No Mercy To Any Transgressors?

A Friday without a holiday, I was getting kind of used to those three to three and a half day weekends. In the year 1,000 BC, give or take a year or two, King-to-be David looked out the windows of his house and saw Saul's assassins gathering to take him out. Think of the FBI, BATF, DEA, and a few other government agencies with guns and authority surrounding your house with orders that say something like "Shoot to kill". Not because they have some warrant or crime to charge you with, but just because the king has decided that murder is the best way to solve his little problem, namely you, you little problem you.

David of course goes to the One who we must seek when the forces of the world gather to destroy us.

Deliver me from my enemies, O my God;
​​Defend me from those who rise up against me.
Deliver me from the workers of iniquity,
​​And save me from bloodthirsty men.

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​​For look, they lie in wait for my life;
​​The mighty gather against me,
​​Not for my transgression nor for my sin, O LORD. (Psalm 59:1-3)

David goes to God in prayer with a call for help. Then, in verse 5, David prays:

You therefore, O LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel,
​​Awake to punish all the nations;
​​Do not be merciful to any wicked transgressors.

No mercy to any wicked transgressors? As a former wicked transgressor myself, I depend on God's mercy. Can we have a stay of execution here? A little chance for all the nations to seek an advocate for our defense? Why the sudden call for universal punishment? David, as we can see in many psalms of his, did not go back later and edit what he felt to tone down the words. What he felt in the moment, he wrote to God in prayer. What David prayed to God, he set down in music and sang in the congregation. We are not quite sure what a government like that is like in this age. Transparency in government seems quite opaque to us. In any case, David simply states what we deserved as sinners against the one true God. Thanks to God on this fine morning that we did gain an advocate and a propitiation for our sin about a thousand years after King David's time.

God's grace and mercy to you and me!
Bucky