“The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.”
– Psalm 58:10
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you know a judge? Do you know what a judge does? Do you hope someday to be a judge? The job of a judge comes with power, prestige and position ascribed to it. The career of a judge comes with reputation, authority and status attached to it. The vocation of a judge comes with clout, wallop and kudos assigned to it. A single judge can undo a majority decision that has been made by a state’s governing body. The state of Arizona recently had a judge arbitrarily strip components of an approved legislated measure or law that would have made it easier for state and local law enforcement personnel to determine if a guy or gal is an illegal alien. This determination by a single judge in Arizona allows being in the United States illegally to be legal for guys, gals and kids who have entered the United States without pursuing doing the proper paperwork. In order for your grandmaa and grandpaa to have been able to live indefinitely in Bolivia, Guatemala and Canada – which are the three countries outside the United States where your grandmaa and grandpaa lived for extended periods of time because of the call that God impressed on your grandpaa to minister as a cross-cultural missionary, your grandmaa and grandpaa understood that in order to procure a temporary or permanent resident visa or landing papers to minister in these countries, your grandmaa and grandpaa knew that it was not an option to not complete all the paperwork, do all the steps and jump through all the hoops that are required to live in these countries. Your grandmaa and grandpaa knew that if they did not respect their host country’s immigration process – which at times to your grandmaa and grandpaa was an overkill on stringency, your grandmaa and grandpaa would not be allowed to stay in the country. During their twelve year tenure in Bolivia as South America Mission field team missionaries, your grandmaa and grandpaa had to always have on their person wherever they went a visa and an Interpol card. These two cards were the size of a driver’s license.
David knew judges. David had judges test his patience. David scribed Psalm 58 to tell God of his acute dislike of or profound unhappiness with some judges. David scribed this psalm song to be sung as a prayer to God in the context of God being the Supreme Judge. David in this psalm song pleas with God to set things right, that He bring judgment on the rulers who are corrupting justice and that He champion the cause of the righteous. David is not going to a place in this psalm song prayer where he had not gone to before or where other Old Testament authors went to in their missives that God – as God the Spirit, breathed on them to scribe. Using judicial power, prestige and position for liquidating opponents, amassing wealth and intentional self-promotion were blights that infected guys who ruled as kings over God’s specially chosen guys and gals. David saw unscrupulous rich and powerful judges degrading the innocent, poor and powerless within the society of his own people group of guys and gals. David uses this psalm song to reproach the mouths of judges – which judges were using to speak prejudicially, the hearts of judges – which judges were using to devise injustice, and the hands of judges – which judges were using to mete out violence, who David saw were teaming up together in a united front to pursue malevolence. Per what David scribed in this psalm song to God, David knew that how an evil judge would end up living his life was being formed before the guy was born – that even as a developing embryo, the guy was learning to go astray, be wayward and speak lies. David’s conclusion and solution in this psalm song prayer to God is that God is to break and tear out the teeth of corrupt judges, cause immoral judge to vanish as water flows away, melt degenerate judges as a slug is shriveled up by the sun as the slug crosses a hot rock and sweep the depraved judges away before a pot of water becomes heated by a fire using thorns. David tells God in verse 10 how he and every other God-follower guy and gal is going to feel when . . . “The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.”
Do you know what pleases God? Do you know what makes God angry? Do you know how to decide between what delights God and what makes God furious? Do you make decisions that gratify God or do you make choices that make God livid? Do you ever wonder why God chose you at this time for a planet Earth assignment? Do you know why God elected you to one day do planet Earth duty? Have you sensed yet that there is an elected family of faithful Christ-follower guys, gals and kids who are also on a planet Earth assignment who are doing frontline duty against an enemy force that includes guys, gals and kids who look very much like you? There is no doubt in your grandpaa’s mind that David completely understood that his primary planet Earth designation was for God to use him as a conduit to funnel adoration back to Him – which left a joy aura in David which . . . David could not help but continue to practice his ongoing righteous relationship with God which in turn opened his eyes to the unrighteous inequities that were intentionally being precipitated by self-promoting, self-centered and self-seeking judges – or similar leader types. Your grandpaa is feeling lots of ire these days against judges. Your grandpaa is thankful to know that how he is feeling today about judges that David felt the same way. (Fifteen years have passed since your grandpaa sent this missive to you. Liberal judges are using their perceived power even more today to shortcut . . .)
Psalm 58 (1087)