Turning the Table on Terror

Instead of valiantly attacking opposing soldiers, these terrorists act as cowards by blowing up and gunning down innocent people in public places, and they do it at the most unexpected times. These enemies of righteousness carry out their evil plots as if they have a license to exercise such diabolical plans and malicious violence, and they do it without any fear of retaliation from men or God. Truly they are aptly named—terrorist. Their strategy is to strike terror in the lives of their opponents. But their depraved character is nothing new; God has always had their number!

The Response of God’s Judgment

Psalm 64:7-8

Though the heart is unsearchable with human capacities, and though the source of all the evil plots of terrorists is too deep for us to grasp, God is more than capable. He who “searches every heart and understands the intention of every thought” (1 Chr 28:9) weighs their motives and turns the tables on them. Just when they think they’ve carried out their plan successfully, they find themselves in the crosshairs of God’s response of judgment. For he says, “I, the Lord, examine the mind, I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve” (Jer 17:10). Mark it down, beloved: God will condemn the wicked and preserve the righteous.

That’s why we find the strong contrastive conjunction but at the beginning of verse 7. The psalmist now confidently states that—although the enemy attack comes out of nowhere and strikes terror—God will flip it on their heads! While the terrorists assume God isn’t paying attention to their wicked ploys, suddenly he turns the tables. While the terrorists once shot verbal arrows and wielded verbal swords at the psalmist, God now “will shoot them with arrows; suddenly, they will be wounded.” The attackers once waged a war of words to slander the psalmist, but now “they will be made to stumble; their own tongues work against them.”

God isn’t necessarily firing literal arrows; the language is figurative. He’s pronouncing his word that will command the destruction of the psalmist’s enemies, just as he did in an earlier messianic psalm: “Then he speaks to them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath” (Ps 2:5). The attackers wield terrifying and malicious words, but God’s decree is more powerful, causing these detractors to be “wounded” (64:7) and to “stumble” (v. 8). “The shooters will be shot; those who planned to destroy the innocent will be destroyed—by one powerful word from God” (Ross, Psalms, vol. 2, 402).

This kind of what-goes-around-comes-around economy isn’t foreign to God when it comes to his just response to the wicked. He’s sovereignly applied this principle to others in biblical history. The gallows Haman erected for Mordecai became his own place of execution. The furnace that was overheated and intended to consume Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego ended up killing the king’s servants who threw them in it. The jealous rulers who plotted to have Daniel killed in the lions’ den ended up as the lions’ dinner. Herod Agrippa, who executed the apostle James, later experienced an excruciating death from an illness. Turning the tables on those who attack the righteous is sometimes part of God’s judgment.

The Reaction to God’s Justice

Psalm 64:8-10

God’s retribution on those who incite terror will bring different reactions from different groups of people. Believers should pray for both reactions.

The first reaction to God’s justice is that of humanity in general (vv. 8-9). These are likely references to unbelievers in contrast to the righteous mentioned in verse 10, and their response is somewhat surprising. The terrorists who were planning to carry out their plans in secret will be the objects of public shame and disdain, even among those who are not part of the people of God. The tables of justice will be turned on them not only in their demise but also in the response of their fellow unbelievers.

God’s judgment also will strike “fear” in the general populace, causing them to “tell about God’s work.” The verb understand means “to be prudent, to deal wisely.” Unbelievers will talk about what they see among themselves and even give it an honest assessment! They will have to acknowledge that the judgment against these cruel terrorists is God’s work and, consequently, they should revere him. While this certainly doesn’t indicate that everyone will become a follower of God, some of them might. God’s righteous retribution on the wicked could serve as an evangelistic catalyst in our day! At the very least, it will cause some people to take Christ and his followers much more seriously (Ross, Psalms, vol. 2, 403).

Believers should make pleading for God’s justice a part of our repertoire of prayer because sometimes the fear of God’s judgment opens people’s spiritual eyes. I trusted Christ when I was nine years old for one reason: I didn’t want to go to hell. I wish I could say I understood things like God’s love, goodness, and grace. I wish I had been motivated by the glories of spending eternity worshiping him in heaven. But I wasn’t. I was motivated by the fear that God would judge my sin with eternal damnation. And he showed me the gospel, and I trusted Christ, and I was saved. The fear of God’s judgment is a legitimate motivator, and we should pray that God will use it to draw some people to himself.

God’s righteous judgment expands beyond the immediate subjects to include everybody on the planet. The consequences of his righteous retribution far exceed the local context of the psalmist. While we don’t see this everywhere in the Psalms, it is in Psalms 56–68. “Because God upholds justice and protects those who are unjustly attacked, all humanity will be drawn to proclaim and consider the works of God” (Wilson, Psalms, 900). The exercise of God’s justice will be a means of making his glory known among all people!

The second reaction to God’s justice is one the psalmist encourages among God’s faithful (v. 10). The righteous can respond by celebrating and resting in God’s protection and care. So the psalmist’s prayer in verse 1 to have his life preserved under God’s safeguard is answered in abundance! While its realization may still be in the future, he finds confidence in knowing he will joyfully worship God in the safety of his presence. Kidner notes that this “is a sober joy, with the facts faced at their worst, but also at their overwhelming best” (Kidner, Psalms 1–72, 247). The sure hope of worshiping God for all of eternity serves as a sustaining force in the believer’s life.

The increasingly expansive glory of God noted early in Psalms 56–68 also shows up here. A progression of praise to some degree begins in Psalm 61:8: “I will continually sing of your name.” It continues in Psalm 63:11—“The king will rejoice in God; all who swear by him will boast”—and reaches new heights here in Psalm 64:9: “Everyone will fear . . . tell . . . understand . . . rejoices . . . takes refuge . . . offer praise.” Then, in telescopic fashion, this sea of worship is broadened in Psalm 65:8 where “those who live far away are awed by your signs.” Ultimately, it finds its crescendo in the two hymns of praise: Psalms 66:1-4 and 67:3-7. This sweeping flood of praise in this series then finds a suitable conclusion in Psalm 68:32-35, where God receives the praise of the entire world after conquering the nations and entering his sanctuary.

Truly the reaction to God’s justice should be worship. That response should certainly come from his righteous people. But ultimately, worship will be the universal response of all people to his greatness and his glory.

Conclusion

While Bildad the Shuhite’s counsel to the suffering Job wasn’t always on target, he did rightly recognize, “God does not reject a person of integrity, and he will not support evildoers” (Job 8:20). The general principle of this psalm is clear: when God’s children are terrorized by evil men for righteousness’s sake, he will show himself strong to them as deliverer and avenger. Consequently, when Christians face the wicked forces of this world for the sake of the gospel, he will be our refuge. When terrorists make those who trust in Christ the objects of their attacks, they act foolishly because God will avenge them. So once again, based on the reality of God’s anticipated retribution, believers can pray confidently for God’s strong help against the onslaught of terrorism. Terrorists will get what they deserve, and they may even get what they had planned to impose on others.

A word of caution is in order, however. The liquor store employee outside of Baghdad, mentioned earlier, actually found pleasure in the accidental death of the scheming terrorist. When he heard the news of the botched training exercise, he burst out laughing. “This is so funny,” he said. “It shows how stupid they are, those dogs and sons of dogs” (Adnan and Arango, “Suicide Bomb Trainer”). Such a reaction should never characterize followers of Jesus Christ. Our God rhetorically asks, “‘Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?’ This is the declaration of the Lord God. ‘Instead, don’t I take pleasure when he turns from his ways and lives?’” (Ezek 18:23; cf. Ezek 33:11). If the one we serve doesn’t find pleasure in the death of terrorists, but instead desires that they repent and be saved, then we should have the same posture.

While we have a tendency not to have a whole lot of pity on a suicide bomber or any other terrorist who loses his life while trying to harm others, these scenarios in the psalms should always point us to the gospel. As Wilson observes, “When we rejoice in the destruction of the wicked, when we are glad that they ‘get what they deserve,’ we might want to be cautious. What if we were to receive what we deserve?” (Wilson, Psalms, 902; emphasis in original). Christ’s disciples must always be careful not to be guilty of the same attitude as the unforgiving servant in one of Jesus’s parables. His master said to him, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” (Matt 18:32-33). Because of Jesus’s work on the cross, we didn’t get what we deserve. That should always temper our prayers for God’s retribution and clothe them with humility.

Reflect and Discuss