Can lies really hurt anyone? Some people think that lying is no big deal. However, I have known some people whose lives have been completely shattered and torn to shreds by some vicious lies told about them. Lies can easily send an innocent person to jail, or even to their death. The author of our psalm for today was the victim of someone’s ruthless lies. Though no one knows for sure who the author was, it possibly could have been King David. Let’s take a look at this very brief psalm, and see both what he has to say, and what we can learn.
As our psalm opens, the author is crying out to the Lord (vs. 1). He is in great distress, and why so? As we continue to read, the psalmist is in distress because of nasty and hurtful lies that have been told about him (vs. 2). He doesn’t specify what the lies were, but they were obviously damaging and derogatory to him and his character. If this was David, we know that there were plenty of enemies who told King Saul lies about him, causing him to have to flee for his life numerous times. Whoever this was, the lies were causing distress and anxiety, and the psalmist was crying out to God in anguish.
Have you been the victim of lying lips and a deceitful tongue? If so, you might know the pain, heartache, and torment some lies can cause. Hopefully none of us have ever been behind telling any such damaging lies! What do we do when such lies hit us, and others believe them? Our psalmist knew where to turn. He didn’t take matters into his own hands. Instead, he turned to the Lord with his distress, and he knew that Yahweh heard him.
As this brief psalm continues, the author now turns from speaking to the Lord to speaking with these vicious liars (vs. 3-4). The Bible is replete with commands against lying and speaking things that just aren’t true or right. Rather than going after them himself, though, the psalmist prays for God to handle this. As he speaks to the liars, he tells them what God can and will do to them. The Lord will send His arrows and hot coals of punishment to them. We may think that the liars are getting away with what they have done to us, and this might make us tempted to go after them ourselves. However, rather than stooping to their level, or making a bad situation even worse, we should let the Lord handle them. His punishment will be honest and right, and His Word says that liars will get what they deserve.
Now the psalmist turns his attention to the fact that he is being forced to dwell among his enemies and those who hate peace and cause trouble (vs. 5-7). Our author was lamenting that he was far from his homeland, and surrounded by pagan or unsaved people. Meshech was thought to be ancient lands north of the Holy Land, and Kedar was in the south, in the Arabian peninsula. Whether in the heathen north or pagan south, the psalmist was not at home, and was among both physical and spiritual enemies. He desired peace, but all they wanted to do was fight, cause trouble, and be argumentative.
We hear a lot about peace today. One would think that everyone would be for peace, especially when so many talk about it. However, if we take a close look at some people, we see that this really isn’t always true. Peace-making is not always popular. Some people would just always prefer to fight all the time. Being a peacemaker, though, is God’s preferred way (Matthew 5:9).
As Christians, we live in the middle of an ungodly world, just like the psalmist found himself in. Jesus did not pray for us to be taken out of this world (John 17:15-16). Instead, Jesus prayed that God would keep us from evil. All believers must live with the tension of being in the world, but not belonging to it. Jesus reminded us that as Christians, we are not of this world. The worse the people are among whom we live, the more they need our witness, the more they need to hear the truth from us.
In closing today, our psalm highlighted for us where we can turn to when our enemies spread evil lies about us. We can trust that the Lord God will handle this for us. We also learned that even when surrounded by those who hate peace and want to stir up trouble, the Lord knows, and He desires us to be a peaceful witness for Him wherever we are.
No comments:
Post a Comment