“Break the arms of these wicked, evil people! Go after them until the last one is destroyed. The Lord is king forever and ever! The godless nations will vanish from the land. Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.”(Psalm 10:15-18)
This Psalm is King David’s and it is essentially a prayer. Does it seem harsh to you? That’s because it is harsh, so it deserves an explanation.
First, keep in my mind that God has told us that vengeance is His, not ours, but He is not saying we can seek justice through our legal system when we are wronged. The vengeance being spoken of (and implied in David’s Psalm) is as severe as it can get and the type of punishment only God is able to dispense. It is also eternal.
Second, we don’t know who is deserving of this kind of punishment. We think we know, but only God knows. For example, we look at Hitler and think, “Surely he should go to hell,” but the truth be told we ALL should go to hell; Hitler could have ‘sincerely’ repented and came to believe in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, just as we did. Let us not waste our time in pondering that that was highly unlikely. Accept these 2 facts: we do not know and Jesus does know. Consider the Apostle Paul. The guy was a mini-Hitler. Instead of Jews, he exterminated Christians, but yet he saw the light and repented. Aren’t you glad that some vengeance-minded posse didn’t take him out?
I am.
King David’s prayer reflects his understanding of God’s sovereignty in this regard. And since we cannot inflict our own sort of revenge, and since we don’t know who will be damned (by God) and who will not, our call is to love our enemies, that is to say to love them enough to share the Gospel message with them, wearing our faith and ambassadorship on our sleeves. We surely don’t condone evil behavior, but if given the opportunity (by the Holy Spirit, mind you) we attempt to side-step evil to reach the soul of the one doling it out.
In summary:
1) If you’re wronged, try to settle it in a Biblical manner. If you don’t know what that is, ask your pastor or google it.
2) Protect yourself and others as the law permits.
3) Call the police, a lawyer, etc. if necessary.
4) Vengeance is God’s. Don’t go there. Pray has David did.
He Dwells -- The B'log in My Eye 