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Break Their Teeth!

August 7, 2021·Mario Ortiz

Hi, Church! This week in our Pause Bible reading plan, we’re in Psalm 58.

Psalm 58 is imprecatory. It’s an invocation to God for judgment! It’s similar to one of those calls you make to 911, when there’s an emergency and you need help immediately! I like to think of Psalm 58 as a prayer.

Look what a few verses of this Psalm say…

6 Break off their fangs, O God!
Smash the jaws of these lions, O Lord!
7 May they disappear like water into thirsty ground.
Make their weapons useless in their hands.
8 May they be like snails that dissolve into slime,
like a stillborn child who will never see the sun.
9 God will sweep them away, both young and old,
faster than a pot heats over burning thorns.

Remember I said this was a prayer? Well, it’s not just a simple prayer, and it’s not the “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” that we teach our kids to pray before they go to bed. NO! this is a passionate, angry, yelling, teeth snarling, fist swinging, leg kicking type of prayer!

Have you ever prayed that way? I have! In fact, the Book of Psalms has 150 chapters, and I like to think I may have written Psalm 151 some night when I was praying on my back patio. Haha!

Today, I want to encourage you with two things.

PRAY.
But pray passionately. Aggressively. YES! maybe even angrily. There is such a thing as HOLY ANGER. It is a fit of anger against injustice or evil.

DO SOMETHING.
In Psalm 58, the psalmist is crying out to God to do something against injustice. To step in and defend the vulnerable against the evils of the powerful. He’s asking God for justice.

God’s people (people of the Kingdom) are called to influence and penetrate society! Society is transformed when God’s people execute His Kingdom plan and DO SOMETHING. You and I are God’s agents of transformation!

What if, when we pray, God answers? What if, by God’s powerful intervention, instead of injustice, we see justice? What if our families, friends, and neighbors live the abundant lives Jesus desires? I say YES! But what if the answer to the injustice we see is actually up to us? What if the “break off their fangs, O God” and all that verses 6-9 say is actually up to us? I by no means suggest we do this physically, violently. I mean we do it spiritually, through prayer and practically, through serving and loving our families, friends, neighbors, and, yes, even those who have hurt or wronged us. Let’s do it by loving our city.

So, let’s love our city. Let’s help the needy, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and pursue justice for everyone. Because every time we wholeheartedly love, serve, and seek justice, we’re the hand of God punching and knocking out the enemy’s teeth and stopping his evil plans.

Check out how Psalm 58 ends…

10 The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged…
11 Then at last everyone will say,
“There truly is a reward for those who live for God;
surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.”

See you this Sunday, at the Hayford Prayer Chapel parking lot, 10am–1pm, for our LOVE HAS NO LIMITS outreach.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Mario Ortiz

The Church on the Way