272 – Psalm 7 – Pronouns!

Last time we talked about God being a just or righteous God. There seems to be a natural inclination among us humans to believe that God is righteous. How many times have you heard the objection to His existence phrased this way, “if there is a God why does He allow such suffering in the world”? Inherent in the question is the understanding that God must be good. The conclusion, therefore, is He must not exist because if He did He certainly would not allow suffering. 

We don’t have a problem with God being righteous until He executes His justice. While the unbeliever might retort, “can’t be God because He would be good”, the believer tries to explain away Biblical passages of His judgment by saying “this is just an Old Testament passage and no longer relevant today”. 

I find that last view a strange one indeed. Why would one automatically assume that God somehow changed from the end of the Old Testament to the beginning of the New Testament?

There are many different passages we could consider that declare God has not and never will change but I don’t want to get distracted from Psalm 7. 

Psalm 7:11-13 (NKJV)

           11       God is a just judge,

    And God is angry with the wicked every day.

           12       If he does not turn back,

    He will sharpen His sword;

    He bends His bow and makes it ready.

           13       He also prepares for Himself instruments of death;

    He makes His arrows into fiery shafts.

Verse eleven declares God to be just, then tells us He is angry with the wicked every day. Read the verse again. Let’s draw out the implication by rewording the verse a little. Because God is righteous, He is justified in being angry with the wicked every day!

Verses twelve through thirteen tell us God will sharpen His sword, bend His bow, and prepares instruments of death. What do you suppose He will do with His sword and drawn and loaded bow?

Yes, God is righteous! He is also merciful. Look at the little phrase that begins verse twelve. “If he does not turn back…”

Who is the “he” in verse twelve? The noun immediately before the pronoun “he” is the word “day”. Day is never referred to as “he”, so we need to move back one more noun. “The wicked” in verse eleven is the first “he” of verse twelve. Do you see that?

There is a second “He”, capitalized in verse twelve. That He is God. There’s a condition in verse twelve. If the first “he”, the wicked of verse twelve does not do something, then the second “He”, God will do something. Maybe I’m being confusing. Let me replace the pronouns with their corresponding nouns.

 If [the wicked] does not turn back,

[God] will sharpen His sword;

Do you see that? Isn’t that a wonderful truth? There is hope for the wicked! How can the wicked avoid being destroyed by God’s weapons? He must turn back!

But how can the wicked just suddenly stop being wicked?

Romans 3:10-12 (NKJV)

           10       As it is written:

    “There is none righteous, no, not one;

           11       There is none who understands;

    There is none who seeks after God.

           12       They have all turned aside;

    They have together become unprofitable;

    There is none who does good, no, not one.”

Romans 3:23-24 (NKJV)

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

           24       being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 

There it is! The way the wicked turns back is by placing his faith in Christ. Why? Because Redemption, Romans 3:24 tells us, is “in Christ Jesus”.

God will judge the wicked. He will cut them down with His sword, He will fill them with His fiery arrows. The only escape is found in the person of Jesus Christ and the work of redemption that He alone has performed.

Is God righteous? Absolutely yes! Is God merciful? Undoubtedly so! Because God is Just not only will He but He MUST judge the wicked!

Because God is merciful He will pardon and wash clean the vilest most wicked among us in the person of Jesus the one and only Christ.

The difference between a wicked person and a righteous person is not based on what they have done. The difference between them is simply Jesus.

John 3:16-18 (NKJV)

           16       For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

           17       For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

           18       “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.