Sermon Tone Analysis

Slander.

Criticism.

Persecution.

Gossip.

Accusations.

Something...

We don’t know what’s going on exactly here with David; we just know it has something to do with a fellow named Cush, a Benjamite.

We can let our imaginations take us various places pretty quickly.

Imagine with me:

The tribe of Benjamin is the tribe of Saul, David’s predecessor.

This man—Cush—is part of the same tribe Saul was.

So Cush and Saul are likely related, if distantly.

Let’s say they’re cousins, Cush and Saul.

Saul, the first king of Israel, was rejected as king by the Lord for his rejecting what God said.

David is anointed in Saul’s place.

Saul tries to kill David, pursues David; David spares Saul’s life again and again.

Eventually, Saul takes his own life, falling on his own sword.

It’s a terribly sad story (re: 1 Samuel).

Upon realizing that Cush and Saul were of the same tribe (and, in my mind, cousins), I thought, “Oh, sure.

Cush is threatening David for Saul’s downfall, for stealing Saul’s throne, for Saul’s death.”

Here’s the thing: who knows what’s going on with Cush and David?

Cush is up to something.

Cush and David are in the middle of something.

Cush has accused David of something.

And so David, the musician and song-writer—the psalmist—writes a song concerning Cush and sings it to the Lord:

In this psalm, in this song of David, turns to the just and righteous God for justice.

We don’t have all the background information we’d like (nosy as we are), but we have the prayer that came out of it.

I pray the Holy Spirit will use Psalm 7 to teach us to:

Watch Our Prayer (Psalm 7:1-5)

Watch Our Prayer (Psalm 7:1-5)

As we pray, we should take special care with our prayers; we must watch our prayer.

There is the trouble, though, of praying like we think we ought to pray—praying old, tired prayers that sound the same all the time; there’s the trouble of praying fancy prayers—Jesus has some words for those folk:

There is the trouble of praying to impress—Jesus has some words for those folk, too:

There is trouble in praying flippantly, without having grounded yourself, without understanding whose you are.

David takes special care in his prayer.

He mentions right out the gate his position before God.

The first part of the first verse:

“Lord my God, I take refuge in you...”

The tense of the verb is actually past.

He’s saying: “I have taken refuge in you; In Thee I do trust.”

This is not something new for David.

David isn’t now, all of a sudden, because of whatever’s going on with Cush just now turning to God, taking refuge is God.

The verb is in the past tense, indicating that David has placed himself in the care and under the protection of God at some point in the past—some time before this latest round of trouble.

And this—to be under the shelter of the Lord’s mighty wings—is a really good place to be.

It’s a comfort.

It’s an assurance.

The Lord is a refuge for His people.

It’s as Jude, the half-brother of Jesus says:

This is our position—we are called, loved, and kept by the Triune God.

And what can be any more safe than that?

From Him, nothing can separate us.

So it is with David.

And so it is with us.

No matter what we face, we know that we are positioned with the Lord, that He is caring for us, looking out for us, holding onto us.

No doubt about it, though, for all the assurance he has in the Lord, David is in a great deal of trouble.

Pursuers dog his tracks, threatening to tear him limb from limb, ripping him to pieces.

It’s an ugly, messy picture.

Without the Lord, his God, his Refuge, there is no hope for David.

Only the Lord can save and deliver.

David is in real danger, but for the Lord.

David’s keeping a careful watch on his prayer; his lays out his conscience before the Lord.

David wants it on the record that he is innocent of whatever Cush, the Benjamite is accusing him of.

David begins: “If I have done this...”—this being whatever Cush is claiming he did.

“If I have done this…if there is guilt on my hands…if I have repaid my ally with evil…if I have robbed my foe without cause…if I’ve done this then let my enemy pursue me and overtake me, let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust.”

David is using a classic curse formula (If I have…then…) as a way of asserting his innocence of the charges.

He’s emphatically denying any wrong action or hostility on his part has brought Cush to the point of doing whatever he did.

David’s not claiming perfection; he is simply claiming to be clear of responsibility for this bit of trouble.

David’s keeping a careful watch on his prayer, laying out his case, clearing his conscience before the Lord, because David knows something crucial to praying properly.

David knows he stands under the Almighty’s gaze and that God knows him truly and deeply and intimately.

We need to pray like David; we need to pray knowing God knows all—and all about us, especially.

Our attempts to hide ourselves from Him are like little kids who play hide-and-seek with their parents.

Mom knows her kids are going to hide under the table 25 times in a row; the kids think it’s the most ingenious hideout of all time.

The seeker has to pretend to not know where they are to make the game more fun than it actually is.

It’s laughable, really, that we do the same thing.

We think we can hide ourselves, or part of who we are, from the All-Knowing, when really, to Him, we’re as poorly hidden as a giggly toddler in the same tired spot.

Let’s watch our prayer carefully—understanding our position, being honest with our situation, and fully aware that God knows us deeply and intimately.

We have Psalm 7 because the Holy Spirit knows we need to:

Get a Full Picture of God (Psalm 7:6-11)

Get a Full Picture of God (Psalm 7:6-11)

“God created man in His own image, and ever since man has returned the favor.”—Blaise

Pascal

We have an idea of what we think God is like that is neither informed by the Bible nor anything other than our own imagination and desire.

Our picture of God owes more to Santa Claus and Aladdin’s Genie than it does the Bible: we like a ‘god’ on our terms, a ‘god’ who gives us whatever “we wants when we wants it”; a ‘god’ who requires nothing of us, a ‘god’ who is always nice and meek, a ‘god’ who is gentle and gives good gifts.

But we don’t need a God of our own imagination; we need the God who is, God in all His glory and might and strength and holiness.

When David is here in Psalm 7 crying out for justice, He doesn’t want some weak, ineffectual deity.

He wants, He needs the ineffable, inexplicable, Holy and True God.

God—the God the Bible—is righteous; He’s righteously angry, righteously full of wrath.

He’s the God of justice, a God who judges the wicked and the righteous, separating one from the other.

What David needs, what we need, is God on God’s terms, not God on our terms.

We need the God who is, not the God of our collective imagination.

David—seeking justice—turns to the Lord who is gloriously angry.

There is hope in God’s anger.

You see, if our enemies who are angry at us come up against a ‘god’ who is always kindly and soft and cuddly, we’re up a creek without a paddle.

But if our angry, hate-filled enemies come up against the God who is, if it’s their anger and strength against His anger and strength, well then, our enemies do not stand even the hint of a chance.

If the contest is Yahweh vs. Enemy, Yahweh wins every time.

There’s great hope in these verses—great hope for us in the anger, the justice, the judgment, the wrath of God.

These are not things to be embarrassed about; these are not things to hide.

These are truths we should rejoice in, truths we should exalt in.

The doctrine of judgment brings hope to tired and battered servants of God.

David pleads with the Lord in verse 6: