Recently I have begun to listen to the Psalms as I am driving around. I find most of them to be comforting or encouraging. The language is so grand. For example:
Psalms 1:1-2 starts this book out…
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
Just the language is spectacular. It sounds praise worthy. It makes you really feel like you are “mediating” and contemplating the importance of God and who He is.
I haven’t gotten very far through the Psalms yet. I mainly just start at chapter 1 and see how far I can get on my drive. While I was driving this past week, I don’t remember where, I heard these sets of verses in Psalms chapter 7. Psalms chapter 7 is thought to be written by David at some time when he is accused of some wrongdoing an David appears to believe that these accusations have been delivered to him unjustly. So David writes the following verses in Psalms 7:1-5 ESV.
O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, 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
A bold statement from David. He states that if he has even unknowingly “repaid his friend with evil” that God should let this enemy “overtake him and trample his life to the ground.” I know that for David this is a particular instance and this is a situation where he feels wrongly accused when he knows that he is not, but this is a bold prayer. It is a bold cry.
I fear that even when I am at my most sure and even when I am most certain about how I have behaved or how I have acted I might still be afraid to pray or sing these words, much less write them down. David had a heart that he knew that he had not sinned in this instance and he stands firm in the knowledge that God would take care of him because he knew he was righteous before God.
However, we know that while David could pray this prayer in this one situation, in this one instance, and I marvel at these words…He was still not a perfect man. He could not say these words when it came to how he wronged Uriah the Hittite by committing adultery with his wife and then murdering him in order to avoid blame. He could not pray these words when he took a census against the Lord’s desires. David was not perfect, and neither are we.
I know that I cannot pray that prayer this morning. I look at my life this morning and I know that I have sinned. I know that I have the need of a savior. Thankfully, Christ died on the cross for my sins. Christ can make this prayer, all the time. He is the only one that has not wronged anyone, in any way, ever. So this perfect, unblemished God came down and sacrificed Himself for us. We who cannot pray this prayer. We who know that we have wronged others, or even wronged God Himself. He came and died that we might stand in judgment, righteous, not because of a righteousness that comes from ourselves, but that comes through redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ.