PSALM 94 - The Faithful God Of Vengeance

Introduction

A few years ago, a viral video made the rounds of a comedian named Heather McDonald, whose act involved a mocking reference to her never getting COVID because “clearly, Jesus loves me the most!” Immediately after saying that, she was struck with an epileptic seizure, and fell heavily to the floor, fracturing her skull. (https://vt.co/entertainment/celebrity/comedian-heather-mcdonald-shares-the-moment-she-collapsed-on-stage-after-joking-jesus-loves-me-me-most, retrieved 06/17/2025). 

Many of the comments on the video expressed in one way or another the substance of Galatians 6:7

Galatians 6:7 LSB

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

On the one hand, it is remarkable to see a moment when God directly rebukes arrogant mockers with immediate action—she really was mocking the love of Christ, and really did receive a direct rebuke. God really does “render recompense to the proud” (Ps. 94:2).

But at the same time, it seems odd, doesn’t it? With so many more flagrant and consequential examples of hatred for God and mocking of His character out there, a no-name comedienne who makes a passing reference to Jesus is the one that receives a rebuke?

Not to mention that the whole subject of God’s vengeance seems so uncomfortable for us—we don’t quite know what to do with the opening verses of Psalm 94:

Psalm 94:1–2 LSB

O Yahweh, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth! Be lifted up, O Judge of the earth, Render recompense to the proud.

You’ll notice that this psalm is written almost exclusively using the covenant name of God—YHWH. Of the sixteen times that God is referenced in this psalm, eleven of those times the psalmist uses YHWH. And so when we read in verse 1 that “YHWH is a God of vengeance” (twice!), then we must conclude that vengeance is an essential element of God’s covenant-keeping character. YHWH, the God Who keeps His covenant for His people forever, is a God Who repays evil.

So we can’t escape the fact—clearly demonstrated in this psalm—that our God is a God of vengeance. And we also have to acknowledge that Psalm 94 is by no means the only Psalm that calls for God to strike back at His enemies:

Psalm 5:5–6 LSB

The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all workers of iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood; Yahweh abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.

Psalm 58:6–8 LSB

O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth; Break out the fangs of the young lions, O Yahweh. Let them flow away like water that runs off; When he aims his arrows, let them be as headless shafts. Let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along, Like the miscarriages of a woman which never behold the sun.

Psalm 137:7–9 LSB

...O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one, How blessed will be the one who repays you With the recompense with which you have recompensed us. How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your infants Against the cliff.

So just as we cannot escape the truth that YHWH is a God of vengeance, neither can we escape the fact that the Scriptures direct us to pray this way. And from the number of these kinds of psalms in the Scriptures, it would also appear that we don’t think about our enemies as often as we should!

Vengeance and recompense are an essential part of the covenant-keeping nature of God. And His Word instructs us to pray for vengeance on His enemies. But what does that mean for the way we conduct ourselves in this world?

Does this mean that we live our lives cowering in anxiety and fear because everyone hates us, everyone is trying to get us, we Christians are just sooo hated and ridiculed that we are constantly flinching at all of the ways we are despised by the world?

Does this mean that we walk around with a chip on our shoulder, set on a hair trigger waiting for someone to say a cross word to us so we can explode with righteous indignation and call down fire and brimstone on their heads?

Does it mean that we cultivate a cool indifference to those who hate God, shrugging our shoulders and saying, “Well, pal, someday you’ll get yours, and we’ll see how all your wickedness turns out for you on Judgment Day...”

How are we to obey this Psalm’s directions to pray for God to bring vengeance on the wicked in a way that honors Him? How do we rightly relate to a world that is earning His wrath?

The way I want to present the main point of Psalm 94 this morning is this:

We pray RIGHTLY for God to REPAY wickedness when we are RELYING on His character

When we understand God’s vengeance the way the psalmist does; when we see what the psalmist sees about God’s character, we can pray rightly for Him to repay the wickedness of this world—not selfishly, not sinfully, not cruelly—but in line with the character of God revealed here in this psalm.

In the first seven verses of Psalm 94 we are shown

I. The character of God’s ENEMIES (Psalm 94:1-7)

Look carefully with me at the way the psalmist describes the objects of God’s vengeance—they are “proud” (v. 2), they are “wicked” (twice in verse 3), they are “arrogant” (v. 4), they are “workers of iniquity” (v. 4), they are “murderers” (v. 6). And in these verses we can identify two specific reasons the psalmist calls for YHWH to act. First, he calls for God’s vengeance because of

Their arrogant WORDS against His CHARACTER (vv. 3-4)

Psalm 94:3–4 LSB

How long shall the wicked, O Yahweh, How long shall the wicked exult? They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All workers of iniquity vaunt themselves.

The idea here is that they are deliberately smearing God’s character. God has nothing to do with their lives, they say—they don’t need Him, they don’t care what He has said, they reject His authority over them. They will decide for themselves what is right and wrong, they will double down on their rejection of His authority and instead take pride in their wickedness, “vaunting themselves” in their sin, taking pride in their rebellion against Him.

The psalmist calls on God to repay them for their arrogant words against His character, and in verses 5-6 he calls on God to repay

Their violent ATTACKS against His PEOPLE (vv. 5-6; cp. Exodus 22:21-24)

Psalm 94:5–6 LSB

They crush Your people, O Yahweh, And afflict Your inheritance. They slay the widow and the sojourner And murder the orphans.

Understand here that by going after these particular people—the widow, the sojourner and the orphans—they are deliberately targeting the very people that God had specifically claimed His protection over. In Exodus 22, for instance, YHWH specifically promises His special protection for them:

Exodus 22:21–24 LSB

“You shall not mistreat a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. “You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. “And if you indeed afflict him, and if he earnestly cries out to Me, I will surely hear his cry; and My anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

So the idea here in this psalm is that these wicked enemies of YHWH are singling out the ones that He had promised to protect, threatening and crushing and even killing them in open opposition to His promise. And so by calling on YHWH to enact His vengeance on the wicked, he is simply calling on YHWH to be faithful to His promise! “O God, do what You promised to do!” These arrogant scoffers are deliberately provoking you; respond with the vengeance you promised!

But when God withholds His vengeance, when it seems as though He is not defending the widows and orphans and sojourners and instead allows them to suffer—it emboldens His enemies to say, “See? He really doesn’t care—He isn’t watching over you at all! It’s all a lie!!”

Psalm 94:7 LSB

They have said, “Yah does not see, Nor does the God of Jacob discern.”

This is the frustration that we considered earlier, isn’t it? That there is so much prideful arrogance and hatred of God and His people around us, and so often it seems as though He just lets it all happen and doesn’t intervene at all. So the mockers and the proud and the insolent seem to have a point—does God even care that His character is being maligned?

This is exactly what the psalmist is addressing as we move into verses 8-11:

Psalm 94:8–11 LSB

Discern, you senseless among the people; And when will you have insight, you fools? He who planted the ear, does He not hear? He who formed the eye, does He not see? He who disciplines the nations, will He not rebuke, Even He who teaches man knowledge? Yahweh knows the thoughts of man, That they are vanity.

The mockers say that God “doesn’t discern” their wickedness—but the psalmist says that it is they that do not discern

II. The character of God’s DISCIPLINE (Psalm 94:8-16)

Despite their slanders about His inability to see or discern what they are doing to His character and His people, YHWH sees and hears everything—He is the one who created hearing and seeing, after all! He is not only capable of seeing to their disobedience, but indeed all of the nations are under His authority to discipline. The character of God’s discipline means

Perfect JUDGMENT on the WICKED (vv. 8-11)

Even though they think they are getting away with all of their attacks on His character and His people, YHWH is faithful to see and hear and remember everything—He can see to the bottom of their souls, and He sees that all their self-important thoughts and schemes, all their pride and all of their boasts are utterly meaningless! It’s been said before—more eloquently by other preachers—but the fact remains that sin makes you stupid. The pride and insolence of the wicked, their arrogant boasting and violent acts have made them [bo-ahRIM] - the Hebrew word translated senseless, or stupid.

And YHWH sees their empty boasts, He has perfect knowledge of every last stupid word and every last senseless deed, He has ultimate authority and power to impose His discipline on every last creature on earth. When He does execute His recompense—and He will—it will be absolutely perfect in every detail. There will be no extenuating circumstances He hasn’t considered, there will be no way to appeal; He will absolutely have them Dead. To. Rights.

YHWH is a God of vengeance, because part of His covenant promises to His people is that He will perfectly defend and redeem them from their enemies. YHWH is a God of vengeance because He must and will be perfectly faithful to His own holiness. His discipline against the wicked results in perfect judgment against them—and as the psalmist goes on in verses 12-16 he shows that God’s discipline means

Perfect PEACE for the FAITHFUL (vv. 12-16)

Psalm 94:12–13 LSB

Blessed is the man whom You discipline, O Yah, And whom You teach out of Your law; That You may grant him calm from the days of calamity, Until a pit is dug for the wicked.

YHWH is perfectly faithful in His discipline—for the wicked his discipline results in perfect judgment; for the faithful, His discipline results in perfect peace! In the days of great loss or misfortune, under the stresses of frailty and weakness and suffering, in the middle of hatred and slander and persecution from those who hate Him, the ones He has set His covenant love on have freedom from all of that conflict! They can move through their days in calm security, knowing that YHWH is faithful to bring their enemies to an end—falling into the pit He has devised for them.

Because, as the psalmist continues in the next three verses:

Psalm 94:14–16 LSB

For Yahweh will not abandon His people, Nor will He forsake His inheritance. For judgment will again be righteous, And all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will arise for me against evildoers? Who will take his stand for me against workers of iniquity?

YHWH is a God of vengeance because He is faithful to His people! He will by no means forsake the ones He has purchased through the blood of the Covenant. He is a God of vengeance because He will by no means allow justice to be denied to His people; the wicked may be perverting justice and twisting laws to suit their perversions for now, but judgment will again be righteous—He will not allow His statutes to be flaunted forever! When the psalmist asks the question in verse 16 “Who will arise for me against evildoers? Who will take His stand for me against workers of iniquity?”, he is not wondering who will do it—this is a rhetorical question: “Who will defend me? YHWH will!!!!”

The character of God’s discipline means perfect judgment on the wicked, and it means perfect peace for the faithful

We pray rightly for God to repay wickedness when we are relying on His character—we can pray rightly for His vengeance when we understand the character of His enemies, we can pray rightly for His vengeance when we understand the character of His discipline. The psalm concludes with one more revelation of God’s character—in verses 17-23 we see

III. The character of God’s FAITHFULNESS (Psalm 94:17-23)

The vengeance of God against His enemies is a mark of His faithful love for His covenant children. The psalmist makes it clear that this same God that is digging a pit for the wicked is the One Who will always catch His children when they slip!

Psalm 94:17–18 LSB

If Yahweh had not been my help, My soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence. If I should say, “My foot has stumbled,” Your lovingkindness, O Yahweh, will hold me up.

YHWH God—our covenant-keeping God—has sworn to show us

His steadfast LOVE when we STUMBLE (vv. 17-18)

The wicked will stumble and fall into a pit dug for them by God, but the faithful will be delivered from falling. The psalmist says that if YHWH had not been faithful to help him, his soul would have “dwelt in the abode of silence”—a poetic way of referring to Sheol, the grave. “I would be dead by now, if YHWH had not been my help throughout my life!”

Our faithful YHWH has promised us His lovingkindness (Heb. hesed, His steadfast covenant love) to hold us up when we stumble through the pitfalls that surround us in a world that hates God and His people—and moreover, His has promised us

His comforting GRACE when we are ANXIOUS (v. 19)

Psalm 94:19 LSB

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul.

We live in a world that is absolutely riddled with anxiety—there is a multibillion dollar business devoted to creating more and more drugs to make chemical changes to the brain in an attempt to change the thoughts in the mind. This is only to be expected in a world that also is riddled with hatred and contempt for God. A people who deny God’s authority over them and despise the thought of His supremacy over them will of course be riddled with anxiety, guilt, fear and hopelessness.

But where the wicked are consumed by the anxiety they experience by rejecting the lovingkindness of YHWH, His covenant children are promised relief from anxiety and fear and guilt by His precious consolations—the Hebrew word here gives the idea of “breathing deeply”—when our mind starts to be overwhelmed with anxious thoughts, God so moves in His kind acts towards us that we can breathe again! God’s children have a remedy for anxiety that goes far beyond Xanax—the consolations of your faithful God delight and refresh and sustain your mind far better than alprazolam can relax your brain!

The character of God’s faithfulness is displayed to His children by His steadfast love when we stumble, his comforting grace when we are anxious and

His sure PROTECTION when we are TARGETED (v. 20-22)

Look with me at verses 20-21:

Psalm 94:20–21 LSB

Can a throne of destruction be allied with You, One which forms trouble by statute? They band themselves together against the life of the righteous And condemn the innocent to death.

The psalmist calls on God to see how the wicked who hold power (a “throne” of destruction) use their power to create laws specifically to cause trouble for God’s people—think of the officials in King Darius’ court who wanted to trap Daniel:

Daniel 6:7–8 LSB

“All the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the high officials and the governors have counseled together that the king should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who seeks to make a petition to any god or man besides you, O king, for thirty days, shall be cast into the lions’ den. “Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the written document so that it may not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.”

Or in our day we see wicked rulers creating laws specifically to trap Christians, threatening them with arrest or lawsuits if they refuse to celebrate a gay wedding or violate their conscience over a vaccine or refuse to call a boy a girl (or vice versa). When we see that kind of institutionalized evil being put in place, we can call on our faithful God of vengeance to restore righteous judgment (v. 15), and to be our fortress and defender:

Psalm 94:22 LSB

But Yahweh has been my stronghold, And my God the rock of my refuge.

The promises of God are our refuge and our stronghold in the midst of a world that has set itself against Him. He is a faithful God of vengeance—He will always defend His glory and His people.

And so then, what do we learn from this psalm about the way we are to pray for God’s vengeance? How do we pray rightly for God to repay the wickedness on display against Him and His people?

First of all, see here that a prayer for vengeance on God’s enemies is a prayer for Him to take His vengeance—it is NOT, as one of my friends at Bible college said once, that God says “Vengeance is Mine”, but then again we are to be here about our Father’s business! The psalmist can trust in the faithfulness of YHWH to keep His promises—including His promise to judge wickedness, and His promise to keep and protect His people.

See here in Psalm 94 that the enemies the psalmist is praying for God to judge aren’t simply people who disagreed with him; they are not people who have different political opinions, people who the psalmist has personality conflicts with; people who cut him off in traffic.

The Scriptures do not tell us to sing this song of judgment against people who are trapped in their sin, but for people who trap others in sin. This is a prayer to be prayed when you see the authorities codifying wickedness into law; this is a cry for God to deliver His people that He loves from those who want to destroy them.

But even then, this is a song to be sung that pleads with the wicked to forsake their wickedness— Discern! Have insight! Open your eyes to what you are doing when you challenge God! Praying rightly for God to repay wickedness means relying on His mercy—as the New Testament writer Jude puts it,

Jude 22–23 LSB

And on some, who are doubting, have mercy; and for others, save, snatching them out of the fire; and on others have mercy with fear, hating even the tunic polluted by the flesh.

We pray rightly for God to repay wickedness when we pray with tears for their salvation. That comedienne that suffered that seizure on stage went on to recover from her injuries and is still performing the same act. She has never given any indication of ever having thought twice about her mockery of Christ; she has never given any sign that her experience has brought her to consider the state of her eternal soul or her relationship with the Jesus that she refers to so flippantly.

The last verse of Psalm 94 offers one last warning; one last plea for repentance:

Psalm 94:23 LSB

He has brought back their iniquity upon them And will destroy them in their evil; Yahweh our God will destroy them.

And so this is the plea from God’s Word this morning—the only way to flee from the wrath of God for your iniquity is to flee to the wrath of God poured out on Christ on the Cross. Because whether you are an arrogant mocker of God who takes every opportunity to malign and blaspheme His Name or a “senseless” comedian that casually mocks the Gospel or an upright, moral religious sort that gives to charity, watches only PG movies and recycles your plastics—there is no one who will stand before the faithful God of vengeance on the Last Day that will have any defense. Because the One who planted the ear has heard everything. The One Who formed the eye has seen everything. Everyone who stands before Him on that Day will be cut down; every excuse, every vain thought of your own goodness will be silenced forever.

You will stand before the Ancient of Days; the earth and sky will flee away from the terror of that Presence, but you will be held there. What will your mockery and your boasting get you on that Day, when every idle word you have spoken against the Son of Man comes back to testify against you? What will you do when your empty, stupid claims that God does not see you come back to haunt you?

The only plea you can have on that Day—the only chance you have to stand before the faithful God of vengeance—is if you come in repentance and faith to the Crucified and Risen Son of God now. He will hear you when you cry out to Him; He will rescue you from the pit your ridicule and scorn is digging you into; He will forgive and cleanse you of your arrogance and pride, He will cast all your blasphemies against Him into the deepest part of the sea; He will take out the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh; His consolations will delight your soul and banish your anxieties; His faithful love will keep your foot from stumbling. And on that Day when you stand before Him it will not be as a condemned prisoner but as a pardoned and redeemed child. So flee the wrath of the vengeance of YHWH by coming to the One Who was crushed by His wrath for you—your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

2 Thessalonians 2:16–17 LSB

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION:

Why is it difficult for us to think in terms of God’s vengeance? What are some reasons listed in the sermon why Christians must learn to pray the way the psalmist does in this text?

Read Psalm 94:1-7 again. What two characteristics of God’s enemies do we find in these verses?

How is the “discipline” of YHWH experienced differently by His children versus His enemies? Are there ways you can think of where the same discipline from God can be both judgment on His enemies and peace for His children?

Read through the blessings of God’s faithfulness the psalmist lists in verses 12-16. Which of those promises is most encouraging to you? How can you grow in your reliance on those promises this week?