How to Smite Your Enemies
Conversations with God 6.0 
Psalm 137 
By Eric Stillman 
October 22nd, 2006 

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Two years ago I saw an interview with Madonna where she was talking about Kabbalah, the mystical Jewish sect that she and many other celebrities follow.  As I listened, she explained to the host in her fake British accent what Kabbalah was all about, and she said something that stuck with me.  She said that Kabbalah was similar in many ways to Christianity, except without all the wrath and judgment.  She sounded so enlightened saying that, and as a Christian listening to her, I felt so juvenile and primitive for believing in a God who has wrath and judgment as part of his character. Maybe you’ve struggled as well to understand how God can have wrath as a part of his character, or to explain those portions of the Bible to people in your life. There’s just something about the concept of a God of wrath and vengeance that is almost embarrassing to many of us, that doesn’t seem to fit well with the God of love that we’ve come to love.

Perhaps you noticed this aspect of God’s character in one of the songs we sang this morning.  There’s a song called “The Lord Reigns”, which has a great chorus that worships God for his sovereignty - “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice, let the people be glad that our God reigns”.  But be honest – how many of you are troubled by singing the first verse – “A fire goes before him, and burns up all his enemies, the hills melt like wax at the presence of the Lord”.  It’s not exactly a seeker-friendly song, is it?  Burning up all his enemies???  How am I supposed to be singing that - with joy? With sorrow?  Again, there’s something about the concept of a God of wrath that is almost embarrassing to the Christian, that doesn’t seem to fit well with the God of love.

If you read through the Psalms, the Jewish book of songs & poetry, it won’t be long before you come across a section where a Psalmist is asking God to pour out his wrath on someone, to deliver vengeance on some group of enemies.  Not all the Psalms are like that, but some just don’t lend themselves to becoming worship songs like others do.  There’s Psalm 150 – let everything that has breath praise the Lord – now that’s a worship song.  Then there’s Psalm 31 – Let the wicked be put to shame and lie silent in their grave.  There’s Psalm 84 – better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere… stirring song material.  Then there’s Psalm 11 – “on the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur” (okay, just the men now – “on the wicked…).  There’s something about the concept of a God of wrath that doesn’t lend itself to worship, and can be embarrassing to the Christian, because it doesn’t seem to fit well with the God of love.

I’ve been preaching through a series on prayer and communication with God these past two months, and today I’m going to continue this by looking at Psalm 137.  Psalm 137 is a very emotional Psalm that deals with emotions like fury, devastation, and has the Psalmist calling on God’s wrath and vengeance.  I think that by spending some time in this Psalm, it will help us understand what to do with our anger.  I must tell you that when I’m going to preach, I tend to be intrigued by psalms like this… some of you might remember the first sermon I preached here was on Achan’s family being stoned for Achan’s sin.  I’m intrigued by these passages because I believe that God is not like me. Isaiah 55:8 says that his ways are not like our ways, and I believe that.  I believe that I can’t fashion God in my image, that I can not put God in a box, and that the areas of the Bible that grate against the way I wish things were are worth looking at, because they are going to teach me about who God really is, not who I want him to be.  There’s enough people and churches out there trying to fashion God in their own image, to pick and choose what they want to believe about God and leave the troubling sections alone.  I encourage you to not skip over difficult sections, but to press in and seek God for who He is, not who you wish he would be.