The Psalms are inspired by God and therefore meant to instruct us how to think about God and the entire world. On the other hand, the Psalms are poems or songs and are meant to awaken and shape our feelings about God and the world. We have focused in the previous messages on the feelings of spiritual depression in Psalm 38 and guilt in Psalm 51. Today, we focus on the emotion of anger, or more specifically the desire for retaliation or vengeance. It seems that anger is on the rise in recent days. We seen some high-profile outbursts. Tennis star, Serena Williams, threatened to stuff a fuzzy tennis ball down the throat of a linesmen because of what she perceived was a bad call. Rapper Kanye West bizarre behavior at the MTV’s Video Music Awards where he snatched the microphone from pop-country singer Taylor Swift as she accepted her award for Best Female Video. West’s announcement that the award should have gone to Beyoncé instead has not only made headlines but even received a reaction from President Barack Obama. Lastly, Representative Joe Wilson famously burst into the President’s speech on health care with the words, “You lie!” Many across the country are speculating about what’s wrong with our collective impulse control.
One of the mightiest emotions we have inside of us is our anger. We feel intense anger when something horribly wrong or unjust is done, say the sexual abuse of a child, or some blatant racial discrimination, or your wife has betrayed marriage vows and committed adultery with another person.
“You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you.?20 Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.?21 They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
22 Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.?23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually.?24 Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them.?25 May their camp be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents.?26 For they persecute him whom you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those you have wounded.?27 Add to them punishment upon punishment; may they have no acquittal from you.?28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous” (Psalm 69:19-28).
This psalm is not only important as it serves as another way for us to read over the shoulder of King David as he writes in his journal, but it also serves as way to see Jesus Christ. This is one of three psalms that are among the most quoted in your New Testament. Jesus memorized and studied this Psalm and the NT applies much of the language to Jesus’ life and ministry
1. When Anger is Wrong
Many of us think of anger an emotional fluid that builds up pressure inside of us. We think of it as something that must be released. This idea is popular in our day and this kind of thinking leads to the visual metaphors we frequently use: “He is boiling mad” or, “She is just blowing off steam.” Anger can be “stored up inside” or “harbored” for decades. Someone may feel better if they simply “get it off their chest.” These colorful descriptions capture how we feel. Anger is a passionate emotional response to a perceived evil that hinders us from something good.
In his autobiography, Number 1, Billy Martin told about hunting in Texas with Mickey Mantle. Mickey had a friend who would let them hunt on his ranch. When they reached the ranch, Mickey told Billy to wait in the car while he checked in with his friend. Mantle’s friend quickly gave them permission to hunt, but he asked Mickey a favor. He had a pet mule in the barn who was going blind, and he didn’t have the heart to put him out of his misery. He asked Mickey to shoot the mule for him. When Mickey came back to the car, he pretended to be angry. He scowled and slammed the door. Billy asked him what was wrong, and Mickey said his friend wouldn’t let them hunt. “I’m so mad at that guy,” Mantle said, “I’m going out to his barn and shoot one of his mules!” Mantle drove like a maniac to the barn. Martin protested, “We can’t do that!” But Mickey was adamant: “Just watch me,” he shouted. When they got to the barn, Mantle jumped out of the car with his rifle, ran inside, and shot the mule. As he was leaving, though, he heard two shots, and he ran back to the car. He saw that Martin had taken out his rifle, too. “What are you doing, Martin?” he yelled. Martin yelled back, face red with anger, “We’ll show that son of a gun! I just killed two of his cows!”
The Bible tells us that anger is a gift of God that can be used for good and for evil. It’s like a brick that can be thrown through glass or used to build a church. How you use your anger determines if your anger is sinful or right. But be careful for most of our anger is slanted toward causing us to sin: “A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression” (Proverbs 29:22). The Bible shows us there is a link between anger and sin. If you are quick to anger then you are equally quick to sin. So, while anger is neutral, most of our anger leads to sinful actions. Anger can often act as a door that opens us to greater sins. Anger has murdered and injured many. It has made parents kill their children. And it has made children dishonor their parents: “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly” (Proverbs 14:29).
A quick temper shines a spotlight on foolishness. A quick temper is married to embarrassing stupidity. Some of you experience such a rush of emotional fury that you are at times, without reason. They become intoxicated in their anger as if they have drunk too much alcohol. Anger and alcohol have similar effects upon some people. They both cause you to loose your reason. Anger can leave someone with an animal like lack of emotional control. Most of our anger demonstrates our selfishness.
I become angry because a meeting is going too long and I am in a hard, uncomfortable seat. This only shows my ego – “How dare they take MY time and think no more of ME than to place these hard seats here for this boring meeting.” Most of our anger is a mask that camouflages our selfishness. Much of our anger masks our self-righteousness Maybe you’re mad because you serve God faithfully and you have asked God for a husband or a wife. And you don’t have one. Maybe you have been sexually abused. And you’ve been told to vent your anger at God because he has let you down. Please know that nowhere has God ever promised you freedom from pain, crying, mourning, or tears… The only day when you are free from such pain is the great day when life is over and you enter God’s Home – heaven.
2. How Can I Have the Right Kind of Anger?
Yet, anger is good when this emotional reaction that seeks to resist anything that attempts to oppose God. Psalm 69 is a plea and a protest from King David, Israel’s most famous citizen of his day. David is facing tremendous amount of opposition. Perhaps the opposition is because he is planning on building the Temple in Jerusalem. He becomes angry but he is not immediately angry. This Psalm shows us that he eventually becomes angry. David verbally paints us a picture of his opposition – a picture of overwhelming waters. He describes his turmoil this way: “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.?I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me” (Psalm 69:1-2).
Yet, David’s troubles are not simply flash floods. The levee has broken and the floodwaters had brought devastating destruction. No, his dilemma isn’t here today and gone tomorrow. Instead, he is shipwrecked with hurt. His cries to God have not been answered: “I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God” (Psalm 69:3).
His voice is on fire because of his continual cries to God. His eyes have lost their vitality because he has looked long and hard for God to show up. This shipwrecked victim is tired from trying to say afloat. His eyes look in vain for a divine rescue and he is so weary that his eyes cannot focus. Why is David So Upset? David’s trouble is people… and specifically people who oppose him. David’s real threat is not the pounding waves of water but the pounding attacks of his enemies who seek to destroy him. He describes his opposition in verse four as he has more people opposing him than he has hair on his head. So when David tells us of his trouble, he says that he has people who oppose him and they are drowning him in adversity. They are lying about him (verse four). Their accusations lack evidence and they have no ground His voice isn’t sore because he is screaming at his foes… Nor are his eyes weary from simply watching for their next move. David hurts because he is confident God can do something but God remains absent. God’s silence is loud as David fends off those who have a vendetta toward Him. David’s confidence in God is so much that he even refers to God as the God of armies in verse six. This commander, King David, knows he is speaking to the ultimate Commander in Chief. David’s major question is why doesn’t God’s army move upon David’s enemies.
This Psalm reveals to us a vulnerable man, a man who has been wronged. His enemies are not simply his private enemies; they are enemies of God. In part, the very reason why they hate him is because of his identification with God, his love for God, the temple of God, the worship of God. And they mock him, and he can’t just shrug this off. Three times David calls on God to answer him in his time of trouble – verse thirteen, sixteen, and seventeen. He asks God to act before He sinks into the mire. He asks God to defend and shield him from those who hate him. Nowhere is David more emotional in his cry for distress than he is in verses seventeen and eighteen: “Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in distress; make haste to answer me.?Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies” (Psalm 69:17-18)!
Righteous anger is elusive. Most of our anger is the wrong kind of anger. Let me show why David’s Anger was right and how most of our anger is wrong. Verses five through twelve say something that is amazing. David says that he is being dishonored because of God and for God. Watch verses seven and eight: “For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face.?I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons” (Psalm 69:7-8). Or take verse nine: “For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me” (Psalm 69:9). David, and later Jesus, is hated because of their connection to God. This is first clue that you possess the good kind of anger – when you are hated because of your connection to Jesus Christ. Again, David is attacked because he represents God.
And David expresses it in nearly violent terms. David’s words shock us: “Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.?Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually.?Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them” (Psalm 69:22-24)
Psalm 69 is not alone in it shocking and violent words: “O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!?9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock” (Psalm 69:8-9)! Psalm 69 is among a group of psalms that are called imprecatory psalms because they include imprecations, that is curses, judgments against God’s enemies. These psalms are usually considered problems for Christians because Jesus taught us: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27–28). And Jesus prayed for his enemies on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). So it sounds like these psalms are doing the opposite of what Jesus said and did. David asks God to pour out indignation upon his adversaries. He prays that God would give them poison for food. He prays that God would blind them so they could not find their way. And he prays that they would tremble in fear for the rest of their days. Here is King David, not a perfect man (verse 5), but a righteous man (verse 28), a man who loves the glory of God, trusts God’s mercy for redemption (v. 18), and who stands up for the cause of the humble (vv. 32–33), and who is suffering the undeserved persecution of his enemies and God’s enemies. And in the middle of this lament and cry for help, he devotes seven verses to calling on God to punish these enemies. How can this be Good Anger?
David’s words are not words of personal vengeance. David doesn’t use these words because someone cut him off in traffic. Instead, they represent what happens to the adversaries of God. David is God’s king, and he is being rejected and reproached and reviled. David manifests a lot of patience in his life (Psalm 109:4). But there comes a point when David speaks as God’s inspired, anointed one and by his prayer consigns his adversaries to darkness and hardness. They will experience this judgment because David is speaking on God’s behalf.
Look at how the New Testament uses Psalm 69. Seven of the verses of this psalm are quoted explicitly in the New Testament, including the parts that curse God’s enemies. The New Testament writers did not shy away from the psalms that call for others to be cursed. They were not embarrassed by these words. It seems in fact that they found them especially useful in explaining the work of Jesus and what it means for us.
2.1 Jesus Cleansed the Temple
In John 2:13–17 we read about how Jesus drove the sellers out of the temple. Verse 16 says: “And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade’” (John 2:16). The Bible-saturated disciples see this passion for God’s house, and they hear Jesus call the temple “my Father’s house,” and they remember the words of Psalm 69:9.
Verse 17: “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’”
2.2 Jesus Experienced David’s Curse
Watch how Jesus Christ Experienced the Curse David Called Down on David and God’s Enemies.
2.2.1 Jesus is Hated
In John 15:24–25 Jesus is hated by the Jewish leaders just the way David was hated by his own people (v. 8). This time Jesus himself is the one that explicitly quotes Psalm 69 as part of God’s “law” or God’s instruction. He says: “If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’” This is a quote from Psalm 69:4: “More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause.” So Jesus himself is aware of David’s experience and sees them as foreshadowing His own and says: When David is hated by his adversaries, this points to my experience and must be fulfilled in me.
There is something in the human heart that is afraid of real holiness. Inside of our hearts, there is an engine of self-justification. We continually tell ourselves that our sin is ok. When we do see someone who is pure and just and it shows our own flaws, we either run away or run it down. When Jesus shows up, He is standard is so high and lofty, that He has enemies without number.
A policemen in a US large city became a Christian. He began to be troubled with a practice that was going on in his precinct. The pimps in his precinct would come in to the police headquarters and give a lot of money to the police sergeant. The police sergeant would then parcel the money out to the policemen so that they would not pick up their prostitutes. But after one policemen because a Christian, he decided he didn’t want to take the money. At one point, another policemen approached the new Christian policemen and says, “You better start taking that money. The guys don’t like that you think you are better than the rest of us. And you better take that money or the next time you need a backup, it might come slowly.”
Another man comes to faith in Christ and realizes that he is not reporting his income to the IRS. He comes to his pastor and says, “If I start reporting my income to the IRS as I should, all of my other co-workers will be nailed by the IRS as well. What do I do?”
If you follow Jesus, it will show up the racism around you. It will underline the sexual promiscuity at work. It will show up the gossip at work. You will fulfill Psalm 69 just as Jesus said in John 15: ‘They hated me without a cause.’” Are you hated without cause? Or do you simply blend in with everyone else?
How Should We Respond?
In Romans 15 Paul is calling Christians to be patient with the weak and to deny themselves and humbly receive others. Amazingly at this point, he reaches back again to Psalm 69:9 and says: “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me” (Romans 15:1-3) In other words, he takes the words of David and sees them fulfilled in Christ. And the specific thing he focuses on is that Christ endured the abuse of others willingly.
So it seems that Psalm 69 has two prongs in the New Testament. One prong is judgment: The curses are not sinful personal retaliation but approval of God’s just retribution for sin. The other prong is the suffering of God’s anointed. And His suffering causes us to be relieved and healed of the anger pent up inside of us. Christ’s suffering is either the means by which the adversaries are brought to repentance and saved… or His suffering is the means by which they are confirmed in their hardness and condemned.
Incentive to Forgive
The main thing to say is that we do not take the curses as incentives to curse our enemies. In fact, we are to do the exact opposite direction. Paul quotes the psalm in Romans 15:3 to encourage us to deny ourselves rather than to gratify the lust for revenge. “Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’” In other words, forebear, forgive. But this is not because there is no wrath, no punishment, no judgment in Psalm 69. It is precisely because there is judgment. It is not our business to execute. The fact that God will do it and that it is right for Him to do it: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head” (Romans 12:19-21).
The burning coals will be purifying if there is repentance, and punishment if there is not. God will decide.
