Slandered Yet Singing #1

You could title this message, Slandered Yet Singing. Some of you are receiving that kind of abuse right now, and I just want you to know that this message is particularly for you. We're glad you've joined us on the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and Don, as always, is teaching God's people God's Word. Have you ever been slandered?

So how did you respond? Well today, as Don continues in a series called Set Apart for God, he'll show us how King David in the Old Testament reacted to those who were spreading vicious falsehoods about him. And how, as with David, our response to slander can serve as a means of glorifying God in a lost and dying world. Open your Bible to Psalm chapter 7, as our teacher brings us part one of a message called, Slandered Yet Singing, here on the Truth Pulpit. We'll start by looking first of all at the prayer of the slandered.

The prayer of the slandered, and as you go through this opening section of David's prayer in Psalm 7, you'll find three different aspects of the prayer that he makes that stands out, and gives us a lot of guidance for how to respond vertically to this most serious and painful trial. Whether it comes at work, whether it comes in the body of Christ, whether it comes from some other source, maybe in the neighborhood, or whatever the case may be. We've all, if we've lived the Christian life any length of time, we've all felt this to one degree or another.

I can think of past times and employment situations where bad things were said about me to my boss, and just the difficulty of coming to grips with those things. And so it's with much sympathy for you that I preach this message here by way of encouragement for you. How is it that we approach God, and how should we think in perspective to God in such times as this? Well, let's look first of all at the prayer of the slandered. And David starts with this. He starts by declaring his trust.

He declares his trust, and that's what you should do also. Make it your first response to that kind of trial to declare your trust in God. And from the very start, David entrusts himself to God's hands no matter what the outcome of the slander might be.

Look at it there in the opening two verses. He says, O Lord my God, in you I have taken refuge. Save me from all those who pursue me and deliver me, or he will tear my soul like a lion, dragging me away while there is none to deliver. And if you look at verse 14, we'll jump ahead just a bit, you can see that this person that David was praying about and responding to was someone who was saying false things about him in verse 14. He says this about his adversary.

He says, Behold, he travails with wickedness, and he conceives mischief and brings forth falsehood. David's adversary was saying false things about him in a way that jeopardized him and his position. And so David starts by praying and affirming his trust in the Lord rather than going immediately into the problem that's at stake. And there's something very instructive, and this takes a great deal of spiritual self-discipline to do, and to make this your first response rather than something that's, you know, your sixth or seventh option when the trial comes upon you. You and I all know, we know that there is a temptation when we are slandered to go on the counteroffensive.

We see and we talk to strategic people who might be able to reverse the situation for us, or in our more carnal moments we figure out how to strike back and how to get our own pound of flesh out of a situation. Well, David doesn't do that. David runs to God in his time of slander like we run for shelter in the rain. And so he says there in verse 1, O Lord my God, in you I have taken refuge.

Save me from all those who pursue me and deliver me. And so this opening prayer frames the whole psalm and the whole difficulty with an attitude of trust. Now David's going to unfold the things on his heart. He's going to lay forth the whole situation and lay it forth honestly before God.

But he starts and he frames it with an attitude of trust, and that's what you and I need to do as well. He trusts God even though he realizes and recognizes that his enemy is in a position to maul him like a lion mauls its prey. Look at it there in verse 2. It says, God, if you don't save me, he will tear my soul like a lion, dragging me away while there is none to deliver.

The danger that David was in was real. And yet his response was one of trust. He turns to God in prayer and the first, the framing nature of his supplication before God is, God, I trust you here. No matter what else, I trust you here for what's going to take place. And so his trust is expressed in confidence in the Lord and also with the sense of, I can come to you and lay this out before you.

Now I'll talk about this more at the end of the message, what I'm about to say. One of the wonderful things about being a Christian who's being slandered is that we have a Lord. Our Lord understands this. Throughout his earthly life, our Lord was slandered and the subject of false accusations. I mean, people called him Beelzebul, the king of demons, and referred to him in that manner. Well, that was totally unrighteous.

That was totally wrong. And the fact that the Lord endured that abuse gives us confidence that when we come to him, he will receive us sympathetically because he knows what it's like. We have more as we study this psalm than even David had. David cries out to Yahweh and knows that God will be the covenant keeping God to him. We have seen Christ come. Yahweh has revealed himself in human flesh and has walked through this very dark valley himself and come out safe on the other side. And so when we appeal to Christ in the midst of this trial of slander, we can know that we're well received and that he hears our prayer and he knows the best about us even if others refuse to believe it.

And so that's a great comfort for us. It's like a magnet that draws us to Christ. It draws us to him to know that he's like that, that he has been there, and that he's recorded for us in his word a psalm like that that encourages us to draw upon him and to draw near to him in the midst of it.

It's a wonderful encouragement. And this is how you pray when you are being slandered. You start out by declaring your trust in the Lord. Now secondly, David goes further here, and you call this little subpoint. The main point here is that it's the prayer of the slandered, and the first subpoint was you declare your trust. Secondly, a second subpoint here, subpoint B if you want to do it that way, is to define your innocence.

Define your innocence. And there's a lot to say here as we look at verses 3 through 5. What we find in verses 3 through 5 is this, is that David had examined his life before he prayed for help, and that is a powerful restraint against us, a powerful restraint against a wrong spirit as we pray. He says in verse 3, O Lord my God, notice he addresses him in the same way as he did in the opening verse. O Lord my God, verse 1, verse 3, O Lord my God.

And notice that first person singular pronoun, the possessive pronoun, my God. Oh, you are my God as I cry out to you. You're my king in this. You are my fortress and my refuge, mine. I call out to you my God. And he shows forth the integrity with which he's praying in these verses. He says, O Lord my God, if I have done this, specifically if there is injustice in my hands, if I've rewarded evil to my friend or have plundered him who without cause was my adversary, says, Lord, if I've done any of these things, then I'll accept the consequences of it. I invite your discipline upon me, Lord, if these things were true about me. Let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it.

And let him trample my life down to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. That's an amazing prayer. And you see that he's not praying out of a sense of bitterness or revenge as he speaks here. He has honestly examined his heart. This is not the immediate reaction at the first sound of someone speaking against him.

He's stepped back and he's looked at his life here. Now, David is not claiming absolute sinlessness as he prays here. You know, his psalms are full of confessions in other places.

What he's saying here is this. He is saying that the ground of this particular slander against me is false. And he appeals to the omniscience of God who knows all things.

To verify and to vindicate him in his claim that, Lord, the ground of this slander is not true. You know this, O Lord. It reminds me of the way that Peter appealed to the Lord's omniscience in John chapter 21. Lord asked him three times, Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?

Asked him three times because Peter had denied him three times a short time earlier. And at the third time, Peter was broken and he was convicted because he saw the parallel between his denials and the affirmations of his love. And so in humble brokenness, he says, Lord, you know all things.

You know that I love you. And he appeals to the omniscience of Christ to verify what's in his heart even though his life would seem to be a direct contradiction of the love that he was now claiming. Well, in a like manner, here David is appealing to the omniscience of God and opening himself up and saying, Lord, if any of these things are true, you can let this happen and I won't complain.

And you see the integrity of it. You see something remarkable about this prayer. This prayer in Psalm 7 is not a blind demand that God take his side against his adversary. David has reflected on his own life before he began to pray.

David has examined his own heart. David has looked at this situation and reflected on it and thought about it and said, is there anything in me that justifies these accusations that are coming my way? And after an honest examination, so honest and so accurate that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he could appeal to God to take note of it. He can offer his life and his reputation and his position.

He can offer it to the dust because he knows that he has done no wrong. Look at it there in verse 5. It says, if any of these things are true, God, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it. Let him trample my life down to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. God, let him walk all over me if there's any truth to it. But, Lord, you know that there's not, and I know that there's not, and that's why there is integrity in my prayer for you to be my refuge in this situation because, Father, you know that there is nothing true about it. Well, that's pretty challenging. That's pretty convicting. It's almost kind of scary, isn't it, if we're honest with ourselves because the truth is that when we're slandered, even if we're slandered completely falsely and there's just absolutely no truth to it, and I understand, my friends, that happens to us, happens to you at times.

I realize that and I understand it. But what makes it scary to pray this way is that if we're honest and if we saw ourselves in light of the holiness of God, even if that particular slander is not true, there's a whole lot of other things about us that are true, that are sinful, that are wrong in our lives, and we just need to approach all of these things with a great deal of humility. But in the context of this particular slander that David was facing, he can offer his life to the dust in the presence of God because he has not done anything wrong. And so we can be slandered even when there's absolutely no basis for it.

What do we see and why do I call this section of the psalm defining your innocence? Well, beloved, it's a good thing for us to do this when slander comes our way. It's a good idea to look in the mirror before you pray to God about someone who is opposing you.

You know, sometimes our critics are right. Sometimes they have right things to say about us, and if that's the case, then we need to just humbly receive it, even if it's presented in a bad spirit, we need to humbly receive it from the Lord and let it be a measure of correction against us and to humble ourselves and receive that and repent. But that's not the case in Psalm 7, and I understand that it's often not the case when you're being slandered in your own life. What we see here in these opening five verses of Psalm 7 is this, is that when the assault is untrue, you can appeal confidently to God for help and know that your prayer is going to be well received.

I love that. So there is a lot on the line. This is not the psalm of insignificant incidental disagreements and petty forces at play. David's life and David riding as king, his whole kingdom is on the line here.

And so the stakes are very high at times when this is happening, and David still can trust him. David can go and find resolution for his anxiety and a refuge and a defense in the omnipotent God of the universe, a God who is king over Israel, for us, the Christ who is Lord over his kingdom, we can go to him and we can be confident of his ultimate help. Now, third aspect of this prayer of the slandered is to depend on God's righteousness, to depend on God's righteousness. The righteousness of God, the justice of God, provides a moral structure to the universe that we can depend upon.

Righteousness is intrinsic to God's character. He is a God who hates wickedness and loves justice. Look at the text beginning in verse 6. He says, Arise, O Lord, in your anger. Lift up yourself against the rage of my adversaries and arouse yourself for me. You have appointed judgment.

Let the assembly of the peoples encompass you and over them return on high. David says that God sees things rightly. When we say that God is a God of justice, he sees things in accordance with his own standard.

And so his righteousness is the ground of David's appeal here. God's slander is false. The slander is false. God, it is a violation of your very character. It is a violation of your truth. God, you are a God of truth.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And so when falsehood is spoken against the people of God, not only is it a horizontal sin, it is a vertical violation of the holiness, the justice, the truth and righteousness of God. And so David appeals to that.

Lord, your own character is being violated here. And so he says there in those verses, look at verse 6, arise, lift up yourself, arouse yourself for me. In other words, what he's saying is, God, don't let this situation continue unchanged. God, I'm asking you to intervene and to help here. Vindicate me, defend me against this falsehood because I cannot defend myself against it. And so, God, you have to help me here.

I appeal to your justice. I appeal to your righteousness here. And what you see in this psalm is how his knowledge of God, you see how his theology is informing the way that he prays. He obviously is assuming the sovereignty of God over it because he assumes that God can help him in the situation. He assumes the omniscience of God because God knows the reality of the situation and what David has done with his hands and in his heart. He appeals to that. He knows the justice and the righteousness of God and so he appeals to that.

This is a multifaceted appeal to the unified essence of God where David understands his perfections, the glories of his attributes, and makes God's character the ground upon which he appeals for God to come and help him. Don't ever let anybody tell you that theology doesn't matter. I prefer Christian living. I'm not that interested in theology.

That's a really wicked thing to say. It's a very ignorant thing to say because your theology and your understanding of who God is directly impacts the way that you live and the way that you pray. If God isn't sovereign, David prays completely differently. If God isn't righteous, God forbid the thought, then there's no grounds of appeal for justice.

David knows God and so he prays in a particular way here. Look at verse 8. It says, The Lord judges the peoples.

Vindicate me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and my integrity that is in me. O, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous, for the righteous God tries the hearts and minds. So great is the righteousness of God that he will judge the nations in righteousness. It's not simply that God has the power to deal with individual situations of slander. God is able to judge entire nations, entire peoples, according to the standards of his truth and righteousness. So whether it's nations, whether it's individuals, it's all equally within the power of God to effortlessly see a matter righteously and judge it appropriately. And in the midst of that great sovereign righteousness of God, David understands that he will protect David in the midst of this particular slander of which he speaks. Look at verses 10 and 11. He says, My shield is with God who saves the upright in heart.

God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day. David knows God so well, his heart and his mind have been strengthened so much by the truth of God over time, that he understands that God will protect him like a shield protects a soldier in combat. Now, my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, understand what David is, understand what he's doing here, what he is and what he is not doing. This prayer by David is not a self-centered desire for ease and just wanting a situation to go well for him for its own sake.

He's examined himself. He's appealing to the character of God. This prayer that we find in Psalm 7 is the prayer of a man of integrity resting in the righteousness of God.

Let me say that again. It's the prayer of a man of integrity resting in the righteousness of God. And so that righteousness, that rest, that integrity displays itself in trust. It displays itself in a knowledge of God. It displays itself in a transparent self-examination before bringing his request to God. And so we see how he opens in this multifaceted prayer.

Now, that leads us to the second primary point, second main point of our text, and it's this. It's the protection of the slandered, the protection of the slandered. We've seen how the slandered pray and how David prays in this.

And now we look at the protection of the slandered. And David here takes an eye horizontally toward those that are accusing him. And there's a warning that's implicit in the text to the wicked that their falsehoods will not stand. In light of who God is and in light of the way that David has prayed, their slander cannot be successful in the end.

And why is that? And why is David making that statement? Well, beloved, understand, it is not because David is taking vengeance into his own hand.

It's not that David is responding and he's going to correct things by himself. His trust is in God, and he explains how God and his character results in protection for him in the midst of these unjust accusations that are coming against him. That's Don Green bringing part one of his message titled Slandered Yet Singing to a Close. Well, we hope you've been blessed again by Don's current series Set Apart for God and that you'll share this broadcast with a friend or loved one. To find out more about this ministry, go to TheTruthPulpit.com. You'll find this message, along with all of Don's teaching, available to you 24 hours a day.

Again, that's TheTruthPulpit.com. Well, Don, before we go, what would you say to the person listening who has been slandered or lied about because of their faith in Jesus Christ? Well, you know, my friend, I've been there in ministry and in my personal life, so I certainly feel the pain of that in my past, and I know what it's like to be unjustly accused. And if that's you today, let me just give you a word of encouragement, especially when you're being accused wrongly because of your faith in Jesus Christ. My friend, Jesus spoke directly to you in that situation, and he said that you're in a position of blessing, actually. In Matthew 5, 11, and 12, he said, blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. My friend, our Lord knows the truth about your situation, and he certainly knows how to keep you through the false accusations that you're suffering from. Look beyond the slander of today to the bright promise of tomorrow with the Lord who will bless you in heaven for the persecution that you're undergoing, and know that the Lord will use all of this for good for you in the end. Thank you so much, Don. And friend, that's all the time we have for today. I'm Bill Wright, inviting you to join us again next time as Don continues teaching God's people God's Word here on the Truth Pulpit.