Can I honestly sing such Psalms? Should I sing such Psalms? If so, how? Here are four ways that I’ve tried to make these Psalms more useful in my spiritual life:

1. I thank God that they are not true of me at this time in my life.

2. I pray that they never will be true, that I and my family will continue to be spared such persecution.

3. I sympathise with those for whom these words are all too true, asking God to deliver them or to sustain them and their witness in the fiery furnace.

4. I see these Psalms as picturing what is true in the spiritual realm. Although mercifully spared physical persecution, I see such vivid descriptions as warnings of what the Devil and his legions are trying to do to me and others every day. Who can stop praying when facing Stalin, Ceausescu, Mao Zedong, and Kim Jong II, all rolled into one, every day of life?

An allegory has three main characteristics:

• It is a story, an object, a person, or an event.
• The story, object, etc., need not be true, real, or factual.
• It has a deeper and different truth than the ordinary reading of the words would suggest.

Example: Allegory is extremely rare in Scripture. However, there are a few isolated examples. In Judges 9:7-21 Jotham used an allegory about trees and bushes to teach his hearers how to view Abimelech’s kingship. The story he told was not true. Trees and bushes did not talk to one another nor bow down to one another. The story was about a much deeper truth than just talking trees. It was about the nature of true kingship. This is a classic allegory.

A type has four main characteristics:

• It is a story, an object, a person, or an event.
• The story, object, etc., is true, real, and factual.
• The same truth is found in both the type and the antitype (the fulfillment of the type).
• The same truth is enlarged, heightened, and clarified in the antitype.

Example: The Passover lamb is a type of Christ. It was real. The truths of substitutionary sacrifice and redemption by blood are found in both the type and the antitype. And, these truths are enlarged, heightened, and clarified in the antitype. The antitype is the God-man – not just a lamb; and He redeems from spiritual and eternal bondage – not just physical and temporary bondage.