Psalm 7 - Irish Boy Bands and Vengeance
Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of Tabernacle Talk, special to me at least. But today, when this episode comes out, it is my birthday. And I can't think of a better way to kind of start off the day than with you all studying God's Word.
And the Psalm that we're going to, the portion of scripture that we're going to look at today is Psalm 7. And this is actually one of the passages of scripture that I've written a song from.
I've written songs from a couple of the Psalms, Psalm 31, 32, 7, 23, 62, 124, and maybe a couple of others. I'm not, by any means, like a great songwriter, but I have written probably about 30 to 35 songs, some of which should never see the light of day, because they just either musically or lyrically were not it. There's a couple of ones that have been sung in churches, both in my own churches and then my own church, and then some in other circumstances. I mentioned last episode, oh, I might try singing it at the end of the episode. I managed to get just a little bit of a sinus something, and so I was like, eh, I'll wait for some other time. Maybe I'll upload something to Tabernacle Baptist Church's YouTube, when I get to feeling a little bit better and can do a better job of it.
Today, we're looking at another Psalm of David, and the inscription for Psalm 7 says this, Shigeyon of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite. A Shigeyon is a dithyrambic rhythm. It's a wild, passionate song.
When I think of wild, passionate songs, I always think of like, on the one hand, like Irish music is very rowdy, and I can think of that as a wild, passionate song. I've enjoyed the music from the High Kings.
I don't know if many of you have ever heard of the High Kings and heard their music back in high school, and really, really enjoyed just their beautiful harmonies and the great instruments and all of that that they had.
I can kind of see maybe they might do this particular psalm. They might have the kind of music that David wanted for this thing. The specific circumstances surrounding the writing of this psalm, David writes it about Cush, a Benjaminite.
The Benjaminite, the family, the tribe of Benjamin, would be that the former king, King Saul, came from.
And his family really had it out for David, despite David's love for Jonathan, despite David's obedience and submission and respect and love for Saul. Saul's family really kind of had it out for David, did not trust him at any point.
And you can read all throughout first and second Samuel at how they interacted with David. And in these circumstances, it was David being accused of wrongdoing, of him being attacked for who God had made him to be and who God had set him aside to be.
It wasn't David had done wrong by Saul in this instance, or David had done wrong by this person. There's plenty of things that David did mess up, but in this particular instance, David's being attacked by someone else, and it's not justified.
To be truthful with you, there's only been like a time or two in my life where that has happened, where someone has kind of gone after me, and I couldn't let go. Okay, well, this person is just crazy. Or that I could do that.
There's only been a few times in my life where someone has accused me of something, and I was like, no, like that's completely not the case.
Most of the time, if someone's like, hey, you're being a jerk, or hey, you should have done this, or hey, you should have done that, they're completely right. Here, David is in a circumstance that maybe many of you have been at.
Maybe there's someone in your family, someone in your job that they kind of have it out for you.
Maybe it might be something in their soul that they're really wrestling through and just they kind of lash out at others and demean others or attack others. And maybe you've been in this situation that David is currently in.
Verse number one of this Psalm, Oh Yahweh, my God, in you I have taken refuge. Save me from all those who pursue me and rescue me, or he will tear my soul like a lion, dragging me away while there is no one to rescue me.
Oh Yahweh, my God, if I have done this, if there is injustice in my hands, if I have done evil to my friend or have plundered my enemy for no reason, 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 Yahweh, in your anger, raise yourself against the rage of my enemies and stir yourself for me. You have ordered judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples encompass you and return on high over it.
Yahweh judges the peoples. Vindicate me, Yahweh, according to my righteousness and my integrity that is in me. Please let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous.
For the righteous God puts hearts and minds to the test. My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge and a God who shows indignation every day.
If one does not repent, he will sharpen his sword. He has bent his bow and taken aim. He has also prepared deadly weapons for himself.
He makes his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, an evil person is pregnant with injustice, and he conceives harm and gives birth to lies. He has dug a pit and hollowed it out and has fallen into the hole which he has made.
His harm will return on his own head, and his violence will descend on the top of his own head. I will give thanks to Yahweh according to his righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of Yahweh Most High.
So here in this Psalm, this is kind of another one of those justice type Psalms.
And here, David is taking a hard look at his own life, and he's taking a hard look at the accusations of others around him, and calling for God to work, that we can sometimes excuse away justice being done, or the right thing being done in this
situation, punishment being levied out where it needs to be levied out, because we, in a good way, like God, want to be forgiving. We don't want to see people punished.
However, there is a great truth that if we do not allow people to suffer the consequences of their own actions, then they will never grow. They will never become any better than they currently are. There's the old saying, burnt hand learns best.
And it's not until that disobedience in touching a hot stove or in touching the fire, it's not until that happens that that child really goes, oh, I should never ever touch the oven again. I should never ever touch the stove again.
And here David is praying for the repercussions of Cush's actions to be levied against him. They're at the very end of the Psalm. His harm will return on his own head, and his violence will descend on the top of his own head.
He's saying what he has tried to put on me, the accusations, the hurts, the punishments that he has tried to put on me and others, may those things fall back on him. It's kind of the boomerang thing of you try and hurt someone with it.
I realize that if you're good with a boomerang, you can actually hurt people with a boomerang. But, you know, I'm thinking like Wile E.
Coyote, that if he chucks a boomerang, you know it's not hitting Roadrunner, and it's coming right back and smacking the coyote. So those are the things that he's praying over. Let's look at a couple of these verses shortly.
Here he's asking God to save him. He says that he is taking refuge in God, and he looks at his soul. He gives lots of fun kind of word pictures there in verse number two.
He talks about a lion that will tear him apart and drag him away. Down in verse number 14 and 15, he says an evil person is pregnant with injustice. He conceives harm and gives birth to lies.
That kind of from the beginning to end, there is in an evil person, they conceive harm. They think ill of another person. They do not want the best for someone else.
They go, oh, I wish that they would suffer. And he says, and then they want suffering for other people. Then it becomes injustice of, okay, I'm going to act on this.
And it's not that I am seeking justice across. Like, it's described as injustice that I'm going to do wrong. I'm going to take advantage of.
I'm going to steal. I'm going to demean. I'm going to any number of things.
There's that injustice. And then it births itself in lies that are spoken, lies to get away with evil, lies to bring about evil. Verse number 12 and 13 talking about God.
When a person does not repent, when they aren't turning to God, there is justice that God brings, that he sharpens his sword. He's bent his bow and taken aim. He's prepared deadly weapons for himself.
He has his arrows are flaming arrows. Obviously, God doesn't have an actual physical sword or a actual flaming bow and arrow here. It's a word picture that David is using to go, Hey, God is a mighty warrior.
And if you are trying to take advantage of other people, then you can be completely assured that God's justice will come. And God's justice looks like you getting what you tried to deal out to others.
I think it's so interesting that whole section of God's justice and his power is predicated by the very first part of verse 12. If one does not repent, when we repent, even those that were unjust, that were flawed, can be forgiven.
I think of King Ahab, who's mentioned in scripture as one of the most wicked kings in all of Israel's history, which is saying a lot because there are a lot of terrible kings, and Ahab was one of the worst of them.
However, when God announced to Ahab that he was going to wipe out Ahab's line, that the kingdom was going to be taken away from his descendants, Ahab repented with dust and ashes. He went, okay, like God is correct in this, and I have been wrong.
And when he did that, God postponed the punishment. I think of King Hezekiah, that he was sick, he was sick, he almost died, and he prayed to God, and God gave him, I forget the exact amount, I think it might have been like 15 more years of life.
When we call on God, when we repent, even our worst sins are forgiven. And what an incredible thought that is.
If you go and commit a crime today, and then you're brought before a judge, the judge, no matter how much you say, I'm really sorry, I repent, I'm not going to do it again.
He's going to levy out the punishment regardless of your repentance or your sorrow. He might give you an easier sentence, he might give some things for parole, but he's not just going to wipe it away.
God, when we repent, has already met out all punishment, all justice has been poured out on Christ Jesus himself on the cross. And so because of that, it's not just that he's like, oh, that was just a big oopsie, and I'll just wipe that away.
No, no, sin is serious, and sin is so serious that Christ had to die in our place because of our sin, that he voluntarily took our punishment. But when we repent, we can have our sins completely wiped away and forgiven forever through what Jesus did.
I think verse 3 is interesting. There's kind of an introspection here of David.
He says, Yahweh, my God, if I have done this, if there is injustice in my hands, if I have done evil to my friend, have plundered my enemy for no reason, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it. Let him trample my life to the ground.
Lay my glory in the dust. Here he has a very real thought. It's not God, like, let me get away with stuff.
He says, God, if this is true, then I know what I deserve, and God, let it happen to me.
I think there's an honesty here, like a God genuinely search me, show me who I really am, not just who I imagine myself to be, but there is a thought in here of, okay, I know I haven't done this. He says, God, like, bring justice if I did.
Are you willing to ask God to bring justice into your life if you really have messed up? That's a very mature way to think. It's how David thinks here.
I think we would do well to mimic that. But him knowing, okay, I haven't done this, then results in verse 6. So rise, Lord, in your anger.
Raise yourself against the rage of my enemies. He says, there's this, like, overwhelming attack that's coming from these people. And he says, God, like, get frustrated about it.
Like, stand up. Be at the ready. He says, stir yourself for me.
You have ordered judgment. He says, God, like, I need you to stand for me. I can stand for me, but it's not going to do nearly as much as if you are on my side.
If you are the one pouring back the judgment, back the evil onto their heads. Many times we want to be the ones to justify ourselves, that we want to make everyone think well of us.
And while certainly we shouldn't live in such a way that we're constantly bringing reproach on ourselves, I think sometimes we need to remember the words of Romans 12, where the Apostle Paul told the Romans, hey, like, don't seek your own vengeance.
Instead, realize God will make everything right in the end. Allow God to be the one that vindicates you.
One of the greatest testimonies that I've seen from pastors is when they've been attacked and they've been maligned by people who really just kind of had an axe to grind that it wasn't anything substantive.
One of the things that I have really appreciated in seeing in some pastors is a faithfulness to just go, I'm going to let them just keep on, like, raging.
I'm going to let the Chihuahua bark because I know, like, I'm right with God, genuinely, not in a, no one can tell me anything, but in a genuine way that would say, like, I know I'm right with God.
I know the decisions that I've made are because of my love for God and people, and so I know I can't make everyone happy, so I'm just going to keep on plotting along.
And kind of that faithful, not constantly bickering with people, I have seen do some incredible things in the hearts of people that they go, oh, okay, maybe I'm wrong, because I see how this person is reacting to my attacks, and it's not really
affecting them. They are just continuing on in their service for the Lord and serving people, and I think that's something that all of us could hope to emulate in some way, that we wouldn't be so quick to justify ourselves, but kind of allow our
lives to justify us, allow God to be the one that is fighting for us and calling on him. Many other things we could say, but I'm already a little bit over on time as it is.
As we look at this chapter, I see that we need to give our relationships and specifically our relationship conflicts to the Lord, that we need to call out to him, not be so quick to even heap attacks on other people.
Here, David's thought is, okay, God, if they're pouring out stuff, just have it pour back on them. He doesn't say, help me to destroy them, help me to get rid of Kush, the Benjaminite.
Instead, he just says, okay, God, if I am wrong, let me be punished for it. But if I'm not in the wrong, you vindicate me, you be my shield, you be the one that redirects the attacks.
Because God, I know that you're just, and I know that you are the mighty warrior who will fight for me.
And maybe if you felt attacked in a relationship, a friendship, a job, a coworker or a boss relationship, pray and ask God to be your vindicator, to be the warrior on your behalf that you wouldn't fight against people, but you would allow God in His
infinite wisdom to be the one that fights your battles. Thanks for tuning in today and hope that this would be a challenge to you. I know it was a challenge to me today.
Am I trying to fight my own battles or am I allowing God to fight his battles, God to fight my battles for me? So see you tomorrow as we dive into Psalm 8, which is another one of my favorites. Thanks for watching.
