February 13, 2024: Thursday Bible Study on Psalm 7
Good morning my dear friends in Christ.
I am sorry for missing the Tuesday Galatians study. I have been down with a stomach virus which started on Monday evening and still continues today. I am hoping to be back in the office for a while tomorrow. I am going to make today's study a little brief. Just a reminder about the Saturday Free Movie at 2PM in the church sanctuary. Hope to see you there.
Today we are on the 7th Psalm. Its author is identified as David, who is praying to God about his enemies who hope to overcome David and destroy him. In this Psalm David proclaims to God (YHWH - the LORD) that he is not guilty of any of the things which his enemies think that he is. David speaks on of these things that I think you and I sometimes do with God ourselves. David says that he is not guilty to the best of his knowledge, yet if he is not telling the truth, that he is prepared to suffer the consequences. It would appear that in the first section of this Psalm we could take the time to read II Samuel 16-20. This may give us a greater idea of what is going on here in this Psalm. It would appear that David's allies now feel that he has done something which breaks the agreement which they have lived by for quite a while, but now they believe that David has broken their agreement, and David feels that he is the target of their wrath over this severing of the commitment which they have been living by.
In the first part of this Psalm David appeals to the ultimate judge, God, appealing to Him to get upset about this situation and to judge the other party with righteous anger so that David will know God is on his side, which would be evident by God's action. It seems bold of David to say that if he is guilty, he should be punished, but that boldness is backed by David's knowledge that he is indeed not guilty.
The second part of the Psalm for today is the part in which David sings of his strong faith in the righteousness of God. If David offered his understanding of the righteousness of the LORD, believing in his own integrity, uprightness, and faithfulness, then he knows he is not guilty, otherwise the LORD, who is all knowing, will search the heart and mind of David, as well as the hearts and minds of those who now seek to harm him. David must be supremely confident in the ways in which he understands how God will respond to those who are guilty of trying to entrap. We call those results of taking either a good right action or taking one that is full of lies and lacks truth, consequences, and David, like we do, believes that this is the very action of our God. Consequences are metered out by the LORD! The Lord is certainly involved in every result of an action, both the bad consequences, and the good ones. The consequences between God and us are that He can move to punish, or move to reward, but like all things with God it may wait until the final judgement day, or the consequences may be just around the corner in just a few hours or days.
With Love in Christ, Pastor Kim
Comentarios