimes. Yeah, that's a good question.

23:26

And, you know, I think a little bit of, at least for me, you know, a little bit of humility in studying this is helpful too, because, you know, we don't necessarily have all the answers to, you know, why this is here, right?

23:43

I mean, you know, if we pretended to have all the answers, I think it would be, I don't think it would be helpful because reality is there are challenges to especially a particular

23:54

Psalm like this. But I do think, you know, a couple things are important to keep in mind.

24:00

First thing is, and this is kind of a side note, I don't really get into it too much in the book, but there is a question about how to understand the term, you know, little ones or babies, right?

24:12

If you actually look at the Hebrew term, it has a wide range of meaning in the actual

24:19

Hebrew. It can go from anywhere to infancy to just prior to mature adolescence.

24:26

So there's some people that look at that and say, okay, he could actually be just talking about, you know, destroying the second generation because these people have committed the sins of their fathers, basically.

24:38

So they're invested in the sins of their fathers, the Babylonians that have judged

24:44

Judah or have attacked Judah and they're, you know, they're complicit in it.

24:52

So we wanna see them destroyed as well. I don't necessarily know if that's correct.

24:58

It could be, it would certainly take the sting maybe off some of the question, but ultimately

25:08

I think at the end of the day, regardless of how we understand little ones, you know, this is something that we've seen in scripture.

25:17

It's connected to, you know, when God judges the Canaanites and he judges man, woman, and child, you know,

25:25

God uses the instrumentation of people sometimes to execute his judgment.

25:32

And at this particular point, you know, he was going to utilize someone to execute judgment upon the

25:38

Babylonians that would include man, woman, and child. So it's a challenge, but you know, at the end of the day, everybody's going to be judged by God, right?

25:48

Man, woman, and child. And this is something that is something that we have to deal with.

25:56

Another, you know, another question that comes into this discussion, and I don't know if it's relevant to get into it now, but you know, some people have said, well,

26:05

God judges nations and he destroys, you know, man, woman, and child.

26:11

We see that in the Old Testament, but you know, those children, if they're of a particular age, you know, they're with God in heaven.

26:19

You know, it's the whole question of, you know, what happens to babies when they die in infancy? So again, all of those questions are involved in this.

26:28

It's a challenge to sift through all of it and really come to a full conclusion on the matter.

26:37

But I think, you know, at the end of the day, if people have a problem with this, they ultimately have a problem with God, right?

26:44

Because God judges like this. He judges nations, which include the children of those nations too.

26:54

So yeah, it's a sting. It's hard to fully wrap our minds around, but we have to remember that at the end of the day,

27:02

God is judge and the judge of all the earth will do right. So that's the comfort that we take.

27:11

So, you know, atheists who raise this objection will try to make God out to be this moral monster. And I think the thing for me that kind of, if you enter the

27:23

Christian understanding of reality, then God knows all. He knows what these children would have grown up to be.

27:30

He knows what they've done, depending on the age that the psalmist is talking about already. And God has creation, or creator,

27:40

I guess I should say, creator rights over his creation. He can do what he wants. That doesn't mean we can do anything we want with God's creation.

27:48

We have limitations that he's given us in his law, but God himself can take someone's life.

27:55

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. So I never had the problem that some people have with this.

28:02

I understand why they have it. I get it. I mean, it's a little shocking and jarring when you see this, but ultimately, if you believe that he's the creator, that he made everything, then he gives life, he takes life.

28:15

And we also know that this isn't it. The physical world, the temporal world, that's not the fullness of existence, that life goes on after this.

28:24

And there's another side to it. And I think for atheists who don't have that, they just conceive of the here and now, and there's no afterlife.

28:33

That makes it even harder for them. But the horror that I would encourage people to think about is consider atheism for a moment, and whether there's any moral boundaries at all for humans.

28:45

At least with Christianity, you have a creator who's laid down guidelines, laws, even in the

28:50

Old Testament, when the children of Israel go into a region and kill everything, including the livestock, that's something that is a temporary command that God's given, and they are the arm of his judgment.

29:02

They're being used by him for a specific purpose in a very specific time.

29:08

It's not something that we are to do today. He's given us other commands that restrict what we do today and govern it.

29:16

So that's helped me with it. I think what you just said is right. If you just believe it is a problem with God, if you give

29:25

God his creation rights in your mind and you believe that he actually owns the place, then you don't have as much of a problem with this,

29:32

I think. I don't know, what do you think about that? No, I think you're right on there. It's a fundamental worldview problem, right?

29:42

The atheist wants to, if you imagine a line, right?

29:48

The atheist wants to put one foot into our world and condemn us, but keep the other foot in their world when the reality is that they don't have any basis to answer the question either, right?

30:00

I mean, in an atheistic world, why is killing babies wrong? It clearly isn't, right?

30:05

When we talk about abortion and all of those things in their mind. So they have no basis to give a response, right?

30:16

I mean, they don't have any alternative to offer. Now that doesn't excuse the

30:22

Christian, right? From answering the objection in their own worldview, but for the atheist to actually understand it, they need to fully embrace our worldview.

30:34

Understand like just what you said, there's a creator. He has given us life, right? He can take away life.

30:40

He has given us a law, right? On the basis of the fall of Adam, we all deserve death.

30:48

So, I mean, there's no, it's not as if there's innocent people out here somewhere that God is bringing judgment upon and they don't deserve it.

30:59

We all do, right? Even infants have the sin of Adam. So, when you fully embrace that world and you understand that, that makes more sense than the atheist's moral monster idea where they're just kind of throwing objections out there, but they're not taking into consideration the

31:21

Christian response from the worldview of the Christian, whether or not they accepted it.

31:28

The reality is that once you fully understand the world we live in with God as creator, there are answers to these questions.

31:38

But again, to throw it back, an atheist has no basis to condemn anything, right?

31:46

I mean, they don't. So, does a Christian have to give an answer for this?

31:52

I think so. And I think there's good answers. But again, I'd still love to hear the atheist's explanation on why they think dashing babies is wrong to begin with.

32:05

Well, ultimately the worst thing to ever have happened, according to the Christian understanding, is the most innocent person ever to be killed.

32:13

The arch crime of human history is Jesus dying on a cross and sinful people killing the sinless son of God.

32:19

And yet this is something prophesied and anticipated. And so, there's examples in scripture. I mean, even when

32:25

Jesus was on this earth talking about the destruction in 70 AD and what's gonna happen.

32:31

There's just, and I'm sure children died in this. This isn't something that just adults died in.

32:37

So, this is just the reality of existence. God, I mean, man is sinful. God is judging man.

32:45

And we live in a world that we have to make sense of both the goodness that we see around us and the evil, what's left of creation and its beauty.

32:56

And then also the judgment and the condemnation because of sin. And that's one thing

33:01

I don't think atheists can do. Christians seem to have that. And yeah, there's a tension there sometimes in our emotions.

33:08

Let's switch gears if that's all right. Let's talk about today. I remember to set the stage for this when

33:16

Obama was first elected. Seems like yesterday to me in a way is a long time ago now though.

33:22

But I remember on the radio Rush Limbaugh who had said something like,

33:27

I hope he fails. And this created just a firestorm of condemnation against Rush Limbaugh.

33:32

How can you say, I hope he fails? Even Republicans are going out and condemning Rush Limbaugh just for saying that.

33:40

And he had to clarify what I mean is given the policies that he wants to bring in,

33:49

I hope those policies fail. I hope he fails in that sense. Not, I hope he as a person fails. If he does a 180, that's fine, but this was controversial.

33:58

And that wasn't really that long ago. I remember it. Today, there's, to by way of contrast,

34:05

Biden is in office and there's now this whole, let's go,

34:11

Brandon. I don't know if you wanna call it a movement. There's a popular song, there's t -shirts, there's

34:17

Republican senators wearing these t -shirts and saying things like, let's go, Brandon. I mean, it's become a big thing.

34:24

I've had people, congressmen on the floor of Congress saying, let's go, Brandon. And I can't help but think how different that is from just a few years ago when it was controversial for Rush Limbaugh just to say,

34:35

I hope he fails. And that was much more intelligent. That made sense. Let's go, Brandon, of course, for those who don't know is basically

34:43

F Joe Biden, it's cursing him. And it's hard for me even to wrap my head around how this is a popular or,

34:52

I mean, I get it. At first you have NASCAR fans shouting something derogatory against the president and the reporter doesn't understand it.

35:00

It's a little funny that she tried to kind of smooth over what they were saying and reinterpret it as something positive, but making it as a battle cry, like remember the

35:11

Alamo. I mean, that's one person online who told me, it's like, remember the Alamo or, I don't know, taxation without representation or give me liberty, give me death, but don't tread on me.

35:22

This is this generation's version of that. And so Christians have been defending this, some

35:29

Christians by saying, the Bible says harsh things and that's what your book is about. The harsh things in the

35:35

Psalms specifically that are condemning people in judgment. And isn't this the same thing?

35:41

So I'm gonna just give you however time you want to respond to that, but what do you think?

35:46

Is that appropriate? Is that an imprecatory Psalm? Is that what you're saying Christians should be involved in or not?

35:53

Yeah, let me talk about some of the suggested principles first and then I'll get specifically to that example.

36:02

Some of the, at the end of the book, I give some suggested guidelines, how we are to navigate these.

36:08

Cause at the end of the day, I do think, here's a spoiler alert. I do think we can pray them still today based on the conclusion that I come to in the book.

36:18

So, some of the suggested principles I give are things like, what is the motivation of the prayer?

36:27

Is the prayer being offered up genuinely because you wanna see God's justice established or is there a personal vengeance that's lurking in your heart?

36:37

I mean, is this something that you just have a vendetta against this person or this group of people?

36:44

Even if it's mixed motivation, I personally would encourage not to pray the prayer because the last thing you wanna do is pray something where there's, to God, where there's actual sin in the prayer that you're praying in your heart.

36:57

So, that's a question you have to ask, is the motivation pure? I wanna see

37:03

God's justice established here or is it a, in your own conscience, is it a mix of the two or just purely vengeful?

37:13

Second one is I say, generally, there is a qualification, but generally,

37:20

I would encourage making these prayers more general as opposed to towards specific people.

37:27

I think if you look at the Psalms, most of the time, they're general.

37:33

Like even this one, right? It's Psalm 137 is directed at the Babylonians as a nation.

37:41

There's not a particular Babylonian he has in mind. Now, again,

37:46

I do think that can be qualified at times, but I do think a good rule of thumb would be keeping these more general.

37:57

But, and finally, is it rooted in God's judgment?

38:04

I mean, is there a basis in God's, in the word of God for this particular imprecatory

38:14

Psalm? Psalm 137, there is a basis, right? God is going to judge the

38:20

Babylonians and this is how he said he's going to do it. Do we have a basis for that in the prayers we're praying?

38:28

So for example, I think of, I use it in the book, the modern day sex trafficking industry.

38:34

I mean, that's an evil on a massive scale and we have a basis in the word of God to say,

38:42

God bring down judgment on this particular industry, right? Destroy them because one, we know what

38:50

God says about marriage. We know what God says about adulterers. They have their place in the lake of fire and people that commit this kind of evil are ripe for God's judgment.

39:01

So we have a basis to pray that, right? We know what God has said about these kinds of activities and we want to see

39:10

God destroy these kinds of industries that are capitalizing on this evil.

39:16

So that's kind of the principles that I try to, some of them that I try to pull out in this particular, in this book.

39:28

So to answer your question though, I don't think that let's go Brandon can be justified by the imprecatory

39:36

Psalms. For one, it isn't calling down God's judgment upon someone, based upon a desire to see

39:45

God's justice established. I don't think. It's using a phrase you and I know that insinuates given the middle finger, right?

39:55

At somebody. Now it was started by the world and Christians engaging in this are simply following the culture in this particular area.

40:05

But it also neglects the, I think the biblical exhortation to pray for our leaders.

40:11

Paul calls us to pray for our leaders, to pray for their salvation. And we're called to do that.

40:19

Now, one of the ways I've done it and I've actually done it with this president and from the pulpit,

40:26

I've prayed for his salvation. I've prayed that he would come and know the Lord.

40:31

I've prayed that he would honor God and his administration. But I also go on to,

40:38

I've also went on to say, and if he doesn't, I've prayed Lord tear down everything he attempts to do.

40:45

Right, destroy his plans, bring to ruin everything that he puts his hands on, bring to ruin any direction that he tries to bring this country, ruin him.

40:56

Ruin this administration in doing that. So in that way,

41:01

I try to balance both, right? We wanna pray for their salvation and pray that they would honor

41:07

God in the administration. But if they don't, ruin them.

41:13

Lord bring judgment upon this administration. To me, that's a better approach than jumping on the cultural train by using a phrase that quite honestly, lacks any kind of substance.

41:25

I think it's silly for Christians to jump on that. So yeah, that's my thoughts on that.

41:32

I don't think you can connect it to the imprecatory Psalms the second.

41:38

I just think there's better, more intelligent ways for Christians to engage in this.

41:45

Right, we have the same goal is to say, you know what, this administration is in rebellion against God, clearly.

41:56

How do Christians respond to that? I think by saying, let's go, Brandon, is not a helpful way for Christians to engage in.

42:07

Yeah, no, I agree with that. That's kind of how I've come down on it. And so I appreciate you lending your perspective there, which is, you articulate it very intelligently.

42:19

We have maybe five minutes if that. I just wanna get your take real quick, switching gears to the

42:24

PCA, cause I know you're in the PCA and you're looking at what's happening. So what, tell me this, are you, give me like the pulse.

42:33

Are you encouraged that right direction, wrong direction could go either way? You know, what are you thinking about the trajectory of the

42:40

PCA these days? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, some days

42:47

I wake up and I think, hey, we're making some strides here. And then other days

42:52

I wake up and say, man, we're really going down the wrong path. And I think, you know,

42:58

I think the reason for that is, is yeah, there's issues in the PCA. There's issues from the whole revoice thing to the social justice issue.

43:10

And yeah, I mean, we're right there, but you know, the reason

43:15

I say, you know, sometimes I think we're making strides is that, you know, there is a strong resistance to those things in the

43:23

PCA. It's just a matter of who pushes back the loudest maybe and who actually is able to,

43:35

I hate to say take control, but really to get their voice heard and their positions established,

43:46

I think, because, you know, we have two things going on. We have, you know, this

43:51

SJC decision that came down that basically, you know, exonerated, or it didn't exonerate

44:00

Greg Johnson. What it actually did was just basically say that procedurally Missouri Presbyterian, which

44:07

Greg Johnson is a part of, did not err in their investigation of him. You know, again, that, you know, there's disagreement there, but, you know, this isn't an exoneration of Johnson and what he believes.

44:21

In fact, if you actually read the case, they specifically say, you know, if these things can be proven that he believes these things, that's wrong and he should be out of ministry.

44:35

The debate is, well, we do think he said these things. You know, it's not, it's clear on certain venues and certain places that he has expressed these particular things.

44:46

So, you know, there's debate on that. The big thing going on right now, and there's a spreadsheet out there that you can kind of follow along, is these two overtures that have been on your show before.

44:58

We talked about this in the summer, these two overtures that were passed by the General Assembly, which is the national meeting of the

45:05

PCA, are now being debated and voted upon in the presbyteries, which are the regional bodies, the regional courts of the

45:14

PCA. And right now, I think it stands 34 to 11 in favor of Overture 23, and 31 to 13,

45:31

I think, in favor of Overture 37. My numbers, this is going off the top,

45:37

I'm probably wrong, but I think you have a copy of the spreadsheet.

45:42

I think you sent it to me. Yeah, and I don't have it in front of me though. Okay, but anyway, so you need two thirds to pass these in the presbyteries.

45:54

It's kind of up in the air right now because there's a lot of presbyteries that probably will vote against them that haven't voted yet.

45:59

But there's some that, me personally, I have no idea the personality of that presbytery and how they'll vote.

46:07

So it's really just kind of up in the air, but if those pass, it goes before the GA next year, and a simple majority, if we have that, that will then be put into our constitution, into our book of church order, those two overtures.

46:24

So it really depends on that. There's a lot of people that are saying, we need to stay and we need to fight.

46:32

There's still an opportunity here. It's not all is lost yet.

46:37

We need to fight. So, and then there's some that are just weary and ready to leave.

46:44

I think right now, we wanna stay, we wanna fight until there's absolutely no clear paths anymore.

46:53

And then at that point, we would reassess where we are. But there's a desire to fight.

47:00

And if nothing can be done, I think ultimately there will be a mass exodus and hopefully a mass exodus that will stay together and form something new like the

47:12

PCA did back in the 70s. So that's kind of where we are. I mean, we're dealing with stuff that every denomination is dealing with and trying to navigate how to best be faithful to God and to his word, so.

47:28

Well, don't be the SBC. Don't do an abuse scandal and then wave attorney -client privilege.

47:34

That'll get you downhill real fast. Yeah, yeah. As we're seeing right now. But I don't think that's gonna happen in the

47:41

PCA. Well, I appreciate your time, Pastor Sean McGowan. You can go to Amazon and you can find the book.

47:48

I have it right here. It's called Psalms That Curse, A Brief Primer by Sean McGowan.

47:53

And it's on Kindle as well. And we appreciate your time. Thank you, brother.