God Says Vengeance is Mine

Topic: Vengeance
Passage: Psalms 94:1–11

November 15, 2022

Commentary

This Psalm is a prayer for God’s judgment to fall. It is in the spirit of the petition that God’s righteous rule be established over all men, especially the wicked. The author of Psalm 94 lived in a day when government was engaged in the promotion of evil and persecution of the righteous. The unjust of the psalmist day not only prospered but they seemed to prevail. The righteous are being oppressed, the wicked are prospering, and it does not look as though God cares. Vengeance from God is not in the sense of uncontrolled vindictiveness, but in the sense of just retribution. This psalm is prophetic in context as it looks ahead to the days of the Antichrist and to Israel’s future sufferings in the great tribulation. It opens with prayer as the psalmist turns his thoughts toward God.
  1. Supplication – The psalmist speaks to God about sinners  (vv.1-7). What he wants is vengeance. This concept is not uncommon in the Old Testament. If someone committed an act of willful murder it was the duty of the next of kin to hunt down the murderer and slay him. There was six cities of refuge and if a man was guilty of involuntary manslaughter, he flees to one of these cities where he was safe if his case had been reviewed by the high priest.
    1. He  pleads with God to judge the wicked because it is His responsibility (vv. 1-3).
    2. He  says that vengeance is deserved because of the deeds of the wicked (vv. 4-7).
  2. Sermon – The psalmist speaks to Sinners about God (vv. 8-11). He turns from pleading with God to pleading with his fellow countrymen.
    1. The God who gives men ears to hear is capable of hearing Himself (vv. 8-9).
    2. If God chastens the nations, He will surely chasten His own (vv. 10-11).

Application

I should never get pleasure out of hearing how another person is being punished or suffering because of his wrong doing. Vengeance is the Lord’s doing, and not something I should take pleasure in.

Psalms 94:1– 11 (NET)

1 O Lord, the God who avenges! O God who avenges, reveal your splendor.

2 Rise up, O judge of the earth. Pay back the proud.

3 O Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked celebrate?

4 They spew out threats and speak defiantly; all the evildoers boast.

5 O Lord, they crush your people; they oppress the nation that belongs to you.

6 They kill the widow and the resident foreigner, and they murder the fatherless.

7 Then they say, “The Lord does not see this; the God of Jacob does not take notice of it.”

8 Take notice of this, you ignorant people. You fools, when will you ever understand?

9 Does the one who makes the human ear not hear? Does the one who forms the human eye not see?

10 Does the one who disciplines the nations not punish? He is the one who imparts knowledge to human beings!

11 The Lord knows that peoples’ thoughts are morally bankrupt.