Book of Psalms - Psa. 7, Vs. 1-5 (11/13/2022)

Morning! Where?

All right. Well, I guess we'll get started. Why don't we open with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you this morning for everyone who came.

Father, we just ask that you cleanse our hearts and minds, prepare us to learn from your word, and help us to remember that you are completely sovereign in your own timing, in your own judgment.

Help us to trust that, and help us to realize what our role in that is.

We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. So, Psalm chapter 7.

Ever since the passing of our good friend and brother, Mr.

Bill, who started us off in the Psalms, it was interesting that the week before he passed away, he let us know, or he was talking with Pop, actually.

He said, I'm starting to teach in the book of Psalms. This may be the last book I ever teach.

And he got one chapter in, and then the Lord called him home. I guess he had planned out to go through all the

Psalms. I have not necessarily done that. I have not planned to go through all the Psalms, but I'm taking it one

Psalm at a time, and we'll see. If we end up going through all the

Psalms, we'll be here for a good long time. The first couple of weeks that I was teaching, it was all in the second chapter

Psalms, and it took a while to get through them. But since then, each time

I taught one, it was like a Psalm per week. This is a slightly longer

Psalm than the other ones we've been doing, so this may take more than one week, but maybe not, because it's got one solid message.

I mean, there's probably tons of messages in it, but one solid message that I've been able to pull out of this particular Psalm. So we'll see.

We may go through it fast. We may go through it slow. I don't know, but if you'll remember the last time we did

Psalm 6, and we were talking about how it was the first penitential

Psalm, and we saw how God uses the

Holy Spirit to draw us to righteousness, and there's a slanderer at the same time trying to make us feel guilty, trying to make us feel convicted of sin when the

Lord has freed us from that conviction. That's what the Holy Spirit has done for us. He has stamped us not guilty.

He's stamped us righteous. And so he takes the righteousness of Jesus, and he imputes it into us.

He takes the sin that we have, and he gives it to Jesus. That's what happens.

Jesus has completely paid for our sins. And so the Holy Spirit lovingly admonishes us by holding up that banner of righteousness and says, hey, this is what you are now.

You're not that anymore. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. This is what you are.

Do you look like this right now? Right? And that's where we begin to go, ooh,

I don't really look like I'm supposed to look. And the slanderer takes a moment to say, yeah, you don't look like that.

Maybe that's because that's not who you are. And he tries to tell us lies about who we really are.

He says, well, if you aren't living a perfect life, then you couldn't possibly be saved.

He wants to put the focus back on we're the ones who save ourselves.

He wants us to think that what we do determines our fate. But it's not what we do.

It's what Jesus has done that determines our fate. So Satan will take this and he'll he'll twist it because what we do is still important.

What we do is still it's still going to determine to some degree how we feel in our relationship with Jesus.

We probably have all experienced times when we did not feel great about our relationship. But we've also experienced times when we have felt like we were in the right.

And still suffered, haven't we? We felt like we tried our best and we've come up with nothing but trouble.

When the slanderer goes to work, it's not always when we're feeling down.

It's often when we're feeling our strongest, when we're feeling our best, when we're feeling the closest to Jesus, that's when he needs to get to work to make that not the reality in our lives.

He wants to eliminate that. He wants to make us feel like we're not one with Jesus.

He wants to make us feel like we we are not empowered by the

Holy Spirit. So sometimes he literally uses the same tactics of slanderous libel against us when we haven't messed up.

And that almost doesn't seem fair. But we're going to see how David deals with that in this psalm.

So it starts off. Should I don't even know how to say this word should go on.

I guess is the club should die on. It's a weird word that no one really knows what it means.

And we've run into this a few times in the Psalms. Often they are some kind of there are thought to be some kind of musical instrument or some higher or lower note in the music.

This is another one of those words where there's mostly just speculation around what does it truly mean.

However. If you study a lot of the. A lot of the commentaries on this word.

There is a general consensus that it has to do with a wandering song like something that kind of.

It's almost like your mind going to a place right like amusing about something.

It could be an instrument. But we don't really know.

Another word or another time that this word is used it's really only used one other time and that is in the book of Habakkuk.

And what what's interesting is that. It brings about this idea of.

Almost. I can't even really put into words. I'll just I'll say it like this.

We don't really know what it means. But we do know that it has a connotation of.

I want to say joy but it doesn't sound that way in this song. When you read this song it doesn't sound joyous until the very end.

Which we see a lot with David. Most of his songs that we've read through start off kind of heavy.

And then they get joyous at the end which should teach us something about our prayer life. We often come to the

Lord feeling heavy. Feeling burdened. And through prayer we hope to achieve the cure to that burden.

Let's let's read on and see what this is about. It says concerning the words of Cush the

Benjamite. Now again there's some speculation over who

Cush the Benjamite is. Some commentary believes that this is.

The same Shema from. I believe it was Psalm chapter three.

We studied him a little bit. You'll remember we actually went into.

I believe it was the book of. Was it

Samuel. Might have been Chronicles. When Shema was throwing rocks at David as he was running from his son

Absalom. And Shema was basically cursing David. Some people believe that that's.

Who this Psalm is about. Others believe this has more to do with.

An earlier time in David's life. Spurgeon also believed this that it had to do with an earlier time in David's life when he was running from Saul.

So this would have been before he ascended to the throne. Whereas if this was

Shema. It would have been after he had ascended to the throne because Absalom is one of his sons who tries to usurp the throne.

Let's look at both of those just real quickly and that will kind of set up this Psalm. For us to at least have some context as to what

David's feeling. Samuel 24 that's where it is.

First Samuel first Samuel 24. Starting in about verse seven.

Reverse six verse six here. Let's look at. We'll look at that one next actually somebody keep your finger on first Samuel 24 because I do think that that's.

A better fit for who this Cush the Benjamite could be. But I still want to share the other side this idea that it could be

Shema for this for the same reason that it brings it brings a similar feeling so regardless of who this

Cush the Benjamite is. You'll remember what David was feeling when Shema was throwing rocks at him and his men.

He was running from his son but not just his son from all of Israel. You'll remember his son

Absalom spent years winning over the hearts of Israel. He was charming the men of Israel.

And it wasn't just the common folk it was some of the higher ups we saw some of a prophet take

Absalom's side. We saw some of the military take Absalom side. So this was this was a really huge coup attempt by Absalom and David wondered if if the

Lord's hand had been removed from him. If you'll remember Shema starts throwing rocks in cursing

David and the men that are with David are ready to go after Shema.

They're ready to go and defend their king and David stops them because he's he's wondering is

Shema. Right. He's got this feeling of doubt that he's struggling with his

Shema sent by God to curse me. So that was that was kind of the setup and David leaves.

He spares Shema in that instance and he just leaves. But the Lord ultimately brings him back.

You'll notice I'm paraphrasing this will be for sake of time. He ultimately brings him back and Shema is now in trouble because David is back on the throne and now

Shema is in kind of a precarious position. And he begs for mercy basically and David gives it to him.

David shows mercy to him. If you'll remember the rest of the story with Shema even though David gives him mercy.

He almost kind of remains a thorn in David's side. There's speculation as to why

Shema is a Benjamite. And if you'll remember Saul also is a Benjamite.

So perhaps the Benjamite tribe just wasn't as as much of a fan of David because he's not he's not from the tribe of Benjamin.

Some interesting study going on there which I think we explored later in the

Psalms. Or it might have been in Bible study. It was it was in Bible study.

We looked at the fact that there is a curse on a generation that experiences incest and that curse lasts 10 generations.

If you'll if you'll look at the story of was it

Tamar. Remember we were going through Ruth and that's one of the the blessings on on Ruth and Boaz Ruth and Boaz.

They said let let your house be like the house of Tamar. And if you'll remember that story it was a weird story of of incest with Judah.

Well that creates this this curse that last 10 generations.

Well if you count out the number of generations from when that happened. David would be the last of that.

The curse would be ended with his father Jesse. And now David could ascend to the throne.

So when Samuel is asked to go and and pick a king for Israel because Israel's asking for a king.

He doesn't go to the tribe of Judah even though he knows that's where the king should come from. The Lord instructs him to go to the tribe of Benjamin.

Well this is one generation before that curse would be over. So it's a really interesting backstory there.

And then ultimately David gets to ascend to the throne. So the first king of Israel comes from the tribe of Benjamin.

And there must have been some kind of sense of pride. Right. Like wow one of us.

We're on the throne ruling. But what does the Lord do. He removes his hand from Saul and he anoints

David as king. And after David he anoints Solomon and tells

David that he is going to have an everlasting covenant with Solomon.

He says I will not remove my hand from him like I did with Saul. So who knows.

Maybe the Benjamites are just not big fans of David and that could be why Shammai says what he says.

But what we do know is that David is really kind of in a bad spot when he's running from Absalom.

And he's he's trying to work out where do I stand with God. Now of course we saw through those

Psalms that he comes back to the realization that no I am I am God's man.

He's lifted me back up. He's the glory and the lifter of my head. Right. And we see that he's restored.

Even his mental state seems to be restored. He feels better with the

Lord. So in this Psalm imagine being in that mental state of I'm right with God.

So why are things just not going right for me. That's kind of where David is in this

Psalm. Could have been Shammai. But if you'll look at the story of Saul.

It kind of fits him too. We know that Cush is a Benjamite. We don't know who he is.

We know that Saul was the son of Kish. So it could be and many commentators believe that this

Cush the Benjamite is a close relative of Saul. So something that Cush the

Benjamite is doing is is slandering David when he already feels right with the

Lord. So things things are good between David and God. But things are not going well for David.

That sounds very much like the time when

David is ascending to the throne. Because if you'll remember the reason why

David experiences doubt with Shammai is he has had sin. He has felt like maybe

I'm not completely right with God. The rise of Absalom is a consequence of David's sin.

There's strife in his family. He's had kids kill kids. He's had just terrible family life as a as a penalty for his his sin against Bathsheba's husband.

So for that reason, I tend to believe that Cush the

Benjamite most closely resembles who someone in Saul's camp.

Rather than someone who is cursing David when he's running away from Absalom.

Because at that time, David didn't have a reason to doubt his standing with God.

At that time, he felt like, no, I'm right with God. And so that would be one of the main reasons

I believe that this Cush the Benjamite has more to do with something that we're going to see in 1st

Samuel chapter 24. OK, so you can go there now. I'll paraphrase just a little bit more.

David has already been anointed. And he is running from Saul. So he's had his anointing.

He's going through his time of disappointing, as Myron Goldwyn would say. Right. He's not yet hit his appointment where he gets to sit on the throne.

And his men believe he's king. Right. And by all rights,

David is king. But he refuses to put his hand on Saul. And he still sees

Saul as one of God's anointed. He doesn't want to harm him. And even though Saul is pursuing

David, hoping to destroy him, David is merciful to Saul at all times.

He finds himself hiding in a cave. Saul comes in to relieve himself in the cave.

And his men are saying, hey, see, God's delivering him to you. Now's the time.

And David refuses to kill Saul. But instead sneaks up and cuts off a piece of Saul's robe.

Right. So he's like, no, no, I'm not going to kill Saul. But I will. I will show that God has delivered him unto me.

And what's wild is he even feels bad for doing that. He cuts off the robe or a piece of Saul's robe.

And then he just feels like, oh, I can't believe I did this. And ultimately, he runs out following Saul.

Saul leaves the cave. He runs out behind him. There is no strategic advantage to doing this whatsoever.

This is actually really like throwing himself into the lion's den.

This is putting David in harm's way. He calls out to Saul. And here's what we see.

And he said unto his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master. The Lord's anointed to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the

Lord. So David stayed his servants with these words. This is before he cuts off the robe and suffered them not to rise against Saul.

But Saul rose up out of the cave and went on his way. So I guess he's already he's already cut the the robe.

David also arose afterward and went out of the cave and cried after Saul saying, my

Lord, the king. Interesting that he's he's calling him that. He's already been anointed, but he still sees

Saul as anointed. My Lord, the king. And when Saul looked behind him, David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself.

And David said to Saul, this is the part where David gets to confront whatever this

Cush the Benjamite has been saying. He says, wherefore, here is thou men's words saying, behold,

David's David seeketh thy hurt. So so there is slandering going on to David and Saul believes that David is out to hurt him.

And David is saying, why do you believe this? Why why are you listening to someone saying that I want to hurt you?

Behold, this day, thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had delivered thee today into my hand in the cave and some bade me kill thee.

But mine eyes spared thee. And I said, I will not put forth mine hand against my Lord, for he is the

Lord's anointed. Moreover, my father see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand, for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe and killed thee not.

Know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand. And I have not sinned against thee, yet thou huntest my soul to take it.

You see, so he's like, look, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have. This is his proof, right?

I am, I have no ill will against you. Don't listen to the slanderer.

Don't listen to whoever it is that you're listening to. Again, many commentators believe this must be someone who is in close relation to Saul.

If you think about someone who's really close to the throne. If there is word that David has been anointed king, what does that mean for that person?

David's been anointed king. Now I don't, I'm going to lose my position of status. So we see motive here for a slandering.

I don't want to lose this position of status. I want Saul to stay king.

So I need Saul to know that David is bad news. I need Saul to think that David is out to kill him.

So Saul will kill David. Then I get to keep my position of authority and power and influence.

Okay. So it may be Shimei. It may be this person near Saul.

Regardless of who it is, someone is slandering David. Now, with that in mind,

David feeling right with the Lord, feeling like I should not be experiencing difficulty because I'm right with the

Lord. Sound familiar? Isn't that how we feel? Like, no, I'm doing everything right. Why are things going poorly for me?

That is the state of mind David's in. So let's begin reading through Psalm 7, and I'm sorry that took so long, but I wanted to give some context for what's going on in David's mind when he's writing this

Psalm. We've done that a few times. He starts off with, Oh, Lord, my

God, in thee do I put my trust. Save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me.

What's he start with? What's the very first thing he says? Oh, Lord, my

God. He does what he's been doing in a lot of these Psalms. He starts with his relationship with God.

It's like he's reminding God, hey, we're buddies. You are my

God. And it's a word of praise. It's a very personal address.

It's not just, oh, Lord, the high God. It's not just, oh, Lord, God almighty.

It's, oh, Lord, my God. I'm one of your followers, remember?

I love you. I worship you. This is a very personal address, and I think it's interesting that we see later

Jesus teaching us how to pray. How does he say to start? Our Father, which are in heaven.

It's a very personal relationship starting to start to this prayer. Remember, he's not just some distant

God. He's not just some distant celestial being.

He is your God. He is your Father in heaven. Next, he starts with, in thee do

I put my trust. What a great way to start. David doesn't lean on his own understanding, but rather trust

God for his. As he calls him to be the judge of the situation.

Now, when David confronts Saul outside the cave, what did he say?

The Lord judge between me and thee. How often do we, feeling like we're in the right, try to argue our own case with a person who has something against us?

Now, let me show you why I'm right. Let me show you why I am faultless.

I am guiltless in this situation. Well, David does have proof.

He's got a piece of the robe in his hand. See, I'm not searching for your hurt, but he doesn't just say, look at why

I'm right. He starts with, let the Lord judge between me and you. We tend to pass judgment.

We'll get what we feel is righteous indignation, and we'll even write someone off because we know we're in the right.

We'll write somebody off and say, well, no, you are wrong. I know you're wrong.

You probably don't know you're wrong. You can't see that you're wrong. I'm going to pray that the Lord will show you that you're wrong.

And since we cannot walk together and be agreed, we can't have anything to do with each other until you learn to get right.

David doesn't seem to do this at all. He doesn't take it there one bit.

It's more of like a pleading with, no, no, I can give you my side, but I'm throwing myself at your mercy.

And let's let the Lord decide. It reminds me of when they would take lots and cast them.

I get this mental picture of like dice, right? Shaking the dice and cast them. People would do this at this, in this time because they believed that God was so sovereign.

He would make the dice land how he wanted them. Right. And it's almost like David is taking the dice and tossing it and saying here, here

I am. You can kill me right now, but let's let the Lord decide what should happen.

Now, if you read on in first Samuel, you'll see that, that, um, Saul goes, oh my goodness.

Now I know he even says, now I know that you'll be king. Cause you, you could have killed me.

And he actually at this point asks David to make him a promise that when you're king, you will not cut my name off from the land.

It's pretty powerful. And he ends up leaving and David and his men, uh, they just kind of part ways and they get up into a stronghold.

Okay. So David is putting his trust in God. Look what he says next.

He says, save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me.

When we pray, what do we typically pray about? If there's confrontation, what is it we usually do?

We pray that we win. Yeah. We pray that the Lord will deliver us. But what are we specifically praying about?

Help with this confrontation. Help with this slanderer, help with this person, right?

Here's the problem. God helped me in this problem. Isn't it interesting David doesn't stop there.

He's like, deliver me from everything. It's really cool because he's like, not just this problem.

Let's get rid of all the problems while we're at it. It's the boldness

David has and the, and the expectation he has is really quite astonishing.

I think we can have that kind of expectation. We can have that kind of boldness when we stand clean before the

Lord, when we are living right for God. I know certainly in my life,

I get a little bit more bold when I feel like, no, I'm, I've been good. Like I've been, I've been living righteously.

I, I, I got away from that sin. You know, I've, I have resisted temptation and now

I'm going to go to God and I'm going to feel a lot better for me in high school. This is what it looked like. I've got a basketball game coming up and I have been really good this week.

God, I'm going to ask that we win this basketball game. And I know you're going to let me because I'm your favorite right now, you know, and I would have this, this feeling of God loves me the most, right?

His, his love never changed for me because of anything that I did. It didn't grow for me because of what

I did, but my confidence grew because when you think about what happens, we, we as Christians realize the only reason why we can get away from sin is because of God.

So if he helped me overcome that sin, yeah, surely he's going to help me overcome the basketball team

I'm about to play. Like that's beans compared to what he's helped me beat. Right? So David has this feeling of let's go, let's just go get rid of all of my enemies right now.

So he says, save me from all of them that persecute me and deliver me. We have many enemies as well, don't we?

We tend to think we have three main enemies. Who are they? The world, the flesh and the devil.

But if you really ponder about those enemies, you find out those could almost be treated as categories.

Let's start with the flesh. There are certainly many enemies found within the flesh.

Greed, lust, pride, jealousy, fear, laziness, gluttony. Those are just few. Those are all temptations that can start in the flesh.

That's a lot of enemies. How many of you are there? One. And that's just a few that you got to fight against as one person.

The world, there's certainly many enemies in the world. David had these in the form of the followers of Saul, or if this has to do with Absalom, lots of enemies there because it's not just his son.

It's anyone who decided to follow his son, which was almost all of Israel. So now he's got lots of people against him.

How many people are against us? It's on full display when you look at the elections.

I mean, when you see what's going on in the elections, what you're literally seeing, you're not seeing

Republican and Democrat or conservative and liberal. You're seeing good and evil because there's either you adhere to God's word or you don't.

We can put whatever, we can put whatever we want as a label to that.

We can call it Republican if we want, but there are some Republicans that don't adhere to God's word.

So the best way to vote would be, let's look at what God's word says and whoever's policies most closely match

God's word. That's who we vote for. Ignore the other labels, right? So now let's look at how many millions of people vote against God's word.

We go, well, maybe they don't know that's what they're doing. Maybe they do. Certainly many of them do.

So if that's the case, there are millions of people who are against God. And if they are against God, they're against God's people.

What does that mean? That means we have a lot of enemies in this world. Rod is the way to destruction, right?

There are a whole lot of them who will not ever be on our side and maybe they don't feel like enemies right now.

We certainly don't want them to feel like that. They may not even feel like they're our enemies either, but if they hate the things of God, then they hate the things that we're supposed to be all about, which makes them an enemy.

That's a lot of enemies. How many of you are there? There's one. There's one of you and millions of them.

What about the devil? There's only one of him, right? But he's got minions.

He's got demons, numerous demons.

I don't know how many, but a lot. I want you to think for just a second of all the sins and temptations to sin.

All the millions of people who want to see you dead or at the very least canceled.

All of who knows how many demons there are working against you every second of every day.

And that's just one of you against all of that. The multiple enemies in the flesh, the multiple enemies in the world, the multiple enemies in Satan's army.

They're all against you. Who's the most dangerous?

Oh, what category is the most dangerous? Well, there's speculation. Most people would believe it's, it's a

Satan. But when you get to the millennial kingdom, Satan will be chained and Jesus will be sitting on the throne ruling with a rod of iron.

The world system. So the world system is kept at bay. Satan's chained up and there will still be an uprising against Jesus.

That's only the flesh. It's almost as if the Lord is saying the final battle is against the biggest enemy, the flesh.

And think about it. The flesh is always with you. You can't get away from the flesh. It's, it's there, right?

It's like, it's a pretty formidable foe, which we'll look at.

We'll look at next. Here's what I picture when, when

I think of the numerous enemies that are against us in second King six, 17, therefore sent he that are horses and chariots and a great host.

And they came by night encompassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold the host compassed the city with both the horses and chariots.

And the servant said unto him, alas, my master, how shall we do? All right.

So this is Elisha's servant saying, what are we going to do? We're surrounded. It brings back the, the movie reference

Ben shared in his in his Obadiah story, right? When it was a

Lord of the Rings and you have this little company of, of heroes encompassed about by orcs everywhere.

It's great movie reference. I've thought of it several times. Good job, Benjamin. And Elisha prayed and said,

Lord, I pray the open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around about Elisha.

How many of you are there? Only one, but you're not alone. The enemy is far outnumbered and that's just if it was just Jesus, but it's not just Jesus.

Jesus could handle all of them. He's that powerful, but he's got a host of heavenly angels surrounding and fighting with you and for you.

He has his father, the God of all creation, empowering the whole lot of us, the one who created the enemy, the one who, who created all three enemies.

People go, Oh, God didn't create the enemy. He did. He literally said he did.

And Isaiah, he says, I form the light and create darkness. I create evil.

Literally said that. Now that doesn't mean that God is evil. It just means he created it. So he has complete control over everything.

He's the one who's for you. His, his angels are for you. You're not outnumbered, but it certainly feels that way.

And that's how David's feeling. That's the situation you're in.

The next verse says, lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces while there is none to deliver.

David doesn't just recognize that he has many enemies he needs saving from. He also says that this enemy is formidable.

He can tear me up like a lion, rending me in pieces when there is none to deliver.

Think of who David was prior to, uh, being anointed King. What was he?

It's a shepherd boy. And he has probably experienced one of his sheep being caught by a lion at some point.

Now we know that he has defended his sheep from a lion as well, defeated a lion, defeated a bear.

David is quite the formidable man himself, but whether he's experienced this or not, he knows it's a possibility with sheep that a lion can rend it to pieces.

If he's not there to save it. So what is he telling God? I will be rend in pieces if you're not there to save me.

So just how formidable does he believe this foe is? Well, think of Satan who's been perfecting his ability to destroy for thousands of years.

And he has shared that knowledge with his army for thousands of years.

Think how long it takes one human being to try and get just a competitive edge in one small field in the marketplace.

And we don't live for thousands of years, at least not in this body. Satan has been working for thousands and thousands of years to perfect his ability to absolutely destroy you.

He's a very formidable foe. In fact, even the Archangel Michael who's been around for thousands and thousands of years will not bring a railing accusation against Satan himself.

And I would say Michael's probably pretty formidable. Instead, he says the Lord rebuked thee.

So Satan is certainly a formidable foe. I heard a young man, uh, it's a young preacher.

I've been kind of listening to every now and then on social media. I'm very skeptical of young preachers just because I've, I've been trained to be,

I think. Um, but he surprised me on a lot of things that he said.

And you know, you take the good, you spit out the bad. Uh, but he, he described how

Satan counterfeits God's leading. See Satan and God, they both have a way to lead and Satan wants it to appear as though he's got the superior way to lead, but they look similar.

They met like this. This is what the young man shared. And I think there's some truth to it. Satan ultimately wants to lead you to death.

Is that true? That's what he wants, but he does so with little bursts of what seems like life.

Um, things like, look at the fun you'll have. Look at the experience that you could miss out on.

If you don't do this, this will save you from your situation. This is what will make you feel better.

Little bursts of what seems like life leads to death. Ultimately that's the end game.

Now think of how Jesus leads. He wants to lead you ultimately to where to life, but he does it with little bursts of what seems like death.

What do I mean by that? Well, we're supposed to die to our sin. We're supposed to be dying to ourselves.

We're supposed to be dying to the law and to the flesh. That's not easy.

That's not fun. Whosoever will lose his life shall gain it. You see how

Satan, he has a similar concept. We're going to do little bursts of something to get to something else.

But the lie is these little bursts of life will add up to life.

They're not life. They're selfishness. They're self -focused.

It's the litmus test of does God get the glory or does man get the glory? Satan doesn't want the glory.

He wants man to get the glory because it's anyone but Jesus. Satan's not trying to get the glory.

He's trying to give you the glory because he knows that's not where it belongs. That's his trick.

Jesus is trying to get you to realize it's not about you. It's about me.

Everything that was created is for my glory. Spurgeon said of this verse 2 that this is a soul -moving portrait of a saint delivered over to the will of Satan.

In other words, David is using his words to go straight to the worst -case scenario.

This is something that I tease my wife about. She will be confronted with some kind of problem.

She's pretty good at going straight to the worst -case scenario. Like, this is how bad it's going to get. I'm the eternal optimist.

For me, I'm like, I couldn't possibly get that bad. But David here does exactly that.

He's like, I'm going to have my soul rent like a lion. As if I'm a sheep that has no shepherd.

This is what's going to happen, God. He's using this terminology when he's speaking to the

Lord. It sounds like a lack of faith. But really what it is, is he's appealing to the personality of Christ.

You love me. You wouldn't possibly want to see one of your sheep rend in two.

You will come to the rescue if I just tell you how bad this is going to be. Here's what

Spurgeon says. This is a soul -moving portrait of a saint delivered over to the will of Satan. This will make the bowels of Jehovah yearn.

A father cannot be silent when a child is in such peril. No, he will not endure the thought of his darling in the jaws of a lion.

He will arise and deliver his persecuted one. Our God is very pitiful. And he will surely rescue his people from so desperate a destruction.

I think it's pretty cool. He really captures, I think, what David's trying to do. This is terrible.

I'm right with you. And I'm about to be just absolutely destroyed. Wow, we're almost out of time.

And we've only gone through two verses. Sorry, guys. We'll speed up a little bit.

We will not get through this chapter. So next comes his defense.

If I have done this, if there be any iniquity in my hand, 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 mine enemy. See, that sounds more like Shammai, doesn't it?

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.

We'll go through this verse here. I guess it's three verses here.

And then we'll call it quits for the day because I have been way too talkative. It's as if he's saying, in my heart of hearts,

I feel like I am in the right. I have acted in accordance with your laws.

I have pursued your will by showing mercy and love and kindness. But if there is any wrongdoing, let him have me.

What's that? It's definitely a dramatic confidence, right?

Now this shows the need for us to come to the Lord as clean as we can. Asking for his judgment between us and others.

What boldness he displays. But at the same time, listen to how he himself realizes the gravity of what he's just said.

If I did anything wrong, let him persecute me. Let him destroy me.

Let him erase my honor. And then he follows that up with salah.

Remember that word? It's a word, a very dramatic word that has different feelings to it.

So imagine David saying what he has said. Lay my honor in the dust.

Just let him do it. If there's any wrongdoing in me, God, just let him have me. Let him take me. Let him destroy me.

Let him drag me through the dirt. That's kind of what it's like.

It's like, I just said that. It just came out of my mouth. Yikes!

Casting the lot. I have just thrown myself at the mercy of my enemy.

And I trust you. It goes right back to, in thee do I put my trust. Not in my ability to deliver myself from my enemy, because he's right there.

He's right there where I could take him out. Instead, instead of me taking advantage of even the situation

I have to win, I am going to sacrifice my advantage for the sake of peace.

We don't do that when we have confrontation with other people. When we get the advantage, we strike.

We go, boom, gotcha. I just won the argument. You just slipped up.

I can prove I'm right. You are wrong. Now you have to accept my superior advantage, my superior position.

That's how we act. David sacrificed that advantage to show God just how much he trusted him.

Pretty crazy. And didn't just sacrifice the advantage, put his very life on the altar of that sacrifice.

Because Saul could turn around and say, well, you're a dumb kid. Could have killed him right there.

That's an incredible amount of trust. So we didn't get through all of this chapter this time.

Maybe next time. But we're over time at this point, so we need to call it quits.

Some ponderings, right? If you feel like you're in the right with the Lord, it definitely gives you boldness when coming to the

Lord. But even that boldness is something that you should be willing to sacrifice to show

God. Even if I have the advantage and I am right in this situation, I will sacrifice it for the sake of the person in front of me.

Who did he do this for? It was ultimately for Saul, because he could have cut

Saul off right then and there. He's not thinking of himself. He's thinking of the person who's in the wrong.

We don't do that. Even though we know they're in the wrong, we show no mercy. David shows mercy at this time.

There's no wonder he's a man after God's own heart. All right, let's pray and we'll be dismissed.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this incredible picture of mercy and of confidence. Lord, we ask that you help us, empower us every moment of every day to rise above the sin, the temptations of the flesh that are presented to us.

Help us to rise above any appearance of wrongdoing, so that when the world accuses us and the slanderer and his minions accuse us, we can stand boldly before you knowing that we we've done no wrong.

And let that empower us to take a position of mercy against those who would kill us.

That's a very difficult thing to do. But you give us a great picture of David here who's done that.

He did it with Shimei. He did it with Saul. Whoever this Cush the Benjamite is, he received a benefit from your anointed having favor with you.

Just like the early church in Acts chapter two, who had favor with all the people around them.

It's really just that they receive a benefit from the favor that your anointed has with you.

Father, we love you. We thank you for the Psalms. We just ask that you help us to think about them more often and apply them to our lives.