Psalm 7
Let’s hear God’s Word together
as we read from Psalm 7. This is a Psalm of David and
the context is when he went to the Lord concerning Cush of Benjamite. And he says, O Lord my God and
you do I take refuge. Save me from all my pursuers
and deliver me. Lest, like a lion, they tear
my soul apart, rending it into pieces. with none to deliver. O Lord my God, if I have done
this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend
with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy
pursue my soul and overtake it. Let him trample my life to the
ground and lay my glory in the dust. Arise, O Lord, in your
anger. Lift yourself up against the
fury of my enemies. Awake from me. You have appointed
a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples
be gathered about you. Return it on high. The Lord judges
the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to
my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.
Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end. And may you establish
the righteous, you who test the minds and hearts. Oh, righteous
God. My shield is with God who saves
the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge and
a God who feels indignation every day. If a man does not repent,
God will wet his sword. He has bent and readied his bow.
He has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery
shafts. Behold, the wicked man conceives
evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes
it a pit, digging it out and falls into the hole that he has
made. His mischief returns upon his
own head and his own skull, his violence descends. I will give
to the Lord the thanks that is due the righteousness and I will
sing praise to the name of the Lord, the most high. This is
God’s word for us. It’s written for our instruction,
our strengthening, and our salvation. Let’s pray now and ask for God’s
blessing. Our God, we thank you for your word that you write
to us, and we thank you that in the depths and the dumps and
the hardships of life, your word speaks directly to our minds,
our hearts, and our souls, so that we, like King David, may
be encouraged. So in these next few moments,
we ask that your word would instruct us, and we ask by the power of
your spirit and through Jesus. Amen. As we’ve made our way through
the Psalms, we’ve bumped into Psalm 1 and 2 that teach us about
the way of the wicked and the righteous and how God blesses
or curses. We have bumped into the way of
following and submitting to the Messiah or the curses that come
from not doing so. And then now in Psalms 3 through
7, we see King David in all kinds of situations. I remember a friend
saying one time about the life of a pastor, you’re either in
hot water, getting out of hot water, or about to get in hot
water again. And that’s true of King David
here. David, since he was a little
shepherd boy and became anointed as the king, was either in hot
water getting out of hot water or about to get back in hot water.
And so we’ve seen David in all kinds of situations and the intensity
as we’ve made it from Psalms three, now to Psalm seven gets
a bit higher, the intensity grows. And so David here writes a longer
Psalm. He speaks of some difficulties
in his life, but he cries out to God in some ways he has not
done so just yet. And so some of you may be scratching
your head saying, well, we’ve read Psalm three, We’ve read
Psalm 4, we’ve read Psalm 5, we’ve read Psalm 6, and now here’s
Psalm 7. It seems kind of similar. Well,
let me assure you there’s something different. Let me also assure
you that God wrote it because he knew you needed it. And so
if he knows he wrote Psalm 7, he knows he also wrote 6, 5,
4, and 3. But even more than that, it is
God’s word. And though it may not apply now,
someday, who knows when, the Holy Spirit may remind you of
Psalm 7. And so we trust God that he writes
these things for our instruction. But also, just a little hint
of better things, next week we get to Psalm 8. And David gets
off of his hardship and speaks of the majesty of creation, but
the majesty of man as having been created. So there’s a little
bit of a break next week. But so far we’ve seen David in
some different situations. We’ve seen where he’s asked God
for help. Think back about David’s life.
Remember when he was a little shepherd boy? The story goes
when he was getting ready to fight off Goliath, that he had
fought off a bear. So David has been in some fights.
He’s fought a bear. He’s fought Goliath. He’s had
Saul chase him for months, even years, something like eight years.
He’s had God’s enemies pursue him as a king. And he’s had his
own son, Absalom, as we saw, I believe in Psalm 3, pursue
his life. And so David has been in a lot
of difficult situations, but in these situations, he’s expressed
confidence in God. He’s expressed lament or sadness. He’s expressed a desire for forgiveness. He has gone to God for his refuge. And there’s a bit of that in
tonight’s Psalm. God is his confidence, but also his refuge. Look, if
you will, at verses one and two. He says, oh Lord, my God, in
you do I take refuge. Save me from my pursuers and
deliver me. And then he goes on to say, lest
like a lion, they tear my soul apart, rending it to pieces with
none to deliver. Then if you, at least in my Bible,
turn the page, but look to verse 10. He speaks of God as his shield. So he’s his refuge. My shield
is with God. He saves the upright. He’s just
spoken of him as deliverer. Savior. God is a righteous judge
and a God who feels indignation every day. He goes on to speak
of man’s justice. So what is he putting himself
under? He’s in God’s shelter, but God
is a deliverer, God is a refuge, but also God is a judge. He’s
running to one who can judge him. He says, God is a righteous
judge. He feels indignation every day. If a man does not repent,
Speaking of his enemies, God will wet his sword. He has bent
and readied his bow. He has refuge in one who will
take care of his enemies. What a great confidence that
is. Verse 14 says, Behold, the wicked man conceives evil. He
is pregnant with mischief. He gives birth to lies. He makes
a pit. He digs it out. He falls into
the hole which he has made. His mischief returns upon his
own head. and on his own skull violence
descends. So here David comes to God with
troubles, he comes to him for refuge, and he comes to him for
confidence. I want us to look at a couple
of themes that we find in this passage. The first is this, David
is falsely accused. That is the situation he’s in. We don’t know the situation exactly,
but by the verses that we can read, particularly three and
four, we realize David has been falsely accused of something.
He’s being pursued or attacked or in some way, shape or form
hurt by Cush, who is a Benjamite. Now remember the Benjamites.
King Saul was a Benjamite. And there were other Benjamites
who sought to hurt David. Now remember about David when
he became king. What did he seek to do when he
became king? He sought to do a kindness to
the house of Saul for the sake of his friend, Jonathan. And so you remember Mephibosheth.
That’s a fancy name, if you can say that, you’re a real Christian.
Mephibosheth was the crippled fellow. He was dropped on the
way out of the home when his nurse dropped him, rushing out
for safety. And David brought him into the king’s house. And
he ate at the king’s table for the rest of his life. So David
had been kind to Saul and his family. But Saul and his family
and the offspring had not been kind to David. When David was
running for his life from Absalom, which we read about in Psalm
4, there’s old Shimei. Shimei’s out there throwing rocks
at David. It’s kind of like Ernest T. Bass
of the Old Testament. Chucking rocks and throwing insults
at David. You wicked man of blood, he calls. And then there’s Sheba, who upon
David’s return doesn’t show David the kindness and respect that
he deserves. But the context we think is somewhere
in verse three and four where he says, oh Lord, if I have done
this, whatever this is, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have
repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause,
let the enemy overtake me and pursue my soul. So David has
been accused of something, we don’t know what. But in his position
as king, this is an attack on David, the man, This is an attack
on the king, the position. This is an attack on Israel,
the nation, and this is really, ultimately, it’s an attack on
Yahweh, who has anointed him king over his people. David rules
for God. And so, when we attack the king,
we attack God, or Yahweh. And so, sometimes we say, how
does it go, Styx? and stones may break my bones,
but words may never hurt me.” And maybe we say that in jest,
maybe we say that in little empty words, can’t hurt. But when you’re
the king of Israel, when you’re the servant of God, and you’re
the one who upholds justice, you’re the judge of righteousness,
if your integrity is questioned, guess what? It undermines your rule. And so
to treat the servant of God that way was a difficult thing. It
caused him great anguish. as he attempted to serve the
people of God in Israel. And so words can hurt us. They can hurt us permanently.
They can hurt us temporarily or for a very long time until
we outlive them. But what does he do? He simply
says this, God is the judge. God is going to have to sort
this out. God is going to have to take action here. I’m gonna
have to sit tight. I’m gonna have to wait quietly.
I’m gonna have to not be vocal. I’m gonna have to maybe go on
a social media fast and not write about my life at the moment so
that nobody knows, you know, that’s how we live these days.
He knows, God knows, and God will work it out because guess
what? The people may not know the truth,
but God does. And so he trusts that God will
support him. Now, King David was a little
time before Christ, but we know that ultimately King David, from
David’s offspring, was slandered. He was accused of all kinds of
things, and guess what? Put on trial, sent to the cross,
executed, put to death, laid in a grave, but he was vindicated. He was vindicated by God himself.
And what does Isaiah 53 tell us? The world reviled him, the
world spoke ill against him, and what did Jesus do? Did he
retaliate? Did he swing his sword? Did he call heaven down and say,
smote and smite all these people? No, he took it with humility
and he let his father, his heavenly father, sort it out. And so there’s
a picture of David falsely accused. Second question for us to think
about is, is a man really innocent? David here says a lot about being
innocent, about not, Having done what he’s been accused of, I
think of our shorter catechism after it goes through the Ten
Commandments, it says, is any man able to keep the law of God
perfectly? And the answer is no. No mere
man since the fall, because of sin, because our hearts are idol
factories, because we’re sin factories, no mere man since
the fall is able in this life to keep God’s law, but does daily
break it in thought and word and in deed. Okay, that’s pretty
clear, isn’t it? It’s pretty all-encompassing.
Covers all the bases. No man is without sin. Romans
chapter 3, 10 says, no one is righteous, no not one. And so the question is, are we
really innocent? Well, it’s kind of a yes and
no. You’re innocent in that you’re justified, right? God has pardoned
all your sin. He’s accepted you as righteous
in his sight, only for the sake of Christ and his obedience and
his perfection, and it’s by faith. But there are cases in our lives
where we may be accused of something that we actually did not do.
And so the question that’s posed is, should we maintain our innocence? Should we maintain our cause?
Well, sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. It takes wisdom application. Verses 3 through 5 and then verse
8 help us with this. In 3, 4, and 5 it says, Oh Lord
my God, if I have done this, whatever the this is, if there
is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or
plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul
and overtake it. Let him trample my life to the
ground and lay my glory in the dust. And then verse eight, the
Lord judges the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to
my righteousness and according to the integrity that is within
me. What is David saying here? He’s
saying, I am gonna maintain my innocence and I’m gonna do it
to the degree of two ways. One is, if I have done this,
let the punishment do come to me. And second, God, you see,
you know, you judge me. So he’s really called on heaven
and earth to bear witness to his innocence. And so in a sense,
how can we say David is guilty? He’s willing to swear on his
mother’s grave or his uncle, favorite uncle’s rabbit’s foot
or something like that. It’s a pretty big, pretty big
word he’s giving to us. So he’s bold and he asks of God,
you judge, you make it clear, you make it evident. Now think
about that for just a moment. Here’s David. He controls the
editor of the Jerusalem Press, right? He controls the general
of the army. He controls the chief of police
in his little precinct. I mean, he has the purse strings,
right? He has the keys to everything. But what does he do? Does he
go mafia style? Or does he go to God? What a
wonderful example that is. He is the king and has resources.
He has discretion. He has the ability to call down
thunder and probably justify it and get away with it. But
he goes to God. He says, let’s let God handle
it. Let’s let God justify me. Let’s let God take care of justice
here, and he does not take matters into his own hands. So what does
this teach us about justice when we’re really innocent? Ultimately,
it’s God, and it’s God who gets the last word. I remember several
years ago, going through some sort of difficulty, and my dad
telling me, he said, you know, just sit back and let God work.
He said, you know, I had an elder in a church one time who gave
me so much trouble, he said, A lot of things I wish I could
have done to that elder, but he got hit by a car. He said,
I couldn’t have done that, I’d have been in prison. Or so-and-so
who gave me so much trouble got cancer. Or so-and-so who gave
me so much trouble had so much trouble brought in their lives.
And he said, just sit back and watch God work. He’ll make your
name clear. And sometimes I think what God
does, another piece of fatherly advice, is he takes those who
are your enemies, and he says this here about letting them
fall in their own pit, And He takes their own mess that they’re
trying to throw on you and He rubs their nose in it. And friends,
you can’t get justice like that except by waiting for God. And so what a sweet thing it
is to let God, the perfect judge of the earth, do His perfect
justice. Now, this is all fun and games, it
sounds like to us. You know, God, if somebody does something
to me, you get them, you get them back. But remember, we too are sinners
and you better keep your nose clean, right? Don’t you be harassing
others, don’t you be accusing others, don’t you be causing
headaches and heartaches for others. And so the first little
theme of this passage is David is in a situation where he’s
falsely accused. Second little theme is, is somebody
really innocent? And the last little theme is
this, I want justice. I want justice, I want justice,
and I want it now. You know, God has given justice
in the scriptures. We see it with Sodom and Gomorrah.
They’re wicked, they’re nasty, they’re foul, and so what does
he do? He destroys, and we say, yes. When is God gonna do that
to America? Because we’re worse. And then
we read about Nadab and Abihu. They offered strange fire before
God, and God said, that’s not the worship I wanted, and so
guess what? Flame roiled. Or how about Ananias
and Sapphira? We’re such big givers to the
church. We’re the best donors this church ever had. We sold
this land and here’s all the money. We even got the story
straight. Well, guess what? Husband came
and he’s gone. Here you come, you tell the same
big fat one. And the same people that are just now returning from
burying your husband are gonna haul you off. God has his way.
Or how about the flood generation? Noah preached to them for a hundred
years, I’m building an ark so that my family will be safe.
by faith you’d come in it with us. And they ridiculed him and
they scorned him and a generation was killed by that deluge. Or how about Korah’s rebellion?
Korah and some of the other Levites wanted to share in the prime
time leadership Moses had. And so they complained against
Moses and the earth opened up and swallowed them whole. And
then fire came down and consumed the rest. Or how about Miriam? Whining and whining because Moses
was getting all the attention. Well, she got some attention
from her leprosy doctor. So friends, God has a way of
dealing with things. And sometimes we say we want that justice.
We want that justice until we’re the ones who are deserving of
it. But should we say that? Should
we want justice in this life? Well, sure we should. We should
want a just world. I mean, not in the way the liberals
do, or they announce on NPR and all that business. But we wanna
see justice. We want to see people treated
fairly and rightly and in truth. But we also wanna see justice
at the last day. And we’ll get some of the justice
we wanna see in this life. But we will get ultimate justice
in the future for sure. So what are the takeaways for
us who read Psalm 7? I mean, we’re probably not going
to be in the same hot water as David. We’re not going to be
the king of Israel. We’re not going to be the enemies he has.
But guess what? If you follow Christ, what does
our catechism say? Remember prophet, priest, and
king? Our king, he subdues all our enemies and his. We share a common enemy. That’s
why we read Ephesians 6 earlier tonight. protect ourselves from
these spirits and these demons and these wicked ones who hate
God and his loved ones. But we need to live a righteous
life. As far as possible, by the help of the spirit, with
the help of the word to teach us, we need to live a righteous
life so that when we are accused, others will say, that does not
sound like him. Or she would never do that. We’ve seen their consistency
in the faith. And no, that is not them. We
should also help those who need justice. What’s the old saying? All evil needs is for a good
man to sit idly by. We should help those who are
in need of justice. And then those who are in leadership,
particularly with the state, should commend what is right
and punish what is evil. Instead, it seems we’re doing
the opposite now. We commend evil and punish good. You run
a business nowadays and try to run it with a Christian conscience
and you refused to serve and so you’re shut down and then
you’re fined and your livelihood lost or whatever the case may
be. But we need to command what is
right and punish what is evil. But we also need to thank God
for his mercy. We need to be like that man who
laid prostrate before God, beating his chest, saying, Lord, have
mercy on me, a sinner. Not the one standing over in
front of everybody saying, I am thankful that I’m not like them.
but know God be merciful to me because Jesus has forgiven us
and he has atoned for our sins. So what’s the conclusion of this?
We’ve got a false accusation, we’ve got the king of Israel,
we’ve got all the resources of earth and what does he do? He
rests in the resources of heaven. So what do we do when the messy
world we live in brings injustice to us? I have a friend who’s
in the telecom business and three times now he has been shafted
by a partner. I mean, shafted, big time, money
taken, money owed and not given. And it’s hurt his livelihood.
And he’s just kept on. He’s just kept on. So what do
we do when the world gets messy like that? What do we do when
somebody speaks ill of us and doesn’t take it back and they
spread it and they spread it and they spread it? What do we
do when life works that way? Well, we keep a righteous life
and we let our consistency prove otherwise. We let God work it
out. Maybe we hire the appropriate help, maybe we go to the church
courts, whatever is necessary, we do that. But it can be difficult,
it can be overwhelming, but there is only one way through it, and
that’s with God’s help. And notice I didn’t say a way
out of it. It’s a way through it, because
you’re gonna have to endure it. We don’t always get helicoptered
out of these things. And so what do we do? We rest
in God’s character, who he is, what he’s done, and what he’s
promised to do, his character, his actions, and his promises.
That’s what David has done. If you read the latter verses,
starting at verse 10 or so, my shield is with God. He saves
the upright. He’s a righteous judge. He feels
indignation every day. He’s madder about this than I
am, is what David seems to say. And it speaks of God’s character,
his actions. and His promises. But what do
we do? We’re like David, we talk it out. That’s what Psalms 2,
or 3, 4, 5, and 6, and now 7 have been. We’ve been watching David’s
stream of consciousness. He’s talking out his troubles.
And where does he always end up? At the throne of God, and
at a place of peace, and a place of safety. Now guess what? By
the time you get to verse 17, where David says, I will give
to the Lord the thanks due his righteousness. I will sing praise
to the name of the most high. He’s likely not through the trouble
yet, but he’s through his thoughts of how I’m gonna get through
this difficulty. And isn’t it a blessing, friends,
to have a godly example in David, but even more so in Jesus. I
will put my trust in him who can save me. He will see me through
this. Let’s pray and ask for God’s
grace. Our Father, we do give you thanks for you are righteous. You are the most high God, and
it is in you that we find refuge and shelter. We find strength
and we find hope. And so we pray now that as we
live life in a broken, messy, fallen, sin-filled world where
our reputations will be tarnished, we’ll be accused of all sorts
of things, that we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and
the perfecter of our faith, and the judge of the earth who knows
because he is our high priest who can sympathize with us what
life here is like as we keep our eyes fixed on him. May we
press on and keep the faith despite what those who wish evil against
us might do to us help us in this hour in which we live in
Jesus name. We pray amen. In judgment take my part ♪ According to my righteousness
and purity of heart ♪ ♪ For all his righteousness the Lord I’ll
magnify ♪ ♪ His name will I forever praise ♪