If you want to turn to Psalm
7 if you're not there and also if you would turn to Psalm 142.
I've chosen Psalm 142 because it goes along with Psalm 7. So
we will just hold your finger at Psalm 142 and we will reference
that in a little bit. In Psalm chapter 7, if you look
at the very beginning of it, in many Bibles it says this,
some Bibles leave it out, but below the heading, the title,
Psalm 7, you'll see it says, Shigeon of David, which he sang
to the Lord concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite. Now I
don't know who Cush is. There's no record of him that
I could find in scripture, a man who was a Benjamite named Cush
who came against David. but the word shikion is a word
that, according to Robert Hawker, means song or psalm. So Mr. Hawker, I recommend his
books, by the way, and if you want more information and don't
have them, contact me and I'll point you in the right direction.
But Robert Hawker observes that when we are persecuted, as David
was when he wrote this psalm, And that persecution is against
us in an unjust manner, especially as it was in David's case when
Saul, the king of Israel, envied David and wanted to keep him
from the throne as God had said that he would be king. And David
was a better man than Saul by any measure, but Saul was very
envious and hated David and tried to kill him and even gathered
all of his army together and hunted him down. And all that persecution was
very, very heavy for David. And yet he is singing here a
song. And that says a lot, doesn't
it? It says that even in our most, strenuous or stressful persecutions
that come against us unjustly, as it did for David, God gave
him a song. And that is a great comfort to
know that, just as it says in the New Testament, that we ought
to be thankful in everything. In everything give thanks, God
says, and to rejoice evermore. So the songs are like that. And
so whenever we're persecuted or in trouble, in any case, we
can turn to the Psalms And this one is an example of a man who
was horribly persecuted, and horribly persecuted in an unjust
manner. There was nothing about him that
deserved this persecution. If you remember, the entire army
of Israel was pinned down, and the Philistine army was on the
other side of the valley. And the champion of the Philistines,
whose name was Goliath, challenged the entire army of Israel to
send one man out to fight with him to determine the outcome
of the battle. And at that time, all the men
of Israel were afraid. Their mighty men were afraid.
None of them could do that. They couldn't overcome Goliath.
And then in steps David, a shepherd, boy at the time. When I say a
boy, I don't know exactly how old. I'm assuming he was about
17 years old. King Saul called him a young
stripling, small. Saul's armor swallowed him up,
so he was obviously small and in physical strength he was no
match for Goliath. But through David, God delivered
the entire Philistine army into the hands of Israel and delivered
Israel and King Saul and his household and his armies and
preserved them. You would think that King Saul
would immediately be for the rest of his life indebted to
David. But that's the way sin works in the natural heart of
man. As soon as he was threatened, because David was more righteous
and more favored than he was, he envied David and tried to
kill him. And he laid wait for him many
times, threw his own javelin at him a couple of times, tried
to get his own son to take up his arms against David, but none
of that worked. And so we see that in that case,
historically, this psalm is speaking about that. And I really believe
that Cush the Benjamite really just is another name for Saul
because he was a Benjamite. And I don't remember, I don't
believe this just on my own. Robert Hawker is the one who
mentioned it and it seems like that's what's intended here.
So the beginning of the Psalm, if you understand it in the historical
context of being David crying out because of the unjust persecution
of King Saul against him. Saul had all the power. He was
the king. He was God's anointed. God had
made him king. David was blessed by God and
chosen to be king, but he wasn't yet in the place of king. And
so he had to patiently trust God in trouble. When that trouble
came against him unfairly, there was nothing about David that
he did to Saul that should have made Saul come after him. Now
that's the historical context, but as we have been seeing in
the Psalms, all of these Psalms are really in the first person,
they're speaking about in prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
important that we realize that, because all of Scripture is pointing
to the Lamb of God, the one who sits on the throne because he
hung on the cross. And if we remember that, then
all of the prayers here we can understand them as His words
pleading the cause not only of Himself but of His people because
all of His sufferings were a result of our sins. And all the requirements
God had placed on us were placed on Him so that He had to fulfill
what God demanded of us both in obedience and in suffering.
Let's read verse one together. It says, Oh Lord, my God, in
Thee do I put my trust. Save me from all them that persecute
me and deliver me. So here's the prototype. Not
just the prototype. This is our prayer, the one we
needed to pray, that we should have prayed had this persecution
come upon us, but it didn't come upon us directly. It came upon
our Savior and He prayed the prayer. And so His prayer is
for us because He was here in this position because of us. He took our case. He is our surety. The word surety means someone
who takes full responsibility for another. He took full responsibility
for our debts. all of our sin crimes against
God, the offenses that we, by our sins, offended God. He took
responsibility for our righteousness and fulfilled it, our obedience.
He took responsibility for our prayers. He came to God in prayer
for His people. He took responsibility for everything.
In fact, It says here, O Lord my God, in Thee do I put my trust. The Lord Jesus Christ trusted
His God and His Father as nobody ever did. Even Job, who cried
out in his suffering, though He slay me, yet will I trust
Him, was not a trust like the Lord Jesus Christ had. He was
on the cross and His enemies at the foot of the cross mocked
him and said he trusted in God that he would deliver him. Let
him deliver him, seeing that he trusted in him. And he did. He continued to trust even under
God's judgment. We want to do that, but do we
do it? And if we do, we never do it
perfectly. There's always that fear. There's
always that concern that God is going to visit us because
of our sins. There's many reasons why we can't
trust God perfectly, but the Lord Jesus Christ did. I say
that to underscore this fundamental principle from scripture, that
Christ stood for his people as their surety in everything. not
only in his prayers, not only in his sufferings and obedience,
but also in his faith in God, in his trust in God, his worship
of God, everything that he did. He told Satan in Matthew 4, in
his temptation, he said, man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And
he was referring to himself. And the temptation that Satan
tried to get him to succumb to was to prove that he was the
Son of God by casting himself down from the temple. And he
didn't, he made himself of no reputation. He claimed the nature
that he had taken, man, you know, everything he was made like to
his brethren, it says in Hebrews chapter two, verse 17 and 18,
in order that he might be a faithful high priest, a merciful and faithful
high priest in things pertaining to God. So, this is the background
here, and you can see here that the Lord Jesus Christ is here
suffering, and under suffering, he is trusting God, he's calling
upon God, he's asking God to save him, and asking him to save
him from those that persecute him, and asking God to deliver
him. But remember now, in scripture,
God describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the head, and all of
his people as the body, his body. He is the head, we are members
of his body and of his flesh and of his bones. Remember in
Ephesians chapter five, we're one with him. So everything that's
spoken here of the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of him with
his people. I hope that you're convinced
that Scripture teaches that so that you can receive the comfort
of it and give God glory for it. This is the only way that
we can be saved, is if He stood for us and we were in Him. The other thing I want to point
out here in verse 1, He says, Oh Lord, my God, in Thee do I
put my trust. Because when the Lord Jesus Christ
took our case, he was fulfilling these obligations that he had
committed himself to fulfill for his people before the world
began. So he's praying according to
the work of our surety towards our God and Father for us. Now
remember in the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 43 and 44
that Judah stood for his little brother Benjamin and he came
to his father Jacob and he asked his father Jacob if he could
stand for Benjamin before Joseph. And Judah stood before Joseph.
Joseph was the judge. He was the ruler over all of
Egypt and he had power of life and death. He could give food,
he could withhold food. He could put in prison and he
could release from prison. Joseph was the judge. Pharaoh
had declared him to be the judge. No one in Egypt could lift up
a hand or foot except by Joseph. Judah came before Joseph. They had been accused of wrong,
and Judah stood and spoke for all of his brethren, but specifically
for Benjamin. And when he had agreed with his
father, his father Jacob accepted Judah as a surety for his youngest
son, Benjamin. The Lord Jesus Christ stood before
His Father before the world began and engaged with His Father as
a surety for His people. And before time began, God the
Father accepted the Lord Jesus Christ to stand for His people.
So that when they would stand before the judge, when they would
be accused by the judge, the surety would stand for them and
speak for them. And that's exactly what happened
in Genesis 43 and 44. Judah pleads, first of all, he
does not deny the guilt. He doesn't argue their innocence.
Secondly, he pleads his father's agreement with him. Third, he
pleads his father's love for Benjamin. Fourth, he pleads that
the love of his father for his youngest son, Benjamin, was so
deep that if Benjamin, if something happened to Benjamin and he wasn't
brought back to Jacob, that Jacob would die in sorrow. And so he
pleaded his father's case, and then he pleaded his own obligation
that he had made with his father to become a surety for Benjamin.
And then he pleaded himself as a substitute. He said, take me
instead of the lad, and let him go up with his brethren to his
father. So all these things teach us
the nature of assurity from Scripture itself. That's what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. Here, in Psalm chapter 7, when
he says, O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust, he's referring
to that covenant obligation, that engagement he had with his
Father before the world began. And you can see this also in
Psalm chapter 89. In Psalm 89, in several places,
it speaks of this covenant, but in verse 22, It says, the enemy
shall not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict
him. I will beat down his foes before
his face and plague plague them that hate him." So did you get
that? What he's saying here is this
is speaking in prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ as the covenant
head of his people. In verse 3 of Psalm 89, he said,
I have made a covenant with my chosen. my elect. I have sworn
to David my servant." Again, David was already king when this
psalm was written, but it was written concerning the son of
David who would be called David himself because he was the son
of David and he was God's Christ. But here again in verse 22, the
promise of God in that covenant was what? That the enemy would
not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him, I
will beat down his foes before his face and plague them that
hate him. But my faithfulness, verse 24, and my mercy shall
be with him, and in my name shall his horn, his strength, be exalted. So the Psalm 7, in the first
verse, is pleading that promise of his father to stand for him
and to subdue and silence his enemies on his behalf. Notice,
in Psalm 7, the one praying here doesn't say, I'm going to go
out and fight against my enemy. I'm going to undertake for myself. He doesn't say that. He comes
to God as a man who's utterly dependent on God's deliverance
of him from his strong enemy. And that's what God's promise
was in the covenant, and that's what he comes to the Lord in
prayer, to receive from him this deliverance. And so he says in
verse one again, O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust, save
me from all them that persecute me and deliver me." He was praying
according to the will of God. Christ is God's darling. All of his people in him are
God's people, the people of his love, the sons of his love by
adoption. And so he's praying for himself
and for them at one time here. In verse 2 of Psalm 7, notice,
lest he, that is this enemy, lest he who persecutes me tear
my soul like a lion. You know how easily a lion can
tear something. They're hugely powerful, as if
it's not even there. Their teeth, their claws, everything,
strength, inconceivable for us. So he says this persecutor he's
talking about is extremely strong compared to his own strength,
lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces while there
is none to deliver. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the cross, there was no one to help him. No man cared for
my soul, he says. They all forsook him and fled.
And all of his enemies were there to attack, to mock, and to inflict
punishment and pain upon him. And so he's speaking here of
persecution that came against him, But it was unjust persecution
by a strong enemy, so strong to be compared to a lion against
his own strength, who could tear him in pieces, and none would
deliver him. And so he says in the beginning,
O Lord, against this enemy, O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust. Save me from all of them that
persecute me and deliver me. Now, this is great comfort to
us because if our Lord Jesus Christ thus prayed, and was heard,
and if we are with Him in His work as our surety and our Redeemer,
then His answer from God is our answer. His answer in trouble
is our answer in trouble. Everything that comes to us infinitely
more came upon him." In Hebrews chapter 2, it describes this. I referred to it just a minute
ago, but I'm going to read it now. He says in Hebrews 2.17,
wherefore in all things it behooved him, Christ, it behooved him. to be made like to his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, for
in that he himself has suffered being tempted He is able to succor
or run to the aid of them that are tempted. So the Lord Jesus
Christ underwent everything and more, infinitely more than we
will ever experience. He prayed, He trusted, He was
heard, He was delivered. And His prayer, His trust, His
deliverance is our salvation. That's the message of Scripture.
Now, so trusting God in trouble, especially the trouble from unjust
persecutors is the theme of many Psalms. And no wonder, because
the sufferings of Christ at the hands of wicked men who self-righteously
in their pride imagined they could rob him of his glory, and
they pretended to be more righteous than he in their cause against
him. This is exactly what King Saul
did. He persecuted David and he claimed
it was a righteous cause. It was the most envious, distorted
wickedness that you can imagine. Saul was fearful, proud, self-righteous. He justified himself. He was
a hypocrite. He listened to men. He didn't care what God thought. He was all concerned about his
own image. And it was a sad, sad life. And yet he portrays all of us.
But David was a man after God's own heart. He was constantly
depending upon God, even though he had killed Goliath and destroyed
untold thousands of Philistines and enemies, he never boasted
in his own strength. He always boasted in the Lord.
And that's the difference between these two men. And so you see
the picture here of Christ compared to the natural man. Christ always
faithfully trusts his Father. and his Father delivers him,
and he is our Savior because of that. Now, in Psalm 142, I
mentioned that we would go there. I'm gonna look at this Psalm
with you. It strikes me as being very similar to this one, and
so I thought we would read this together, the first six verses.
In Psalm 142, he says, I cried to the Lord with my voice. With
my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. Not only in
his heart, but with his mouth he cried out. because that's
what we do. In our own case, we have a hard
time forming the right words, don't we? Putting the right thoughts
in order, the organization of our thoughts, the things that
we say, we back up, we go forward, we back up, we throw it down,
we say, that wasn't right, let me start over, and we don't really
know how to pray. Most of the time, the most effective
prayers are when we can't say anything. I think that the most
effective prayers that God gives us to pray are when we have a
huge need that we can't really describe,
and we come to God in our utter weakness, and we think in our
heart, Lord, save me for Christ's sake. That's all we can think. That's all we can pray. I don't
even know what to say. And so we've grown at our own
failures and our weaknesses. and the troubles of life. And so this is what the psalmist
says here, I cried to the Lord with my voice, with my voice
unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before
Him, I showed before Him my trouble. He laid it all out. I'm just
going to tell you what's going on. I'm not going to tell you
how to fix it. Verse three, when my spirit was
overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein
I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. They snuck up
in my path, they knew where I was going, and they laid a trap for
me. Verse four, I looked on my right hand and beheld, and there
was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. No man cared
for my soul. I cried to the Lord, O Lord,
I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the
living, not only my hiding place, but my reward, my inheritance.
Verse six, Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver
me from my persecutors. Or they are stronger than I.
There you go. Doesn't that sound like Psalm
7? Deliver me from my persecutors. I am brought very low. Hear my
cry. My persecutors are stronger than
I am. Back to Psalm chapter 7. So when
we read these two first verses, we see here the same theme being
declared here by the one praying, which is the Lord Jesus Christ,
spoken here in prophecy, spoken by David historically, but never
could it be applied to David as we're gonna see in full. It
couldn't have been applied to him really in what the Lord says
here. Look at verse three of Psalm
chapter three. Psalm chapter seven, verse three.
Catch up to where my notes are here. He says, O Lord my God,
if I have done this, if there be iniquity in my hands, if I
have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me, yea, I
have delivered him that without cause is my enemy. If I've done
these things, then let the enemy persecute my soul and take it. Yea, let him tread down my life
upon the earth and lay mine honor in the dust. Selah. All right. So this is, you can read of David
in his flight from King Saul. And if you remember, on at least
two occasions, when Saul had David cornered, it seemed like,
And then it turned around so that David was actually able
to take vengeance on his enemy. Saul had made himself David's
enemy. He wasn't naturally his enemy,
but had made himself David's enemy. When he had that opportunity,
David did not kill him. He didn't even hurt him. And
out of that, it was proved that David had no ill intent on King
Saul. And yet Saul persecuted him to
death. He tried to kill him. And so it is with the Lord Jesus
Christ, only many times more, immeasurably more. So he prays
here. And when he prays, he's asking
for justice. Consider, look at the account
of what actually happened I did not do this, he says in verse
three, O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there be iniquity
in my hands, if I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace
with me, yea, I delivered him that without cause is my enemy.
Saul was David's enemy for no reason in David. David did right. It was all in Saul. That was
where the fault lie. And so he prays, if I had done
this, as Saul accuses me, as he hunts me now to do this, if
I have done that, then, he says in verse five, then let the enemy
persecute my soul and take it, yea, let him tread down my life
upon the earth and lay my honor in the dust. He's asking for
justice, isn't he? He wanted justice. He pleaded
his own innocence, his own righteousness before God. Who can do that? Who among men can plead their
innocence before God? Remember, in Matthew chapter
7, men try to do that. Take a look at that here. In
Matthew chapter 7, the men in judgment, many will say this
in judgment. Many, because this is what they
trusted on earth, this is what came out of their mouth while
they were on earth, because this was what was in their heart,
this was the confidence of their life, that what they did was
going to make things right between them and God. And so in Matthew
7, it's brought to a head. He says in verse 21, Matthew
7, 21, not everyone, Jesus said, not everyone that saith to me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. not everyone,
but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven."
There's going to be a lot of people who think they are going
into heaven, who are not. In fact, if you look up a little
bit, he says in verse, In verse 14, straight is the
gate, narrow is the way, which leads to life, and few there
be that find it. And so down here in verse 21,
he said, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my
Father, which is in heaven. In verse 22, many, many will
say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name? They're trying to refer to an
account that God keeps of themselves. And they think this is the way
they're going to be delivered. Think about it. Lord, look at
the account. Haven't we prophesied in your
name? Speaking to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We spoke about you. We spoke of Christ. And in your
name cast out devils. and in your name done many wonderful
works, what are they pleading? They're pleading for God's justice.
They're pleading for God's justice to consider their works. Verse
23, Jesus will then say, he'll profess to them, I never knew
you. Depart from me, you that work
iniquity. What iniquity did they work?
They didn't do the will of the Father. They used God's law unlawfully
because they tried to justify themselves before the judge by
what they did. And you cannot be justified by
what you do. And so the will of the Father
they didn't do is what Jesus said in John 6, verse 40. This
is the will of him that sent me, that everyone who seeth the
Son and believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. The will of God is to believe
the Son. The one thing that we do in this life that God is pleased
with, which we can only do by grace, is to abandon our righteousness,
because we have none, and put no confidence in ourselves, and
to claim before God the only righteousness there is, is Christ,
and His righteousness is all my salvation, all my hope. That's
the only thing we can do, is to declare ourselves to be sinners
and Christ to be the only righteous one. And to agree with God that
what He did, that is praiseworthy. He deserves the glory. And so,
back in Psalm chapter 3 and verses 3 through 5, we see the man praying
here is pleading for God's justice to deliver him. and the only
one who can be delivered based on justice is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at Psalm 143. Psalm 143.
I will show you what the psalmist says there. He says in verse
2, Now I'll read verse 1 too. Verse
1 says in Psalm 143, hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my
supplications. In thy faithfulness answer me
and in thy righteousness. and enter not into judgment with
thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. Now that's the truth about us. Concerning ourselves, there's
nothing in us that can justify us. God will not justify us because
of what we are or what we do, because of what we think, our
motives, not in the smallest way, not in the least way. But
the Lord Jesus Christ, who prays this way, is showing in Psalm
7, verses 3-5, I didn't do this. I didn't persecute the one who
was at peace with me. If I did, then bring the enemy
against me. Who of us can say that? There
have been times where we envied another, when there was no Nothing
they did. They were just smarter than us,
or stronger than us, or better looking than us, or richer than
us, or something that we coveted, and we wanted that, and we envied
them, didn't we? We know what envy is about. We
talk about other people. We try to make other people look
smaller so that we feel bigger. This is the way of the human
race, and it has a backfire effect. People recognize that as weakness
and insecurity and hypocrisy, and it actually makes us smaller
in the eyes of others and more shameful. But the Lord Jesus
Christ didn't have to do that. He was right in himself, and
so he pleads his own innocence, he pleads his righteousness,
he wants justice, and he asks God, his Father, to reward him
with evil if he did evil to those who were at peace with him, but
it was actually the reverse. He says here, I not only did
not give evil to the one at peace with me, in fact, I delivered
the one who is now my enemy. So he's speaking about how he,
David, saved Saul from his enemies. He saved him from that. And he
didn't bring his own army against Saul when he could have killed
him. He delivered him. He kept his men from hurting
him. And here the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking about his
own case. When he was on the earth, did he ever say, did he
ever hold the Pharisees to judgment, the Sadducees, the scribes? Did he ever take these men and
destroy them? As God, no, he didn't. In fact,
he said, I didn't come to judge the world. Not this time. I didn't
come to judge, but to save. He came to save his people. All
the time he was on earth, he never brought a person into judgment. He spoke about how he would one
day judge them, but he didn't judge them at that time. And
so what we have here is the Lord Jesus Christ defending his own
integrity before God. And because he had a righteousness
and an integrity before God, he asked God to judge him according
to that righteousness. In another Psalm, it says that
he loved righteousness and he hated iniquity. He loved righteousness
and hated iniquity, even if he himself must suffer at the hand
of God under judgment. If he took our sins, he loved
God's righteousness so much that he wanted God to take justice
on him for those sins so that he could put them away. That's
how much he loved righteousness and hated iniquity. He alone,
not any man, but he alone could plead his righteousness as his
defense. And now, Now, here's the wonderful
thing. We also can plead his defense
as our defense. Because he didn't live for himself,
he didn't suffer or die for himself, and he didn't rise again and
take his seat in glory for himself. He did it for his people. And
that's the good news of the gospel. All that Christ did, he did not
for himself, but for his people. What love is that? All right,
verse six, Psalm chapter seven, verse six. So he says here in
verse six, Arise, O Lord, in thine anger. Lift up thyself
because of the rage of mine enemies, and awake from me to judgment
that thou hast commanded, the judgment thou hast commanded.
So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about.
For their sakes, therefore, return thou on high. Here, the Lord
is praying. He was without sin. He didn't
have any sin of his own. And yet, because he loved righteousness
and hated iniquity, he asked God to judge his enemies. All
right, so that's the first thing here. What do His enemies want? Well, they want their own righteousness
to be honored instead of His because they want to compete
with Christ. That's what we do naturally.
We want our goodness to compete with Christ when we trust in
ourselves, when we trust our own righteousness before God
or we promote ourselves before men as being something important. That's what we do in our pride. That's a competition. That's
trying to rob Christ of the glory that only He is worthy of receiving. We try to defame His righteousness
as empty and useless and unimportant and establish ourselves in our
own minds and before others. That's called being hostile against
God and against His throne. And that's what we are by nature.
And isn't it incredible given the fact that this is what we're
like by nature, that God is gracious to us and saves us in spite of
ourselves and our enmity, our hostility against his throne.
And so, here the Lord Jesus Christ is making intercession to God
against his enemies. See how he says it? Arise, O
Lord, in thine anger, and lift up thyself, because the rage
of mine enemies, awake for me to judgment that thou hast commanded. And if you do this, he says in
verse seven, the congregation of the people shall compass thee
about. For their sakes, therefore, return thou on high. So he's
actually, the Lord Jesus in his prayer here, he's doing what?
He's making intercession to God against the wicked. Sometimes
we think that Christ, when he prayed, Father, forgive them,
for they know not what to do. People say, well, he was praying
for everybody, so therefore everybody's forgiven. But some people aren't
forgiven, so his prayer really didn't do anything for anybody.
only those people who somehow make it work. That's the problem
with this universalism. If God loved everybody, and Christ
died for everybody, and the Spirit of God calls everybody, and yet
only some are saved, then what difference did all of what God
did do? It didn't make any difference.
What the people did made the difference. But that's not the
case. That's the trick of false religion. False religion tries to make
themselves on a higher moral ground by claiming, well, we
believe God loves everybody and that Christ died for everybody.
He was no racist. He didn't make a discrimination
against people. I remember a guy telling me that
God's not discriminating. I said, well, that's funny because
he says, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. There's some
discrimination there. So that's the way we think, naturally. We are more righteous than God. We say that God has to love everybody,
otherwise He's not fair. And Christ had to die for everybody,
otherwise that's not fair. And the Spirit of God surely
has to give everyone the same opportunity, otherwise that wouldn't
be fair. But then we realize that not
everybody has the same opportunity. So we kind of wonder, well, how
does this work then? If even in this life we see some
people born without that opportunity, what does that mean? It means
that God does what He wants and that God saves as it pleases
Him for His own glory. And we have to shut our mouths
and lay our hands upon our mouths because we're neither the Savior
nor the Judge and we wouldn't save anybody if it was left to
us. But what Christ did, He did according to this love of righteousness
that He had and His hatred for iniquity. He could only lawfully,
and according to the love of his heart, bring those to glory
that he died for. And so he prays for them. And
when he makes intercession against his enemies, he's making a righteous
intercession against his enemies. So it can't be so that Christ
prayed for everyone to save them if he prayed against these people
here. So he says, and if this is inspired, which it is, by
the Spirit of God, let the enemy persecute my soul. I'm sorry,
in verse six, arise, O Lord, in thine anger, and lift up thyself
up because of the rage of thine enemies. Who is this praying
here? It's the Spirit of God, man. He has to have the same
mind as Christ and of the Father. And so this is speaking God's
will to bring men to judgment for their own sins, you see. That's the issue. In scripture
we see two things. We see God's condemnation on
the wicked, and this is a universal condemnation. And we see salvation
in Christ, and this is a selective salvation. God does it. He's
the one who saves as He wills. And when He saves, it's all His
doing. We can take nothing, no credit
for it. It's a good thing because we
wouldn't bring what was necessary. We couldn't fulfill that one
condition that we would need to fulfill to save ourselves.
We would fail, utterly fail, because in our minds we're hostile
against God. But here, because the Lord Jesus
does pray against his enemies, it's showing here from Scripture
that God does not pray for the salvation of all men. In fact,
he prays that justice be executed upon the wicked. And because
he loved righteousness and hated iniquity and he stood with our
sins, therefore he's submitting himself to the judgment that
he deserved in order to fulfill, to satisfy God's justice and
to magnify his law. And so we see this in all of
this prayer here. Arise, O Lord. It's a righteous
prayer, isn't it? First judge me according to your
justice and judge my enemies. Is there anything wrong with
that? Who could find fault with such a prayer? Verse seven, so
shall the congregation of the people compass thee about. For
their sakes, therefore, return thou on high. When God is just,
the people are safe. If there's no justice, there's
no safety. We understand that. We know what it's like when there's
no justice, when the laws aren't upheld, and criminals are rewarded,
and the victims are left to be persecuted. We know what that's
like. We've seen it in our own history. We've seen it throughout
history. The weak suffer, the strong and
the people of position have the advantage. And if it's left that
way without justice, then the people are not safe. They're
going to be, look at the people of Israel in Egypt. They were
poor and slaves and the Egyptian pharaohs had their way with them.
That's what happens when there's no justice. But he's praying
here for justice against his enemies, and it's a good thing.
Do you want Satan to rule over you? Really? Do you want the
world and its ways to have their say about what's going to happen
to you? No. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for with
the Lord there is mercy." That's the heart of the believer. So
the people of God praise God because He's a God of justice,
because He's a God of truth and righteousness. We want God to
be just and righteous and true. We would have no confidence,
no assurance before God that we could be saved if He wasn't
both righteous and merciful. true and gracious, wise and able
to save and justify the ungodly. We couldn't have any confidence.
We couldn't appear before God because we would know that in
the background He really held a reserved animosity against
us because He really wanted to strike out and destroy us because
of His justice, but somehow He's just withholding that justice
with unsatisfied justice by some other power within Him of grace,
and that wouldn't work. God always acts in perfect harmony
with all of His attributes. His justice is completely satisfied
so that His justice cries for our justification, and His mercy
is completely satisfied because it's a mercy expended in truth. and his truth is satisfied, because
everything that God has said happens to the glory of his name. So that's why the congregation
of the people will be glad. In verse 8, the Lord shall judge
the people, judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
and according to mine integrity that is in me. Who but Christ,
again, could pray such a prayer? And yet, though we ourselves
are nothing but sin, and Scripture teaches us that, right? Doesn't
Scripture tell us there's none righteous, no not one? There's
none that understands? There's none that seeketh after
God? There's none that doeth good. No, not one. Doesn't scripture
teaches that about ourselves? That we go astray from the womb
speaking lies? This is the universal testimony
of scripture. When God destroyed the world
in Noah's day, he said that man's imaginations are wicked from
his youth. So even after the flood, he's
telling us the same things. Over and over, God tells us there's
nothing good in us. so that we won't trust in our
own righteousness. But here in Psalm 7, verse 8,
the psalmist prays, the Lord shall judge the people. Judge
me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity
that's in me. And as our surety, he stands before the judge and
he says, judge me. Judge me according to my integrity,
according to my righteousness, and God did. And what did the
holiness of God see in His Son? Perfection, a perfect sacrifice,
a perfect obedience, a perfect love, a perfect holiness, a self-giving
desire. He emptied Himself in order to
save His people. He took their burdens, He magnified
God, He glorified His Father at His own expense. That's what
he saw, perfect righteousness, perfect integrity. Verse nine,
oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish
the just, for the righteous God trieth the hearts and the reins.
Again, how, when God tries us, when he tests us, what does he
find? He finds the jewel, the gem,
the gold of his own work. And what is that? What is that
precious gold that comes out of the fire of affliction in
the lives of God's people? Isn't it faith? Faith in Christ
that says, Christ alone and Christ in all of his work as my substitute
is all of my salvation. That's what faith does. That
precious faith which If it's, though it's tried in the fire,
will come out as gold, it says in 1 Peter 1. And so the people
are tried, but what is the result of it? They point to their Savior.
Look at my Savior. You have said that He is everything
for His people. Christ is all in the fullness
of the Godhead, dwells in Him, and I'm complete in Him. That's
my hope. That's my trust. And so they're tried, all right,
but they always come back to Christ because their only salvation,
all of their defense, their answer to God and justice, their satisfaction
to justice, and their fulfillment of all obedience is always in
their Savior. Their prayers, their trust, everything
is in Him, and it's perfect in Him. He says in verse 10, my
defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart. Our heart
is upright because we're born of God. And that upright heart
looks to Christ. Paul said, I live by the faith
of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Psalm
7 verse 11, God judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked
every day. But the righteous are righteous
not in themselves, but in their Savior. excuse me, aren't they? There is no righteous man of
himself, but God has made him, Christ, to be unto us wisdom
and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. That's all of
our righteousness. Verse 12, if he turn not, he
will whet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made
it ready. He hath also prepared for him
the instruments of death. He ordaineth his arrows against
the persecutors. So this is God. He's got his
judgment ready. His gun is loaded and cocked
and aimed. He knows what he's going to do.
But verse 14, this is what David's persecutor did. This is what
Christ's persecutors did. Notice, behold, he, the persecutor,
travaileth with iniquity. and has conceived mischief and
brought forth falsehood. A woman conceives and gives birth
to a child. The wicked conceive, but what
do they conceive? Falsehood. And what do they bring
forth? They conceive mischief and they bring forth falsehood.
They conceive iniquity. It's like they have the baby
of their own sins and their own mischief and they bring forth
this falsehood because that's what comes out of them. That's
all they can conceive. In other words, Sin comes from within
man. It's his fault, not the Lord's. Verse 15, speaking again about
the wicked. He made a pit and digged it,
and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall
return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come
down upon his own pate, on his own head. Everything that he,
the trap that he set, he's gonna be caught in it. He thought that
he could be saved by his own righteousness. His own attempt
to fulfill that righteousness is going to be the snare that
entraps him. He boasted himself of his righteousness against
others. That boast is going to be his undoing. And those he
boasted against are going to find their salvation in Christ,
and they're going to glory in Christ. It's all going to come
down on his own head, which is called his pate also here. It's
a word we don't hear very often. But look at verse 17. The conclusion
of victory, I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness,
and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High. According
to His righteousness. What is that righteousness of
God that we praise Him for? Well, it starts with His justice
answered by the blood of His Son. He provided the answer.
He spared not His Son, He delivered Him up in order to answer that
justice. That's justice, that's righteousness, isn't it? It's
not only that righteousness, but it's the righteousness of
His law that He Himself fulfilled in Christ. And it's that righteousness
He gave to us out of grace by imputing to us the obedience
of Christ as our very own righteousness, so that we now are called the
righteousness of God in Him. That is the righteousness we
praise. We praise God's essential righteousness, and we praise
His righteousness that He worked out through the Lord Jesus Christ.
We praise Christ Jesus, the righteous, and we sing praise to the name
of the Lord Most High. That's what we do. We're thankful.
The light of the gospel has shined to us. It keeps shining. And when it does, what's our
reaction? I never understood it before. I never loved it like
this before. I now see that all of my salvation
was accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ who loved me and
gave himself for me. What else am I going to do? I
want him to be magnified because he deserves it. And because I
did nothing here, He saved me from my sins. And so we have
this desire. And this is the entrance of God's
Word, the light of God's Word, our salvation. And so, like the
psalmist says here, we praise Him according to His righteousness.
Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your words.
Thank You for the prayers of our Lord Jesus Christ recorded
in Scripture for us. We know that His prayers were
heard. We know that He prayed according to Your will. that
everything he said was perfect and holy and was accepted, that
he didn't pray for himself alone, but as our surety, as our substitute,
as our representative, our covenant head, who stood according to
the eternal engagements he entered into with the Father in order
to obligate himself and to fulfill those obligations in time, in
his own life as God with us, as the incarnate God, as the Word made flesh, the One
who took our nature and bore all of our obligations and fulfilled
them too. And so, Lord, we pray that these
words, they express to us His answer against our enemies and
our salvation. And we take them to ourselves,
trusting that what the Lord Jesus Christ did, He did for sinners. We know we ourselves are sinners. We have no other claim. We need
You to do Your Word for us. We need You to fulfill the promises
of salvation in our own lives. And we know that You do this
through the Lord Jesus Christ and have done it in Him perfectly.
And so we trust according to Your Word, according to this
gift of faith You've given to us, we trust Him. And yet we
know our faith and our trust are imperfect. And so we truly
trust what Christ has done and His faith. In His name we pray,
Amen.