Many Christians are coming to the end of their rope as you will see in this piece by Protestia’s staff that includes a prayer asking Almighty God to pronounce harsh judgment on the enemies of the cross.
(Protestia) Evangelical Christianity has grown strangely distant from the practice of imprecatory prayer, which is as sad as it is understandable, given the softness of our age. From the soft-handed, limp-wristed pastor in preacher-sneakers to the armchair theologian at Starbucks pounding out Tim Keller tweets with a pumpkin spice latte mustache, to the glitter-faced worship gal writhing on stage to a Hillsong tune, few understand the deep, rich heritage of imprecation in David’s Psalms. But perhaps we should get back to that if only we could stomach it.
To imprecate means “to invoke a curse,” and believe it or not, the Bible is full of this. In fact, most of these imprecations – many in the form of imprecatory prayers and songs – come from the man who was “after God’s own heart,” King David (Psalm 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69. 109, 139). Considering his songs were inspired of the Holy Ghost, one would be hard-pressed to argue that there is no place for them in the life of a Christian.
Some would argue, poorly, that Christ’s command to “pray for our enemies” in places like Matthew 5:44-48 or Luke 6:27-38 would prohibit the type of imprecatory prayers prayed by David (who, ironically, is the clearest biographical foreshadow of Christ in all of Scripture). The Bible, however, does not contradict itself. The Christian ought to shun every hint of Marcionism, the heresy asserting that the God of the Old Testament is somehow different from the God of the New Testament.
The Psalms are just as relevant and God-glorifying today as an example of prayer as when David or his associates wrote them. So then, how might we both pray for our enemies while simultaneously praying against them?
This is simple. We pray as Jesus taught us, including the caveat, “thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven.”
We ought to pray that God saves our enemies, regenerates their hearts, and grants them faith and repentance. And if that is not God’s will, we ought to pray that God will “return his mischief upon his own head, and his violent dealing come down upon his own face” (Psalm 7:16).
In November, evangelical Christians who attend church weekly will vote for Donald Trump for president at a rate of more than 80%. While some outliers exist, chiefly those whose pastors wear rainbow-bedazzled stoles and heels, overwhelming support for Donald Trump as the next president of the United States isn’t because we are under the impression that the man is an exemplar of Christ. It is not under any misguided notion of Donald Trump being a role model for any Christian virtue. Instead, it is because the battle lines have never been so clearly drawn between those who favor us as Christians and those who despise us.
The sheer awfulness of Kamala Harris, who is far more a type and shadow of the Biblical Jezebel, a woman who slept her way to political power and desires the deaths of untold millions of innocent babies, who celebrates with Pride the things that God hates, a woman who breathes out murderous threats toward Christians and detests Christ with every fiber of her scarlet-adorned Prada designer suit-pants, is a repugnant stench in the nostrils of anyone credibly calling themselves a Christian.
Trump, with all of his personal failures, past sexual immorality, crassness, crudeness, his constant breach of decorum, and his stereotypical Manhattan sense of business ethics, still seems regularly prostrate before God Almighty by comparison to Harris. Consistently respectful of Christian people, open to Christian counsel, willing to pay at least a modicum of honor to the vestiges of the Christian religion, and one who opposes infant murder up until the time of birth, one who does not want to topple the advances of Christian civilization, one who does not wish to expel Christ from public life, Trump is no doubt the only realistic option to receive the Christian vote in this binary choice election. While some evangelicals (abolitionists, for example) can credibly argue (whether you agree or not) that not voting at all is the more moral option, certainly no one can say that a vote for Harris is anything less than glorifying Satan at the ballot box.
And so, as a second assassin has attempted to murder President Trump, it has become clear that he’s not being protected well by the U.S. Secret Service. If even rank amateurs can penetrate his protective circles, one can only wonder what threat might await Trump if federal agencies get tired of hiring hitmen from the public sector.
We provide the following imprecatory prayer on behalf of Donald Trump and ask that you consider using this prayer as a template for how to offer your own imprecations from using the Scripture and the long lost, imprecatory model of prayer.
Our Father, God of Heaven and Earth, Holy is your name (Matthew 6:9). We trust that you remain on your throne, sovereign king over all your creation (1 Chronicles 29:11). We ask forgiveness for our iniquities, pled under the blood of Christ, a sacrifice that removes our own stain of guilt and sin (1 John 1:7). We believe in Christ’s resurrection, and that he sits at your right hand, awaiting the culmination of his Kingdom over all the world (1 Peter 3:22). We believe that he is returning, and will then turn his enemies into footstools and rule the nations with a rod of iron (Psalm 2:9).
We petition you, in the name of your son, Jesus, on behalf of one of our fellow mortal men, Donald Trump. Like us, he is a man conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity (Psalm 51:5) Like us, he has violated every one of your immutable, righteous laws (James 2:10). But Father, we do not pray against him. We pray for him. We ask that you enlighten his eyes, that you grant him repentance, that you gift him faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). And we ask, oh Sovereign King, that you strengthen his feeble arms and weak knees (Hebrews 12:12). Grant him wisdom, give him discernment to know right from wrong James 1:5). Protect his steps (Proverbs 37:23-24). Go out before him and guard his ways (Psalm 119:9-11). Direct his heart (Proverbs 21:1).
We petition you, in the name of your son, Jesus, concerning another mortal like us, Kamala Harris. Like us, she is a person conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. Like us, she has violated every one of your immutable, righteous laws. And Father, we pray against her. We pray against her because she is an enemy of the little ones, and so we pray that if it’s not your will to redeem her, that you – of your own power and by your own sovereign hands – tie a millstone around her neck and throw her into deep water – an option, given by Christ – preferable to the alternative (Matthew 18:6). We pray that she be defeated in November, and that you grant America reprieve from the monstrous regiment of wicked women (Isaiah 3:12). We pray that, if necessary, you do whatever is in your sovereign will make her days short and have another take her office (Psalm 109:8).
For those who seek the physical harm of Donald Trump, no matter how great they are at the heights of government, or how lowly they are who plot against him, that you would save them from the consequences of their murderous hearts. But if it is not your will to redeem them, we invoke the name of Jesus in petitioning you to bring vengeance and the sword against them (Romans 13:4), and might their evil schemes fall upon their own head (Psalm 7:16). We pray that should you not turn their hearts, that you turn the barrels of their gun, and cause the wind to blow their bullets off course. We ask that whatever pit they dig, that they themselves would fall into it (Proverbs 26:27). We pray for either their repentance or for their demise, that the world might be rid of them and their hands intent on shedding innocent blood (Psalm 6:17).
We trust your sovereign ways. Your thoughts are better than ours, your ways superior to ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). Your plans, might indeed not be our plans, and if this is so, let your will be done and not ours (Luke 22:42). But should it please you, God of Heaven, cause the wicked to perish and we will rejoice (Proverbs 11:10).
Should it not be your will to save this man, or save this nation, might you use calamity to bring us closer to you (Isaiah 45:7).
Amen.
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