" JESUS TEACHES US TO ASK THE LORD TO DESTROY EVERY WORK OF SATAN."

123. Q. What is the second petition?
A. Thy kingdom come. That is: So rule us by Thy Word and Spirit that more and more we submit to Thee.[1] Preserve and increase Thy church.[2] Destroy the works of the devil, every power that raises itself against Thee, and every conspiracy against Thy holy Word.[3] Do all this until the fulness of Thy kingdom comes, wherein Thou shalt be all in all.[4]
[1] Ps. 119:5, 105; 143:10; Matt. 6:33. [2] Ps. 51:18; 122:6-9; Matt. 16:18; Acts 2:42-47. [3] Rom. 16:20; I John 3:8. [4] Rom. 8:22, 23; I Cor. 15:28; Rev. 22: 17, 20.

Scripture Reading:
Ezekiel 20:32-38
Psalm 137
Revelation 18:1-8

Singing:  (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 99:1,2
Psalm 31:12,13
Psalm137:4
Psalm 139:11,12,13
Hymn 32:1,2,3

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

The conclusion of Ps 137 –the last verse about the children- is gory to the extreme. We have difficulty imaging it: somebody throwing infants upon the rocks of Albany’s Gap, and delighting in it, yea, being pronounced happy for doing it! There’s something in it so very, very revolting to us.

There are people, brothers and sisters, who argue that the NT Church cannot sing and pray such words as this from the Psalms anymore. Ours –they say- is the dispensation of love, and surely there’s no love in the last verse of Ps 137. Let’s then write it off as the insensitive expression of a somewhat deranged OT figure, we’re told; we of the NT are far more genteel, far more loving. For our part, congregation, we can feel for the argument of these people; these words from Ps 137 are surely not the kinds of things we like to pray.

Yet, brothers and sisters, it is the command of our Lord Jesus Christ that each of us pray the kind of thing mentioned in Ps 137. Jesus told us to pray the second petition, and what does the second petition mean? - "destroy the works of the devil," we say in our Catechism. Destroy: this petition asks for blood, for death! Ours the era of more gentleness, more love for others? No, says the Lord God, ours is an era of blood, of dashing little ones against the rocks! And the blood that’s desired is not necessarily that of others!!

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

Jesus taught us to pray "Your kingdom come." This petition has a background.

When God first created the world, all creation was His kingdom, His domain; all creation acknowledged God as King. That is true of heaven above (including its angels), true of the earth beneath, true also of the waters under the earth.

Sin entered the world; one angel with a crowd of followers rebelled against God. In heaven above, then, there were those in God’s creation who did not acknowledge God’s kingship. And it did not take long for that rebellion to spread even to the earth; on the earth beneath the human race joined Satan in rebellion against God, acknowledged not God as King but Satan.

This was a state-of-affairs which the Sovereign Creator of heaven and earth could not tolerate. He announced to the rebels of Paradise that He would work redemption, would deliver a people from bondage to Satan. That glorious announcement, however, came complete with a promise of bloodshed; the Lord speaks of enmity, a hatred between the seed of the woman (Eve) and the seed of the serpent (the devil) that will cause bruising –literally- crushing, and hence death.

It is this struggle-to-the-death between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent that has dominated history since the days of Paradise. God through the woman would send a Savior to earth in the person of His only Son. Satan knows that, and so has tried over the centuries to destroy the woman – and so make it impossible for her to bring forth the promised Savior. John on Patmos sees a vision wherein Satan tries to devour the Child as soon as the woman had brought him forth (Rev 12:4). You see: Satan wants blood.

But Satan is not alone in seeking blood. God Almighty fights also, seeking to crush the head of the devil. Terrible as the battle between God and Satan is, however, it’s not evenly matched; from the start the victory was assured for God, for He was and remained –despite the rebellion from Satan and his followers- He was and remained sovereign Ruler of all His creation. So it was that God sent His Son into the world, with the instruction to go to the cross and there conquer the evil one. He went, but the Battle of Calvary would not at all be gentle; this would be a fight to death – Satan’s death. Christ triumphed over the evil one, bound him, broke him; the head of the seed of the serpent was forever crushed. Make no mistake here, beloved: the battle on Calvary was a fight to the death, a fight that had to draw blood.

Before this Battle of Calvary, however, the Lord Jesus Christ gave to His disciples an instruction in prayer. They were, He said, to pray the second petition, pray "Your kingdom come." What this petition means? Jesus, brothers and sisters, instructed His disciples to become involved in the battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Involved how? By using that greatest of weapons God has given to His people: the weapon of prayer.

How do we use that prayer? What’s involved in the prayer we’re to pray? Yes, in broad outlines we’re to request the Lord to destroy Satan totally and finally, a prayer to make all creation acknowledge Christ’s kingship and so give Him the glory that is His due – "Your kingdom come". And really, beloved, with that broad outline none of us have any problems. But what are the details involved here?

In LD 48 we confess the details. We confess in our Lord’s Day that so ask God to make His kingdom come is in effect to ask God to "so rule us by Your Word and Spirit that more and more we submit to You." With that detail, beloved, the Catechism causes us to look at ourselves, causes us to pray that the Lord will destroy every work of Satan within us. Here the Catechism lays upon the lips of each one of us the prayer that God will make each of us submit more and more to Him. Implicit in this request is the acknowledgement that today I do not submit to God to the extent that I should. As Paul says it: I can will what is right, but I cannot do it, and: "sin dwells in me" - Rom 7.

Given that situation –I do not acknowledge the Lord as King to the degree I should- what is it that I now pray? It’s this: I ask God please to rule me by His Word and Spirit. Here is a request that God dominate, control me by means of His Scriptures and His Holy Spirit.

Again, this request sounds simple enough, not particularly harmful to us. Yet consider, beloved: what kind of a Word has God given us? That Bible is a two-edged sword! That Bible cuts, either by cutting sin out of our lives or by cutting life out of us through our hardening in sin. Either way it cuts. And cutting, we know, is always painful. Nor can any of us escape this cutting, for not one of us is without sin. Jesus told us to pray the second petition, to ask God to "rule us by Your Word and Spirit so that more and more we submit to You." With that prayer we all ask God to take the sword of His Word to us and cut into us so that we are compelled to submit to His rule. Here is no pussyfooting, beloved. Here we ask the Lord for sermons that expose our sins, that make us uncomfortable because of our sins, that drive us to repentance, to submission. Here we ask for elders to open God’s Word with us in our homes and tell us straight to our face about the sins we’ve hidden into our lives. We ask for the brothers and sisters of the congregation to visit us, to discuss with us the wrong habits they see in us, to tell us in very clear and pointed terms where it is that we go wrong. We ask that our parents receive the insight to see through our attitudes, our habits so that we, young as we might be, might be corrected, might be made to bow to the authority of God the King. And in it all we pray that the Lord will work in us by His Holy Spirit so that we gladly accept whatever admonitions come our way, wholeheartedly submit to whatever it is that the Lord says through office bearers, congregation members, parents, whoever.

Consider the passage we read from Ezek 20. The people of Israel, that one nation of all the earth who knew that God was King on high, thought to be like the nations, like the peoples around them; in a word, they opted to ignore the reality of God’s kingship. God’s response was that He would, whether they want it or not, He would be King over them. What God would do to make Himself recognized as their King? He would, said He, enter into judgment with this people, judgment so that sins would be purged out from this people. Pleasant for Israel? Make no mistake, beloved; it would be anguish for the people when God would fulfill the promise of Ezek 20. Yet in the second petition it’s exactly this that we ask God to do with us; in that second petition we ask God to rule us in such a way that we submit, by hook or by crook, submit to Him and to no one else.

That being the case, beloved, do you now dare to pray the Lord’s prayer tonight? Do you really want the Lord God to rule over you? Do you really wish for Him to cause sermons to come from this pulpit that make you uncomfortable with the habits of your life? Do you really want the Lord to send office bearers to your home this year so that they might tell you frankly where things are at with you? Do you really wish for the Lord to work in you by His Holy Spirit so that your conscience bothers you? Yes, would you have God take His knife to you, as it were, to cut out from you whatever sins there remain? Yet that, beloved, is the second petition! And I tell you, if you don’t really wish for God to rule you so totally, if you don’t want the pain that comes with submission to God, you have no place in the kingdom of God! You want His kingdom to come, is it not? But then you certainly cannot continue to treasure sin in your own life; Christ is to be King in every corner of your life too! In the struggle between God and Satan, I am asked to choose whether it is God I serve or Satan. There is here no neutrality, no such thing as being undecided; "he who is not for Me is against Me," Jesus once said to His disciples (Mt 12:30). Well then, will you pray this petition, this prayer that God be acknowledged as King, acknowledged by you in all your life??

I move on to our second point: we ask God to destroy every work of Satan

Here I draw your attention to Ps 137. The psalm is set in Babylon; the people of Israel have been exiled out of their homeland because of their sins, and are now seated with tears around the canals of their captors’ land. They cried because the Babylonians teased the Israelites, demanded of them songs about Zion. The Babylonians knew full well that Zion was destroyed, and knew too that this awful fact bothered the Israelites. In other words: here was purposeful mocking of God’s work of redemption. ‘Come on, sing, you say your God is King on high, that He lives in Zion, that He will work salvation; sing us a song about it, your city is destroyed, your hopes shattered, but never mind, sing, sing of your stupid religion!’

It’s in that context of derision against God that the statements at the end of the psalm have a place:

Here, congregation, is not a plea for the destruction of tormentors as such; here is rather a plea from God’s children to destroy Satan’s children, more, here is a plea to destroy every work of Satan that takes glory from God. The derision of the Babylonians: it was nothing else than ridicule of God, of the King of all the world. Yet that King must receive the recognition that is His due, all creation must bow before Him, and if the world doesn’t want to do that, then that world must perish, be cast with Satan into the bottomless pit. When the Israelites in Babylon here pray that the offspring of Babylon be dashed against the rocks, they pray nothing else than that the children of Satan be destroyed. And what else, beloved, is this than the prayer of LD 48, the second petition?! "Your kingdom come": that is: "destroy the works of the devil, destroy every power that raises itself against You." It’s this: destroy the taunting, the mocking of the Babylonians, destroy the Babylonians themselves, their children included, as long as they remain insistent upon blaspheming Your Name, as long as they refuse to recognize You as King, submit to Your rule.

Here, congregation, is the antithesis in all its strength, the reality of the fight between Satan and God. Here is no room for compromise, no room for gentle emotion, no room for love from God’s children for any work of the devil. Here is room for hatred only, perfect hatred of those who conspire with hell against God and His sovereignty. Yes, it’s God’s command to love, to love even our enemies. But anything that smacks of Satan, any plan of action that breathes the air of hell, anybody who has sided with Satan against God is to be hated with a perfect hatred, a hatred as intense as the love we’re to have for God. Yes, such is that hatred to be that we’ll take the words of LD 48 upon our lips: O Lord, destroy, destroy.

Destroy what? What in our society is aligned against God? Certainly we can think of Godless attitudes, crass unbelief and mockery of God’s word. But the Lord would have us pray not just for the destruction of attitudes and beliefs and power systems – things like the ’al-Qaeda network or the selfishness that produces abortions. We’re asking God to destroy hearts, asking God to break the people who harden themselves in their disobedience to God. Ps 137 is about people, not about philosophies or actions.

And remember this promise, beloved: God will destroy. Recall the cry of the angel in Rev 18: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit..." (vs 2). It’s of Babylon that the angel sings, to be sure. But in the Book of Revelation ‘Babylon’ is representative of the dominion of Satan. And that, that, says the angel is what has fallen; Satan’s works, Satan’s conspiracies, Satan’s kingdom has collapsed, it’s all been destroyed.

So what is it, brothers and sisters, that we are going to pray for? God has promised that Satan shall be destroyed; indeed, on Calvary Satan has already been destroyed essentially. More, the Savior has commanded us to pray that God’s kingdom come. So we’re left with this charge: pray! Pray that second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, pray that every conspiracy against God, every effort of the devil to undermine God’s kingship be undone, destroyed, pray that Satan and all his hosts –children included- be swept off God’s earth into hell. For it pleases the Lord God to bring about the triumph He has promised over Satan through the prayers of His children.

But now a consequence follows, beloved, which brings us back to ourselves. The antithesis between God and Satan is radical, so radical that in our pursuit of glory for God we’re to pray that Satan and his works be destroyed. That being so, it follows that we cannot let ourselves be found to have any connection at all with anything of the devil. Any work of the devil, any child of the devil, any conspiracy of the devil: we are to have nothing, nothing, to do with it. In the words of Jesus Christ in Rev 18: "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues" (vs 4).

You see, beloved, if I am to pray for God’s kingdom to come, if I am to pray that God be recognized as King and all His opponents be destroyed, and if in that circumstance I have befriended God’s opponents, join somehow in the works of the devil, then I pray for nothing less than my own eternal destruction. I cannot pray the second petition while I cooperate in any work of the devil; to do so is to pray myself into hell. So we are back at the first aspect of LD 48: "so rule us by Your Word and Spirit that more and more we submit to You." That’s the punch of this petition: we implore God to cut all sin out of our personal lives, to do so forcibly if necessary, so that we may fight tooth and nail with God against the devil in the mother of all battles.

So I ask it again: do you dare to pray this second petition? In truth, if God were to answer our prayer according to the intent of this petition, things could get pretty uncomfortable for us, uncomfortable in the sense that sins would be cut out of ourselves, uncomfortable too in the sense that we pray others –even friends and relatives- into hell.

Do we dare to pray this second petition? We’re put to the test. The test is this: where is your allegiance? Do you love God more than yourself, more than relatives and friends, more than this world? Dare you pray for God’s divine knife in your own life, in the life of others? Recall Jesus’ words: whoever loves lands or houses, father or sister, computer games or movies more than Me is not worthy of Me.

The battle between God and Satan rages on, in our lives, in our homes. But the victory, beloved, is sure. Already Christ has conquered on Calvary. Such is the power of the King-on-high that this God answers our prayers also; He can –more, He does- cause His sinful children to submit more and more to His Word and Spirit, does cut sin more and more out of the lives of His own. For He is preparing the bride for the return of her Lover….

So, once more: do we dare to pray this second petition? Better: do we dare not to pray this petition?! For the Lord our Savior has defeated sin and evil, and He comes again in glory. We don’t to welcome the Savior with sin on our hands, and so we pray ardently: Father, destroy every work of the devil within us, yes, rule us day by day, moment by moment by Your Word and Spirit so that more and more we submit to You – and so be without spot and wrinkle for the day of the Bridegroom’s return. Amen.