Psa 3:7-8 Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. (8) Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! Selah
Our friend Lynn has more excellent thoughts to offer here on the subject of imprecatory prayer – something that most churches and professing Christians today believe is “unloving.” Well, the Bible doesn’t share that conclusion and Lynn explains why. Many thanks to her:
To those who are against imprecatory prayer, I’d like to know what is your hesitation in praying or teaching others about the importance of practicing imprecatory prayer? That God may take negative action against the wicked and punish them for their wickedness? Don’t you want God’s perfect justice to take place and the wicked to be punished for their sins in this life? Don’t you want his justice to come to fruition in the lives of those victims who were abused by evil people masquerading as fellow believers?
If your answer is yes, then you must embrace imprecatory prayer. It is the offensive weapon God gave his people to use to bring about his justice in the earth. It is our part to play in the spiritual war engaged between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God. The other deterrent to injustice is the civil authorities. Only one weapon guaranteed to never fail us is prayer.
How long must the oppressed wait for their injustice to be remedied? How many men, women, and children need to come forward with their stories of abuse at the hands of professing Christians – albeit pastors, volunteers, or elders – before the church will wake up and act like the body of Christ it professes to be? How long will you deny the oppressed the tools – like imprecatory prayer – and the support they deserve as fellow heirs in Christ, Christian?
This is one of the reasons I know that most of the professing Christians aren’t. They will not make the sacrifice required to support the victims because it will cost them time, money and energy that they’d rather invest in things that make them feel good. They’d have to be willing to patiently walk with people who have stared evil in the face and need help recovering from it, because their trauma is soul shattering and destructive.
What’s worse? Not believing a victim and allowing the abuser to remain among you to prey on other members in your church or removing innocent people and casting them out of the church? 93 to 98 times out of 100 the victim is telling the truth about the abuse. Popular opinion is that they’d rather endure the abusive person than to accidentally remove an innocent person. It is foolishly wicked to allow abusers to remain in church. The old adage of innocent until proven guilty is one of the excuses given to why they tolerate evil. They misunderstand its meaning and how it relates to church governance. While it is instituted by God in the Bible, most pastors misinterpret the 2-3 witnesses believing if they don’t have at least 2-3 victims, then it didn’t happen.
Witnesses don’t need to be people. They can be physical things, digital correspondence like email or text messages, or abuser withholding funds, forced isolation, or signs of emotional trauma manifested by the victim, to help corroborate the victim’s story.
What I see in Christianity today is a strong bias against victims. Those in positions of power are so afraid of accidentally maligning an innocent person – as if Christ’s name will somehow be destroyed if they expose the abuse and show support for the victim – that they side with abusers most of the time. Why do they do this? Greed. Cowardice. Power. Control. Ego. Love of self more than love for God and his people.
When they are confronted with the story that the victim shares, their first reaction is to not believe the victim because that doesn’t fit with the person they know and love or minimize it as if it’s not that bad. 93 to 98 times out of 100 the victim is telling the truth. Think about that for a moment. Every time a church doesn’t remove an abuser from its membership when the abuse comes to light, it is adding to the number of victims the abuser can harm and becomes complicit in the abuse by allowing the evil person to continue to harm more people.
God does not take it lightly when his children are mistreated. There will be hell to pay for those that remain unrepentant of their allegiance to the abusers when they are standing before him giving an account of their life.
Is it possible that sometimes God refrains from intervening on the behalf of a victim because He hasn’t been invited into the situation to take action? Vengeance is his. Imprecatory prayer is our way of asking him to enact that vengeance on our behalf. Expressing your pain and frustration in prayer is a good thing, but a better thing would be to ask Him to intercede on your behalf for the injustice you suffered in order that He may get the glory and credit that He deserves.
Imprecatory prayer is a lamentation of God’s people in the face of injustice. It is them crying out to God from their place of pain asking him to act on their behalf and bring about the destruction of their enemies for the pain and destruction they’ve caused. It is a reminder to God of how his people trust and rely on him to bring about vengeance and enact perfect justice. Much of the time it includes asking God to curse the wicked, which many professing Christians shy away from because they fail to understand what cursing is, and assume all cursing is sin. It’s not.
Who/What are we to pray imprecatory prayers against?
Abusive people and institutions in our midst
Reprobates, false teachers, false prophets
Governments that are failing to govern justly and disobeying God’s law
God’s enemies – the devil and his children
Our sinful flesh
Many pastors shy away from imprecatory prayers because they are uncomfortable with the idea of asking God to curse those who have abused, betrayed, and defrauded them or their brothers and sisters in Christ. They’ve bought into the idea that it is unloving, ungodly, unChristlike to do so. But that’s not what scripture shows us.
The Psalms are filled with imprecatory prayers. Hezekiah prays an imprecatory prayer. The Lord’s Prayer includes imprecatory language. Paul calls for a curse on all those who are false teachers and prophets ask God for them to be damned. Paul specifically mentions Alexander the coppersmith and asks God to deal with him for the harm he’s inflicted on Paul.
Not all imprecatory pray specifically calls for the cursing of the wicked. “Come quickly Lord Jesus” is an imprecatory prayer.
Imprecatory prayer is the primary weapon God gave his people so they can ask God get them justice where there has been injustice. Prayer is how we take part in the war between God and satan. Taking imprecatory prayer away from Christians is like asking them to fight the enemy with plastic swords against their steel blades, and then being surprised when they get even more wounded in battle.
I know the reasoning many professing Christians use for not wanting to pray imprecatory prayers is that in their minds it contradicts Matthew 5:44’s instruction to bless those who curse you. The greek word for bless in Matthew 5:44 is eulogeo (https://biblehub.com/greek/2127.htm) – it’s where we get the word eulogy from – and means to confer what is beneficial.
Conferring what is beneficial would include telling the truth about a person’s words and actions. Correct? It is not asking for health, happiness, and prosperity for the abusive person. I think much of the time we make assumptions about what we think the words in the Bible are supposed to mean. That it can cause us trouble as we read scripture. We are looking through our own 21st century lens, and it completely skews the actual meaning. The other reason is that most professing Christians don’t actually study their Bible and take the time to learn about what the words mean and in the context in which they are placed. They rely on other people – usually their pastor or a famous Bible teacher – to do the work for them, many of whom are wolves in sheep’s clothing. That’s why false teaching spreads so rapidly. Spiritual laziness and having their ears tickled results in dead churches.
By not understanding what it means to “bless” those who curse or persecute you in Matt. 5:44, it can cause us to respond in damaging ways for ourselves and those we have influence over. We assume that blessing means we are to only speak positive words designed to bring about health, happiness and prosperity to the person we are speaking to or praying about, when that’s not really the true meaning of the word.
What if the verse means that when you bless an enemy you are to confer what is beneficial to him/her? That could happen in the form of a rebuke of their sin and to pray imprecatory prayers in the hopes that the negative consequences they experience will bring about genuine repentance? That blessing we are instructed to extend to our enemies includes how we speak about them to others. We tell the truth to others about our enemies, so it is beneficial for them to know and make their own judgement call, instead of asking God to give them health, happiness, and prosperity.
What glorifies God more, praying imprecatory prayers against our enemies or praying health, happiness, and prosperity on them?
Think about that for a moment. Nothing godly will come from praying God grant his enemies health, happiness, and prosperity while they are alive. It only feeds their delusion that their evil behavior is acceptable and gives them more ways to harm their victims. I want you to think about this. When you pray health, happiness, and prosperity on abusive people you are asking a holy, righteous God to reward your abusers wicked behavior. Is that a godly decision on your part, to ask that wickedness against yourself be rewarded? I think not. So if you feel compelled to pray for your abuser(s), I’d encourage you to pray to God that He will quickly bring about the promised consequences for their evil actions and a just end to the wicked person for the sake of his holy name that is being maligned at the hands of these wicked people.
You may be wondering, can imprecatory prayer be used wrongly?
I suppose it’s possible. It depends on how it is taught and what’s the intention of the person who’s praying it. What matters are your motives when you pray them. Wanting justice that results in very bad things happening to your abuser is not sin. Denying justice to victims of abuse who have suffered for years, probably decades, at the hands of their oppressors is.
Let’s say someone does pray an imprecatory prayer and curses an innocent person? God knows that. He’s not required to answer that prayer and invoke that curse. Proverbs 26:2 tells us that like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, and undeserved curse does not come to rest. So even if your abuser does pray a curse against you because you will not give into their demands, God will deal with them for that. It will be another sin added to their growing list of sins that they will spend eternity being punished by. If you pray an imprecatory prayer against someone who turns out to be innocent (it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible, to happen with abusers), as with any other sin, repent to God for your actions and seek forgiveness from the target of your imprecatory prayers.
So instead of being afraid to invoke curses against God’s enemies who are abusing you, boldly pray imprecatory prayers knowing that God knows your heart and will not punish you for seeking justice for your abuse via prayer. If it’s an undeserved curse, it will not land on the recipient. If it is, it will be brought before the Lord and He will hear it and act in his perfect time and according to his perfect will. That prayer will be added to past prayers of the saints until the cup of God’s wrath is complete and he pores it out on the wicked in final judgment.
So I encourage you to stop living in fear of being judged for praying imprecatory prayers against your abusers. God’s not mad at you for it. Those who oppose it and reveal their true colors demonstrate the states of their hearts. By standing against imprecatory prayer, they are showing you that they are not your friends, allies, or brothers or sisters in Christ. Take heart. God is for you. He hears the cries of your heart, sees your tears as a result of the evil you’ve endured, and collects each one and stores them in a bottle and records them in His book in heaven. They are evidence that God collects and catalogs for the final judgement. They are a witness to the pain you’ve endured at the hands of evil people and will testify against your abusers in the courts of heaven.
May you be strengthened and encouraged by this article, and be free to pray imprecatory prayers against your abusers to your hearts content. Grace and peace be with you.
noka
I was talking about this very thing with a friend today, and we were in agreement that we absolutely should pray these imprecatory prayers. We were saying how it is so amazing how God actually validates traumatic experiences in the Psalms, how God validates the way injustices against us traumatizes us, and all the emotions that comes with that are all expressed in the Psalms (anxiety, terror, depression, anger, rage, hatred, strong deep desire for justice and vindication, distress, struggle with faith, feelings of abandonment, sleeplessness, crying a lot, etc.). These are all completely normal responses when trust, care, love, friendship, protection are all twisted and weaponized against us.
And with that comes the expressions of begging God to do perfect justice on our behalf, against our evil enemies, when we’re helpless or no one else fights for us. I think the fact that God allowed for these emotions and desires for justice and vindication to be recorded in Scriptural prayers shows that this is a perfectly normal response for a Christian who is genuinely filled with the Holy Spirit!
It’s exactly what we should be praying for in response to abuse! Anything less would be compromising God’s character.
Free
Thank you so much for this entire posting. I was stunned at how it clearly explains Matthew 5:44 and Proverbs 31 – two biblical references that I experienced such stifling spiritual abuse under their misuse, and have seen so many others experience the same.
Every ounce of me knows imprecatory prayer is what we are to use – these recent postings by you and Pastor Crippen regarding it have been so helpful. Mark my words, if the abuser had heard me say this I would have paid dearly, yet again – even now, I don’t know any believers in this area that have ever used it, or that would support this use. The fact that this method of prayer is not openly used, or even discussed in all Christian churches, party knowing there is such severe abuse within the church, is telling.
I am so grateful you have brought this to our attention. The impact will be immense from here forward.
lg
Thank you for this encouragement regarding imprecatory prayers.
I think another reason for praying such prayers relates to the fact that abusers are invariably mini-dictators who seek to squash your ability to flourish under freedom. God has a purpose and design for His people and the abusers, either knowingly or unknowingly, seek to thwart God’s design for His people. Because the narcissistic / sociopathic abusers ultimately seek our worship by exerting their power and control over us, in order that we may more fully partake in God’s blessings and life lives that can more fully glorify Him, we need justice and to be free of the godless and evil burdens and oppressions demanded by our abusers. This is what imprecatory prayers teach us.
I am also reminded of my former understanding of the “Proverbs 31 woman.” I was raised to believe that IF a woman did all these remarkable things listed in Proverbs 31, only THEN is she worthy of her husband’s respect.
However, I now have a better knowledge of God’s character and see that such distorted interpretations of the Proverbs 31 woman is not in alignment at all with God’s character as it is not only oppressive and unrealistic, such an interpretation also encourages abuse.
Instead, I have come to understand that IF a husband gives his wife freedom to flourish (ie does not abusively micromanage her every move) only THEN is she able to thrive and flourish with the gifts and talents God has provided and intended for her to use. This is what we pray for when we pray imprecatory prayers: that the yoke of the abuser be delivered from us in order that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.
And…The spirit of age is abusive across all spheres.
Lynn
Lg,
I would also like to point out that the Proverbs 31 woman is a type and shadow of Christ, not a bar that women are meant to attain in order to be viewed as godly.
It also shows us how women can flourish both inside and outside the home through the love of Christ because they have been made fully free in Him, able to embrace all the gifts God’s given them. This is what husbands are called to nurture in their wives as Christ does for the church. Any man who doesn’t do that proves he’s not a member of the household of God.
Beans
I have found it quite freeing to just “give it to God”, the injustice & debt to collect. It helped me to stop ruminating over the abuse, and so seems psychologically healthy. It restores a sense that faith is powerful, and not just a vulnerability to evil people.