Feeling and thinking in Psalm 7: the danger of not repenting.
A psalm of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning Cush of the tribe of Benjamin.
1 I come to you for protection, O LORD my God.
Save me from my persecutors—rescue me!
2 If you don’t, they will maul me like a lion,
tearing me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
3 O LORD my God, if I have done wrong
or am guilty of injustice,
4 if I have betrayed a friend
or plundered my enemy without cause,
5 then let my enemies capture me.
Let them trample me into the ground
and drag my honor in the dust.
Interlude
6 Arise, O LORD, in anger!
Stand up against the fury of my enemies!
Wake up, my God, and bring justice!
7 Gather the nations before you.
Rule over them from on high.
8 The LORD judges the nations.
Declare me righteous, O LORD,
for I am innocent, O Most High!
9 End the evil of those who are wicked,
and defend the righteous.
For you look deep within the mind and heart,
O righteous God.
10 God is my shield,
saving those whose hearts are true and right.
11 God is an honest judge.
He is angry with the wicked every day.
12 If a person does not repent,
God will sharpen his sword;
he will bend and string his bow.
13 He will prepare his deadly weapons
and shoot his flaming arrows.
14 The wicked conceive evil;
they are pregnant with trouble
and give birth to lies.
15 They dig a deep pit to trap others,
then fall into it themselves.
16 The trouble they make for others backfires on them.
The violence they plan falls on their own heads.
17 I will thank the LORD because he is just;
I will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.
Do you feel like repenting? Or do you think you are innocent? One of the great struggles in life is knowing if you have gone off the rails.
For you look deep within the mind and heart,
O righteous God.
“I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. And I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.”
David claims he is innocent.
8 The LORD judges the nations.
Declare me righteous, O LORD,
for I am innocent, O Most High!
I fear we often forget that God knows all things and He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart. He knows our plans and our desires.
In Psalm 19 David prays that God will keep him from sinning so that the sin would not rule over him. If God kept him from sinning, then David would be innocent. But mostly he wanted his words and his thoughts to please God.
The church is in danger of forgetting that God knows everything. And when it seems like God is not acting yet everything seems okay, and then tragedy strikes, we are being called on to repent.
Are we okay? Are we good enough? Is God pleased with us? These are questions we should be asking ourselves. And it is a constant balancing act. We are secure in our relationship with God and we love Him above all things. God is always faithful to forgive us and help us. When we ignore Him and start loving something other than God, we start to get hard hearted. When we do things we know God has forbidden, then we are in danger. David asks God to examine his life. He lists sins he thinks he has not done. David tells God if he is guilty God should judge him and let bad happen to him. Do you dare say that to God? Reread Psalm 7:3-5. Notice the interlude follows this call for examination. The word “interlude” after verse 5 is often translated Selah. Selah or interlude could be a musical term but it also has an important relational and meditative capacity. David has said to God, “check me out” and then David waits. I want to suggest to you that when you are unsure if you are on the right path that you ask God to examine you and then wait.
Do you feel impatient? Do you feel like you are a victim of injustice? Do you fear you might suffer at the hands of an enemy? David obviously did. Even so, David recognises his innocence is a matter for God. In verse 8 we have already seen that David says God is the one who declares him innocent.
I have seen that because Christians are more aware of God’s good rule, they also sometimes fall prey to temptation, and sin harder. And actually this makes sense. When we do what we want or we are evil, God’s enemies, the spiritual forces of darkness don’t need to do much to win us away from God. But when we take steps toward God, then a battle really begins. God draws our heart to Himself, and God’s enemies hate to see us do good and bring glory to God. The enemies of God do not want us to love God.
So it can be that it is the person moving toward God who faces the greatest conflict. In this world the godly person is going against the current of this world.
I say all of that to help you and me understand that our feelings of innocence, our fear of enemies and our conflict with guilt is a normal part of the new life of loving God. You may feel conflicted and think that isn’t okay or isn’t normal, but it is.
But there remains a problem. And that is being deceived that we are alright when we are not. There was a time David got off track with the whole Uriah and Bathsheba situations, and it led to terrible consequences. The church in Thyatira was facing the same thing. That’s why Jesus uses the same language as David. To remind the people to repent and to recognise that God knows everything; He alone can judge our hearts and minds correctly. Even we are prone to deceive ourselves.
The church in Thyatira fell into a similar kind of sin as David, sexual sin. In Revelation, in the letter from Jesus to the church in Thyatira, Jesus warns them with these words,
20 “But I have this complaint against you. You are permitting that woman—that Jezebel who calls herself a prophet—to lead my servants astray. She teaches them to commit sexual sin and to eat food offered to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to turn away from her immorality.
And if you have read much of your Bible, you might have a question about one of the “sins” that Jesus is upset about. You might expect the sexual sin to come up if that was being taught in the church. But I thought Paul had said that if you “eat food offered to idols” it was no big deal with God.
8 It's true that we can't win God's approval by what we eat. We don't lose anything if we don't eat it, and we don't gain anything if we do.
27 If someone who isn't a believer asks you home for dinner, accept the invitation if you want to. Eat whatever is offered to you without raising questions of conscience.
So why was God making a deal of it in Revelations 2? If you read 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 carefully you will see how it affected other people. And here is found a line of thought that might help you with your question of guilt and innocence.
Are you putting your freedom ahead of others' needs? If you love God then you will love others too as God does. God wants people to be holy. So God loves people in a way that will help them become holy. Are you doing the same? That was the nature of David’s self examination questions in Psalms 7:3-5. Were his actions helping or hurting others?
God had asked the church of Thyatira to live a holy life. They were not doing that and they would not repent. David did repent and we have the prayers of repentance in Psalms 32 and 51. You can read the prayers yourself and see if you need to repent as David needed to do.
In the end we need to be reminded that God sees and knows everything, even our mind’s thoughts, our heart's desires. If we are doing what He wants then that should comfort us. If we are doing what He does not want, that should correct us.
Read below God’s words to a church that had lost its way:
The Message to the Church in Thyatira
18 “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Thyatira. This is the message from the Son of God, whose eyes are like flames of fire, whose feet are like polished bronze:
19 “I know all the things you do. I have seen your love, your faith, your service, and your patient endurance. And I can see your constant improvement in all these things.
20 “But I have this complaint against you. You are permitting that woman—that Jezebel who calls herself a prophet—to lead my servants astray. She teaches them to commit sexual sin and to eat food offered to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to turn away from her immorality.
22 “Therefore, I will throw her on a bed of suffering,[c] and those who commit adultery with her will suffer greatly unless they repent and turn away from her evil deeds. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. And I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.
24 “But I also have a message for the rest of you in Thyatira who have not followed this false teaching (‘deeper truths,’ as they call them—depths of Satan, actually). I will ask nothing more of you 25 except that you hold tightly to what you have until I come. 26 To all who are victorious, who obey me to the very end,
To them I will give authority over all the nations.
27 They will rule the nations with an iron rod
and smash them like clay pots.[d]
28 They will have the same authority I received from my Father, and I will also give them the morning star!
29 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 1606 – 1669
The Return of the Prodigal Son (1668)
oil on canvas (262 × 206 cm) — 1668-69
MuseumHermitage, St. Petersburg
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn biography
This work is linked to Luke 15:21
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