Show Notes
Psalm 7
Pastor David Schexnayder
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] To you, and we come to your word. You have told us that it is living and active, and that as you have sent your word upon this earth, it will not return to you void, but will accomplish that purpose for which you have sent it. You told us, O Lord, what you desire to do with your word. You desire to put faith in our hearts that we might not be shaken. So we pray that you illuminate us in our inner being, that we might believe your words more as you cry out in another one of your psalms. Oh, that my people would listen to my word work in our hearts, that we would listen to you tonight. And then, of course, O Lord, we pray that you would show us Christ, for he said to us that those who search the Scriptures search for life. But it is the Scriptures that speak of him, and so give us eyes to see and ears to hear of Jesus your Son, our Savior, that we would find the fullness of faith in him, and that we would have assurance and obedience in his name. Do these things for your people in Jesus holy name. Amen.
[00:01:00] Let's turn together to Psalm 7, which is the basis of the sermon tonight.
[00:01:05] The seventh Psalm, Echigeion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush, a benjaminite Psalm 7.
[00:01:16] Please give your attention to the reading of God's holy, inerrant, inspired, and infallible word.
[00:01:25] O Lord, my God, in you do I take refuge.
[00:01:29] Save me from all of my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rendering it in pieces, with none to deliver.
[00:01:39] 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.
[00:01:58] Selah.
[00:02:01] Arise, O Lord, in your anger lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies.
[00:02:10] Awake for me. You have appointed a judgment.
[00:02:13] Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you over it. Return on high.
[00:02:19] The Lord judges the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.
[00:02:27] O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, that you may establish the righteous you who test the minds and the hearts. O righteous God.
[00:02:38] My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.
[00:02:42] God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day.
[00:02:48] If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword.
[00:02:52] He has bent and readied his bow he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.
[00:03:01] Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.
[00:03:07] He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.
[00:03:13] His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.
[00:03:19] I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord the most High.
[00:03:29] Amen.
[00:03:30] The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our Lord will surely stand forever. Please be seated.
[00:03:42] So suffering injustice is a human experience.
[00:03:46] Maybe it's the most human thing you can do in some ways is suffer. It's a well known experience, maybe the most well known human experience. It makes me think of. If we'd ask you, what's the most well known Bible story? I think people know of Jesus broadly.
[00:04:03] Truly the most well known story in the Bible is the story of David and Goliath. It gets referenced every time. Any kind of sports team beats another sports team they weren't supposed to beat. Anytime any situation is turned around, from bad to good, it's the David and Goliath story. So you're well known with it. Broadly. In the scriptures we know that David is introduced as a young ruddy man anointed by God. So. So David is God's anointed servant.
[00:04:29] Goliath the Philistine arrives covered in a suit of armor.
[00:04:34] Our Bible reads, they contend with each other. Eventually David picks up his stones, he slings them, and as recording the scripture, it sinks into Goliath's head and it kills him.
[00:04:45] I think how we read that passage will tell us a lot of how we deal with injustice and suffering.
[00:04:54] Surely the most common response to that suffering is pick up your stones and kill your giants. Maybe your giant is your boss. Five ways to make your boss respect you and give you a raise by Friday. Maybe Goliath is that neighbor you don't get along with. 5 Ways to Win over your neighbor. Maybe it's just your own heart, your own family, pick up your stones. Be faithful enough. Trust in God. David trusted God.
[00:05:15] Be faithful and slay your Goliath.
[00:05:18] Is that the way we deal with injustice?
[00:05:20] I hear that a lot from what passes for progressive modern Christianity to the point of Christianity is to make heaven on earth. It's not about what happens later. It's not about who did what and doctrine and that stuff just divides.
[00:05:31] That's the response to injustice, is to make heaven on earth, to put it on our shoulders. I wonder if that message feels heavy.
[00:05:39] It should.
[00:05:41] This is what it means to be a Christian. If I don't go out there and slay Goliath, if I don't fix the injustices, what am I supposed to do? But we also know that God doesn't care little about injustice. That can't be the response either. Oh, it's a historical story. It doesn't matter. Injustice, we can't fix it. Who cares? That can't be the answer either.
[00:05:59] So David wants to unpack for us in this psalm. How then, as God's faithful people, do we live in an unfaithful and dangerous world? Well, if you'll excuse me, I think the best way to unpack the sermon is, is with a pretty common way of explaining a concept. And so this is going to seem maybe a little bit banal, but when we think about injustice, we're going to do the common fivefold question. Who, what, when, where and why?
[00:06:24] That's usually how we introduce a subject. Again, it's maybe a little trite, but I think it's all present in Psalm 7. Who do we look to in injustice?
[00:06:34] What's the solution?
[00:06:36] When is it going to come?
[00:06:38] What am I supposed to do?
[00:06:40] And then why am I supposed to believe a single thing you're saying? Why is this the true answer?
[00:06:46] Well, Psalm 7 says that you have to start with who. Who should be the first question you ask when you run into injustice.
[00:06:55] And David says in Psalm 7, the who is God himself?
[00:06:59] Injustice cannot be understood rightly until the main character of your story is. And of every story is Yahweh himself. It's in the middle of The Psalm, verse 9. O righteous God.
[00:07:11] Righteous being the opposite of injustice.
[00:07:16] So who is the main character when we face injustice? The answer is the main character is God. This is for two reasons. David says, first, because God is the standard of righteousness.
[00:07:27] God does not merely make a righteous judgment. God is righteous, O righteous God. In verse 9, God is a righteous judge. In verse 11, the Bible says from beginning to end that there is no morality. There is no standard, there is no code. There is no sense of right or wrong without God himself, who is righteous. The book of Deuteronomy says it this way. Deuteronomy 32, verse 4. The rock.
[00:07:55] His work is perfect, for all of his ways are justice.
[00:08:01] What an interesting way of speaking.
[00:08:03] You might find people in your life that are very respectable sort of men and women who care about what's right and wrong. They live an upright life. And I don't think you'd say even of your most favorite neighbor or friend. All of his ways are justice.
[00:08:16] We don't talk about that way of humans, and we ought not to.
[00:08:21] Moses is saying in Deuteronomy that what God does, that becomes the definition of justice. Whatever God does is just, because God is just a God of faithfulness without iniquity, without any sin. And so the very standard of right and wrong is in God himself. Right is who God is, and wrong is that which is against God and his character.
[00:08:44] The psalmist picks this up.
[00:08:46] It's one of the most consistent psalms across the entire themes. Excuse me, across the whole of the book of Psalms, Psalm 89, 14.
[00:08:53] Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.
[00:08:58] Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. And so here the psalmist is saying that we define what's good by looking at God as he's enthroned, and anything that is good comes out from him.
[00:09:12] So injustice is not wrong because it makes me sad.
[00:09:17] That's important.
[00:09:18] The this is not to downplay sadness. We'll get to that.
[00:09:22] Injustice is defined by that which is against God's character.
[00:09:27] And if God is not your definition of righteousness, you will necessarily devolve to injustice. And unrighteousness is what makes me sad. And that might seem a little bit pejorative, but it's true. If God is not the objective standard of right and wrong, then I will supply one.
[00:09:44] And I will supply it through my subjective human experience.
[00:09:49] Boy, we've tried that, haven't we, the past several thousand years, and it's never quite worked out. The feelings and the wills and the changing emotions of humans have been so far unable to establish righteousness. So God is the who. He's the main standard because he's the source of righteousness. And then David also says in the psalm that God is the who in injustice, because God hates injustice. It's in verses six and eleven. Arise, O Lord, in your anger.
[00:10:18] And so we confess that just as God is love, God is wrath. God is anger against sin and against unrighteousness. We call this doctrine divine simplicity. God does not have parts that he has to switch into and out of, like clothing changes at a Broadway show. God is always, always angry at evil.
[00:10:39] He always hates injustice because that's what it means to love what is good.
[00:10:44] And that's the same parallel that David provides for us. God is a righteous judge, so he is the source of these things.
[00:10:51] But that means he's also a God who feels indignation Every day those things are necessarily connected. He is the source of what's good, but he always hates what's evil.
[00:11:02] It's never petty like our anger. It's never selfish like our anger. It's never misinformed. It's never disproportionate.
[00:11:10] He hates evil purely with purity.
[00:11:16] Psalm 5 says this. You are not a God who delights in wickedness and evil may not dwell before you. You can't even stand before your eyes. You hate all evil doers.
[00:11:25] Habakkuk deals with this theme often, right? The brokenness and anger of the world and our suffering in it. But even a book that wrestles with the deep things of injustice and the problem of evil, it describes God, this who are of purer eyes to see than evil. You cannot even look at the wrong.
[00:11:45] I want us to think about a painting in a museum. By way of illustration. We have a Monet at the Phoenix Art Museum. So if you're up in Phoenix, they have one. They don't have a lot. It's Phoenix, it's not Paris, but we have one. And it is unsurprisingly beautiful. It's wonderful to look at.
[00:12:04] And I've done many growing up in Phoenix. School trips. I've taken my kids there. You go through the Modern Art Museum. The kids see a banana taped to the wall. They're getting rowdy. This is silly. It's all very foolish.
[00:12:18] And then you finally get to the part where they have the Monet, they have a Degas, they have some genuine works of Marian beauty. And it's amazing how even middle school children get quiet.
[00:12:31] They don't need to be told that the painting is beautiful. They just don't.
[00:12:35] This idea that beauty is genuinely subjective is a silly, silly lie. These things are beautiful.
[00:12:44] But recently there's been a movement, I don't know if you've seen this, where people desire to protest whatever perceived injustice in the world by throwing paint or soup. For some reason I have not figured out why yet, there's probably not a good reason. They throw soup at this. These beautiful paintings.
[00:13:00] And although I think it's a despicable practice born of immaturity and self righteousness, the late, great R.C. sproul once said, very helpfully that in every protest movement, there's usually the seed of truth.
[00:13:11] There's something that's spurring them.
[00:13:13] And so if you get out of this sermon that you should travel to Phoenix and throw a painting of soup at that painting, that's not my fault. That's not what I'M saying.
[00:13:22] But I think those people in that moment are locking onto something really good.
[00:13:25] They want to bring attention to their injustice by calling out to what's beautiful in the first place, because they realize that the shadow is defined by the light and that we can't know what's wrong until we know what's truly good. And so their attempt to destroy these paintings is to attack what's beautiful, to say something beautiful is being destroyed.
[00:13:46] I think that's what David's trying to get through to us. We can't really know what's wrong and what's evil unless we know what's right.
[00:13:51] We can't have any real sense of actual injustice and where it comes from until we gaze upon the face of God first.
[00:13:59] And just like with those paintings, human beings know in their hearts that God exists and that he's just. So we, as Christians more than anyone else, should not have to be told that a Monet painting is beautiful.
[00:14:10] We should know that God is just. We should know that he's the source of righteousness. And he should be our first thought when we encounter injustice and evil in this world.
[00:14:19] Well, so then, okay, if we turn to God first, then what is he going to do about it? That's a fair question. It's a question that is asked across the Bible by Job, by David, by Habakkuk, by Isaiah.
[00:14:32] All right, God, if you're the answer, then what will you do about it? This is verses 7 through 12.
[00:14:39] Well, God has two solutions for this evil.
[00:14:44] And the solutions are pardon or punishment.
[00:14:47] And there is no other end to injustice except for it to receive a pardon or receive a punishment. Look at verse 12a. Verse 12 and 13 are challenging verses. They are aggressive. God is whetting. He is sharpening a sword to use it against evildoers.
[00:15:05] This is a promise of violence. It's quite severe. But even contained in it is an invitation for mercy. If the evil man does not repent, the wet and sword will come upon him. What does that necessarily imply?
[00:15:21] That if he does repent, against all odds, against all human wisdom, against everything we could have thought or hoped or dreamed, if the wicked man does repent, there is mercy in Yahweh.
[00:15:36] Ezekiel 18:23.
[00:15:38] Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?
[00:15:42] Would I not rather that he would turn from his way and live?
[00:15:48] Acts 17:30. This is an Old Testament truth and a New Testament truth. In times of ignorance, God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent.
[00:15:58] So what does God do with the evildoers because he is far more merciful and gracious than we could possibly begin to appreciate.
[00:16:07] He offers repentance.
[00:16:10] And so we know that when we encounter those who do wickedness and evil in this world, our first word for them would be to tell them of a way of escape.
[00:16:20] And this is even miraculously true for those who persecute the Church.
[00:16:24] What was God's solution for the injustice of the apostle Paul was to appear to him and ask him, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
[00:16:35] It's not hard for you to kick against the goads.
[00:16:38] Is that our heart as Christians?
[00:16:41] If our Lord's solution to injustice is to offer pardon to the evildoers, is that ever ours?
[00:16:48] Do we ever fervently pray even for those who persecute the church?
[00:16:55] Do we pray for evil and wicked men like Xi Jinping, who has persecuted our brothers and sisters in China for decades?
[00:17:04] Is our hope for the cessation of the persecution of Jesus Christ in China that Xi Jinping would repent and believe in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? Is it our fervent hope that one day we would see him numbered among the saints in heaven?
[00:17:20] Not just that our brothers and sisters would be spared, but that he would be spared from the sword that's coming? Because that is the other solution, and there is no other solution. In his excellent sermon, sinners in the hands of the Angry God, John Edwards says this. Every person who's ever lived has congratulated themselves that they are the first one to find another way of escape. They are the first one to escape the judgment that they know in their hearts is coming their way. This whole sermon is preached to from a very simple passage. Their foot stands in shaky places and it may yet slip.
[00:17:51] That's what David is saying here. God will wet his sword. He has bent and readied his bow. He has prepared for the evildoer his deadly weapons.
[00:18:00] God will act against it.
[00:18:04] Romans, chapter 2, verses 5 through 6. You are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed, and he will render to each one according to his works.
[00:18:17] So to be a Christian is to believe and not to deny, because it is unpopular in this time or in place, or perhaps because it's unpopular in your own heart.
[00:18:26] But a Christian cannot die, that God will punish the wicked.
[00:18:31] And there is a day prepared, the Scripture promises, where he will mete out punishment and judgment on fire, on the wickedness raised against him and against his truth.
[00:18:43] And the beautiful biblical illustration of this Is the city of Nineveh one city, one God.
[00:18:51] And in the book of Jonah, when this truth about injustice is proclaimed, which we'll get to as part of our job as well, to proclaim there is judgment coming for wickedness, Jonah is sent to tell that to Nineveh, to preach Psalm 7. In Nineveh, the Lord is sharpening his sword, and it is about to fall on this city for its wickedness. And fascinatingly, Jonah doesn't want to go tell that to Nineveh.
[00:19:15] And we think, why? Because he's afraid of these wicked people, that they'll hurt him.
[00:19:20] Jonah doesn't want to go to Nineveh because he knows that if they repent, God will forgive them.
[00:19:25] Jonah even repeats back accusatorily to God the very same promise God makes to Moses in Exodus, that Yahweh is a Lord, steadfast in mercy, compassionate and patient, slow to anger.
[00:19:37] Jonah repeats that to Yahweh, Yahweh, I don't want to go because they deserve punishment. But I know that if they repent, then you'll forgive them. That's exactly what happens.
[00:19:48] He preaches that there is repentance if they would but fall on their face, call their wickedness wickedness, and flee from it, flee to God. And so the king of Nineveh, and then the people of Nineveh after him, repent, and they're saved.
[00:20:04] Same God, same city. The Book of Nahum.
[00:20:09] But now they have chosen their wickedness. They have not repented. They have filled themselves up with evil. And so the Book of Nahum is God promising that this city will be wiped off the face of the earth. And if we're ever to doubt that there is punishment for wickedness, I would invite you to log onto your favorite travel website, Expedia Travelocity. Perhaps you're a kayak man.
[00:20:31] Look up flights to Nineveh.
[00:20:34] You will not find it.
[00:20:38] You won't find it on a plane route, you won't find it on a train route. You won't find it on a map. This is the surety.
[00:20:45] So we must believe, what will God do with wickedness? We must believe surely that he will pardon those who turn from it, but surely he will punish those who do not.
[00:20:55] Well, that's a solution, to be sure. If God offers pardon, those whom God sets free are free indeed. And those who God punished are punished indeed. So the next question is, when will he do it?
[00:21:07] How long, O Lord?
[00:21:09] How long?
[00:21:11] Through verses 14 through 16 of the Psalm, God's going to give two answers now and at the end, both are true.
[00:21:23] God will deal out his promised solution to injustice now and at the end.
[00:21:29] I'm speaking specifically of God's dealing with injustice by punishing it, by removing it, by judging it severely. That happens now.
[00:21:38] And we need to believe God's word more than our own experience. He conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.
[00:21:45] Amazing writing, by the way. The Bible is just beautiful.
[00:21:49] This picture, right, of sin begets sin begets sin. It conceives evil, is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. And we say, yes, Lord, I see that. I see the wicked prospering. I see sin abounding. I see it getting worse all the time in my city and in my nation. But then God makes a promise that the wicked man makes a pit, and then he falls into it, and the mischief that he has made returns upon his head.
[00:22:16] God has built moral order, and in his justice sin will destroy and consume itself.
[00:22:25] I do not mean to say right now that every wicked person receives immediate outward justice.
[00:22:31] But we must be assured, dear Christian, that even as evil corrupts and enslaves, it consumes those who practice it.
[00:22:41] The author of Proverbs prescribing wisdom in this fallen world says the Same thing, Proverbs 26:27. Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on the one who starts rolling it.
[00:22:53] This doesn't change in the New Testament times describing the brokenness of the world. Romans chapter one. Paul says, God gives them up to the lust of their hearts, to impurity, and it does not go well for them.
[00:23:04] So we believe that evil carries a judgment on itself now, but he will judge it with finality.
[00:23:13] Arise, O Lord, in your anger, for you have appointed a judgment. A judgment. David says Ecclesiastes 12:14.
[00:23:25] For God will bring every deed into judgment, every single secret thing, whether good or evil. As we Already referenced Acts 17:31, he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness.
[00:23:41] So as a Christian, even while we see that evil will consume itself, now we must accept that God's timing is not our own, but that his timing is perfect.
[00:23:51] It may tarry, but it's not late. Those are different things.
[00:23:55] And so our solution to evil must be trusting upon God's timing.
[00:24:01] And a biblical illustration of this is that wicked man, Haman.
[00:24:05] We see both happen to him in the book of Esther, as we were introduced to him early in this book. What does he have? And the answer is everything.
[00:24:13] Wealth and power. And sons and honor.
[00:24:17] Everything that the Jews lack as they're in captivity.
[00:24:21] Yet Hebrews 5:13. Sorry, Esther 5:13.
[00:24:25] Even as it lists all these things that Haman has because of his wickedness. What does Haman say about his wealth, his power, his sons, his honor?
[00:24:34] He says, I am miserable inside of myself.
[00:24:38] He is miserable in his inner being.
[00:24:41] That's what sin does.
[00:24:43] Outwardly, you may see joy on the face of the wicked, but I can tell you on the inside, it is destroying them.
[00:24:53] I can tell you. This is my own confession. As Chris said, I'm a friend of Tucson.
[00:24:57] I was telling him driving down as soon as I hit Tanka Verde, I get very wistful. This is where I went to college. I went to the University of Arizona.
[00:25:04] And this is where I found the Lord.
[00:25:07] I was not raised in a Christian household.
[00:25:09] The excesses of this world. High school football and running around with my friends, masked my sadness for four years. But to come down to college, to be on my own, I realized I was so deeply miserable that I couldn't even get out of bed often and make tests.
[00:25:25] I remember failing my English midterm 109H down at the University of Arizona. I couldn't even get out of bed because everything tasted like ash to me. I wasn't yet a Christian, but I was miserable. I may not look miserable at the parties I was going to, but this is true.
[00:25:42] But the question is, is there a day of judgment?
[00:25:46] And in Esther, 7, 9, 10, the very gallows that Haman built to hang Mordecai, one of the fathers of Israel, his enemy becomes the instrument of his own destruction.
[00:25:57] And a judgment comes for him as it comes for all men. It is appointed once the Scripture says, for all men to die and then to face judgment. And this is a truth written deep on our hearts, not just our own mortality, but that there will be a judgment and that justice will be meted out.
[00:26:15] So then, where do we go?
[00:26:17] If these things are true, if God is the main character, if his solution is either pardon or punishment, both now and on that last day, then where do we go?
[00:26:28] Oh Lord, my God, David says, in you do I take refuge. We go to God by doing two things. First, we trust what's true more than we trust our feelings. When we encounter injustice, we trust what's true. My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. It is the truth of God in his character that is the balm for David. Faith is not a vague optimism.
[00:26:56] This is why doctrine is a blessing to God's people. It does not divide God's people. False doctrine divides God's people. Just like false joy corrupts the heart. Just like false words destroy relationships, just like false honor destroys hope, false truth separates people. But the rightness gives us refuge.
[00:27:19] Trust what's true. God says as he said to our father Abraham in Genesis 15:1 Fear not, I am your shield.
[00:27:28] It's about who God is.
[00:27:30] Think about how similar I'm sure with Psalm 7 in his heart. Paul writes to the Ephesian Church in chapter six, in all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.
[00:27:44] Yeah, those darts are designed to hurt you and twist you. But by believing what's true about God, those are deflected away from us. So when we face injustice and suffering, we are wrongly maligned, wrongly persecuted. We trust what's true about God, but then we ask him to move.
[00:28:02] That's the main thing David does in this earth. God, do something.
[00:28:06] Save me from my pursuers. Arise and awake, O Lord.
[00:28:11] If you don't know David's heart, this can seem almost insulting. Is he saying God's asleep? No, but he's saying just as a man who was asleep gets up and does something. God, I want you to be active in your movement.
[00:28:24] Judge me, O Lord.
[00:28:27] Trusting God's sovereignty should never, ever, ever, ever produce passivity in God's people.
[00:28:35] The great J.I. packer in his book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God says this. He says, although there are great theological debates about the sovereignty of God in Calvinism, he says, at the end of the day everyone is a Calvinist. Everyone believes in the sovereignty of God.
[00:28:50] And we say to Reverend Packer, have you not met my friends?
[00:28:53] Have you not ever been on the Internet?
[00:28:55] I promise you people disagree about this issue. Even wonderful Christians who I love and respect say they don't believe in the sovereignty of God.
[00:29:03] To that Dr. Packer says, no, they believe in the sovereignty of God. And let me give you this evidence. They believe that God is sovereign.
[00:29:09] They pray.
[00:29:11] Why would anyone pray to a non sovereign God?
[00:29:14] Why would you ask God to help you if he was unable to do so?
[00:29:18] Psalm 115 God promises to us, I sit in the heavens and I do whatever pleases to me.
[00:29:25] And so the doctrine of who God is and his sovereignty is not passivity. We ask him to intervene because he has the power to do so.
[00:29:33] Psalm 35 contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me and fight against those who fight with me. The answer to injustice is not our combat but the Lord's.
[00:29:43] As Moses says in Exodus 15, the Lord is a man of war. He arises and he fights. Or, as Paul will say in Romans 12:19, Beloved, do not avenge it to do not avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.
[00:30:00] And so the more that we trust that God is in control and that he's sovereign is, the more we ask him to move, the more we beg him on our hands and knees. Lord, move and solve this issue for us. And there's this beautiful picture of it in Second Kings, chapter 19.
[00:30:17] King Hezekiah, Israel is under threat.
[00:30:22] They're going to be attacked by the wicked nations here through King Sennacherib.
[00:30:27] And Sennacherib sends this threatening letter that if we were to paraphrase it, probably sounds like something we've heard from the world.
[00:30:35] I'm coming for you. You think you're strong, you think you're good, but I'm judgment, and you're about to be swallowed up and destroyed.
[00:30:44] What does Hezekiah do?
[00:30:46] Does he weep and he mourn? Does he immediately muster the army and go out and attack?
[00:30:50] He goes in the temple and it says that he literally spreads the letter before the Lord.
[00:30:58] Now, Hezekiah is not confused that God can't see it until he shows him.
[00:31:03] But what a beautiful picture of faith to literally take the time to crease it out before God and say, God, look, I know you see me. I trust what's true, that you care about me. People, look at what they're saying and do something.
[00:31:25] Incline your ear, open your eyes, and save us. Those are the words of Hezekiah.
[00:31:31] This is a beautiful expression of faith that God honors. But for some reason we've convinced ourselves that we are being too bold when we do the very same thing, to lay our problems, to smooth them out before God and say, please look and please help me. That's honoring to God because it's an expression that we believe that what he said is true, that he cares about us. It honors God by believing what he said is true, that he will protect and shield and be a high tower for his people.
[00:31:58] To not spread things out for God is to call him a liar and to say, I know you've said that you love your Israel and you love your people, but I don't really think that's true. And so I won't give you this problem.
[00:32:11] There can be nothing more honoring to God than to bring our problems before him and to ask him to move on our behalf. Now here is the last question.
[00:32:20] Why?
[00:32:22] Why do I get to say these things?
[00:32:26] The psalm is full of God's judgment against evildoers.
[00:32:30] That leaves me with a big old problem.
[00:32:34] For who more foolish and evil than I?
[00:32:37] Again and again? I'm not saying this poetically. I'm saying this as David Scott Schecksnyder, graduate of the fine University of Arizona, husband to Ashley, father to four children.
[00:32:49] I am an evil man.
[00:32:52] I continually ignore the word of my Lord.
[00:32:55] I am slow to return to his mercy and repent of my sin.
[00:32:58] I am quick to anger and to foolishness. I am self righteous and vain. I give in to my greed and my lust and my pride and my anger.
[00:33:08] When I read Psalm 7, I find myself in it pretty quickly.
[00:33:12] And it's not the man who is righteous in his life and upright before the Lord. So how could I pray this?
[00:33:19] Well, since we're nearing the conclusion, let's go back to the beginning.
[00:33:25] Am I David?
[00:33:27] Is that how we read Psalm 7? I am David.
[00:33:31] Is that how we read First Samuel? I'm David. I gotta slay my Goliaths. I gotta make myself upright enough in heart to pray. Psalm 7.
[00:33:41] Well, Jesus talks about those who come to him pleading their righteousness, their own works.
[00:33:46] And he says to them, depart from me, you workers of sin. I never even known you.
[00:33:52] Who is David?
[00:33:53] How did we introduce him?
[00:33:55] At the beginning of this sermon we said that he's anointed.
[00:33:59] The word in Hebrew for anointed is mishayach, translated in English as Messiah.
[00:34:09] When Goliath shows up in First Samuel, our translation, and it's an acceptable translation, says that he is covered with a suit of mail.
[00:34:20] The word in Hebrew is keshkasim.
[00:34:23] And every other place that word appears, it means scales.
[00:34:29] It's the scales of Leviathan in Job and in Isaiah, when Pharaoh is compared to a serpent in Isaiah, it's kescasim.
[00:34:40] When there's a scaly serpent in Genesis, the word is kescassim.
[00:34:44] And then what does David's stone do?
[00:34:47] The very thing promised in Psalm 7, that the evil will crush the skull.
[00:34:52] David's stone in First Samuel sinks into Goliath's head and crushes his head.
[00:34:59] These are the things promised to Adam and Eve and their son Jesus Christ.
[00:35:04] When God says, I tell you that you will bear a son, and he will crush the serpent's head underneath his feet, David is Jesus.
[00:35:15] And so the man talking in Psalm 7 is Jesus.
[00:35:20] That's who's crying out to God.
[00:35:22] And here is the mind Blowing mercy is he's doing it for you.
[00:35:27] When we think of injustice, what's our normal problem? That our problem with injustice is rarely that good things happen to bad people. We like that. We. We're fine with good things happening to bad people.
[00:35:39] Our great cry of injustice is, oh, Lord, why do bad things happen to good people?
[00:35:45] And the answer in Psalm 7 is, that has happened exactly one time.
[00:35:50] And he did it willingly for you.
[00:35:53] In the words of one of our hymns, it was my sin that held him there.
[00:35:58] It was my anger and my pride and my sin and my lust and my greed and my vanity that ran those nails through his hands.
[00:36:06] But he did it willingly so that Psalm 7 might be for me.
[00:36:11] So deep was the desire of God to free me from this broken world.
[00:36:16] The Bible says that we are enslaved to this world, this kingdom of darkness. But God desired to save me from this kingdom of darkness and its brokenness and injustice. And he desired to save me from it so much that His Son was willingly suffered everything in Psalm 7 so that he might deliver me from it, that I am the wicked man. But Jesus became the wicked man for me. So why, what's. The first point is imputation.
[00:36:42] That's why Psalm 7 is for me, because it's for Jesus. But in his grace and mercy, through faith, Jesus takes my sin and imputes it to himself.
[00:36:52] 2nd Corinthians 5:21. And then the righteousness spoken of in Psalm 7, I am upright in my heart. I have never done anything wrong. That's Jesus.
[00:37:01] But then by grace, through faith, he imputes that to me.
[00:37:04] So that's what God sees when I pray to Him.
[00:37:07] Brothers and sisters, to quote our Father Martin Luther, if you think when you pray to God, God looks on you with anger, then you are looking at him wrongly.
[00:37:16] Because when he looks at you, he sees his beloved, righteous, upright, Holy Son, and not as a trick, because he's the One who sent His Son to be that for you.
[00:37:25] You can pray Psalm 7 because Jesus is praying it for you.
[00:37:30] This is what he tells to Peter. He says, peter, Satan, he's trying to claim you, but he can't have you, because I prayed for you.
[00:37:38] I prayed for you, and I suffered that judgment for you. So that's how we can pray Psalm 7 because it's been imputed to us through Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Son of David.
[00:37:49] He is the righteous king.
[00:37:52] And then we can believe.
[00:37:54] We can believe in Psalm 7 not just by imputation, but by vindication.
[00:38:00] God will vindicate our King Jesus.
[00:38:03] And what God says of Jesus on that last day will be said and given to us.
[00:38:09] This is a promise. God has highly exalted him and has bestowed upon him the name that above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Christ is Lord.
[00:38:22] Our greatest hope in injustice is that Jesus will be vindicated as God's righteous king. And you don't need to take my word for it. Take Job's word for it. If there's anyone who suffered more injustice than you or me, it's Job. We know that his children are dead. He is infested with boils. He has lost everything that a man could count dear in this world.
[00:38:46] And at the very middle of Job's plight, in job 19, he says this.
[00:38:51] I want you to write down these words he says, in iron and stone, I know that my Redeemer lives.
[00:38:58] And at the last he will stand upon the face of the earth. And although my flesh will fail, no one gets out of here alive.
[00:39:06] With my own eyes, with repetition, with resurrection, hope, with my own eyes, Job says, I will see him and. And it will be okay.
[00:39:15] That's the hope, dear Christian, is that Jesus Christ will be vindicated and all of our sorrows and all of the injustice will be consummated. When Christ comes to king, as king and puts it down for the final time, I will restore the years the locust has stolen from you, says the Lord, because his King is coming.
[00:39:36] So then the most Christian response to injustice is Psalm 7:17.
[00:39:42] I will give the Lord the thanks due to his name, due to his righteousness. And I will sing praise to the name of the Lord the Most High. His name is Jesus.
[00:39:55] We are not David. Jesus is. And our hope is not that we will become strong enough to fix injustice, but that Jesus has already fixed my injustice on that cross and that he will come back. And so right now, the best thing I can do for injustice is to preach this King Jesus Christ to everyone who will hear.
[00:40:15] And preaching Christ when we suffer the worst injustice is not slapping a band aid on the wound. It's giving the only medicine that can heal those who are suffering.
[00:40:24] The first word out of our mouth when we face injustice is Jesus. The last word out of our mouth when we face injustice is Jesus. Because Jesus is the only hope to spare those who are wicked and. And the only one who can solve the problem in himself.
[00:40:40] Let's pray.
[00:40:44] Heavenly Father, make us so very full of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
[00:40:54] Father, what a tragedy. That injustice makes us think less of you, either by thinking less often of you or thinking more lowly of you.
[00:41:03] When the truth is that the greatest injustice ever suffered in human history was when Jesus of Nazareth hung wrongly accused on that tree, not for his sin, but for mine.
[00:41:16] But in him your justice, O God, is displayed. Injustice is dealt with, it is punished, and then mercy is given.
[00:41:23] Let us be ever mindful of mercy when we face suffering, that you face the greatest wickedness for us, and that we are forever blessed. So let our first word be mercy, let it be pardon, let it be Christ when we are wrongly persecuted, as our Father Peter told us in the earlier reading, let us count it a joy not only to share in the sufferings of Christ, but to use our persecution and the injustices we suffer to tell other people about the Jesus who suffered for us.
[00:41:54] We pray urgently, O Lord, for the cessation of injustice in our land.
[00:42:02] Arise, O Lord, in your anger.
[00:42:06] Defend the unborn.
[00:42:09] Defend the children who are often left alone in the courts of justice.
[00:42:16] Defend marriages from the sin and accusation and temptation that would rip apart a covenant meant to show the love of Christ.
[00:42:26] Defend those who are suffering. Heal their bodies from the ravages of sin and brokenness.
[00:42:33] And we pray now for those who persecute your people. Have mercy on them, O Lord, for they do not know what they are doing apart from you. Men know not their right hand from their left hand.
[00:42:44] Have mercy on them and give us the boldness through Psalm 7 to preach repentance even against those who slander us and persecute us, that you might save them.
[00:42:59] Give us this heart and mind in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone.
[00:43:06] Amen.
[00:43:08] Let me.
