Vindicate me, O Lord, my God, according to your righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me!
– Psalm 35:24
I should say Psalm 35:24 maybe a little differently because this verse ends with an exclamation point. This is David crying out to God when he is being attacked. Seemingly attacked in wrongful, hurtful, unjust ways. And so he’s crying out to God for vindication because he knows, he knows that his all ultimate hope for vindication, for justice is in God. That God ultimately will bring about justice. And God ultimately will show vindication and He will do it in righteousness. That’s one of the things that’s so strong about this particular verse. “Vindicate me, O Lord my God, according to your righteousness.”
Psalm 35:24 Is A reminder that when you face unjust persecution, turn your eyes to the Lord.
God is completely right, He’s completely just and the hope of heaven, the hope that the Bible holds out is that one day His justice and His righteousness will reign perfectly. So as we think about this verse, praying according to this verse, I just want to encourage you when you are wrongfully accused, when you are opposed in unjust ways to look to God alone as your ultimate hope for justice and vindication. Now that’s not to say that working for justice and desiring justice in this world is not something we should do. Certainly, the Bible makes clear that God calls His people to do justice, to be a reflection of His justice and His righteousness.
So absolutely we should do justice and long for justice at the same time. When it comes to ultimate justice and vindication, our hope is not in this world. Our hope is in God and the whole picture here in Psalm 35:24 that I want to encourage you with is to look to Him and to live righteously before Him knowing that at times you will be accused or slandered or harmed or attacked in different ways in this sin-sick world. But to stand before God and say, “I want to live with all the things we read in the psalms with integrity and uprightness of heart, with purity before God, with blamelessness before God and others.”
God Hears Our Cries
So to seek to live that way and then to trust when not if, but when you are wrongfully accused or attacked or slandered to look to God is your ultimate hope of vindication and justice and know that He hears your cries. And one day He will answer fully and finally. Not just in your life, but in the world as a whole. O God, we praise you for this reality. We praise you. You are our hope for justice. And we long for your righteousness and your vindication to reign in the world in every way. In every way, O God, including in specific circumstances in each of our lives.
God, we pray that you’d help us to live righteously before you. And God help us not to seek the praise of others in ways that lead us away from righteousness before you. God, help us to live in righteousness before you regardless of whether or not we are praised or accused, slandered or applauded. Lord, fix our eyes not on this world and what this world says about us. God, we pray that you would fix our eyes on you, what you say about us. We pray for your justice, your vindication, your righteousness to reign more and more and more in this world in our lives like Psalm 35:24, God, we pray for that.
Our Hope Is in God
At the same time, O God, we hope fully and finally in your coming reign and we pray our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, may your kingdom come. May your will ultimately and fully be done on Earth as it is in heaven. God, we long for the day when your justice and righteousness will fully reign. And we pray that you would hasten the coming of that day as we say in prayer today, our hope is in you.
Our hope for vindication in our lives. Our hope for justice in the world. And our hope for righteousness in all things lies in you. You are our hope and we praise you for hearing our cries for vindication and justice and righteousness now. In Jesus’ name we pray, the name of Jesus Christ, the righteous one in His name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
