PSALM 10 IN EXPANDED WARFARE PRAYER FORMAT

For a full list of prayers available through this podcast and our website, please follow this link:  https://psalm71.podbean.com/e/full-list-of-available-prayers-1513057365/   NOTE:  This prayer has been recorded TWICE, first for listening and agreeing, then again for repeating.    Psalm 10 serves as the template for this prayer of warfare against the wickedness of our day. To be certain, the original scriptural text is of itself a powerful prayer, describing the aspects and intentions of evil men which do not vary or change from millennium to millennium. The expansion and focus here, of the original psalm language, is intended as a representative example of praying by using the scriptures as a theological and meditative framework.    PSALM 10 IN EXPANDED WARFARE PRAYER FORMAT Heavenly Father, we cry out to you from your Word and in your Spirit. Why do you stand afar off, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? We know that you are near, and we know you are at work, for those who seek you for the sake of your name.  The wicked ones of the earth are proud. They exercise their power against those who have no defense but God. They scheme to find new ways to steal the resources of very life. Their eyes are ever searching for new ways to capture and enslave the poor. Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined, and turn their schemes back upon their heads. The wicked ones of the earth boast of their hearts' desires.  They delight in those who are greedy like them, those whom the Lord abhors.  The wicked will not seek after God : God is not in all their thoughts. They look upon the earth through the pride of their countenance, the pride of their profane religious mysteries, the pride of their flesh and of their perversions, the pride of their wealth and strength, even the pride of their rapacious appetites of lust and death.  Their ways are always grievous, and they cannot cease from sin. As for all their enemies, they gnash their teeth at them and plot vengeance. They have said in their hearts, I cannot be stopped, I will never need to change my ways: for I am a sovereign spiritual being; I have all power and freedom, and so I shall never suffer adversity.  They cannot see the judgments of God. The decrees of the Lord are far above out of their sight.  Their mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under their tongue is mischief and vanity.  They hide themselves in the darkness, in the subterranean places of the land: in secret places they defile and murder the innocent. They lie in wait secretly as a lion in his den: they lie in wait to catch the defenseless: and they do catch them, when they have drawn them into their nets.  They bow and crouch down low, and murmur deceiving words, pretending to be humble and honest, so that when they strike out, when their strong arms pull in their prey, those whom they have deceived are destroyed without warning. Why do the wicked curse and condemn God? They hath said in their hearts, Lord, that you will not require anything from them. The wicked have said in their hearts, God has forgotten his own creation; he sleeps: he hides his face; he will never see what we do, and so it is left to us to take up our rightful place and be gods.  Arise, O Lord ; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not your people; forget not those who hunger for you, who love you, who delight in your appearing.  For you have seen the ways of the wicked ; for you behold with contempt their mischief and spite, to requite it with your own hand.  We commit ourselves unto you, O God, because you are our helper, the helper of the fatherless, the defenseless, and the poor. .  Break the arms of the wicked and the evil man : seek out and answer his wickedness, until no more wickedness can be found.  We your people shout, The Lord is King for ever and ever: the enemies of God are perished out of his land.  We know, O Lord, that you will cause your ear to hear, that you have heard the desire of the humble, that you will prepare our hearts to withstand what men shall do to us.  O God, you will judge all, both the wicked and the oppressed, that the wicked man of the earth may no more escape, and that we may rejoice in our saving King. Amen.