The Modern Echoes of Ministry of Truth
Television can annoy sometimes. It feels like there’s nothing wholesome to watch, and when we find a good show, we just count down the days until it’s removed.
But more than that, the morning news often leaves me wishing I were an ostrich wanting to bury its head in the sand. There’s a pervasive sense that what I’m seeing might not even be real, a disorienting echo of a novel I read in high school.
In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the protagonist Winston Smith worked in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth. His sole purpose was to rewrite history—altering old newspaper articles to conform to the Party’s ever-shifting narrative and erasing “unpersons” from existence. The Party used constant broadcasts of violence and fear, keeping its citizens compliant and dependent on “Big Brother.”
We’ve seen similar tactics in communist countries throughout history. While I can only speculate on the extent, it’s unsettling to consider how much of what we consume daily might be a modern version of this manipulation.
A Desperate Cry and a Merciful Wait
Instead of dwelling on the news, I often turn to the Psalms. Today, I’m drawn to Psalms 68-70. Psalm 70 is a brief but powerful petition from David, a prayer so urgent that he repeats it almost verbatim from the end of Psalm 40. Its opening verse resonates: “Hasten, O God, to save me; come quickly, Lord, to help me.“ (Psalm 70:1, NIV)
I know God has His reasons for waiting; He desires that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), and His ways are far beyond ours (Isaiah 55:8). Yet, like David, I often pray for Him to hasten His return.
Imprecation and Jesus’s Justice
This urgent prayer in Psalm 70 follows Psalm 69, an imprecatory prayer—a type of prayer common for David when he faced intense persecution and betrayal.
This led me to ponder whether Jesus, who taught us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44), ever uttered an imprecatory prayer.
While Jesus prayed against sin and overturned tables in the Temple, He never prayed for harm to come to His enemies. His focus was always on God’s justice prevailing and on salvation. He acknowledged that those who rejected Him would face judgment, but His mission was one of redemption and reconciliation.
God Arises: Moses, David, and Christ
This brings me to Psalm 68, another prayer of David, likely offered when they brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). It begins, “May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him. “(Psalm 68:1, NIV) Many commentaries, like those referenced on BibleHub.com, note its similarity to Moses’s prayer in Numbers 10:35: “Rise up, Lord! May your enemies be scattered; may your foes flee before you.”
There’s a subtle but significant distinction, however. As Benson Commentary points out, Moses’s prayer uses the imperative, “Let God arise,” urging the Israelites to move when the Ark—God’s presence—moved. It was a call to join God as He advanced, aligning with the teaching of “Experiencing God” that we should discern where God is working and join His plan, rather than asking Him to bless our own.
David’s prayer in Psalm 68:1, however, uses the future tense in Hebrew: “God shall, or will, arise.” Benson argues this is a Messianic prophecy—a forward-looking declaration that Jesus would arise. The subsequent verses, “may the wicked perish before God. But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God” (Psalm 68:2-3, NIV), further support this future-oriented, prophetic interpretation of Christ’s triumph over His enemies.
A Call to Prayer, Not Vengeance
I will stick with Jesus’s teaching and pray for the salvation of all people. While the world may feel like a constant barrage of hatred, whether from foreign adversaries or divisive media narratives, I believe there’s a deeper injustice at play. Because I choose to trust God’s word above all, I will pray for these “enemies,” whoever they are, asking God to change their hearts.
If they choose to harden their hearts, I will then pray to God to deliver the vengeance that is His alone to decide. We must remember, their hatred isn’t toward us; it’s directed at God. They are responding to forces of darkness that we cannot overcome on our own. Our recourse is to seek God and pray for Him to “come quickly.”
