“Get ‘Em Lord” Prayers
Hands down, the most popular post on my blog, Delight-in-God.com, is an article I wrote called, “How To Pray For Someone You Don’t Like.”
In that article, Pastor J. Josh Smith shared valuable Biblical insight about how to pray for our enemies.
I’m just gonna say it – praying for God to bless our enemies isn’t easy to do.
Why do we have to do that when a “get ‘em, Lord” prayer feels sooo much better?
What’s Wrong With a “Get ‘Em Lord” Prayer?
We want quick justice when we’ve been wronged.
Think about that coworker who stole your idea and got all the credit and the accompanying raise.
Or, the neighbor who lets his dog trample your petunias and use your yard as a community toilet every morning.
Oh, that is so annoying.
Get ‘em, Lord.
From a biblical standpoint, we have to be very, very careful with a “get em” prayer.
A lot of it rides on the nature of the “wrong” we experienced and, very much so, on our intent when asking the Lord for justice.
There’s a huge difference between a mean person who irritates us, and an actual enemy of the faith.
What are Imprecatory Prayers?
Asking God to rain down His wrath on our enemies is called imprecatory prayer.
One of the synonyms for imprecate is to “damn.”
That’s pretty serious business and requires cautious consideration.
We know that the Lord Himself called out enemies of the faith, (the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees), in Matthew 23:31-33.
Imprecatory psalms, from David and others, and the imprecatory pleas in the Book of Jeremiah are some other examples.
Therefore, give their children over to famine
And deliver them up to the power of the sword;
And let their wives become childless and widowed.
Let their men also be smitten to death,
Their young men struck down by the sword in battle. – Jeremiah 18:21, (NASB).1
That’s a pretty obvious “get ‘em Lord” plea from the prophet Jeremiah.
We have this verse from King David, in Psalm 17:13:
Arise, O Lord, confront him, bring him low;
Deliver my soul from the wicked with your sword – Psalm 17:13, (NASB).2
David says “with your sword.” – no mistaking what he meant.
Was that wrong of King David to pray that?
There is no taint of personal jealousy, spite, or ambition in these psalms. Rather, there is a deep concern for God’s people. There is a desire for God’s glory to be displayed. In the case of David’s imprecations, those who opposed the king opposed God, because the king was God’s anointed. In the case of the other imprecatory psalms, they are all national, not personal in character. The psalmists in every case had a deep desire that God’s plan might be fulfilled through His people for His glory.
Thus it helps to understand the imprecatory psalms if we view them in light of God’s purpose and in light of the psalmist’s attitude. He was not seeking vengeance or being selfish. Rather, he was asking God to vindicate His people who had been mistreated and to fulfill His plan through them. – Stephen J. Cole, author and theologian.3
What About What Jesus Said at the Sermon on the Mount?
Sermon on the Mount – Source credit, Geralt
On one hand, we have the imprecatory prayers and pleas throughout Bible, and on the other, we also have the very real command from Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount to ”pray for those who persecute you”.
To clarify: His imprecatory prayers were against enemies of the faith.
Using imprecatory prayers from the Psalms today should only be done against our spiritual enemies (Ephesians 6:12). Praying imprecations on human foes is unjustifiable, as it would require taking these prayers out of context. In the New Testament, Jesus exhorts us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44–48; Luke 6:27–38), but praying for their death or for bad things to happen to them isn’t what He meant. Instead, we are to pray for their salvation first and foremost, and then for God’s will to be done. There’s no greater blessing than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that’s what Jesus means by praying for and blessing those who curse us. – Got Questions website.
Seeking Justice and Get ’em Lord Prayers
Vengeance is the Lord’s.
Understandably, we rightly grieve when we see evil in our world, like sexual trafficking, for instance.
Pray against perversion, take a stand, call it out, demand justice and jailing the perpetrators. There’s nothing wrong with that.
God hears those prayers, and He hears the cries of the innocents.
He hates Sin, more than we could ever imagine.
It’s in our nature to seek justice in this fallen world, but it must be on God’s terms within the justice system that He has established, not our personal plans to retaliate.
This is a hard topic, so I hope this is helpful.
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1 Scripture quotation is from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.
2 Scripture quotation is from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.
3 Steven J. Cole quotation is courtesy of bible.org. from “Psalm 137: Difficult Words, But True” n.d. 1993. Web. Accessed August 19, 2020. Retrieved from https://bible.org/seriespage/psalm-137-difficult-words-true.
4 Quotation from gotquestions.org, from “What is imprecatory prayer?” n.d., para. 4. Web. Accessed August 19, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org/imprecatory-prayer.html
