Alright everyone, welcome to Springcrest Baptist Church. Get to see everyone this morning. If you want to turn in your hymnals to page number 418
Page 418 love lifted me
Page 418
I don't see uh actually boas would you mind helping us get some uh bulletins and pass them out to whoever needs them
Do you know where they are?
My son dropped the ball out of the day, so we'll just pick some of them, huh?
I don't know. We'll find them later. Um, so
Today's the 20. Did I get that right? It's the 22nd, right June?
I don't even know what days we're on so just forgive me today the 22nd service times our Sunday morning services at 10 30 a.m
Sunday evening is at 4 30
Wednesday service at 5 30 and then we have the soul winning time Sunday at 2 p.m
And of course also just we're super flexible. So if anybody ever wants to go so many just hit me up and I'll make some time and
Then the memory
Chapter is Psalms 23 verse 3
Well, actually, memory chapter Psalm 23, the memory verse for the week in Psalm 23 verse
3.
Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
For thou with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
There is a text going out, but basically, if anybody can quote it weekly, especially
the kids will get a ice cream as long as the parents are okay with that.
adults, you know, they can quote it at the end, the whole chapter, and usually it would
be a gift card or something of that sort.
Year to date, souls won 147, and then we have all our, our happenings, so will you, actually
let's just do this right now, Sister Christian, if you'll stand up, I know your birthday's
so let's just go ahead and sing happy birthday to sister christian on the first on the first
ready sorry i'm really hard with this but we'll just get it done happy birthday
And then next week is the fifth Sunday dinner so what we'll do is this will probably be
the last time we do it like this where we order the main meal ourselves and have everybody
bring the sides.
I think now we've kind of settled into a decent group.
So the next fifth Sunday we're going to just start planning it from now where we actually
It's in August, but that'll be interesting.
But also I'm looking forward to it.
We used to have it like that when we,
before we lost everybody after COVID,
and it was great, you know, everybody bringing a dish
and we'd all enjoy it.
But then we got so small that it was just easier
to just cater in.
And then now that we're kind of growing back into it,
we're gonna make that attempt.
But this Sunday, don't worry about it other than
if you wanna bring a side,
what we'll probably do is the Mexican food again,
that just...
it's really easy with that restaurant everybody knows Heath at that restaurant
and so I just call and they're like oh Mr Heath yes okay and then you know they'll
they'll give me the order that I want so and then Steffast uh did invite us to the
men's retreat August 14th to the 16th so if anybody wants to go to that let me know
and then I will be preaching in Spanish at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship
August 27th through the 31st just see me for any details
And then finally on the back we have the prayer request the big one. I did finally get a text from
I don't know what's well the boss sticks daughter
Wendy and
She says that basically they're moving they've moved brother James to an assistant living and sister Mary will be moved
Soon after they're just trying to adopt the dog or the animals
And but the thing about Brother James is now they've also put him in hospice.
So just pray for Brother James.
For those of you who don't know who Brother James was, he served here a long time.
He was always faithful. That's why we have this side ramp that we need to upkeep
But he had a he had polio all his life and he came in and a walker
And eventually just couldn't move anymore and not you know just now he's
Looks like he's on his last day
So just pray for him pray for the family and then also pray for the Fitz family
I went to the funeral for her nephew and by the way, just you know, I want to just give out
credit where credit to do
Everybody got up and the family's really emotional and I already said this in a very and so, you know
The family's gonna say what the family's gonna say, but then when sister so I got up there
I mean she just let him have it the whole gospel front and back
She just I don't know. She probably said like 15 20 verses. She had them all written out
I almost like almost let out an amen, but there was too many people and I mean obviously we're at a funeral
So it's probably not the right environment
but you know so don't ever tell us that pastors don't don't believe in women
preachers we just don't believe in women preachers in the church right like
the women you know women can preach the gospel of Jesus Christ
I mean she planted that seed perfectly and you know that was a huge blessing
and then pray for the Boteo family I don't know if so many of you know the
young guy who comes here Jesse Boteo
Their grandfather died and so they're all going to Mexico for the funeral and he just asked us to pray for him
And so they just had a death in the family their grandfather. If nothing else turn your hymnals over
Go and sister Karen pastor cop do we know anything about sister Karen?
Okay, so she's just she's just getting better, but she's fine
She would try to come. Okay. Well, just pray for sister Karen because she does hate missing church
So just pray that she can get back to it
But if nothing else turn your handles over to page 471
471 count your blessings
song or song 471 in our hymnals we're going to start there on first count your blessings
361 in our hymnals. We're gonna sing higher ground song 361.
me in Psalm chapter 100 and 9 while we pass the offering plate. We read the Bible there
in Psalm 109 where the Bible reads, Hold not thy peace, O God, of my praise, for the mouth
of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me. They have spoken against
me with a lying tongue. They compass me about also with words of hatred and fought against
For my love, they are adversaries, but I give myself unto prayer.
And they have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love, set thou a wicked man
over him, and let Satan stand at his right hand."
and when he shall be judged, let him be condemned,
and let his prayer become sin.
Let his days be few, and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg.
Let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath,
and let the stranger spoil his labor.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him,
Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following, let their name be blotted out.
Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord, and let not the sin of his
mother be blotted out.
Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from
the earth, because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and
needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.
And has he delighted, not in blessing, so let it be far from him?
As he clothed himself with cursing, like as with his garments, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.
Let it be unto him as a garment which covered them, and for a girdle, wherewith he girded continually.
Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil
against my soul.
But do thou for me, O God, the Lord, for thy name's sake, because thy mercy is good,
deliver thou me.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
I am gone like the shadow when it declineseth.
I am tossed up and down as the locus.
My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh fails with the fatness."
I became also of approach unto them, when they looked upon me, they shaked their heads.
Help me, O Lord, my God, O save me according to thy mercy, that they may know that this
is thy hand, that thou, O Lord, hast done it.
Let them curse, but bless thou, when they arise, let them be ashamed, but let thy servant rejoice.
Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own
I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth.
Yea, I will praise him among the multitude,
for he shall stand at the right hand of the poor
to save him from those that condemn that his soul."
So, a quick word of prayer.
Dear Father God, thank you for this day.
Thank you for everyone in the congregation here, Lord.
I just pray that you fill us all with your spirit,
help us to receive this message with gladness
and help us to apply it to our lives, Lord.
And I pray that you build Pastor Reyes with your spirit.
Help them to preach a bold and accurate sermon Lord and I pray that that we all get home safe today. Jesus. I'm afraid. Amen
All right, we're there in Psalm 109
Let me just connect this thing
You guys go mine
Got better on my timer, so I don't go over preach these sermons in one
Try to do better about that
But you're there in Psalm 109, and the title of my message this morning is
imprecatory prayers when the righteous pray for judgment. Imprecatory prayers
when the judgment prays for righteous. And you know, earlier this year I brought
a sermon on just how to pray and what the Bible says about that. And this is a
study that I've been doing all year. I still have like three or four other
sermons I'll bring on prayer.
But I thought this was I actually was trying to find the best time to preach a sermon like this just because this is one of the
hardest sermons to preach in the sense of prayer most people don't think of prayer in this way right when we think of prayer
We think of like Lord help me out or let's pray for some healing or please guide me or direct me or help me
But also the Lord gives us clear scripture not only in Psalm 109
but in other places that we can pray for the destruction of the enemies of the Lord and
sometimes those enemies line up with our enemies and and so
I thought it was appropriate.
I almost switched the sermon because late last night you guys know that we are on the
verge of World War III.
But then I thought, you know, this is actually a really good sermon because we can also pray
these things to the enemies of God and that gives us clear peace that God's going to
avenge us.
But the other reason I'm bringing this sermon is just it's a good study on prayer
But also you don't hear a lot of sermons on impregatory prayers and and this is my personal experience
This is I did I chose not to do any research
in my lifetime when I first learned about this I remember asking
other pastors as a young man about impregnatory prayers like yeah they're in the bible
but you know it's not what you think it is and I can remember thinking to myself what do you mean
it's not like it's pretty clear what the scripture's saying right and then the other thing that you
run into when you tell people finally about impregnatory prayers is that they don't think
you know, I literally, I didn't even tell this individual, I had a phone call from someone
yesterday, a family member, and we were just talking about, you know, it was just a catch-up phone
call. And in that phone call, that individual brought up one of my sodomite uncles, and how,
you know, he was basically complaining about how he went to dinner with him, and this guy talked
all about himself. And I said, well, you know how I feel about that guy. I said, I'll be glad the
day that he dies. I said, as a matter of fact, that's probably my prayer regularly is that he just,
you know, and he's like, oh, I know how you are, but I will never pray that. I said, well, that's
fine. I said, but it's biblical. He's like, oh, I don't think that God would have that.
And I said, no, actually, God does teach that. And I didn't want to get contentious. I said,
look, I'll send you the chapter, the most famous one. I said, but that's, it's a biblical standard
But the whole point of today is just to kind of teach you what an imprecatory prayer is how to apply it in your life
How to use it because it's not like a free for all other either right like we're not just that it shouldn't
I don't think it should just be a part of your regular prayer life,
but it should be part of your regular prayer life. If that makes sense.
I know it sounds contradictory.
All I'm saying is I don't, I don't get up every morning and just thinking,
who am I going to pray destruction on? And, you know,
what I pray normally is like, Lord,
help my children grow in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Lord, help us.
Maybe help me do a better job with it as a husband.
We're praying on the prayer list for the people that are,
and then on occasion when I'm really angry and be like, Lord, you know,
can we get just, can we get rid of some of these people? Just like, help me out.
what to do with all this destruction.
I mean, as a matter of fact, even right now,
today in America, in Baptist churches,
for the most part, they're gonna be preaching what?
They're gonna be sounding the battle drums
to go into war in defense of a nation
that hates Jesus Christ.
right? And we need to not pray for that. As a matter of fact, if anything, we need to pray
that God would destroy any nation that hates the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, that's just the,
those are the judgments of the Lord. But let's go there in the scripture where they're in Psalm 109,
the two verses I really want to focus on is right there in verse four. It says,
It's interesting because in other in other areas where we look at impregnatory prayer
The psalmist does say like I basically have showed him love and they've rejected that love, right?
I've showed him love and he's not just talking about oh, I love you
But you know, I'm preaching the truth
We go out and preach the gospel and they're basically rejecting and we look down a few verses later says and they have rewarded me
What evil for good and hatred for my love set thou a wicked man over him?
And let Satan stand at his right hand, when he shall be judged, let him be condemned and let his prayer become sin.
And there's two things that I noticed, because on this one particular sermon, I actually went through every single instance that I found.
Now I'm not saying it's perfect because I maybe in my study like you know you have so when you
look up impregatory prayers most of them are found in Psalms but when you look up what an
impregatory prayer is as you let the Bible define itself we have two things right number one the
righteous are praying and saying hey Lord do these things that's number one but number two
the other prayer is that when those people come to pray to the Lord that they would be condemned
form of imprecatory prayer on themselves because their prayer is not going to not only not going
to reach him but when God if God does listen he's there to condemn them it's a sin right and so
those are the things that I want to focus on as a matter of fact I don't normally do this
when I have so much scripture but I went through and I read every single chapter that I was going
to reference to make sure that I was at least on track and if I did I wasn't I would remove it
because the thing the reality of the thing as a way of introduction is that not all prayers are soft
Not all prayers are, you're asking for mercy.
You know, sometimes as a saved individual,
we just kind of get fed up with the things of the world.
You know, I was telling my wife yesterday, I was like,
man, just what a disaster that our president would think
it's okay to just start a war, right?
Like this, like, you know, we're not even provoked, right?
We're just defending a nation that hates Jesus Christ.
And even that,
the people you know I'm telling them in love and you know what they're going to say that they're
going to reward me evil for good right they'll say that we're anti-Semitic I'm not anti-Semitic
look I'll preach the gospel to anybody but I won't you know I don't believe that those people love
the Lord Jesus Christ as a matter of fact they hate him right and so sometimes we just need to pray
for justice and vengeance and wrath on the wicked because also God's been giving us very clear
scripture that we shouldn't take it upon ourselves it's not for us to do a vigilante act it's not
to plan, you know, and lay in wait to defraud someone.
or to hurt someone or to do something to anybody.
I mean, we just need to turn the other cheek, right?
And we only hate those that hate the Lord,
but even then we let the Lord do what the Lord does, right?
It's not our duty.
We are not the ones that are in charge
of executing judgment other than we preach the word of God.
And from behind the pulpit, you know,
we tell people what the word of God says,
but I'm not going out there.
You know, right now I guarantee you the battle drums
are being beat everywhere in America.
They're thinking World War III is gonna be on soil
and they're like, you know, I've already seen clips
of like these rednecks.
They're like, come on down to the South
and see what happens to you.
You know, everybody is always ready for a fight,
but war is not good.
right? And I'm not saying that I know Americans have a lot of guns, so it would be an interesting
thing to have an invasion, but that's not our duty. As Christians, we are not to pick up that
that battle acts, I guess, if you wanted to say our battle acts is what? It's a spiritual war.
We are out here to fight the spiritual battle, right? And so there's, there's a time where we
say, Hey, Father, forgive them. There's a time when we pray, Lord, you know, heal them, Lord, guide
praying in Precatory Prayer, right, and the reason that I also preached it today is because we're still in the month of June
Let me tell you although we didn't celebrate
Pride month there's a country the way it's been celebrating in the past. You know what we're celebrating pride month
in the way that Trump wanted to celebrate it.
I don't know if anybody saw the four minute clip,
but that was one of the most arrogant clips
of any dignitary in the history of mankind.
You know, he's like, we did the greatest,
what do you say?
He's like, we, we, we, we bombed these three places.
We did it so good, nobody else could have done it better.
You know, we and BB and Yahoo, we planned it so good.
We probably had the best team of any team
to plan and attack like this in the history.
I mean, literally, I'm not even exaggerating.
That's literally the things that he was saying.
My wife heard it with me last night,
as it's a four minute clip,
and he's talking about how great they are,
and how, you know what that's called?
Pride.
The Bible says pride is not a good thing, right?
And what does that word imprecate mean, right?
It's a verb, it's usually used with an object, or it can be imprecated, imprecating, as basically
to invoke or call down evil or curses as upon a person.
right? The nouns or the other words, the other forms of that word are imprecator, imprecatory,
imprecated.
Anathematize, the dam, blaspheme, cuss, dam,
execrate, flame.
So it's basically a curse or a damning
of an individual or a group of individuals, right?
Now, there are at least 10 commonly recognized
and precatory Psalms in the King James.
And in these, the Psalmists usually praise
for God's judgment, curses, and benches upon the wicked.
These Psalms will contain clear
and intense calls for divine justice.
But it's kind of argued, right? These are like Psalms 5, Psalm 6, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 83, 109, 137.
These are the ones that are like the most famous. And of course, 109 being the most famous. I mean,
we just read it. That's some pretty harsh language for an enemy, right? Like
I hope that you know you blot them out you blot out their family that their
children that's I mean he's just like going and I mean he's like you think
he's done and then he just keeps adding to it
But then there's other songs and other parts of scripture where it's not the whole chapter
But there are sections where it's an imprecatory prayer where this is it
So what's the the first point I have for you this morning is what's the biblical foundation for of imprecatory prayer, right?
Well, first of all, these are not tantrums
Right. This is not like somebody stubbed your toe and so you're like Lord stub their toe and cut it off like
you know we're not children here or you know somebody wronged you on the highway in Houston
I mean road rage is legit and then you're like pray Lord I hope they crash and die like no that's
not what we do is a matter of fact if anything if somebody wrongs you we turn the other cheek
nine times out of ten if somebody's wrong in you they're wrong in you
Right the only time we know they're for sure. They're wronging us is when we're preaching the gospel or we're for the things of Christ
And they're literally attacking us for that reason
But for the most part like if you're going to work you're probably smart enough to not just be you know
Blurting out the fact that you're Christian all the time, and I'm not saying we should be ashamed
I'm just saying there's a time and place for everything
You're doing your job and if somebody doesn't like you at work
Probably they just don't like you because they don't like you it has nothing to do with who you are
Right, but obviously if we're out so winning and somebody slams the door in my face
Chances are it's probably because they don't like Christ, right?
I don't you know, and it's and that's actually not even the case all the time
Sometimes we were just angry we catch them at a bad time
maybe they're cooking something or
You know, they just have a bad attitude who's ever run done someone and just you could tell
I had nothing to do with Christ. They just had a bad attitude. You know, you just meet a grumpy old man
Remember that I don't I don't think I ever saw the movie
But there's a series of movies because I guess as you get old you get grumpy, you know, right?
You got a bunch of grumpy old men, but you're there in Psalm 109
What are these impregn- what's the foundation? They're spiritual, Christ rooted in truth and righteousness, right?
We're pre- we're praying a specific thing for a specific group of people and it is not a
tantrum and it's not a selfish thing. It is rooted on God's word.
In Psalm 109 verse 7 it says when he shall be judged, let him be condemned and then it says and let his prayer become sin.
If you're there and saw him in the Psalms, let's go to Psalm 141.
Actually, yeah, go to Psalm 141 and then after that...
Quickly go to Jeremiah 18, but in Psalm 141 in verse 5 in verse 1 the Bible says Lord
I cry unto thee make haste unto me give ear to my voice when I cry unto thee let my prayer be said forth
Before thee as incense and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice
Set a watch oh Lord before my mouth keep the door of my lips incline not my ear
Inclined not my heart. I'm sorry. So pay attention to what what he's doing first before he asks for this wicked thing
right he says incline not my heart to any
Evil thing to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity and let me not eat of their dainties
It says, let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness, and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head, for yet my prayer shall be in their calamities."
And here it is again where he's saying, hey, I'll take correction.
It says, let the righteous smite me.
Hey, when you go to church, it's not always going to be peaches and cream or rainbows and sunshine, right?
Said it shall be a kindness and let him approve me. Look, you shouldn't be so sensitive that you can't be corrected
That's what he's saying. He said it shall be an excellent oil, which will not break my head. It says for yet my prayer
Shall be in their calamities. So it's not just like you just randomly just pick up one day and phone
Phone home and like Lord take them out. You want to be in the right frame and you want to have the right heart
And you want to know what you're really, you know praying for
Right. I mean, this is not this is I mean, I believe there's power of prayer. This is not just
geared to just anybody. For the most part, I don't think that it's geared for a lot of people.
I would think the sense of Belial,
reprobates, you know, people that are vehemently hating the Lord Jesus Christ,
as in Psalm 139, people that nations that hate that, then we can pray this.
And I think that it's fine.
You know, the Bible doesn't actually, as I read through all this, it's not a commandment.
For this type of prayer, but we see that this type of prayer is allowed, right?
So the God gives us that ability to choose and so if you I mean if not if that's not your cup of tea like the person
I was talking to you say well, I'll never pray that was that you don't have to pray that I
So I'm just telling you that God says we can't pray that
And you know, I like a little bit of balance in my life
I like the God lets me know that I can pray for my vengeance because he says hey, don't do anything
But sometimes the flesh wants to do something, but you know, it's actually better to just not do
anything like God handled it. You know, it's way better for God to punish the evil doers than
for me to punish the evil doers. I'll never do a good job as the Lord Jesus Christ.
You're there in Jeremiah, but let me just read for you in 2 Samuel 15 verse 31. The Bible says,
And one told David, this is when David's running away from Absalom and saying,
Oh Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of a hit-the-fell into foolishness, and we see
later on, and I'll touch this at the end of the sermon, the Lord actually answers that
prayer.
So it's not wrong to pray this, I want to make that clear, but you got to have the right
type of prayer.
Of course, a hit-the-fell is not only going against King David, the Lord's anointed,
Specifically, he's going to guess who, the Lord Jesus Christ, right?
I mean, David is a form of a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ.
That's a whole other sermon, a whole other story, but it's usually the people who are
against the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember the Bible says that if they hate me, it's not that they hate me, they hate
who, the Lord Jesus Christ, right?
But we got to learn to discern as men, and especially for teaching our children and our
Are they hating me or they hating me because of the Lord Jesus Christ, right?
We you know, there is a difference so just we got to be careful with that but go to Jeremiah 18 here Jeremiah
You know, he has this long conversation right here in verse 18. He says then then said they come and let us devise
against
device devices against Jeremiah for the law shall not perish from the priest nor counsel from the wise nor the word from the
Prophet come and let us smite him
With the tongue and let us not give heed to any of his words. Hey, Jeremiah is preaching and they're like hey
Let us not listen to his preaching not only
Do they not want to hear it I mean not only are they showing up, but they're like let's devise a way to not listen to this
Right as says give heat to me, O Lord and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me and then pay attention here says
Shall evil be recompensed for good for they have digged a pit for my soul
Remember that I stood before thee to speak good to them and to turn away thy wrath from them
therefore
Deliver up their children to the famine
and pour out their blood by the force of the sword and let their wives be bereaved of their children and be widows
and let their men be put to death, let their young men be slain by the sword in battle.
Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them, for they have digged a pit to take me, and hit snares for my feet.
Yet, Lord, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me, forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee, deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.
Now this is a pretty harsh prayer from Jeremiah, but notice who he's leaving it up to the Lord Jesus Christ
He says let it be done in whose time in God's time. So number one
That's why I'm saying it's not
It's not a tantrum because look if you are praying an imprecatory prayer
That doesn't mean that the Lord's gonna answer it number one and if he does it's not gonna be in your time
So just leave it to the Lord move on
But it is nice to know I can just get that off my chest and then we go on about my day
Right. I don't want to carry any bitterness or grudges or I don't want anything to detract from doing the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I mean Jeremiah was great about that
I mean, he's literally called the lamenting prophet speaking about how he's crying for the nation and he's preaching hard
But you know what you never stop doing you never stop doing it
You know why he didn't stop?
Because he just left it to the Lord.
He just kept going.
He never stopped.
And he was not a liked individual.
That's all.
Like I said, let me not distract.
But in Revelation 6, go over to 2 Kings,
but in 2 Kings 6.
But in Revelation 6, verse 9, the Bible says,
I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held
And they cried with a loud voice saying how long oh Lord holy and true
Does thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth even in heaven
The saints are like how long Lord are you know, they're just getting impatient
You know, obviously the Lord's timing is not our timing
And you're going to tell, even in heaven, we still, I'll never understand the glory of the Lord.
His ways truly are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, right?
So, I want to make sure you understand, it's not a fleshly rant. Like, this is not,
you shouldn't be in the flesh, you know, these are righteous cries for God, you know, to move.
In my opinion, even with what's going on right now, the more foundational prayer should be
that we shouldn't even go to war and that the Lord would enact righteous men in positions
of leadership to stop this war, to be for peace, not for a war.
Right now if they go then then we would want to maybe pray something like this
But we have way more scriptures saying hey Lord, let's let's change the direction of a nation
Let's change the hearts of people right the Lord doesn't God doesn't want the wicked to perish
I mean, he's enacted all this because he's a just God, but that's why he's slack.
I mean, he's slow concerning his promises, like, I mean, I'm sorry, he's not slack concerning
his promises, but he's slow to anger, right?
Because he's not just looking to knock people out, the Lord's not looking to just get rid
of everybody.
As a matter of fact, he would prefer that everybody would get saved and come to the knowledge
of Jesus Christ.
I mean, there's nothing more loving than having a balanced view of life, right?
That's the truth. I am actually not anti-Semitic, right? The leadership is probably full of false
prophets and God-haters and Jesus Christ-haters, but the people following, they're probably just,
that's all they know. You know, I grew up in Seventh-day Adventist. I used to prostilate to
Baptists. You know how I did? I used to go around telling people, hey, you should be in Seventh-day
Adventist. We're just like Baptists except on Saturday, right? Like, my intent wasn't to hurt
Right, so imagine someone just praying like that would be futile.
The real prayer would be that someone actually took the time and led me to the Lord Jesus
Christ and didn't want me to see, you know, I don't want Muslims to die.
They've got a false religion.
I don't want the US to go and just bomb all those innocent people and people that are
lost have never heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
You know, it'd be better if we just set a bunch of missionaries that actually preach
That'd be much better I don't care how great of a military we have
I mean, you don't have to tell us, we know this, I mean, we live in America, we know we have a great military,
but, you know, it's there to just defend this nation, we shouldn't go around just telling everybody what we think is the best thing.
We're not the moral police of the world.
So I didn't mean to get off on that, but it happened yesterday and we're preaching about this stuff, so might as well.
But point number two, so the first thing is the biblical foundation of imprecatory prayer, right?
How do we look at it?
then the targets of impregnatory prayer, right? If we're actually going to pray this,
who do we pray this about, or what do we pray this about? You know, it's not just enemies,
it's really actively those who resist God and persecute His people, right? When I,
I don't say that lightly, when I pray that, you know, my uncle would...
Sees to exist. I'm not saying that lightly. He's a flaming queer
Like I don't have I don't want anything to do with him or anything
I don't ever want to talk to him see him. His place is already reserved in hell. He's twice dead
You know on this earth he serves no purpose other than whatever the Lord might have in place for him to just to track
There'd be a stumbling block, but other than that he's going to hell
I mean, there's it's he's he's he has no purpose. No van he's all vanity if I pray that it's
No skin off my back, but if somebody's just arguing with me about doctrine and maybe we don't agree
I'm not gonna I mean what I want is to get them on the right path as a matter of fact somebody reached out to me via
Facebook and they realized that I have a friendship with pastor Bruce Mahien first works Baptist Church
Which is such a weird like the world is so small and I don't know if you know this about Pastor Mahien
But he does he has a lot of Instagram followers
I mean he does really well there and some guy that I met in politics like 13 years ago
I haven't talked to him since
since I left the political realm, reached out to me in messenger on Facebook and he's like,
hey, do you know this guy, Bruce Mejia? Obviously he doesn't know he's a pastor. He's like,
do you know Bruce Mejia? I was like, yeah. And he's like, well, what do you think about all his
latest like Instagram posts against the Jews? And I said, I said, I think they're 100% on the money,
like they're biblically accurate.
And he's like, oh, well, because I think they're really anti-Semitic.
I said, well, that could be that's the furthest thing from the truth.
But you know what I didn't do?
I didn't pick a fight with him.
He actually said, he's like, hey, well, I'd love to meet with you in person.
Let's do lunch because I'd like to understand your point of view.
Yeah, that's great.
You know, let me let me.
teach him first the gospel of Jesus Christ and then we can talk about the Jews all day long.
But you know what I'm not going to go do over there is try to convince them like Tucker
try to convince Ted Cruz about the Israelite. I mean just it's a pointless conversation right?
By the way Ted Cruz really embarrassed Texas just this week. I mean he couldn't have looked any
And then I will, where do you get your doctrine from, from the Bible?
Well, what verse?
Well, I don't have the verse with me right now.
Pull it up on Google.
He goes, what's in Genesis?
I mean, just it was, it's really embarrassing.
But go to 2 Kings 6 verse 18, the targets of impregnatory prayer.
Right here in verse 17, this is that famous verse.
It says in Elijah prayed and said, Lord, I pray the open his eyes that he may see.
And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man.
And he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elijah.
And then verse 18 says, and when they came down to him,
Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said,
Smite this people, I pray thee with blindness,
and smote them, and he smote them with blindness,
according to what?
The word of Elisha.
So the Lord literally opened the,
because Elisha was righteous in his actions,
the Lord opened up the eyes and gave peace
to the person that was afraid,
and then smote the other group with blindness.
Go to Psalm 35 and judges 16 the Bible says in verse 28 and Samson the famous story of Samson says and Samson called
Into the Lord and said oh Lord God
Remember Samson what he already had his eyes out. He's basically just they're making fun of him at this big feast
And he calls that young kid he says hey show me where the pillars are and then this is the prayer
He says in Samson called into the Lord and said oh Lord God remember I pray thee and strengthen me
I pray thee only this one oh God
that this once that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
And what do you do? I mean you literally got rid of like the majority of the leadership
with that one move, right? With that one swift prayer. The Lord actually answered that prayer.
The Bible says there in verse 1 says,
Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me.
Fight against them that fight against me.
Take hold of shield and buckler
and stand up for mine help.
Draw out also the spear and stop the way against them that persecute me say unto my soul
I am thy salvation
Let them become founded and put the to shame that seek after my soul
Let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt
Let them be as a chaff before the wind and let the angel of the Lord chase them
Let their way be dark and slippery and let the angel of the Lord persecute them
For without cause they have hid me hid for me their net in a pit
With which without cause they have dig for my soul let
Destruction come upon him at unawares and let his net that he hath hid catch himself
Into the very destruction let him fall and my soul shall be joyful in the Lord
It shall rejoice in his salvation all my bones shall say Lord
Who is like unto thee, which delivereth the poor from him, that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him?
False witnesses did rise up, they laid to my charge things that I knew not, they rewarded me evil for good, to the spoiling of my soul, but as for me, when the sick, my clothing was...
But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was set cut off, I humbled my soul with fasting,
and my prayer returned to my own bosom. And so we see here, he's like, hey,
take care of all these people that are basically attacking me for no reason. I mean, isn't that
what they did to the Lord Jesus Christ? And that's what they'll do to us. You know, in my lifetime,
I've been falsely accused more times than I care to think, right? But you know, I just leave it to the
And I actually rarely pray an impregnatory prayer.
Just most of the time it's like,
Lord, just you handle that business.
Like I'm just going to move on.
I don't want to have a grudge,
money lost or time lost or time invested.
It's over, you know, in business,
you get, you know, taken advantage of a ton.
As a matter of fact, even currently we're dealing
with a client who just like won't pay
and he's just kind of a jerk about the whole thing.
You know what?
My prayer is Lord, just you handle it.
It's going to be worse for that person
than the little bit of money that they owe us.
Right? It's just, it's the way it is. Go over to...
Actually, let me see where I want to have you go, because the next one I'm going to knock out a bunch of verses.
Go to 2 Chronicles 32. Let me just read for you these verses real quick.
In 2 Chronicles 32, you're going to 2 Chronicles 32.
But in Isaiah 37 verse 20, the Bible says,
Now therefore, O Lord, our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, even thou only.
Whereas thou hast prayed to me
against Sennacherib, king of Assyria.
And we know the story, you know, they're coming
and basically the king, Sennacherib,
the king of Assyria, sends his minions
and they're like, hey, we've destroyed
all these other nations and they're false gods.
And Hezekiah, I mean, this is a daunting thing,
he's a big army.
And him and Isaiah and the scribes,
they literally leave it to the Lord and pray to them.
And what does God say?
Because you came to me and you prayed this against them,
I'm giving you the synopsis. He says, I will basically give you in. Nothing happened to them.
The rumor pulled him away and then turns out that even then when he made it back, his sons killed
him, right? There was a conspiracy against him. But
Point number three that I have for you, and this is why I said, these are just real quick verses, is the conditions that warrant
imprecatory prayer. So what's the biblical foundation of imprecatory prayer, right? We want to be in a righteous mind.
We want to be, we want to do it in the right frame of mind. We want to search out the scripture.
We want to pray the Lord to actually say, is this even warranted?
And if it is, then, you know, we have biblical foundation to do it. Number two,
The targets of impurgatory prayer are the ones that hate the Lord Jesus Christ.
Basically, it's the reprobates, the sons of Belial, those that would look to destroy
the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I mean, even now, you think about...
We might be on the verge of World War three look
That's just the judgment of the Lord
But they're still a remnant that preaches the word of God here in the United States of America
My prayer is not that that people would be destroyed
My prayer is that we would be so
Strong and righteous that we could turn the tide and then the Lord would then turn the heart of
Donald Trump and then yahoo and all these guys and just be like well
I just I'm busy doing something else because you know what the Lord can do that
If not, just read your Bible. I mean it's like all over the place. The third point is the conditions that warrant a purgatory prayer
You know
What is it? You know when evil is unrepentant?
When corruption spreads when God's truth is mock, you know, there's people that'll mock the Lord Jesus Christ to this day
People I literally watched something. I had to turn it off. I didn't know what I was watching
You know, sometimes it wasn't anything like evil to the eye. I thought it was a church service. They were making fun of
didn't realize they were trying to push the agenda of sodomites and so if there
was no context they were just like showing a contemporary like church
service and they start like drumming and singing the song about how you know the
Lord's got their side because they're their sodomites and the song and then
they're like and and in the song they actually use the cuss word and they're
like we're only using it once in the church service because we want to let
you know you know the gods on our side I was like
That's mocking the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a that's a good time to put in an imprecatory prayer, right?
Lord, smite that church down like that's ridiculous because there's kids in the audience and they're trying to indoctrinate those kids on the wrong thing
All right Matthew 23 verse 14 the Bible says one you scribes
If Pharisees hypocrites for ye devour widows houses and for repentance make long prayer
Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation remember we saw earlier in Psalm 109 let their prayer become sin
This is the damnation of their sin right and mark 1240 same thing which devour widows houses and for pretence make long prayers
These shall receive greater damnation
In Luke 20, 47, the same thing, which devour widows' houses
and for a show make long prayers, the same shall receive what?
Greater damnation.
Aren't people making long prayers right now?
That we would just like destroy all of the Middle East except for this little
tiny piece of land that they call Israel?
Am I even exaggerating?
I mean you think that John Hage he's not like up on his pulpit
Sweatin excited that we're about to go into world war three. I mean that guy's been wanting world war three for like the last 30 years
I mean he literally his commercial says Jesus is not the Messiah
I mean that's been like his infomercial for the last 30 years
Isaiah 115 says and when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes
From you, yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear, your hands are full of blood."
Proverbs 20 verse 9 says, he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his
prayer shall be abomination.
So I mean, we, you know, we can...
Create a situation where if we're not right with God God can punish us
He's not gonna judge us to hell, but he can punish us here on this earth
We don't want to I don't want to be with the Baptist that are
You know drumming the war drums because the Lord's gonna punish them
You know, they're saved, they'll go to heaven, but I don't want that punishment for me here on this earth, right?
Lamentations 3 verse 8 says also when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer and then in verse 44
This is one of the hardest like lamentations number three is really tough
I wish I attempted to read it, but it's really long when it says when thou has covered thyself with a cloud that our prayer
Should not pass through look the Lord does not mess around
We just want to be we just want to have the right conditions for the prayer
Point number four. Let me just remind you, you know, we want to look at what the biblical foundation is for a precutory prayer
Who are the targets for this type of prayer though?
the the conditions that warrant
Pregatory prayer and then number four the righteous are not powerless when it comes to that, right?
This is a great. I like impregatory prayers because it reminds me that I'm not powerless in this battle
The Lord says, I am weak. When I am weak, He is strong.
I know I am weak in the world, but I'm not weak
without God. I mean, with God, I'm sorry. I don't know if I said that right.
I'm not weak if God's on my side. Let me see it. Let me clear that up.
But our prayer, our action
should be to pray to who? The Lord Jesus Christ.
You know many times we want to take matters into our own hands and that's really when we get in trouble
You know the Bible literally other verses will say that he's a lamp unto her feet and a light onto our path
Right, it's not for us to take matters into our own hands
But when it is time if we wanted I guess if you want to feel like you took matters into your own hands
Pray an impregatory prayer. That's about as close as you can take matters into your own hands and the Lord will listen
I mean, I could have used other examples remember when Paul gets the sorcerer and he blinds them for impeding the work of Christ
I mean, there's other there's plenty of examples. I didn't use those but you if you go through the Bible
men of God will pray things and God will come through for them.
But then there's other times where he says, especially Jeremiah spends a lot of time saying,
hey, these guys, if they come to you and they say all these things and they're praying all these
things and they're prophesying and they don't come to be, you know why? Because it's not from God.
Right and and your goal should always be to be in the Word of God
That's why I'm trying to give you so much scripture because I don't want this to be my opinion
Especially because it's not like a very popular subject and most churches most people because I've asked do not think
This is a real thing in the Bible
I mean, I've literally heard it from pastors who'd be like, well, that's more, you know, it's a poetic thing.
It's in the Psalms. It's kind of like a metaphor.
It's not really that you can just pray things on people.
I mean, some of this stuff really came true.
Samson said, hey, Lord, let me take these guys out.
And the Lord gave them strength to take these guys out.
I don't know how metaphorical that is in the scripture, but, you know, you don't want to waste your time arguing.
with fools, like, you don't want to waste your time art.
You know, all these people are getting online,
and they're like, oh, you know, the Jews,
the guys, chosen people.
You don't want to be like a keyboard warrior,
be like, no, they're not.
Whatever, just pray that they would find the light.
Right, I had you turn to 2nd Chronicles, but in Nehemiah 4 verse 9 the Bible says nevertheless
We made her prayer unto God and then what and said watch against them day and night because of them
I don't know and by the way some of these could have be applied in different contexts
The second Chronicles 32 verse 18 that says then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews speech unto the people of Jerusalem
that were on the wall to fright them and to trouble them that they might take the city,
speaking again on that story of Sennacherib,
as it says,
and they spake against the God of Jerusalem,
and against the gods of the people of the earth,
which were the work of the hands of man.
And for this cause, Hezekiah, the king, and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amos,
by the way, Isaiah was one of the hardest preachers on the faith of the planet, I mean, period,
prayed and cried unto heaven, and we know what the result of that was, right?
Go to Isaiah 37, staying on that theme of Hezekiah,
because this is found a lot in the scripture.
This story of Hezekiah having to deal with his major army
is a very prominent part of the Old Testament.
You see it three, four, I think it's like three or four,
maybe even five times.
But in Psalm 54 verse two, the Bible says,
hear my prayer, God, give ear to the words of my mouth.
Right?
And so in Isaiah 37 verse 15 the Bible says in Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord saying oh Lord of hosts
God of Israel that dwelleth between the cherubim's
Thou art the God even thou alone in all the kingdoms of the earth thou has made heaven and earth notice this prayer is first about God
It says, Incline thine ear, O Lord, and hear, open thine eyes, O Lord, and see, and hear
all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God.
You know why Hezekiah's offended?
It's not because they came after him, it's because they came after God, right?
I shouldn't be offended if anybody says anything about me, and I want to make that point clear,
but I do get angry if somebody attacks God.
There's nothing that gets me more pissed off than if somebody gives an unclear gospel message.
If somebody's like, no, well, you know, you if you don't have works after salvation where you ever really save
You know, you'll see you'll see the bad side of me come out
If people are attacking the foundations of God, I got a call yesterday from an ex-church member
Was it yesterday or Friday? I don't remember and I don't have his phone number saved on my on my phone
Because when he left I deleted them
And he called me because apparently pastor you might have called him by accident
So you you don't know who I'm talking about and he was calling to check in on you
But instead of just calling to check in on you. I didn't know who it was
I'm like hello, and he's like hey so and so and I was like who is this because I'm my literally my daughter's like on top of me
My two-year-old daughter. I had taken a break and so she's you know you ever to answer the phone call with kids
It's like you're trying to figure stuff out like who is this he's like it's so and so and I was like, oh
Hey, how you doing? And he's like
Hey, I don't normally ask this stuff.
Here we go, here's the woman in him.
He's like, I don't normally ask this stuff,
but did you delete my phone number from your phone?
I was like, what am I like, are we dating or something?
Like, I don't have to tell you that I took,
and I'm like, yes, I deleted your phone number
from my phone, when?
When we last talked.
You said that I wasn't a good pastor
and then I didn't know what I was doing.
I said, that's fine.
I said, so I don't have anything to do with you.
he's like I never said that I was like all right well I'm not here to argue with you I was like
I just I don't have any reason to have your phone number on my phone
You know and my people get all up in arm
But you know why I was mad at him that time is because he literally left the church to go to a more watered-down church
I don't care that he left, but then he started texting some of the church members saying hey
You should come to this church and then when I confronted him about it
He said well the reason is because you're just giving us the milk of the word when we really want the meat of the word
Excuse me last time I checked second Baptist is not the milk
I mean the meat of the word they can barely even preach they're not even preaching out of the King James
right? So of course I don't want anything to do with them. So you know I sometimes get like this
where I'm like look they're coming against you. Go to verse 18 says of a truth Lord the kings of
Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries and have cast their gods into the fire
for there were no gods but the work of men's hands wood and stone therefore they have destroyed them.
Save us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord
Even thou only look I look forward to the day when the rest of the world will know that Trump isn't your savior
Right, I mean might be a good president. That's up for debate
You guys can argue that all day long, but I'll tell you what the greatest individual ever walked this earth is the Lord Jesus Christ
And people are gonna find that out even Donald Trump
And when he gets up there, he's not gonna be able to say, well, I ran the greatest country in the greatest time and he's not gonna do that.
By the way, I know it's a horrible Trump. I'm not good at impressions, but it just, you know, it is what it is.
But just pray about it. Don't post your anger, you know, don't get in fights. Don't stoop down to that level.
I guess disagreements with like other members of the church.
I'm thinking, I'm gonna call him out.
I'm thinking of brother Mike, like,
but I mean that in a nice way.
Like him and I go back on doctrine
and I actually enjoy it.
And I mean, I feel bad for him
because I know he's not right,
but you know, I still gotta help him out, right?
That's what the role of the preacher is.
But you know, that's not what I'm talking about.
You know, I don't get off of,
and be like, oh man, he challenged me on this chapter,
on this chapter.
Lord, smile at him.
You know, he doesn't know.
it's not like that as a matter of fact we need that kind of edification because to be honest with
you he's actually helped clear up a lot of doctrine that's how you want to have I'm not talking about
arguments like that I'm talking about people who are literally attacking you for the Lord Jesus Christ
because of your gospel and your doctrine we're going to have to as a matter of fact you're not
going to agree with everything I preach you might not even agree with this sermon but that's not what
So when you leave here, don't pray an imprecatory prayer.
I mean, just say, you know, let's, let's get the right balance.
And that's what leads me to point number five.
You want to have balance, right?
The precatory prayer is not a bitter.
Thing it's it's done out of boldness, you know, the Bible literally instructs husbands not to be bitter against their wives
Not only that he instructs us not to hold this root of bitterness
Look, I'm not angry that other churches don't have the right doctrine on who
Spiritual Israel is or you know the timing of the rapture or anything like that. I just pray that they would come to our side
That's that's where I don't get I don't lose sleep over it either
So number one, the biblical foundation of imprecatory prayer, we want to know what the
targets are.
Number two, number three, the conditions that warrant imprecatory prayer.
Number four, remember that the righteous are not powerless.
That's why God gives us this ability, this teaching in the Bible.
But also we have to have the balance, right?
It comes from boldness.
Matthew five actually turned there.
I should have had you turn there earlier, but turn to Matthew five.
Turn to Matthew 5
Impregnatory prayer is not for your personal enemies
Just let me clear that up. I think I've already said that but I wouldn't make that clear because I do believe it should be preached
From the pulpit. It's biblical. I've given you more than enough scripture to back this
But it's not like a free-for-all it's like it, you know, you don't hand a machine gun to a five-year-old because
Fiber would just have a heyday and probably shoot up the place, right? You hand it to a responsible individual who knows what it's for, right?
It's not a it's not a weapon for just playing around
It's a tool for defense and for hunting and for whatever
I mean, maybe even recreational sport, but even then you handle it with care, you know
The first time I went to shoot I was 28 years old and the person was like hey, this is not a toy
Right prayer of any kind is not a toy. It's a legit serious tool for legit serious action
In Matthew 5, verse 44, the Bible says,
But I say unto you, love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them, which despitefully use you
and persecute you, that you may be the children
of your father, which is in heaven,
for you may get his son to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just,
and on the unjust, for if you love them which love you,
what reward have you?
Do not even the publicans the same.
And if ye salute your brethren only,
what do ye more than others?
Do not even the publicans so.
Be therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.
Go down in Revelation 6.
You've been in Psalm 109.
We saw that right in verse four for my love,
they are my adversaries,
but I give myself unto prayer.
In Isaiah 45 verse 20,
Isaiah says, Assemble yourselves and come, draw near together the ye that are escaped
of the nations.
They have no knowledge.
They set up the wood of their graven images of image and pray unto a God that cannot save.
And this is Lord God, right?
That's a form of impregnatory prayer.
You pray basically to a piece of wood.
Or to a flag or whatever. I mean who's seeing those videos where literally Paula White the devil
The devil's right hand gets up and puts her hand on Donald Trump with all these other and they're praying over
They're just praying in vain
You know there's a world full of people saying like people saying they're praying
But that prayer can't save
Five times a day in Muslim countries they face the east on a carpet, and they they're saying they're praying
But it's a God that cannot save
right, I mean they literally
You got one group
who faces the east and prays five times a day and they blur I mean I've literally
because I I'm in the tech like I do I have a digital agency I've literally been
I have a group of VAs in the pack in Pakistan and in India and I've been on
phone calls like where it's early in the morning for them because you know the
time the time differences and all of a sudden you'll hear through their speaker
And I'm like, what's going on?
They're like, oh, it's prayer time.
And then they'll be working through it.
And it's like, it blurts out through the entire city.
It's like super loud, right?
And then on the other hand, you have the Jews in Israel
in front of a wall, like, you know,
this is, I don't even know what they're doing.
I'm not even exaggerating, right?
I mean, they're wearing the little thing
and they're like in front of the wall,
you know, saying all kinds of stupid stuff.
It doesn't save them.
Go to Revelation,
I mean, we've already seen this, but I still want you to see it.
Like I said, this is a very important part of what I'm preaching.
But here in Revelation 6, in verse 9 says,
And when he had opened up the fifth seal,
I saw under the altar the souls of them
that were slain for the word of God and for their testimony,
which they held, and they cried with a loud voice saying,
How long, O Lord?
Holy and true, doth thou not judge and avenge our blood
on them that dwell on the earth?
The saints are slain they're in heaven and they're looking down and they're like how long oh Lord
Will you wait?
Point number six
I'll have you turn actually
Turn a Psalm 58 because that's the place last place. I'm gonna have you go like this is gonna go very very quickly
Because these are the examples of God responding in preceptory prayer and I've already given you some snippets
But let's just go through those and just clear them up, right?
Because God doesn't ignore these prayers if they're in the right context.
And the reason I preach this is because people ask this question and I never got a straight
answer from any, when I was a young man, I asked about this because I was like, I read
Psalm 109 and I was like, whoa.
Like where did this come from like you're reading the book of Psalms, and it's like Laura
They come past me about and I delight in thy word and we love you and thy mercy and earth forever
Like all these great songs and also you get to Psalm 109 and he's like, you know
let his days be few and let another take his office and let his children be fatherless and his
wife a widow let his children be continually vagabonds and beg let them seek their bread also
out of their desolate I mean that's pretty rough right if I went up to someone I said you know what
I don't like you and I hope all these like and I started spewing that stuff people would say I'm
and vindictive right like that's a hard saying so you you know but God response
to that he's in a law in 2 Kings 6 18 we saw that right he struck them he
strikes the enemy with blindness in verse 18 says and when they came down to
him Elijah prayed unto the Lord and said smite this people are pray thee with
blindness and he did
When Samson we already saw that but we'll see it again. It says he called right as I pray these strengthen me
I pray the only this once oh God that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines of my two eyes
I love the way it's worded. I pray the what only this once why because Samson is a form of Christ
And what did Christ do for us?
He laid down his blood only once
So that we would be avenged of our sinful nature and all we have to do is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
And even Jesus prayed, right?
Let this cup pass from me if it's your will,
but not my will, but thine be done, right?
David, in a Hittifell's counsel,
this one's, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time here,
like three minutes, but second Samuel 1531,
you know, we know that Hittifell was a counselor
to King David.
And,
The Bible says, you know, the Bible tells us that the counsel of a hit to fell and then it says was as if a man had inquired of the
Oracles of God, like so he obviously he had some influence
Right, but he turned he was a turncoat as we would call him and second time in six and three says in the council of a hit to
Fell which he counseled in those days was as if a man had inquired of the Oracle of God
So was all the council of a hit to fell both with David and with Absalom
So I mean he had a pretty important position as counselor David
Then his betrayal came and what happened? He gives advice to Absalom
But the Lord places other people in the place in this in this example Hushai and
He and Absalom listens to who should I not have hit the fill right and what happened?
In 2 Samuel 17, verse 23, the Bible says,
And when it hit the fell, saw that his counsel was not followed,
He saddled his ass and arose and got him home to his house, to his city,
And put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died,
And was buried in the sepulchre of his father.
What's interesting about this story is that
all that David was asking was that his counsel would not be listened.
He didn't even ask for the death of a hit to fell or destruction
He just said hey, don't let his counsel not be heard
But God was so angry at a hit to those like not only is his counsel not many heard
One will take it to my hands to make sure that he hangs himself
Right, that's what I'm saying the Lord doesn't need your help. He knows how to avenge not only himself, but us
Hezekiah, we saw that, but basically, just for the sake of time, in Hezekiah 37, verse 36,
the Bible says, then the angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians
a hundred and four score and five thousand, a hundred and eighty-five thousand, and when
they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
Because of the prayer of Hezekiah, a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians were taken
They're not empty words, but you got to have it at the right frame of mind. And so in conclusion, you're there in Psalm 58
That's where we're closing
in conclusion
First of all, let's just recap the biblical foundation. There is a biblical foundation for impregatory prayer. It's biblical
It's in the Bible. It's real
But the targets are not what you think right the targets of impregnatory pair of those that hate the Lord they're against the Lord
And those are also the conditions not necessarily look if someone's against the Lord, but they're not like they're not attacking you
Then I don't I mean if you don't know about it. Just don't don't worry about it. I'm not like praying for the destroy
I'm not like sitting at night praying for the destruction of everybody. I'm just like Lord. There's these people that are attacking you
Can you please handle it?
Right and remember because of impregnatory prayer and all prayer actually we're not powerless
Right, we have the ability to improve our lives and to be avenged if we come to the Lord in prayer correctly
And I've already touched on that in another sermon and I'll bring other sermons about
Intercessory prayer and healing and supplication, but this is not that that sermon right?
And and just like every time I say God is a God of balance, right? And so we need to be balanced in our approach
That's why we don't just preach Jesus like happy Jesus every Sunday, but we also don't preach doom and gloom every Sunday
There's a balance
Sometimes we're just preaching through the Bible like on Sunday evenings. We're just going through the Bible
There's not really a specific topic. I'm just covering a bunch of topics that the Bible is covering at one time
Right, but the conclusion is is this though. It is time to pray
It's time to pray some fire, and I'm not just talking about impregnatory prayer
I think America just needs to humble themselves
As we know in the Bible right if my people what you're called by my name will humble themselves and what and pray
We want healing in the land, but nobody's willing to get on their knees and pray for the healing
And I'm not talking the prayers that they're doing at the prayer breakfast, you know for Donald Trump God does not care about that
As a matter of fact guys and make that very clear. He's like I am I God doesn't want your sacrifices your
Oblations nothing because it's all in vain. He wants your repentance. He wants your humility
In Psalm 58 verse 1 the Bible says do ye indeed speak righteousness
O congregation do you do ye indeed speak righteousness O congregation do ye judge up
rightly oh ye sons of men yay in heart ye work wickedness ye weigh the violence of
your hands and the earth the wicked are strange from the womb they go astray as
soon as they be born speaking lies their poison is like the poison of a serpent
They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear which will not harken to the voice of charmers charming never so wisely
Break their teeth. Oh God in their mouth
Break out the great teeth of the young lions. Oh Lord let them melt away as waters which run continually
When he bendeth his bow to shoot him his arrows let them be cut be as cut in pieces as a snail which melteth
Let every one of them pass away, like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as the whirlwind, both living and in his wrath.
The righteous shall rejoice when he seeeth the vengeance, when he seeeth...
the vengeance, he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, so that the man shall say,
verily, there is a reward for the righteous, verily, he is a God that judges in the earth."
Look, there's a reward for the righteous, and it's a judgmental God. God saves and God judges.
There is a time, look, the time is fleeting, the time is now.
I keep thinking we have time, and then 10 o'clock in the evening comes, and we're almost in the verge of World War III.
We might not have that much time.
I don't think that this is it, just because the temple hasn't been destroyed and there's a bunch of other stuff that starts to go down.
But that also could happen very quickly.
I mean, remember COVID came and went like so quick.
COVID felt like it was going to last forever, and now it's like a distant dream.
I remember the days of COVID where nobody wanted to sit next to each other and everybody's wearing a mask and now
It's just like we're back to normal. I mean every time I see a mask now. I'm like, man
I don't know why they're wearing a mask, but you know, it's weird
But what I want to say is I think that number one we need to preach the whole counsel of God
I have not heard a lot of preaching on impregatory prayer. I have heard some so I'm not gonna say I'm the only one
Plus, if I was the only one, you guys should probably, you know, think about it and be like,
why is he the only one bringing this truth?
But there is truth about it, Precatory Prayer.
Even if it's not preached as much today, it is a biblical foundation.
And I'm guarantee you, if we go back, when the Bible was preached more thoroughly, you'll
find this type of preaching.
So I'm not, this is not a new thing.
And I think I gave you enough scripture.
And if I didn't, then you can come see me after the service.
Let's close in a word of prayer
Heavenly Father Lord, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your blessings Lord and Lord help us to enact the proper prayer at the proper time
There's so many forms of prayer that we see in the Bible.
You know, Job comes in prayer and gives praise for all the things that happened to him immediately
after he lost just about everything, Lord.
And we see also David praying that, you know, your mercy and grace and earth forever and
that, you know, he loves and delights your word.
imprecatory prayers, where we're just asking that you would take vengeance, specific vengeance
on those that hate you, Lord, that would look to mock you and attack and impede the cause
of Christ.
So, Lord, I just pray that I gave enough tools and enough scripture necessary for someone
And again, I don't see in Scripture where it's a commandment to do to pray this prayer,
but if someone does feel the need, they would do it in the right frame of mind, Lord.
And so today, my prayer is not that you would just destroy Israel and Iran
and that America would just rule and reign over all the nations.
My prayer is that you would pull them back, Lord, and that we would have peace
and that we would be able to then go out into the mission field and preach the Word of God.
people here in the United States that represent those countries that could hear the gospel
and go back to their families, unhindered, and preach the gospel in those homes as long
as they're not destroyed, Lord.
So it's my prayer that you would just lengthen the time so that we would have more time to
preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.