O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge;
        save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
    lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,
        rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
    O LORD my God, if I have done this,
        if there is wrong in my hands,
    if I have repaid my friend with evil
        or plundered my enemy without cause,
    let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
        and let him trample my life to the ground
        and lay my glory in the dust. Selah
    Arise, O LORD, in your anger;
        lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
        awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.
    Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you;
        over it return on high.
    The LORD judges the peoples;
        judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness
        and according to the integrity that is in me.
    Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
        and may you establish the righteous—
    you who test the minds and hearts,
        O righteous God!
    My shield is with God,
        who saves the upright in heart.
    God is a righteous judge,
        and a God who feels indignation every day.
    If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;
        he has bent and readied his bow;
    he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,
        making his arrows fiery shafts.
    Behold, the wicked man conceives evil
        and is pregnant with mischief
        and gives birth to lies.
    He makes a pit, digging it out,
        and falls into the hole that he has made.
    His mischief returns upon his own head,
        and on his own skull his violence descends.
    I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness,
        and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
—Psalm 7

Introduction

Many people today have heard of the Nazi death camps. Fewer have heard of the killing fields in Cambodia. Pol Pot is responsible for the murder of two million Cambodians. Perhaps the greatest atrocity took place at Tuol Sleng in Cambodia. It was a high school that Pol Pot had converted into a prison and torture chamber called the S–21 unit.

At Tuol Sleng, 20,000 people were held and tortured to death. Tim Keesee describes the gruesome situation. What was especially grievous and insane about the murders at Tuol Sleng was the careful and creative attention given to torture. The objective wasn’t death; it was suffering. To intensify suffering, prisoners were not allowed to cry out, or they were given shocks with an electric cow prod. They would weep but not scream, suffering to death in silence. Pol Pot’s torturers were careful to photograph all their victims before and sometimes after they were tortured. Many of these photographs were glued to the walls, where chalkboards once hung and students once chattered. The yellowing pictures show mostly youthful prisoners looking into the face of their killers.

What would you say? Have you ever had to look into the face of sheer evil? This experience tests the ability of any system of thought. Does your outlook on life provide any resources to talk about such an experience?

Our politically correct country wants to take the language of evil out of our vocabulary, but life keeps putting it back in our dictionary. We hear simplistic, sound-byte solutions today that can’t deal with all the facts. For example, many in our world today believe that the problem is a lack of education. The problem with that answer is that Hitler and Pol Pot and other tyrants were some of the best-educated people of their day.

The Bible alone allows us to look into the face of evil and have something to say. Psalm 7 has so much to say that I want to get right to it. Here is the main point. Last week we said that God’s faithful love is our only hope against guilt and grief. This week the main point is that God’s holy anger is our only hope against injustice.

David’s Danger (vv. 1–2)

       O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; 

save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, 

       lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, 

rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.

David takes refuge in his God. Notice that David refers to God as Yahweh (LORD), the personal name that God revealed to Moses. The personal name so His own people know what name to use.

Great trials require great theology. David has it. He knows God personally, and thus he knows that God does more than provide refuge—God is the refuge. He does not give protection; He is the protection. That is so important because God rules over everything everywhere. Wherever you go, you can know that God reigns there, and so you are safe there.

David is desperate about his need for deliverance. His enemies are in hot pursuit. He is being tracked down and hunted. He continues the imagery in a grisly way. If he is caught, his life is over. It will look like a scene from National Geographic after a lion catches a wildebeest, its face red with blood as it savagely tears the carcass into pieces. 

David’s Innocence (vv. 3–5)

  O Lord my God, if I have done this, 

if there is wrong in my hands, 

       if I have repaid my friend with evil 

or plundered my enemy without cause, 

       let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, 

and let him trample my life to the ground 

and lay my glory in the dust. Selah

David makes it very clear that he is innocent with respect to the charge that Cush has made. Some psalms of suffering are designated as psalms of the innocent sufferer; others are designated as psalms of the guilty sufferer. For example, Psalms 34–37 all deal with innocent suffering, while Psalms 38–41 all deal with guilty suffering. This is a psalm of the innocent sufferer.

Therefore, let’s be clear why David is not singing the Pharisee national anthem of “Great is my faithfulness.” When David asks to be judged by his “righteousness” or “integrity” (v. 8), he is simply and specifically talking about the unjust charges against him.

If you were unfairly accused of a crime that you didn’t commit, and it went to court, and you pleaded your innocence, you would not be saying that you were sinless. You would not be claiming that you had always done everything right. You would be saying that the charges against you were false. The judge is being asked to rule on a very specific matter: are the charges true or false? The verdict will either be guilty or innocent. David is making a case for his innocence in this matter.

David knows that he is approaching the Judge, so he pleads his innocence. The repetition of “if” drives his plea. He is emphatic about his innocence. He takes what amounts to an oath of innocence. It is like saying, “Cross my heart and hope to die,” or “I solemnly swear.” He is basically saying, “If I am lying, do not intervene—just let my enemies win. But the flip side is also true. If I am telling the truth about my innocence, then intervene and judge my enemies.” 

God’s Justice (vv. 6–16)

  Arise, O Lord, in your anger; 

lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; 

awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. 

       Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; 

over it return on high. 

       The Lord judges the peoples; 

judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness 

and according to the integrity that is in me. 

       Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, 

and may you establish the righteous— 

       you who test the minds and hearts, 

O righteous God! 

       My shield is with God, 

who saves the upright in heart. 

       God is a righteous judge, 

and a God who feels indignation every day. 

       If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; 

he has bent and readied his bow; 

       he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, 

making his arrows fiery shafts. 

       Behold, the wicked man conceives evil 

and is pregnant with mischief 

and gives birth to lies. 

       He makes a pit, digging it out, 

and falls into the hole that he has made. 

       His mischief returns upon his own head, 

and on his own skull his violence descends.

Here we come to the hinge of the whole psalm. David prays for God to act. He paints several poetic pictures of judgment.

I think of first picture as a fury face-off (v. 6). This picture may catch you off guard. David calls God to arise in anger over against the fury of his enemies. David pits God’s anger against his enemies’ anger.

Have you ever heard lions have a roaring face-off? One lion roars, and then another lion tries to out-roar that first lion. God’s roar of anger makes the enemies’ roars seem tiny. It’s like the difference between a tabby cat and an African lion. He roars, and your insides shake.

The second picture is a crowded courtroom scene (v. 7). It is both familiar and extraordinary at the same time. All the nations are gathered to hear this judgment. David pictures God summoning all the nations to be present to witness the court proceedings. 

But the text goes much further. The language here is so striking. David uses two words in the picture of verses 6–7: “arise” (v. 6) and “return” (v. 7). When paired together, these words provide a rich tapestry of a call for the Lord to lead the charge into battle. Imagine an army ready to charge into battle and just waiting for the summons. Finally the general yells, “Charge.” That is what these words are. 

And whenever the ark set out, Moses said, “Arise, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.” And when it rested, he said, “Return, O Lord, to the ten thousand thousands of Israel”—Numbers 10:35–36

Third, David, the defendant, is the one who calls for the court date (v. 8). The defendant, not the prosecutor, is calling for his day in court. God judges all the nations, but he also judges individuals and individual situations perfectly. David is convinced that God sees what has happened and that God knows about David’s innocence. God will establish the cause of the righteous and put an end to the cause of evil. David’s passion for justice cannot even compare to God’s passion for justice. He is “a God who feels indignation every day” (v. 11).

Fourth, there is a picture of the warrior (vv. 12–13). The phrase “ready, aim, fire” comes close to this picture. This warrior has taken aim and is all set to fire. There is a breathless moment of anticipation as the bow is drawn back—the archer could let it fly at any moment. The enemy is sighted in the scope. God has the unrighteous in his crosshairs. It will soon be over.

Fifth, there is a picture of poetic justice in terms of a boomerang effect (vv. 15–16). David’s enemies plan an attack only to have it backfire on them, like throwing a weapon and not realizing it is a boomerang that will come back to hit you.

How do these last two pictures fit together? In the one picture, God looks active—armed, taking aim, and ready to attack (vv. 12–13). In the second picture, God looks passive—he is not even in the picture as an active participant. The wicked man makes a pit, digs it out, and then falls into it. This man’s mischief returns upon his own head, and his violent ways are s turned against him.

Let me give you an example that can look both active and passive. Dale Ralph Davis shares a grisly story in his commentary. 

If an Eskimo has a problem with a wolf, he actively plans out how to use the bloodthirsty instinct of the wolf against him. First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. He adds several more layers of frozen blood until the blade is totally concealed. Next, he puts his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his nose and finds the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, with much more gusto, lapping at the blade until the sharp edge is bare. But now he is feverishly licking, harder and harder, his craving so intense that the wolf does not notice the sting of the bare blade on his own tongue—nor does he recognize the moment when his unquenchable thirst is being satisfied with his own warm blood. He craves more and more—until he’s found dead in the snow next morning.—Dale Ralph Davis, The Way of the Righteous in the Muck of Life

God’s judgment can work like that. The enemies of God’s people take aim and shoot at God’s people, but God gives his people a shield so that the shot comes right back at the enemies and kills them. 

David’s Praise (v. 17)

       I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, 

and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. 

When the tables turn, David will remember to give God the thanks. God will get the praise. David will not embezzle any of the glory. If you operate with the principle of giving credit where credit is due, then you can’t help but live a life of praise—unless you are blind and out of touch with how weak and vulnerable you are.

We have to acknowledge that we only see a very narrow slice of what God is doing in any given situation. We are constantly being delivered, but sometimes we are not aware of it because we are oblivious to the danger.

Sometimes movies have scenes like this. One person is oblivious to danger and someone else keeps intervening to rescue that person. But the person is unaware of the danger, so he or she never stops to thank the unseen deliverer. Sometimes God allows us to see our danger clearly so that we can see the deliverance clearly. That way, the song of praise will be sung clearly.

In application now, we will deal with three problems: God’s anger, God’s justice, and God’s delay of judgment.

The Problem of God’s Anger

Are we supposed to pray in this way that factors in God’s anger? Should we even think that God would be motivated in those terms? Are we supposed to pray in that way?

I believe we are. Let’s start by recalling what I said earlier when we looked at Psalm 5.

We made the case back in Psalm 5 that we should pray these psalms of judgment because they are prayers for God to act, not invitations for us to enact vengeance personally. We take the evil and injustice, and we leave it with God. Every prayer ends with this parenthesis: yet not my will, but yours be done. God may choose to end the evil of persecution by taking away the lives of the wicked, or he may choose to end the evil by saving the wicked and giving them new life. 

But there is another reason why we can’t help but pray in a way that factors in God’s anger. Let me give you an example. One believer in Pakistan let many people from his village stay in his house. He stood in the way and tried to protect them and his family from being raped and murdered. We should do what we can to counteract injustice.

But what do when we can’t do anything else? What do we do when we can’t protect people or we are dealing with the aftereffects? Tim Keesee said that he met some of the young girls who made it through that night of burning and looting, their wide eyes still filled with fear and tears. He writes, “We tried to comfort them as best we could. A local leader prayed for them and concluded with the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Deliver us from evil,’ never meant as much as it did tonight” (p. 153).

You can’t help but pray in that way. Think about the Lord’s Prayer for a moment. Do you realize what you are praying? Martin Luther wrote that whoever prays, “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” must also pray against all those in opposition to this. We must also say this:

Curses, maledictions and disgrace upon every other name and every other kingdom. May they be ruined and torn apart and may all their schemes and wisdom and plans run aground.—Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1956, vol. 21, p. 110).

We have so sanitized the Bible. Salvation is a messy, nasty, bloody business. A church that I attended in Louisiana had a big painting of Noah’s ark. In it, all the smiling animals sat in the ark as it floated on the water. Noah and some animals were saved, but many others were not. A complete picture would have many, many dead bodies floating all over the earth. 

You can’t help but pray for justice. Every time you say “Maranantha”—come quickly Lord Jesus—you are praying for the time when Jesus comes and Revelation gives perhaps the most gruesome picture ever: the blood will rise to the level of the horses’ bridles. That leads to the second difficulty in this text: the problem of justice.

The Problem of God’s Justice

Absolute justice is a difficult thing for the unjust to love. We all know that we don’t measure up to God’s standards of absolute justice. It is hard to love something that we know will destroy us.

People don’t have wild animals as pets, so they try to tame them. People have tried to tame God and make him more like a pet who will serve their interests. We are often okay with the image of a God who hates the sin that others have done to us, but we are not comfortable with a God who hates the sin that we have done. We don’t like the idea of a God who would judge us and pronounce us guilty and who would fight against us as a warrior.

People respond to this problem by remaking God in their own image. They tone down God’s anger toward sin. They take the image of God in the Bible and airbrush his sharp features away so they can have a God they are comfortable with: a God lenient toward some sin—mostly their own. This image allows them to have an answer for sins that they take seriously, and it also lets them believe that God doesn’t take their own sin seriously.

They think that they are giving the world a better, kinder, more loving God. But they are guilty of making a false God. They airbrush God.

Oh, the audacity of airbrushing the Bible! Can you imagine some snot-nosed kid wandering into the Louvre museum in Paris and drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa? People would be outraged. God is a million times more important than the Mona Lisa. Away with the airbrushed image of God! It is not a loving picture at all.

Don’t you see? If you tone down the terror of God’s anger against sin, you gut the good news of the gospel. A false view of God allows false gospels to flourish. Why? You make it possible to save yourself. You think you can be good enough to be saved. You think that God is willing to overlook your imperfections because he looks at your good works and says they are good enough. People tone down the wrath of God because they want to save the idea of the love of God, but they actually destroy both because they miss the gospel. The wrath of God is an essential dark backdrop against which we can see the bright, shining beams of the love of God in the gospel of Christ.

Have you ever eaten an insanely hot habanero pepper? My friends once dared me to do it—seeds and all. My mouth felt like a forest fire. They told me that milk was even better than water at extinguishing the burning. I don’t think I have ever wanted a glass of milk more in my entire life. After drinking it, I don’t think I ever loved milk so much as in that moment.

The gospel is like that. If you tone down the heat of God’s anger toward sin, you take away the intensity and desperation and desire and love and life-saving gratitude for the gospel.

Here is how it worked on the mission field recently in Cambodia. A missionary named J. D. Crowley shared this report:

After I taught on the Ten Commandments, a middle-aged man said, “I’ve broken every one of these commandments many, many times; how can I possibly be reconciled to God?” Others nodded their heads as if to say that they were wondering the same thing. In twelve years here, I’ve never had anyone ask me that question or seem to be under so much conviction. 

I skipped ahead and gave them a short explanation about the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world on the cross. They actually started clapping and praising God spontaneously, as if a great burden had been lifted. It was a perfect example of God’s law preparing people for God’s grace. I believe that some came into the kingdom right then and there as the light went on in their hearts and minds.—p. 102

This gospel also creates a greater hunger for holiness. Christians on the other side of the cross cannot be cavalier about sin. We don’t say, “Let’s sin so that grace may abound.” We don’t say, “Pass the habanero—I will just pour another glass of milk.” We say, “That thing burned my mouth. I don’t want another one.” 

We cannot love the sin that killed our Lord. People used to wonder why the person who seemed to have the greatest love for God in the town also spent the most time confessing his sins. It should come as no surprise. The closer you get to God, the more seriously you take sin, and the more thankful you become for the cross. This leads to the third problem this text poses: the problem of the delayed judgment.

The Problem of God’s Delayed Judgment

Unexpected delays are some of the hardest situations to deal with in all of life. You expect that it is going to take ten minutes to get home, and because of road construction around the stadium and four lanes of traffic turning into one, it actually takes fifty minutes. If you were going on a trip and you knew it was going to take fifty minutes, it would not be as frustrating. The fifty minutes would be what you expected. 

The New Testament has a message for our time: expect delays. Don’t be surprised by suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But interpret those delays carefully. The New Testament tells us to interpret the delays as proof of God’s patience towards sinners for the sake of repentance.

We are not embarrassed. We exult in his kindness and patience that lead us to repentance. God’s patience should not be misunderstood as powerlessness. Judgment is coming. It is a sure, fixed hope of God’s people. We proclaim his patience to you today. God’s heart for all to repent is on display.

Conclusion

You can’t make sense of the Christian life without Psalm 7. In his book, Dispatches from the Front, Tim Keesee tells a sobering story of the persecuted church in Pakistan. Christians are routinely robbed, raped, beaten, or murdered by Muslims. He visited a young pastor, Pastor Indriaz, who was severely beaten by several Muslims in the village of Manawala. 

The left side of his head was smashed in, the beating severed his ear and left him blind in one eye. Because of his convulsions, his wrists were awkwardly tied with cords, leaving him in a position of twisted agony. His wife, Shinaz, sat next to him, holding their three-month-old boy, Saman. She stared blankly at her husband with indescribable sadness in her eyes, as the baby nuzzled her and cried softly. As he looked into that young pastor’s eye he said, “Who can describe the sorrow in that eye—or the anger I feel tonight?” (p. 152).

Later, they found him released from the hospital, lying on some blankets on a concrete walkway outside the hospital with discharge papers and a bottle of vitamins. His family was with him, but they didn’t know what to do. It looks like Indriaz has lost the use of his right arm, his blind eye now white, and his ear badly stitched together. Most people would not treat a dog the way they have treated this man (p. 155).

As he talked to those Christians, one of them named Gulzar shared a life verse with him: “Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). 

In a church in Lahore, Pakistan, Tim Keesee joined a gathering of thousands of believers. He said, “A string of deacons with metal detectors were positioned at the entrances, as a first line of defense against grenade bombings. They are lambs among wolves, but gathered together in this fold, in the presence of their Great Shepherd, there is comfort, and there is strength.” There are also songs saying, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!”

Look at how Jesus came and defeated sin and hell—the only enemies that could eternally kill us. He found a way to destroy our sin without destroying us.

A Savior has to be a warrior. But he is a complete warrior. He defeated our main enemies in the first coming. He will destroy all of our enemies at the second coming. The Lord is a warrior. That is an unalterable fact. The only option you have is whether he fights for you or against you.

Closing Song: “Overcome”

 

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline      
1. David’s Danger (vv. 1–2) 
2. David’s Innocence (vv. 3–5)     
3. God’s Justice (vv. 6–16)     
4. David’s Praise(v. 17)

Main Point: God’s righteous anger is our only hope against injustice.

Discussion Questions
1.What is the main point of Psalm 7? How does the entire psalm come together to make that point?

2. Describe some of the pictures of justice that David provides in verses 6–16. Which picture stood out the most to you? Why?
3. Does David believe that he is sinless when he asks God to judge him according to his righteousness and integrity?

Application Questions
1. Should we really call God’s anger to mind when we pray? The sermon makes the case that we can’t help but do so. Why?

2. How can unjust sinners love the justice of God? In what ways should God’s justice lead to praise?
3. How do you respond to the way that people question the final judgment? We have been talking about Christ’s return and final judgment for over 2,000 years, and it hasn’t come yet (and the implication is that nothing will change)? Why is this not an embarrassment, but a glory for the Christian gospel of hope?

Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to worship the One True God, not an airbrushed version. Pray for a grace to preserve the purity of God’s holy anger against sin so that we don’t gut the good news of the gospel.