Psalm 7 – My Defense is of God
By Bunni Pounds
*This blog is part of our weekly, virtual Bible Study through the book of Psalms. For information on how to participate, please visit this page.
“O Lord my God, in You I put my trust;
Save me from all those who persecute me;
And deliver me,
Lest they tear me like a lion,
Rending me in pieces, while there is none to deliver.” (verses 1-2)
Psalm 7 is a meditation from David concerning the words of Cush – a Benjamite. Many Biblical scholars believe this was written during the reign of King Saul while David was hiding from him.
As I read this, I focused on the idea of being torn to pieces by a lion. I know that is morbid, but the thought of my body being torn limb from limb is a terrible prospect.
Can you imagine David’s dark thoughts if he was worried about his enemies tearing up his life like a lion? He must have been in a helpless place to let his mind go there.
When I think about pieces – I think of the puzzles I love to do with my daughters-in-law (especially during quarantine in 2020). The tiny fragments that can so easily be lost. I think about the fragments that do not seem to fit together unless they are assembled and pushed into place. David must have felt like his life was in shambles – physically, mentally, financially, and spiritually. He paints the picture here of some deep hopelessness.
I want to set the stage at the beginning of this chapter because we need to understand where he finds hope and how deep the revelation is of the gift of righteousness from God.
“O Lord my God, if I have done this:
If there is iniquity in my hands,
If I have repaid evil to him who was at peace with me,
Or have plundered my enemy without cause,
Let the enemy pursue me and overtake me;
Yes, let him trample my life to the earth,
And lay my honor in the dust. Selah” (verses 3-5)
David then turns his thoughts from what is happening to him and what his enemies are accomplishing in his life – to analyzing the cause.
Is it his fault? Did he cause this reaction from his enemies?
Iniquity in this verse means “perverseness, unjust, unrighteousness” – what is not morally right.
David is questioning his own life and own morality.
Had he handled his enemies correctly? Had he taken people who were at peace with him and made things worse?
All good questions to ask and ones that we need to look at when we are experiencing trials at the hands of other people.
In such instances, we can ask if we contributed to others’ attitudes, words, and persecutions – or are we completely innocent?
“Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end,
But establish the just;
For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.
My defense is of God,
Who saves the upright in heart.” (verses 9-10)
Here is where it gets good – the righteous and just God who is COMPLETELY moral, right, and lawful tests the hearts and minds of people. In Him, there “is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17). He is completely holy, completely right, completely clean (which is at the root word of righteous) and completely moral.
David turns his attention to one hope and the only thing that matters – “MY DEFENSE IS OF GOD, WHO SAVES THE UPRIGHT IN HEART.”
The root Hebrew word here for “UPRIGHT” means to be straight or even, to make right, pleasant, and prosperous.
Believe me – David knew his own weaknesses, faults, and sins. He knew that he didn’t keep his life on the straight and narrow every moment. Without fully understanding the redemption that God was going to bring onto the earth through Jesus – he put his faith that a redeemer was coming. For that reason and that reason alone – he understood that he was UPRIGHT.
This, my friends, is the Gospel – the good news. We are not righteous. We may feel as if we are being torn to pieces, and much of it might be our own fault. We may be struggling with iniquities – patterns of sin – that are not morally right, BUT GOD…
There is no righteousness apart from Him. There is no redemption outside of faith in the cross of Christ and His finished work.
Let’s take a closer look at this well-known scripture – “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and the only path to true righteousness is by “grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Let’s approach Romans 3 with the understanding of what David was looking at by faith into the future - that JESUS is our ONLY DEFENSE. There is no other way to obtain righteousness. We cannot work our way into being a “just” person – we can only obtain the righteousness of God and in His eyes become UPRIGHT by His grace through faith.
“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-26)
So - when the Old Testament says words like these next verses in Psalms 7 - “God is God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day,” (Psalm 7:11), know this –
God is so just that He made a way of escape from His own justice – by sending His own Son to redeem us. He gave us who believe and David a JUSTIFIER to satisfy that anger.
This is the good news of the Gospel and why we have hope.
Therefore, we give up everything to follow Jesus – because once we realize what we have been redeemed from – a thankfulness and a heart of love springs up in us that cannot be quenched.
He who has been forgiven much – loves much.
I will end with the story that demonstrates this redemption so well – the story out of Luke 7 where the sinful woman comes to Jesus and pours out her love at His feet. In the middle of Jesus eating with the Pharisees – the religious law-keepers who believed that they were holy because of their good works and how “righteous” they were through their own obedience – this woman enters.
Here is a woman - who most believe - was a prostitute and had not lived a moral life – but she had been received by Jesus and was treated with honor by Him. She experienced the love and compassion that came through His eyes into her soul.
Her response to that love?
She took an alabaster jar filled with perfume that was worth a year’s wages, and she poured it lavishly upon the feet of Jesus. She wiped His feet with her hair and with her tears. It was extravagant worship, and the religious Pharisees did not understand it. They couldn’t understand it because they were not fully aware of their own need for God and His righteousness. They were satisfied in their own works and strivings, but this woman wasn’t even going to try to be good. She was fully aware of her wickedness, her sin, and her immoral lifestyle, and she needed the righteousness that only came from her Messiah that offered her a new life, new hope, and a new identity.
That is where we must all come to – that place of seeing our need for God’s righteousness. If we don’t - we will never enter into the abandonment of self and freedom that she did.
As a thirteen-year-old Pastor’s daughter – I saw my need for Jesus in the crowd of thousands of people at a Christian music concert. I wept and wept, and I could not stop crying. I saw my sin. I saw Jesus. And where I had fallen short - I grabbed His righteousness. I have never been the same.
“I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness,
And will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.” (verse 17)
Jesus is our DEFENSE, and He calls us UPRIGHT because of His blood and sacrifice. Like David and the woman at Jesus’ feet - that truth can set us free.
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