1O LORD, the God who avenges, O God who avenges, shine forth.
Words like these can get some people all riled up. They try to use them as a way to dismiss the Scriptures and the God who inspired them. They talk about the war and killing of the Old Testament and make the comparison to the Muslim terrorists of today, saying that any devotion to a “scripture” is dangerous. The Psalmist is expressing one of the deepest cries of the human heart. If your son or daughter were violently mugged or raped, wouldn’t you want justice? You see, we often judge the things we read in the Old Testament without turning the mirror inward on ourselves. If we condemn the killing in the Old Testament, then we should also condemn the hatred we have in our own hearts. But the reality is, we all have anger toward what we perceive as injustice. We want things to be put right. Take a look at the war passages in the Old Testament. They were time limited, carried out with careful guidelines and often were brought against the Israelites in order to bring about repentance. Most of the time the inhabitants were given the opportunity for surrender rather than annihilation. So next time someone throws the war and destruction as an excuse for rejecting Truth, ask them to examine their own internal battle with justice.
The Arnold Journey 