Rivers of waters run down mine eyes,
Because they keep not thy law (Psa 119.136).

Righteous Lot was vexed, that is, greatly distressed with the filthy conversation or sensual conduct of the wicked Sodomites (2 Pet 2.7 AV, cf. ESV). To an unwarranted degree in my opinion, modern preachers often cast him as the carnal compromiser. For example, that false teacher Charles Ryrie who advocates easy-believism castigates Lot as an “uncommitted believer” who “never seemed to repent of much of anything . . . was selfish . . . lacked character . . . [with a] testimony . . . of little value.” Ryrie grudgingly admits Lot was a righteous person, citing the text above, and yet exaggerates Lot’s faults because this supports the heretical lie that one can be saved without repentance from sin and without yielding to Christ as Lord.

While we readily admit that Lot was not exemplary in every way, the same is true of great father Abraham. He also was a man of glaring contradictions, lying about his marital status one day, and another day willing to obey that most demanding and alarming divine command to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac on an altar.

Scripture describes both Abraham and Lot as true saints, men with sensitive consciences and sincere devotion to their Savior.

By way of further explanation, Peter wrote in the next verse, guided by the Holy Spirit, “For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.” The ESV is also helpful here: “For as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (2 Pet 2.8). Lot was tormenting himself as he beheld the heartless and cruel, the adulterers and homosexuals, the swearers, liars, drunkards, thieves, sacrilegious, idolaters, lascivious, selfish, ungrateful, and scheming, two-faced cheats which populated this infamous town. And how did Lot torment himself? No doubt by thinking about God’s ineffable holiness and men’s disgusting sins, and how much God’s glory was besmirched when men created in his image groveled in such moral cesspools the way these did, and how great was the harm—temporal, spiritual, and eternal—to the neighbors of his genuine love and concern.

Whether a true Christian lives in Sodom or a in a better sort of community, it is impossible but that the sins of other people will lead him to be vexed deep within. It is not only their immoralities committed against our fellow man which are the occasion of painful grief in a Christian’s heart, but even more their irreligion, since this is against God and the foul spring of all other misdeeds. Love for God and the love of neighbor cannot leave an authentically virtuous person apathetic and unmoved within.

Another clear example from Scripture of this vexation is found in the apostle Paul. Arriving in Athens, that great center of the finest heathen learning, “his spirit [i.e., his own human spirit, not the Holy Spirit] was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry” (Acts 17.16). The relevant verb means he was provoked, agitated, deeply distressed, perhaps even incensed and angry in this context. “The expression seeks to emphasize the honest anger of the apostle, and can hardly suggest that he was stirred or stimulated to preach or to win converts.” Yet we know that this was no unrighteous anger devoid of compassion for the sinners of Athens, because Paul did go to them shortly, and with the greatest boldness, skill, and tact, he challenged them in a most persuasive manner to repent of their sins and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might be saved.

In our Psalm 119 text, David testifies of the same troubled spirit dwelling in his breast. He wrote in the first line of the intensity of his vexation, and in the second, of the reason for it.

INTENSE VEXATION

“Rivers of waters run down mine eyes” is clearly exaggeration, an allowable figure of speech known as hyperbole, to make the point that his feelings were extremely bad and vehement, and we can certainly believe that weeping many tears was the result.

JUSTIFIED VEXATION

The reason for this spiritual paroxysm, this internal attack of enraged grief upon him, was his observation of prevalent disobedience to God: “because they keep not thy law.” Failure to carry into practice what God commands and to abstain from what he forbids always proceeds from an evil heart of unbelief and pride, and from a corresponding attachment to idols, whether religious images or other unworthy objects of our utmost fear, love, trust, hope, and devotion—all of these movements of soul in their utmost degree being due to God alone, and only good and reasonable when rendered to him.
Saintly vexation on account of others’ sins is therefore completely justified from a virtuous and sensible regard for the glory of God’s name and a compassionate regard for the spiritual welfare of our fellow man.

OPPOSED VEXATION

In a thousand different ways, such a saintly emotional life with its attendant godly actions is severely denigrated in our pluralistic culture. This praiseworthy mindset and lifestyle overthrows our generation’s most deeply held false beliefs—that you should live and let live, undisturbed by the religious beliefs and practices of others with whom you disagree, that since no one can be absolutely sure whether his own beliefs are correct or not, he should have a great respect and even reverence for others’ beliefs which are different from his own, that there is no one religion which is objectively true while the others are false, and that the Bible is certainly not to be taken as an authoritative standard from the one true and living God for the faith and practice of everyone without exception. President Obama just said “this is a country that is still predominantly Christian. But we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own.”³ In this he is only expressing the deeply-held and misguided belief of millions of fellow Americans—many of whom are professing Christians like the president himself.

Tolerance is the supposed super-virtue that transcends all other beliefs of particular religions. Indeed, if tolerance means upholding the civil rights associated with religious freedom, free of government regulation or punishment of any, we applaud it. If tolerance means that we completely renounce any type of coercion or intimidation in bringing new converts to our faith, and that we rely upon an open presentation of doctrine appealing for the voluntary acceptance of those who hear us, coupled with deeds of love and mercy that we may adorn the gospel and show the winsome way of salvation through Christ, biblical Christians have already been committed to this for many centuries, and have led the way for others to embrace it. We abominate state-imposed religious worship, or state-prohibition of religious worship, and people sharing our principled tolerance have shed their blood to secure the blessings of a free society.

However, the “tolerance” generally lauded today is something else, requiring a deep-seated agnosticism and a renunciation of Christian love toward our lost neighbors—a love that reproves them for their sins and prays and works and preaches for their conversion.

DESIRABLE VEXATION

My Christian friends, be so very careful to discern and resist such insidious assaults on your progress toward likeness to Jesus Christ, the one who wept over Jerusalem on account of its hard-hearted refusals over many generations of God’s forgiving and saving grace (Matt 23.37). Imitate the loving example of Paul who wrote, “I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kindred according to the flesh,” who were still not Christians (Rom 9.2-3). This spirit will strengthen your resolve not to partake of other men’s sins. It will keep you motivated to worship God alone, and to pray for his mercy upon the sinners who grieve you. It will open your mouth in protest and proclamation respecting the gospel, and open your wallet to support churches and missionaries devoted to evangelism and church planting.

Do we have anything of this godly vexation within us? Certainly we do if we are truly born again. It is a distinguishing trait of all whom God forgives. “And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof” (Ezek 9.4), and in this vision all the unmarked ones were then summarily slaughtered. O Lord, give us the grace we need so that our eyes too will shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law. Amen.

Notes:

1. So Great Salvation, p. 111.
2. TDNT V.857.
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/8032991/Barack-Obama-says-he-is-Christian-by-choice-in-rare-comments-on-religion.html