Psalm 7 - O God, My Righteous Judge

0:04 Welcome to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry. Journey from Genesis to Revelation as Pastor Paul guides you through every verse, leading you to a deeper understanding of the Scriptures that will strengthen your faith and transform your life. Now, let's get started with today's teaching as we open God's Word together.

0:29 Psalm chapter 7. Let's go ahead and read the psalm here David writes Oh 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 in pieces with none to deliver Oh 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, and 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 for me, you have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you. Over it, return on high.

1:23 The Lord judges the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. O let the evil of the wicked come to an end and may you establish the righteous, you who test the minds and hearts, O 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.

1:54 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 a pit, digging it out and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head. And on his own skull, his violence descends. I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness.

2:27 And I will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High. Now, if you notice at the very beginning of this psalm, there's an intro that isn't actually part of the verses. It doesn't start with verse one. It's right ahead of it. And it tells us here that David wrote this psalm concerning the words of a man named Cush, who was a Benjamite.

2:48 And David also often had trouble with Benjamites because those were the people from the tribe that Saul came from. And so there were a lot of people that had bad vibes toward David because he took over after Saul was killed and so forth. And so apparently this Cush person, whoever he was, was making false accusations. against David.

3:18 David felt very attacked by it. So again, what did he do? He took the matter to the Lord. He begins by saying, oh Lord, my God, in you I take refuge. And that's a very important thing that we see right at the very beginning of the Psalm. Lord, it's in you that I take refuge. David is making it clear that the Lord and the Lord alone is the one that he is turning to for help. And that's so important. In fact, You'll notice he tells the Lord, if he doesn't respond, these guys are going to tear me to pieces with no one to deliver me. And that's kind of a fancy way of saying, if you don't help me, I'm dead. And I wonder sometimes how many of us pray and ask the Lord to help us in our issues, but secretly

4:00 in our minds, I don't even know if we're even always aware of it, but we withhold back some secondary means of solving our problem. I mean, I wonder how many of us, when we go to the Lord, are all in with the Lord. You know? Or if we're holding something back. I can think of times in my own life when I've prayed and I've asked the Lord for help, and then the Lord has revealed to me that there was a little area in the back of my mind where I had a secondary alternate plan. Just in case God didn't come through in a way that satisfied me You know So whatever David was being accused of He's trusting the Lord with it and you'll notice that he believes himself to be completely innocent in this situation

5:02 notice what he says in verse 3 He even challenges the Lord and he says Lord if I've done this if I've done the things that this guy is Accusing me to have done if there's any wrong He says in my hands and if I've done what he's if I've repaid my friend with evil or I've plundered my enemy without cause He says in verse 5 fine then let him win Let my enemy win. Let him overtake me Let him conquer me let him trample my life to the ground lay my glory in the dust Whatever it takes and this is a bold prayer by the way and by the way David is not saying he is without sin What David is saying is he's not guilty of this charge He's saying I didn't do what this guy said I did or what he's accusing me to have

5:50 done and He's going on and he's saying Lord I trust you To absolve me in this look at verse 6 Arise O Lord in your anger and Lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies. He's asking the Lord to respond in judgment which he talks about there at the end of verse 6 and He's basically putting this thing in the hands of the Lord.

6:22 He says arise Lord notice. He doesn't say I'm going to arise And you know, David was a warrior. And even while he was king, well, even before he was king, he had men at his disposal. If somebody got under his skin, he was not helpless to do something about it. And you'll remember he almost did, in a very unrighteous sort of a way, when a particular big -time sheep herder, or sheep owner rather, kind of rebuffed him when he sent some of his men to this guy to say, hey, it's sheep shearing time. It's a happy time. We've been out in the field with your shepherds watching over your sheep. We've made sure nothing happened, so why don't you send a little blessing our way?

7:12 And you remember that was the man, Nabal. Remember? And Nabal, who was a surly, mean old coot, sent a message back with David's men saying, essentially, forget it, buddy. You're not getting anything of mine. You'll remember what David did. He said to his men, strap on your swords, boys. We're going to go pay Nabal a visit. And you recall what happened. The Lord used Nabal's wife, Abigail, to intervene in the situation and make David aware of just what he was doing, which is what?

7:46 He was taking vengeance into his own hands, right? And Abigail came with this beautiful, very wise plea to him to say, this is not you, David. And this is not what you wanted. This is not how you want to solve your issues by taking matters into your own hands. Far be it from you to have this kind of bloodshed on your hands. And David listened. And he was like, you are exactly right.

8:12 Praise God for sending you here. Because had you not came and spoken to me right now, he said, I'm telling you, By tomorrow, not a man in Nabal's whole household would be alive. I was bent on conquest based out of revenge. And I see how wrong it was, and you stayed my hand. What's the word have to say on this in a further sense?

8:43 Let me show you. Romans 12, 19, the apostle Paul wrote, beloved, never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay says the Lord But he's not fast enough God takes too long What if I have to wait till the judgment to see this guy pay for his crime the dumb things we say it doesn't matter does it you know why it doesn't matter vengeance isn't yours it's his that's what he's saying in that quotation that Paul is is making their enrollments vengeance is mine this is God looking you and I in the face and saying this doesn't belong to you it belongs to me hands off boy that's hard isn't it when somebody attacks you I mean, when somebody is dragging your name

9:49 through the mud, saying things that are absolutely untrue about things that you said, or claim that you said, and you're like, you know, what in the world? What is going on with this person? And God's word says, do not avenge yourself. Don't do it. Don't avenge yourself. I love how David doesn't just stop there. He actually invites the Lord. To judge him he first he asked the Lord to judge his enemy look what he says in verse 8 The Lord judges the people's judge me O Lord according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me You might say well that kind of sounds like David's bragging a little bit No again David is not suggesting that he's a purely righteous man, and that he

10:36 has no sin what he's saying again is I'm not guilty of this charge I you know you I invite you Lord to judge me over these charges that have been made by this man falsely about me. I invite you to do that." And he even says, Lord, you are the one who tests the minds and the hearts of men. You are a righteous God. And furthermore, he says in verse 10, you're also my shield. And you save those who are upright. And David believed that in this particular instance, he was upright.

11:11 He believed and he knew he wasn't guilty. of what he's being accused of. And so he makes that claim, you know, in verse 11 again. God is a righteous judge, and he knows that God is going to take care of this situation. In verse 12, he says, if a man does not repent, God will wet his sword. And that word wet means to sharpen a blade or a tool. And he says he has bent and readied his bow. He has prepared for him his deadly weapons making his arrows fiery shafts referring to the judgment of the Lord and he says concerning the the wicked man Behold he conceives evil in fact even Gives us this word picture of him being pregnant with evil and then giving birth to lies And it's just lies that come out of his mouth In verse 15 he says this

12:09 man makes a pit And he ends up just falling into it himself. His mischief returns on his own head and so forth. And so David is now speaking of the futility, you know, of the evil man's ways, trapped by his own dealings. Why do you think he's saying stuff like this? He's reminding himself that what a man sows, so also shall he reap.

12:30 I don't have to be involved. I don't have to pull my sword out of its sheath and go out and hurt this man because he's hurt me. I don't have to. You know what? God is able to judge. God is able to deal with it. And you know what? These guys, they end up digging pits and falling into them themselves. So you know what? I'm going to let this thing play out. You know what else that takes? That takes faith too, doesn't it?

12:55 I'm going to let this thing play out. I'm going to have faith and trust God and let this thing just play out. And this guy, you know what? He's going to end up getting into trouble and it's going to be of his own making. I'm not going to worry about it. I know those are difficult words to live by. Maybe easy to say. One final passage to consider on this matter of leaving judgment to the Lord. Let me show you Proverbs chapter 24. Check this out. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles lest the Lord see it and be displeased and turn away his anger from him.

13:33 And this is the other side of the coin. So I say, Lord, I'm going to leave it to you. I'm just going to leave it to you, you take care of it, and then I actually live long enough to see the Lord take care of it. In whatever way, whether it's just letting him go through the natural process of sowing and reaping and falling into his own pit, or something else that the Lord judges, whatever. What does the Lord say here in Proverbs? Listen, when you see that happen, do not rejoice. God wants our hearts to be right.

14:04 We're not to mock and rejoice. in the hardship that befalls another, even if they've hurt us. Don't have a party and hoop it up and have a cake because your enemy went bankrupt or whatever. Why? It says the Lord will see it and be displeased and end up turning his anger away from your enemy. And the implication is turning it on you. You've been listening to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry. For the complete library of Pastor Paul's teaching and full transcripts, visit lifebibleministry .com. We hope today's teaching has encouraged and inspired you. We look forward to you joining us again as we continue our journey through the Scriptures.