“O Lord My God, in You I put my trust; save me from all those who persecute me; and deliver me, lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces, while there is none to deliver.” Psalm 7:1-2.
“Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; lift Yourself up because of the rage of my enemies, and awake for me to the judgment You have commanded! So the congregation of the peoples shall surround You; for their sakes, therefore, return on high. The Lord shall judge the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to my integrity within me.” Psalm 7:6-8.
Psalm 7:1-2 has been included to maintain context, our focus will be on Psalm 7:6-17.
Words like arise, lift Yourself up, or even awaken are poetic terms used to convey the emotion of the writer and give us an idea of the urgency of his prayer.
“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24.
However, when we cry out to God to end some injustice or trial in our lives it may often feel as though He were asleep or just sitting around ignoring our situation.
So here we have David anointed to become king of Israel being chased to his death; these guys are serious! And where is God? Where is God?
Two things come to mind, Saul has not run his course in life, and David is not yet mature enough to be king.
That God has set a time when all things have run their course and evil has come to its fullest measure is shown in His destruction of the Amorites which He spoke to Abraham about.
This prophecy foretold the return of the Israelites to the land in which Abraham was dwelling at the time, and the destruction of the Amorite people who lived there.
“Now as for you [Abraham, 2166-1991 B.C.], you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they [the Israelites in 1400 B.C.] shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Genesis 15:15-16.
The Amorites were destroyed because of their evil practices of idolatry which would have included child sacrifice, cult prostitutes, sexual depravity, and a continual downward spiral into ever greater acts of filthiness.
“And he [King Ahab, 874-853 B.C.] behaved very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.” 1 Kings 21:26.
King Saul too would have to run out his time on earth, a witness to God’s longsuffering with mankind.
Maturity, by the way is not something that always comes from books, especially among Christians.
Maturity comes from taking responsibility for your actions and by trusting in God through the good times and the bad until we see that life is not the fantasy that Satan and men want us to believe it is.
“…and awake for me to the judgment You have commanded! So the congregation of the peoples shall surround You; for their sakes, therefore, return on high.” Psalm 7:6b-7.
David is calling upon God to remove King Saul here, not for vindictive reasons, or for his own comfort, but rather that the focus of the godly children of Israel can again return to God. Saul had not been a good example of godly leadership in Israel.
I believe that you will find that if a country has a godly Christian leader (king or president), that country tends to have a higher Christian emphasis, less crime, a better economy, fewer adversaries, and many blessings from God. I exclude the Holy Roman Empire with its persecutions and inquisitions; they were Christian in name only.
Yes, and because we live in a fallen world, Satan and his crew of sinful men will always be pressing to overcome such a government. For this reason Christians must be ever vigilant to keep what they have, because if we do not value it, we will lose it, as we are today.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8.
This is for everyone, not just the backslidden Christian next door. Satan seeks to devour all of us, and he and his army of fallen angels patiently do it one by one until he has consumed an entire nation.
“Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just; for the righteous God tests the hearts and minds. My defense is of God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he [the wicked] does not turn back, He [God] will sharpen His sword; He bends His bow and makes it ready. He also prepares for Himself instruments of death; He make His arrows into fiery shafts.” Psalm 7:9-13.
“…the righteous God tests the hearts and minds”, the world seems to be full of liars today, but God hates lying, and He says this about those who practice lying.
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8.
It is certainly important for the Christian to turn from a sin like this, and more importantly one should learn not to lie to themselves, or to God.
It is foolhardy to lie to oneself and it is an act of stupidity to think that God can be lied to, because it says right here in Psalm 7:9b that, “the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.”
“For His [God’s] eyes are on the ways of man, and He sees all his steps. There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. For He [God] need not further consider a man, that he should go before God in judgment.” Job 34:21-23.
“For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths.” Proverbs 5:21.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:9-10.
“God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” Psalm 7:11.
“God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” Mark the word “just” let us never forget that everything God does is just and righteous.
It is not right for us to accuse God of injustice, because He is just, and because He knows the heart of those He deals with.
“…God is angry with the wicked every day” Psalm 7:11b. It says in another place that these people are storing up wrath for the day of wrath.
We get angry over the lawlessness and the atrocities happening here in America and in the world today and ask where is God? Oh, it is coming; I assure you it is coming.
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9.
Again, we have no business second guessing God, but we do have the business of being in constant prayer for the innocents in our country and elsewhere.
It is our business to support monetarily relief organizations like Samaritan’s Purse and others working in distressed regions, or to help in any other manner in which God has clearly moved us.
Meanwhile do not lose sight of the fact that the wicked are dying by the thousands. A few years back there were reports of piles of ISIS bodies lying rotting in the sun because no one would claim them.
God is not asleep; His eye is constantly on the men, women and children in this region just as it is on the rest of the world.
“He [God] also prepares for Himself instruments of death; He makes His arrows into fiery shafts.” Psalm 7:13.
The wicked can always repent and turn to Jesus, but sooner or later it will be too late.
There is a time appointed for the wicked and there is an end, an end which they often fear the most, they will die in a dark place and there will be no one to deliver them from death or hell.
“Behold, the wicked travails with iniquity, conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood.” Psalm 7:14.
The wicked travails with wickedness, he is pregnant with evil, they conceive mischief, or trouble, and give birth to falsehood, or disillusionment.
Like a pregnant woman, the wicked are filled with evil and cannot wait to give birth to the vile things that gestate within them.
However, in so doing the wicked digs a hole.
“He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.” Psalm 7:15-16.
“Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.” Proverbs 26:27.
The evildoer plots and travails with their schemes, yet, in time, it is they who will fall into the pit.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Galatians 6:7.
It does not stop there though, the evildoer is also scooping out his own pit in hell and when he gets there.
“His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.” Psalm 7:16.
“Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. But You, O God, shall bring them down to the pit of destruction; bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in You.” Psalm 55:22-23.
“I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.” Psalm 7:17.
Psalm 7:6-17, God My Trust taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 4-22-15, updated on 5-12-23 .
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.