Psalm 7 - The Song of Moses

I praise the Lord because He does what is right.  I sing praises to the Lord Most High. (vs 17).  With these words, David ends his psalm.  Isn't this really the end of all we can say?  Our sovereign God does what is right, whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not, whether we agree or not.  Only the God Most High, so much higher than we, has a bird's eye view of all the span of history.  He does not see time as it unfolds, but He sees all time at a glance.  He lives out of time and space, having created it for us.  Our fighting against it is ridiculous, our moving within it is salvation and purpose.  Don't wag your finger in the face of God telling Him He is not doing things right in your life.  Instead, surrender to the One Who has a dream for you that He has dreamed from before the beginning of time.  What could be better than that?  It will make your heart sing.

Praise prepares us for heaven.  I know.  My kids have said when they were younger that being in heaven sounds boring.  Just floating around playing harps and singing for...for...well, for forever!  They wanted it to end before it even began!  Though we don't know all that God has planned for us, we have pictures of it from His Word.  There is food.  There is purpose and peace.  There are gardens and a beautiful river.  Streets glow like transparent gold and precious jewels glint in the golden rays of light created by the God of heaven, as He is all the light needed.  Millions of angels dwell there, and they are constantly singing and praising the One Who sits on the throne. Their thunderous voices pulsate as the strains of their song wafts through the air.  Thunder and lightnings emanate from the throne which is bathed in emerald light. The Lamb Who was slain from the foundations of the world, our Jesus, sits on the throne.  He is the culmination of all history as God planned it - the very heart of God made manifest to us. 

Central to everything is the Most High God.  The judge.  He is interested in only one thing as we stand before Him on that day.  What did we do with Jesus?  The Lamb.  Our sacrifice.  His heart.  Because in His great mercy, God became man and dwelt among us.  If we shunned that death, we are doomed.  God in this act of self-sacrifice did not do what was just - He did what was merciful.  He made us right by taking on our punishment.  So, with David, we can sing praises to the God who does what is right - the God who makes things right.  He wields the rod of justice only against those who stubbornly refuse Him.

Those in heaven, with harps given them by God, will sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb:
You do great and wonderful things, Lord God Almighty.  Everything the Lord does is right and true, King of the nations.  Everyone will respect You, Lord, and will honor You. Only You are holy. All the nations will come and worship You because the right things You have done are now made known.(Revelation 15)  On the day when I know even as I am known, maybe I won't even care to understand all I cannot fathom now because He will be there, wrapped in emerald splendor, thundering His love for me.

Psalm 7 - A Little Piece of Robe

Psalm 7 is a shiggaion.  Yes, I wondered about that word, too.  It is derived from the word that means either to err or to wonder.  It can also mean wild or ecstatic.  A shiggaion is a highly emotional poem meant to stir up the emotions.  Think of David singing this psalm.  Here is the story behind it.

King Saul has been jealous of David since Samuel declared he would replace Saul as king.  So, even though David has been a part of the king's household and best friends with Jonathan, the king's son, Saul wants to kill David, thwarting God's plan for both of their lives.  David was not only mighty in the killing of Goliath, but has outnumbered the king in his conquests ever since.  So the story of the shiggaion unfolds from the day that David and his strongmen are in a cave in En-gedi when Saul, who has been told where David is, arrives with three thousand men to kill him.  Certainly not a fair man-a-man fight!  Alas, Saul has to go to the restroom, and turns into the very cave where David and his men are living.  The men are ecstatic!  They urge David to kill Saul and take the throne today!  David sneaks up on Saul....get the picture, because Saul is on the toilet, so to speak.....and, sword in hand, David cuts off a piece of Saul's robe then creeps back to his men.  Incredulous, David's mighty men are nonplussed that he comes back with a bit of royal apparel instead of the head of the man in the head.  David's reaction: Guilt.  Guilt that he even cut off a piece of the robe of the man God had appointed as king.

So, David runs out of the cave after Saul.  Listen to what he calls out to his king:  "My lord, the king!"  When Saul looked back, David bowed his face to the ground and honored him.  David said to Saul, "Why do you listen to the words of those who say 'David seeks to do you harm'?  This very day you have seen how the Lord gave you into my hand in the cave; and some urged me to kill you, but I spared you....See, my father, see the corner of your cloak in my hand; for by the fact that I cut off the corner of your cloak and did not kill you, you may know for certain that there is no wrong or treason in my hands.  I have not sinned against you though you are hunting me to take my life. May the Lord judge between me and you!  May the Lord avenge me on you, but my hand shall not be against you....Against whom has the king of Israel come out?  Whom do you pursue?  A dead dog? A single flea?  May the Lord therefore be judge, and give sentence between you and me.  May He see to it , and plead my cause and vindicate me against you."

I am amazed by the power of what David said to King Saul.  So was Saul.  He limped away with his three thousand men carrying home the affirmation that David was indeed the "better man" for having spared his life.  Saul's goose was cooked because David got out of the way and let God deal directly with his enemy.  That is scary.....for Saul.  And the king knew it.  David had seen the King squatting in a cave at a most vulnerable moment and had done the honorable thing.  How do you think Saul told his troops about that?  They knew he had gone to the cave to "relieve himself" and come out a bit short of a robe with his enemy calling after him then falling prostrate in honor of the king's position. Once again David had humiliated Saul.  That might have been worse than death, for this young shepherd-turned-warrior had a call on his life that King Saul could not fight.  It is the ultimate vanity to kick against what God has planned. 

The call on your own life will save you from the enemy, too.  Called to be a child of God, protected with the shield of favor.  That is why you do not have to exact revenge.  Get out of the way because God knows everything, including hearts, and His judgments are right.  As Jonathan Edwards said, it is a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of an angry God, and injustice makes Him angry. 

Psalm 7 - What Goes Around.....

Has your best friend said this to you?  Don't worry.  What goes around comes around.  Mine has.  It is more than karma, you know. David tells us this in Psalm 7:  There are people who think up evil and plan trouble and tell lies.  They dig a hole to trap others, but they will fall into it themselves.  They will get themselves into trouble; the violence they cause will hurt only themselves. 

I like the picture this paints.  Let's call her Sally Jean.  She is mean and spiteful.  Why doesn't matter so much in this scenario, so don't ask.  It is her great joy to destroy so she finds a road you might travel down today and goes before you with her shovel.  As the sweat pours down her lovely face, she digs her heart out so that when you walk by unaware you will fall in and be trapped.  She got you!  She got you good!  You did get tripped up by her evil scheme, but you did not fall in.  You have a God who saved you from the pit.  But Sally Jean, in her reeling backward from the surprise of your salvation, found herself falling deeply into the mess she made.  Maybe not today, but unless she changes her heart, she will be eating the dirt of her own destruction.

God protects me like a shield (David loves this image). He saves those whose hearts are right.  God judges by what is right, and God is always living in indignation, ready to punish the wicked. IF they do not change their lives, God will sharpen his sword; He will string His bow and take aim.  I love that big IF from this psalm.  He waits, our God, for the IF.  He lives in indignation and why wouldn't He.  Take a look at Sally Jean (her legs are waving in the air as she struggles in her pit) and wonder at her heart.  She wanted you dead!  She plans evil all the time.  She deserves to get what she dishes out!  But God will save her IF she will call out to Him.  Chances are she won't, but I hope I am praying for her.  Aren't you?

Jesus tells us not to judge others or we will be judged with the same measuring line. (Matthew 7:1)  So what do we do with Sally Jean?  We know what she does.  We cannot help that.  We are indignant, too, that she would treat others with such cruel intentions.  But it is not ours to send her to hell for it.  We are wiser about her, but we leave her punishment to Him who knows our hearts. Because if she changes, if she gets tired of the pit before God gets tired of her squirming, scheming life, she will be our sister for all eternity.

Psalm 7 - Here Comes the Judge

The woman is trembling before the judge as she rises for her verdict.  He is sitting, robed in his long black garments, his eyes taking her in as she stands vulnerable before him.  All he has is the evidence against her.  He has legal precedence to which he can refer.  But he was not there when she committed her crime.  He did not see her do it.  And she has not confessed - told all to the court.  She must abide by the sentence the judge hands down regardless of why she thinks she does not deserve so harsh a judgment.

One day we will all stand up and face the Judge.  Only this Judge was there at every turn of our lives and He not only saw our actions, He saw our hearts.  This Judge knows our minds - what we were thinking when we did what we did.  It is our heart this Judge has been interested in all along.  He knows it better than we do.

It is to Him that David appeals in Psalm 7. In verse 6, David pleads with God to "Get up!  Stand up from Your throne and declare a righteous judgment!"  Get up and demand fairness. Gather the nations around You and rule them from above....God, You Who do what is right.  You know our minds and hearts.  Stop those wicked actions done by wicked people, and help those who do what is right. 

There are those who think God's place as judge is heavy-handed and overbearing.  Yet these same people cry for justice when they see the oppressed.  There is evil in this world.  Look now at Somalia and Darfur.  Look back at Hitler.  Horrible things have even been done in the name of Christ, but not with His approval. We all have an idea of what justice looks like.  God is Justice.  We only understand it because of Him. But the most impressive thing about God's justice is that He prefers mercy.  So much so that He came as sacrifice for all of our wrongs so that He could judge us right.  Heavy-handed?  Cruel?  Let that argument die here.  He died for us while we were still sinning.

In the Psalms, judging is most often used to cry out to God for salvation for those oppressed by the wicked who are defined as those who have willfully turned away from God.  It is wanting God to put things right again.  When the wicked rule, things go terribly out of kilter.  Only God can judge them rightly and destroy their works.  And He should, says David, because they kill the innocent.

Here is what the Lord says about this from the book of Jeremiah:
A curse is placed on those who trust other people, who depend on humans for strength, who have stopped trusting the Lord. They are like a bush in a desert that grows in a land where no one lives, a hot and dry land with bad soil.  They don't know the good things God can give. But the person who trusts the Lord will be blessed.  The Lord will show them that He can be trusted.  He will be strong like a tree planted near water that sends its roots by a stream. It is not afraid when the days are hot; its leaves are always green.....More than anything else, a person's mind is evil and cannot be healed.  No one truly understands it.  BUT, I, the Lord, look into a person's heart and test the mind.  So I decide what each one deserves.  I can give each one the right payment for what he does.

The Judge does not curse the person who walks away from Him.  Her life is cursed because she has cut herself off from her Source.  She stopped wanting to live by the stream.  Therefore, she lives in a desert of her own making and she is left alone in a barren place.  God wants to show that He can be trusted to look at our hearts and judge them fairly because He knows them.  It is our hearts He wants now and has wanted always.  Remember when Samuel was looking at all the sons of Jesse trying to discover which one would be the next king?  He looked at the handsome Eliab and was wowed by his kingly appearance.  But God said no. "Man looks on the outward appearance.  I look on the heart."  It was a teenaged shepherd boy that God had his eye on.  A kid with a heart after God's.  That is all this judge wants.  A heart that yearns to know Him.  Your life will not be perfect.  But Your God is.  Let Him show you that He can be trusted to make you like a tree planted in a lush forest near a stream of living water.

Psalm 7 - Like a Lion

Psalm 7 is a song of David sung to the Lord about his enemy, Cush, who was from the Jewish tribe of Benjamin.  That is about all we know here.  The tribe of Benjamin was King Saul's tribe, so perhaps this relative of the former king was chasing after David relentlessly.  David's reaction:  Lord, my God, I trust in You for protection.  Save me and rescue me from those who are chasing me.  Otherwise, like a lion they will tear me apart.  They will rip me to pieces, and no one can save me. (vs 1-2)

Ever felt ripped to pieces?  Ever had someone come at you with the intent to destroy your reputation or even your life?  On the day after the ten year anniversary of 9/11, it seems appropriate to speak of our enemy and his defeat.  David's enemy, and ours, is out to kill us...not simply bite us on the hand.  Defense is the proper reaction to the onslaught of attacks that are inevitable for a Christian.  Be alert and self-controlled. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him!!! Standing firm in your faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of sufferings. (I Peter 5:8)

Hope you aren't laughing, thinking how silly the talk about the devil is.  He is as real as Al Qaeda and just as determined to ruin you.  The thief comes only to steal, to kill and to destroy. (John 10:10)  What happens to the warrior who doesn't see the battle?  She is cut down before she has even raised her sword.  Maybe things aren't always what they seem.  Perhaps the enemy is greater than the woman next door who gossips about you incessantly or the woman who stole your husband.  Your enemy aims for the heart because once you lose your hope in God, the devil can take you almost anywhere. Doesn't even need to physically kill you because you are dead inside already.  Be alert. 

Our enemy doesn't seem to really be a lion.  He is like a lion, growling and ominous, coming our way to scare us into submission lest he eat us alive.  But being like a lion is not being one.  The thrilling thing about being a Christian is that we can stand our ground because in our lives this enemy has already been defeated.  We just need to know that.  Would you be so afraid of a lion without any teeth?  Our enemy is not a cartoon lion.  He is real.  But he is powerless when we are armed.  At His cross, Jesus ended the rule of Satan over those who believe.  He canceled the debt which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross. God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority. With the cross, he won the victory and showed the world they were powerless. (Colossians 2: 14-15)

So, put on the whole armor of God so that you CAN fight against the devil's evil tricks because our fight is not against people on this earth but against the rulers and authorities and powers of this world's darkness, against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly world.  Then on the day of evil you will be able to stand strong. And when you have finished the whole fight,  you will still be standing! (Ephesians 6)

Psalm 6 - My Life Is Not My Own

Psalm 6 is one of six that are described as penitential....David knew, in other words, that he brought his troubles on himself and he is begging God to restore him to the close relationship he used to have....before he sinned and made God angry.  Sin separates us from God.  Have you ever felt what that is like?  I have.  It is miserable to feel the gut-wrenching ramifications of your own willful choices.  And I was a Christian when I sinned thus.  A child of a Father who was not going to let me get away with it.  Lots of tears.  Curled up in a fetal ball of pain wrenching out my repentance.  Best never to go there, but if you have, you know that the Father will let you feel the full force of it so that you never want to make that choice again.  Tough love.  Why?

Your life is not your own.  That's why.  You were bought with a price.  You are loved too much and your destiny too priceless to let you take it to some gutter and squander it.  Rescue can feel like hate when you don't want it.  When you don't know you are running as fast as you can to the edge of a cliff that will kill you and someone spoils your fun, it makes you mad.  I think I have been spared more trips over the edge than I even know about. 

But David is in mourning over his sin.  His relationship with his God is so important that he laments over the separation from Him as he would mourn the loss of a lover.  When his God has restored David, he knows the mouths of his enemies will be shut.  What have they been saying?  "I thought he was a Christian!  Ha!  Look what he did."  That is probably why God is so angry, too.   We have dragged His Name into our mess.  It cannot be helped because we bear His name.  Nothing for us and David but to get up, trust in the goodness of God, and try again to wear His glory better, walking forward on wobbly feet and uncertain ground toward all God dreamed for us before He made the world.  That is what we walked (ran) away from in our willfullness....His thrilling plans for our lives.  So, get up and get back to the joy of discovery.  Then your enemy will be routed.

Jeremiah prayed (ch. 10):  I know, Lord, that a man's life is not his own;  it is not for man to direct his steps.  Correct me, Lord, but only with justice  - not in Your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing.
Of course, God's anger could blow us up.  He is God!  But His hope is to correct us, not destroy us.  He loves us enough to stand in our way when we wander aimlessly or run willfully in the wrong direction.  I often pray:  "Lord, do not let me get away with anything that makes You angry.  Stop me quickly."  You see, I hated the cringing season of repentance and never want to be on that bed of pain again.  My other prayer:  "Never let me forget what that feels like."  I know in His correction there is also direction because in our lives there is only PLAN A.

Psalm 6 - Future Rescue

David believes God has heard his cries even before God actually answers his prayers!  Now that is a novel idea, huh?  That we would have enough faith after our crying out to God to pronounce to our enemies..."LOOK OUT!"  My bed is soaked with tears, my eyes are sore and tired from my sobbing, my bones ache from anxiety, but I have prayed and I have been heard and my God will answer.

Away from me all you who do evil, for the Lord has  heard my weeping.  The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer.  All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish; they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame. (vs. 8-10)  David did not call on God in hope that He exists.  This was not a foxhole prayer, though our God hears those, too.  This anxious prayer of David was delivered to the sovereign God of everything by a man who knew the heart of his Creator.  It is quite simple actually:  I have prayed.  God has heard.  God has sent the answer. 

This is God's message, the God who made the earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as God:  "Call to me and I will answer you.  I'll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own." (Jeremiah 33:3)   This is a promise you can take to the bank.  You call.  He answers.  So simple a child can understand.  Yet so complex.  He will tell us things we could not possibly understand lest He reveals them to us.  The sovereign God reaches to us in  order to have a conversation with us about life.  Can you sit still for that?  Can you wait throught the how long? of your prayers to hear Him talk to you about what He is doing? 

Remember Daniel (Daniel 10) had prayed for understanding, but his answer was delayed.  He waited three weeks while a heavenly battled ensued over his request.  An angel ultimately enters Daniel's room, touches him, and his presence is so radiant that it sends Daniel, shaking from terror, to his hands and knees.  The first words out of the mouth of that angel, though, are:  "Daniel, God loves  you very much."   Even now that makes me tear up.  Daniel's prayer was not answered immediately, so God first and foremost wants His child to know that it is not because he is not loved.  There are other things going on that Daniel cannot see.  "Since the first day you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them, " the angel continued. 

Maybe you have not had an angel tap you on the shoulder with the answers to your prayers recently.  But make no mistake about it, your prayers are heard by a Father who can turn your mourning into dancing and give you comfort and joy instead of sorrow (Jeremian 31).  Jesus told his disciples right before he died on the cross that He will not have to ask the Father for us since the Father Himself loves us because we have loved Jesus and believed He came from God.   Prayer not immediately answered is not a sign that God does not love you or that there is no God anyway.  Don't let the enemy tell you those lies.  Know you are heard by a Father who loves you very much and that your answer is on the way.  Walk in the confidence that the Almighty God can fight everything in heaven and on earth to get your answer to you!