Psalm 7 - Finding Refuge in God Amidst False Accusations

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If you have your Bible, turn to Psalm 7

Have you ever been falsely accused? I’m not talking about being mistakenly blamed for eating the last of the Zebra Cakes in the pantry. I’m talking about when all the circumstantial evidence lines up in such a way that the kind of accusations leveled against you could destroy your reputation, your future, your family, or even your very life...

I admit at the outset today that if you want to know one thing about me that really and truly gets my goat… it is being falsely accused. It has been that way since I was a little boy. There is nothing that awakens my sense of injustice more than feeling as though I have been misunderstood or maligned unfairly.

But I suspect I am not alone in feeling this way. All of us have this sense of right and wrong. We ALL recoil at what we perceive to be the injustice of a person being accused of a crime or wrongdoing that it turns out they didn’t commit. I read the story this past week of a man named Paco Larrañaga. The nineteen-year-old was arrested for a double murder he could not possibly have committed. On July 16, 1997 two girls disappeared from a mall in the Philippines. At the time, Paco was at school in Manila, 350 miles away on another island. Thirty-five classmates and teachers testified that Paco was with them in Manila that night and early the next morning. They had pictures and school records to back them up, along with the security log of Paco’s apartment building. Yet Paco was arrested. After a rigged trial before a judge who repeatedly fell asleep, Paco was convicted of murder. It so happens that the father of the girls who disappeared worked for a drug lord who was known to be paying off the police and several judges.

The story of Larrañaga gets our dander up. But if we’re honest with ourselves, it pales in comparison to the feeling of outrage mixed with helplessness that we feel when we are the ones being falsely accused. We feel this sort of urgency to clear our good name! But how often do we find that those who are so quick to protest are often looked at skeptically. Like Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “The Lady protesteth too much, methinks!”

When protesting the accusations doesn’t seem like a wise approach, we then face the temptation to slander our accusers themselves. But as believers, we know that sin against us does not justify a sinful response in return.

So what are we to do as believers? How is a man after God’s heart or a woman after God’s heart supposed to deal with false accusations?

Psalm 7 presents a scenario where David has been falsely accused by a certain man from the tribe of Benjamin named Cush.

We don’t know the specific story about Cush, but we do know there was no love lost between tribe of Benjamin and David. King Saul, as you may know was from the tribe of Benjamin and ruled as Israel’s first king. But after Saul was killed by the Philistines, and as David began to rule, there were still many holdouts from the tribe of Benjamin.

We briefly studied one of those men when we studied Psalm 3 where we found out about a man named Shimei who cursed king David as he fled from Jerusalem during Absolom’s revolt. Remember how Shimei called David a man of blood?

Then after David was back on the throne in Jerusalem following his son’s death, a guy named Sheba comes along and starts a revolt against him. And you’ll never guess from which tribe Sheba came. Right - he was a Benjamite. So although neither of those men can be specifically linked to this Cush guy, we know there was bad sentiments amongst that tribe, and it is no surprise to see that there is a Benjamite accusing David.

Now, I am inclined to believe that the background for this psalm may actually pre-date Saul’s death. Commentator James Johnston, to whom I owe a tremendous amount of thanks for his insight into this chapter, and indeed I found his outline of the text helpful in preparing for today, he puts forward the idea that Psalm 7 (and Cush’s false accusation) was during the years when David was running from Saul. As he ran away, David said to Jonathan, in

1 Samuel 20:1 ESV

1 Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah and came and said before Jonathan, “What have I done? What is my guilt? And what is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?”

This sounds very similar to the scenario in Psalm 7. You see, it would have been very easy to accuse David of almost anything during those days. Saul wanted to believe the worst about him, and David was immensely popular amongst the people such that the accusation that he wished to take Saul’s throne would have been extraordinarily believable. Additionally, as we read Psalm 7, we’ll hear some words that indicate David may have been on the run from his enemies - and to me, that all adds up to a time before Saul’s death where David was fleeing from him.

So, with all of that by way of introduction, let’s stand to read Psalm 7 this morning and ask God to help us see how David responds to false accusation, and what we can learn from him.

Psalm 7 ESV

A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush, a Benjaminite. 1 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, 2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. 3 O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, 4 if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, 5 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 6 Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. 7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. 8 The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. 9 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! 10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. 11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. 12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; 13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. 14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. 15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. 16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends. 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.

Pray

I have a two-fold aim today in my preaching of this text. First and foremost I am addressing believers from this text with what I believe are four ways to handle false accusations against you. But then my secondary aim, is for you if you’re here today and you have not repented of your sin and put your trust in God, that you would see and fear God’s justice toward sin and that the Holy Spirit would convict you of your need to repent and take refuge in Jesus Christ.

I’ll begin with the believer’s first way of responding to false accusations.

I don’t imagine there are many of you out there who undervalue the gravity of slander. I suppose there could be someone naive enough to believe the old saying - “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Those folks see the title of this psalm (A song that David sang concerning the WORDS of Cush)… and are thinking like, “REALLY?! We need a whole PSALM because of somebody’s WORDS?!”

Charles Spurgeon writes: “the wounds of a sword will heal, but the wounds of the tongue cut deeper than the flesh, and are not soon cured.” Leonardtown Baptist - do NOT underestimate how dangerous and harmful your own words can be.

But what do you do when you’re on the receiving end of someones attacking tongue? What do you do when a modern day Cush comes at you with false accusations? I’m arguing that your first response needs to be one that

1) Take refuge in your God.

I see David doing this in verse 1 and verse 10

Psalm 7:1 ESV

1 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,

Psalm 7:10 ESV

10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.

I used my Bible software to look up the word “refuge” in only the book of psalms. It appears around 45 times. And around 40 of those have the sense of us taking refuge IN God. Here in verse 1 David says (as he often does) - you are MY God, and in YOU do I take refuge.

Listen carefully - our FIRST IMPULSE must not be retaliation, but refuge. There is a place where you are safe from false accusations, because, friends, man looks at appearances/circumstances, but GOD KNOWS YOUR HEART.

Which leads me to the second admonition to believers here today:

2) Take inventory in your heart.

It’s always safe, no matter what, to fly to God - to find refuge in him. Because whether we have sinned or whether, as it was in David’s case, we are innocent of that particular wrongdoing for which we are being accused, there is safety in God through our mediator, Jesus Christ.

But notice that when David comes into the presence of God he pleads his own innocence and takes inventory in his own heart.

Amidst false accusations, we need to ask ourselves probing questions, and not pretend to hide before God.

Can you imagine how foolish it would have been for David to attempt to plead his innocence before an omniscient God? Do not attempt that! Don’t be like that player who shoves a guy after the whistle and then looks all innocent when the official looks your way and sees the second shove in response. We must evaluate our own hearts.

But in David’s case, and I’m assuming, your case, if you feel as though the accusation is truly false, we can know that we have a hearing before God as we plead our innocence, because truly, HE ALONE can know the thoughts and motives of our hearts. No earthly judge can ever pierce into our souls in that way, but God can. So we take refuge, and take inventory. Thirdly, we need to

3) Take solace in God’s judgment.

As we’ve already seen, God’s judgment and intimate knowledge of our motives will always be accurate. David is not pleading universal innocence in this psalm. He is, however, clear in his own conscience about this particular charge that Cush is bringing against him!

So that is what leads to the inevitable tension we experience amidst these kinds of trials. We know, before GOD that we are innocent. And yet in the moment, for the time being it appears as though God is asleep! As though he weren’t paying any attention to the injustice taking place.

That’s the picture in verse six when he asks God to arise! It’s a figure of speech where he is dramatically asking God to TAKE ACTION!

And the action to which he is calling God is judgment! Vindication! And David prophetically sees a day when the righteous God will sit on the judgment seat and put an end to ALL SORTS of wickedness - false accusations included.

Now again, if you are a believer this is extraordinarily comforting - that’s what it means to find solace in God’s judgment. You know that ultimately you will be vindicated. You can take a Romans 12:19 and run with it because you trust that God will take VENGEANCE on all injustices done to you.

Romans 12:19 ESV

19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Now taking refuge in God, and trusting God’s ultimate justice does not mean doing nothing. David’s enemies pursued him, which implies that he was running away. He did what he could to escape, but ultimately he trusted God to shield him. Johnston writes, “When Nehemiah rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem, he prayed and set a guard (Nehemiah 4:9). You should do what you can to protect yourself and clear your name, if possible. But ultimately your hope needs to be in God and in his final judgment.

So that is the picture here - one of ultimate confidence in God’s justice prevailing in this life or in the life to come.

This leads me to pause for a moment and take up my secondary aim in preaching this text: namely addressing unbelievers and urging them to repentance. Because if you have not repented of your sin and trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior, this text is not comforting. There is no way for you to take solace in God’s judgment if you are an unbeliever.

You say, well, I’m not out there falsely accusing people of stuff, and I pretty well mind my business and live a good life.

Be very careful.

Beattitudes

You may fool me, but you cannot fool God. Verse 9 says he is the one who tests the minds and the hearts of men. Verse 11 says he is a righteous judge and feels indignation every day.

We studied two weeks ago that he is a God in whose presence sin cannot dwell. You see, friend, there is a kind of sin that even “so-called” good people commit without thinking they are - that is the sin of failing to do everything for the glory and honor of God.

Sometimes, as a pastor, you almost wish you were preaching more often to a room full of alcohol addicts or convicts. There is no questioning the need for repentance whenever I’d preach in a prison. But, the ten commandments were summed up by Jesus in this way:

Matthew 22:37–40 ESV

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

You may appear on the surface to have loved your neighbor, but nobody has ever loved God that way. That’s why Romans 3 says

Romans 3:23 ESV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

So, dear friends, I invite you today to heed the warning of psalm 7.12-13

Psalm 7:12–13 ESV

12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; 13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.

You do not want to face the judgment of God as an unrepentant person. So very briefly let me encourage you to TURN from your sin and your self and forsake it entirely while trusting ONLY in Jesus Christ and his blood shed for you on the cross, and his obedience lived for you. Devote your life to the glory of God and trust him alone for salvation from your sin.

Romans 8:3–4 ESV

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The good news (or what we call the GOSPEL) around here, is that while I am convinced from Scripture that since the fall of humanity in the garden of Eden, nobody has been able to keep God’s laws, Jesus Christ did fulfill them on behalf of those who will trust in him. There is only one standard by which we will be judged - and only one person whose righteousness has merited eternal life.

So that is why David rejoices ultimately not in his own righteousness which he could only plead in the narrow view of the innocence from Cush’s accusation. Ultimately, David’s joy was in the LORD’s righteousness.

Psalm 7:17 ESV

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.

If you’re an unbeliever that’s here today, I hope that can become your song of praise as well - a joy in the LORD’s righteousness.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

That exchange took place for us at the cross. And that leads me in our message to a time of remembrance of our Savior, Jesus Christ and the false accusations he faced while he walked this earth. My prayer is that as we remember Calvary today through the Lord’s supper, you will

4) Take cues from your Savior.

Take cues from your Savior about how to handle false accusations.

As we’ve already studied - Jesus life here on earth was filled with nothing short of a perfect obedience to his father - doing the right things AND FOR THE RIGHT REASON - namely, the glory of God! The lame walked, the deaf heard, the mute spoke, the blind received their sight. No one lived like this before or since Christ.

Yet the Pharisees accused him of being in league with Satan and performing his miracles by the power of Beelzebul

Matthew 9:34 ESV

34 But the Pharisees said, “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.”

Later at his trial, the religious leaders of the day stirred up the crowds to bring trumped up charges against Jesus

Matthew 26:59–60 ESV

59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, 60 but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward

There has never in the history of mankind been any greater injustice done on the face of the earth than the false accusation, trial, beating and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Yet what does 1 Peter tell us?

1 Peter 2:23 ESV

23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

If we are going to take our cues from our Savior, we must also entrust ourselves to the one who judges justly. As we learned, that does not have to be a fearful prospect for those who will repent of their sin, and rest in that righteousness obtained for us and freely given in exchange because of our interest in the blood of Jesus Christ our Savior.

1 Peter 2:24 ESV

24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

You can see now why, in preparing for this Sunday, I felt as though this message leads us so beautifully into a time of remembrance, where for the first time in several months, we have the privilege of celebrating the Lord’s Supper together.

Before we partake, allow me to remind everyone: This communion is for baptized believers. It is for any one who has made a personal commitment to Jesus and expressed that through subsequent baptism. If that does not describe you, I invite you to ponder the message reflectively during these moments, and also consider the meaning of what we’re doing around you during these moments.

Let me also say a word to those of you at home on livestream. The conviction of the elders is that part of the beauty and significance of the Lord’s Supper is our physical togetherness and physical presence together as we partake together. This is one of the reasons why we have not done any sort of online communion over the last several months. We do not seek to bind the consciences of any other Christians or churches whose leadership has chosen differently, but it is our conviction together. So if you’re at home and you’re a member, we want you to know we LOVE you, we miss you, and we simply invite you to reflect on the message and the glory of the cross and the anticipation of being able to return in person some day in the near future if the Lord wills.

Now, a word about the elements themselves. We’ve chosen these little prepackaged Lord’s Supper elements. They can be just slightly tricky if you’ve never used one before. There are TWO little cellophane tabs to pull. One covers the bread, and a second one covers the juice. So if by accident you pull the bottom one, you’ll know you have to take them apart to get the bread out.

We’ll follow our usual practice of praying for the bread and partaking of it together, and then praying for the cup and partaking of it together.

So would DEACON SO AND SO come no and pray as we prepare to receive the bread?

Matthew 26:26 ESV26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

Deacon So-and-So, please come and pray as we prepare to receive the cup.

Matthew 26:27–29 ESV27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Pray