Entrust Yourself to the Just Judge

Preparing to Endure Unjust Suffering in an Evil Age Misters, I'm thankful to be here, gathered with you. I trust you're also thankful to be gathered here with each other. Imagine, though, you weren't gathered here today. Imagine you were actually in prison right now, serving a sentence for a murder that you did not commit. In fact, imagine spending 48 years in prison for a murder that you did not commit. This is something we have to imagine. This is something Mr. Glenn Simmons did not have to imagine. This is his story. He was wrongfully convicted of a murder at age 22 and spent more than 48 years in prison for the murder. He never committed more than 48 years. And as I said, he went in at age 22. He came out just in 2023 at age 70. Mr. Simmons, it's safe to say, experienced unjust suffering. In fact, he experienced the longest known wrongful conviction in U.S. history. But let me ask you this. It's just the simple fact that you're innocent enough to carry you through a trial like that. Is just the fact that you're innocent enough to keep you going when you're experiencing injustice. And is there any help or hope at all for you as you suffer unjustly? Turn with me to Psalm Chapter 7, Psalm 7. I should say here in Psalm 7, we're going to see David suffering unjustly. If you've been here for a while, you know that we've been working our way through each of the 13 in scripted Psalms. In the Psalms, A detailed inscription is, you can think of it like a divinely inspired heading put there by the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the Psalm to connect a Psalm to a particular point in the life of David. So you've got your ESV headings. That's not what this is. This is actually Scripture. It's part of your Bible. And what we've been seeing a lot of through the series as we've connected these inscriptions to the context behind them is that David suffers a lot and he suffers greatly. And according today's in to today's inscription, we're actually going to see that David's suffering saga just keeps continuing. So look at the inscription there at the top of Psalm 7. It's that part there that says a Shigeon of David, which he's saying to the Lord concerning the words of Kush, A Benjaminite. And now you think to yourself, at first glance, this doesn't really seem to be hinting at suffering at all. It's just a statement, but that's because you don't know who this Kush guy is yet. And I know you don't know who he is because nobody does. Nobody knows, at least not for certain. Because when you go back to first and Second Samuel and you try to find this Kush guy, he doesn't exist. There's no dude named Kush the Benjaminite that David interacts with. All we know for certain about this guy then, is that according to this inscription, he spoke certain words to David that David had in mind as he wrote Psalm 7, and that he is from the tribe of Benjamin. And that should trigger in your mind a connection. Yes, that's the same tribe as Saul was from all we know for certain are these things. Now that said, we get a good idea of what these words he said were after hearing the Psalm read as Pastor Tristan just did. After reading the Psalm, it becomes extremely clear that whoever this guy is, the words he spoke were not the words of a friend. They were the words of an enemy. And furthermore, these were false words. That's going to become clear as we go through the Psalms. These were claims that this guy spoke about David that were completely false. In other words, David is now suffering unjustly as a result of these false words. Now, if you think about the life of David, if you've read through the story in Second Samuel before, you know that David suffers because of false words all the time. But one example of this is when David experiences unjust suffering from enemies, false words in Second Samuel 16. You don't have to turn there, I'll give you the Cliff notes. It's there in Second Samuel 16 that David meets this guy named Shimmy Eye. And interestingly enough, Shimmy Eye is a relative of Saul, a Benjaminite. Again, I can't say definitively that this is the context. I'm just using this as an example, but let me give you the SparkNotes of what goes down between David and Shimmy Eye. So we drop into Second Samuel 16 and we find David actively fleeing from his own son Absalom. You'll remember we talked about that last time, fleeing from his own son Absalom, because Absalom is trying to usurp the throne and kill David. We see David weeping up the Mount of Olives where he learns he has been betrayed, and he eventually comes into a town. And this is where Shimiai comes out to meet him. And the text tells us that Shimiai cursed David continually, and he threw stones at David and all the servants of King David. And the text continues to tell us that Shimiai said to David as he cursed. Get out, Get out, you man of blood, you worthless man. The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the House of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the Lord has given the Kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood. So you see what Shimiai is saying, right? Hey, David, you pathetic loser, God is punishing you with all this Absalom stuff because you killed him and his sons, Saul and his sons are dead because of you. And as a good Bible reader, you pause when you hear that. And you ask yourself, is that actually true? Did David in fact kill the House of Saul? And if you turn in your Bible to First Samuel 31, you see, oh, no, far from it. Actually, Saul and his sons died in battle against the Philistines. And actually, I would even say that death of Saul was partly God's judgement of the the wicked life he lived up until then. So Shimia's words are absolutely absurd, especially when you consider as well the many opportunities that David had to kill Saul that he didn't take. And on top of that at insult injury, the fact that one of Saul's sons who Shimmy I saying he killed was David's best friend Jonathan. So you can imagine the frustration that David would be feeling when he's hearing all that. Like, are you kidding me? My best friend, my father-in-law who I literally had opportunity to kill like 100,000 times and didn't? No, but Shimia is saying this, and he's chucking stones at him as he does. This is obviously an example of unjust suffering that David experiences in this Psalm. It's an example of the unjust suffering David experienced all the time. And Christian, this is an example of the unjust suffering that you and I are promised to experience as Christians following the righteous king. Listen, if you're trying to live a righteous and godly life in this evil age, I know because the Bible tells me so, that you either have experienced, are experiencing, or will experience unjust suffering. Every Christian faces it. So whether it be suffering for refusing to compromise on your holding to God's Word, suffering because you were accused of something that you never thought, said or did, or suffering simply for identifying with Jesus. Or, and here's another one, one we might forget but it's no less true, suffering from the false accusations that the devil himself hurls at followers of Jesus. Things like you're not good enough, you messed up, and God will never forgive you. How could God love you? You're so weak. Just give up on Jesus. Life will be better if you keep on sinning, if you give in to temptation, if you never show up at church, if you give up on God's people Christian, you will suffer for being a Christian. You will suffer unjustly. You will suffer though you did nothing wrong. You will suffer even though you're doing exactly the right things that God tells you in His Word. If you've ever read one page of the New Testament or one page of church history, you know that this is true. Christians in this world are, like Mr. Simmons, familiar with unjust suffering. So let's get familiar how to deal with it. Entrust Yourself to God: Ask Him to Judge Justly Enter Psalm 7. Here, Psalm 7 tells you, it tells me what to do when facing unjust suffering. And it says to you this when you're suffering unjustly, entrust yourself to the just judge who will judge justly. That's that's what this Psalm is saying. That's the point. You see, this Psalm isn't only about the suffering of the righteous king. It's actually also about the suffering of the righteous king who is before the righteous judge, the God who will uphold the righteous king and uphold all his people. So you see, brothers and sisters, because God is the righteous judge, the righteous king doesn't suffer forever and neither will you. So again, the main idea here, while suffering unjustly, entrust yourself to the God who will judge justly. No will, that's very important word. While suffering unjustly, entrust yourself to the one who will judge justly. That's what this Psalm is calling all of us to do. And here's the underlying claim under that you have to entrust yourself to this judge, because this judge does not allow the wicked to triumph over his people. He just doesn't. So in light of all of that, then the question becomes how? How do we, how do you entrust yourself to the just judge as you endure all kinds of unjust suffering? I think the text gives us 2 action steps. Number one, ask God to judge justly. We'll see that in verse 1 to 9. And then verse or #2 sorry, second action step, expect that God will judge justly. Verse 10 to 17, so #1 ask God to judge justly. At the beginning of this Psalm, I want you to turn your imagination on again. And I want you to picture David running into God's courtroom where God is seated as the judge of the universe. Desperation is in his face. Deliverance is his prayer request. Look at verse 10. Lord my God, in you do I take refuge, save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me. Verse 2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. Now, I trust you know enough about lions and how strong and fierce they are to know how desperate David feels in this moment. David's obviously the prey. His enemies are the lion. His pursuers are coming for his soul. You see that verse 2? His inner like his soul. Not just him, his soul. And again, we don't know who's on David's mind, but someone is coming to mind, even though he's completely innocent on the matter in question. But whoever it is on his mind, we've already seen that they're not the only ones on his mind. Look at verse one again. God is on his mind as well and he needs God to deliver him or he's going to be done. So David asks for deliverance and pause there because I want you to catch this. Even to make such a request, like to ask God for deliverance like this in this kind of situation is astounding when you think about it. The wonder of a request like this can't be lost on us. Because think about this, the one who trusts to or turns rather to God in their time of trouble is only doing so because they trust Him, right? You see that you don't turn to God if you don't trust him. But who gave David that trust? It was God. As with all of us, our faith comes from the Lord. So don't look at verse one and think, oh of course David turns to God and cries out to him. I've seen that before. Old news. No, look at verse one and say, wow, Even in the first verse, the just judge is already at work delivering his king. So by God's grace, David asks for this deliverance from God himself. And here's the key. He asks God for deliverance as one who's innocent, Innocent on the particular matter that's in question. And this is key for you to ask God to judge justly, you have to be innocent. For David to ask God to judge justly, for David to ask God to deliver him from this unjust suffering, he has to be just. Now, I'm not good at math, but I know these two equations. God the just judge plus his sinful king equals discipline. We've already seen that in Psalm 3. You can turn over a few Psalms and that's what that's all about. But God the just judge plus deliverance or righteous king equals deliverance. You see that so David is not sinful. David's righteous. That's how he's going to be delivered. If David is asking for, and later we'll see in the Psalm expecting God to deliver him, he has to be the righteous king. So that begs 2 questions then what's the matter in question? And is David truly innocent? We'll take a look at verse 3 to 5. David's praying to God, remember? And he says this, Oh Lord my God, if I have done this right, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil, or plundered my enemy without 'cause then verse 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. So we see the matter that David's talking about. Verse 3 and 4. Somebody, this Cush guy is accusing David of having wrong in his hands, of repaying his friend with evil, and of plundering his enemy without cause. 3 charges. Now this isn't the point, but this list in verse 3 to 4 is one of the reasons I really do wonder if it was Shimiai on David's mind in Psalm 7. Because think about Shimiai's words. Shimiai said that the Lord is punishing David with the Absalom disaster because David killed Saul and his sons, including his friend Jonathan. So again, look at verse 3 to 4. You, you have Saul, the enemy that David supposedly plundered without cause, and Jonathan, Saul's son, the friend David supposedly repaid with evil. Again, who knows? But I do wonder. But you see how all that lines up, regardless of it, regardless of who David's thinking of here, David is innocent. That's the point. And let me show you one of the proofs from this Psalm that he is just that he is innocent. And the proof is this. David is elevating this whole case to the just judge of the universe, the one who sees everything for what it is and everyone for who they are. David will basically say this in verse 9 if you jump ahead a little, he's he's saying this God is the God who knows. What does verse 9 say? Who knows the hearts and the minds of every person in the original language? It's cool. It's actually saying God knows people's hearts and their kidneys. God knows all there is to know about every single person inside and outside. And that makes him a pretty good judge, doesn't it? Well, David comes before this judge and he says save me verse one and two or verse three of five don't. If I truly am guilty, don't save me. Let them punish me. Here's the point. What you would never do is go to the just judge of the universe, stomp on into his courtroom and ask him to show perfect justice if you're the evil 1. David knows God sees everything. He knows God sees his heart and his enemy's heart. He's not going to walk before that God and say, hey, exercise perfect justice please. If he's sinful here. So again, this is proof of his innocence. You, you just don't ask an all knowing, all powerful God to show perfect justice if you're guilty. So these accusations in verse three to four are false no matter who it is that's making them. The wicked are going for God's king. God's king is going to God. Which brings us to another point to consider. For you to ask God to just judge Lee, he has to be just. David obviously believes that. Look at what he says in verse 6. Arise, O Lord, in your anger, lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies. Awake for me. You have appointed a judgment. Verse 7. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you over it. Return on high. OK, pause here and note that God has appointed a judgment, a day when He will judge all people, and at this judgement will be all people, the assemblies of the peoples. You see that? I love the the CSPS translation of verse 7. It's helpful to us. I think the CSP puts it like this. Let the assembly of peoples gather around you. Take your seat on high over it. So you can picture God judging over all the people, But the question still remains. God's judging over the people, yes, but is he just? Is he going to do what's right? If you're suffering unjustly, I would not be shocked to hear that you've asked that same question. I would not be shocked that many in this room have thought to themselves or maybe even said to someone else. Is God really just? Will God really always do what is right and good? And maybe you've even wondered to yourself, man, I think God has actually forgotten me. I think, I think God must, in my particular case, have gotten busy with other People's Court cases. Or maybe the system's just backed up. I don't know. Maybe you've thought to yourself that God's even worse than forgetful or busy. That God wasn't just forgetful, but that he was actually unjust toward you. Maybe you've thought that he gave you a sentence you didn't deserve, that he made a decision that was horribly wrong, and now you have to take things into your own hands to fix it. Maybe it seemed to you before like God just let your enemy off with a little slap on the wrist and nothing more. All the while, your life has changed forever because of what they did to you. If you've ever been tempted to believe any of these wrong things about God, friends, look very closely at verse 8. David continues his prayer. Look what he says. The Lord judges the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. Now pause. We're going to keep going. But I've got to point out to you here because this can be confusing. David is not saying that he's completely sinless, OK? Don't think that when you read this first, all that he's saying here in verse 8 is that he's innocent on the particular matter in question, the matter that he just talked about in verse 3 to 4. So he's not going to God and saying, hey God, I've never sinned before, so so do me, right? No, he's saying God, I didn't do that thing, that thing that this enemy is saying that I did, OK? So he's not sinless, but keep looking. So again verse 8, the Lord judges the peoples. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness. So again, judge me innocent on this matter. I'm, I exercised integrity in this case. Judge me according to that. Verse 9 though, O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous you who test the minds and hearts, minds and hearts and kidneys, O righteous God, you see that right at the end of verse 9 there what he's saying, right? You may have doubted who God is before. You may be doubting who God is right now. But look at that last line in verse 9 again and answer this question for me. Who is God? What does God's word say about who he is? Verse 9, God is a righteous God. He is a just God. In other words, he's a God who always does what is right. And not only that, but he's just a righteous God who, as verse 9 also says, knows everyone down into their inner being, down into their kidney and their hearts, their kidneys and their heart. So God knows all and God does all. Right brothers and sisters, now ask yourself this. Who better to turn to in your unjust suffering then the God who is perfectly just and has perfect knowledge of you, your suffering, your enemies, and everything going on in this world? I trust you know the answer to that question. I don't know all the unjust suffering of every member of this church, but I do know some. I've heard about the abuse, I've heard about the false accusation made against you. And if you're a member of this church, maybe you know of another member or multiple other members that are experiencing unjust suffering like what we're seeing here that I don't even know about. But no matter the unjust suffering you or your fellow member is experiencing, your action step here from Psalm 7 is the same. Ask God to be the just judge that He is. So ask God yourself to judge justly. Ask God to be a just judge on behalf of your fellow member who you know is suffering. Ask God to put an end to all wickedness and evil. Ask God to uphold the righteous, to establish your fellow member, to preserve their soul and yours. And if you're suffering and haven't told anyone about it, tell someone today. Get them to pray that God would be a just judge. God answers these prayers, brothers and sisters, because this is who God is, and He doesn't ever stop being a righteous judge, even when it seems to us like He does. Yes, God has appointed a day of judgement, but what you can't do is doubt for a second that God doesn't support the righteous every day until then He does. So when you're facing unjust suffering, how do you entrust yourself to the just judge? You ask him to be who he is. Verse one and nine, we've seen this. You ask God to be a just judge and this prayer is not a one and done. This is your life. You keep asking God to be the just judge throughout your suffering and as you do, you should be taking another action step. That's number two. Actively Wait and Expect God to Judge Justly Expect that God will judge justly. Now I, along with a few of you are thankful that the weather is getting a little bit nicer out there. It's slowly trending in the right direction. I trust, though, that you don't forget from where we came, this was a very cold winter. And there were days this winter where I stood outside in the freezing cold with the wind howling at me at the bus stop, expecting, looking for, waiting for the bus to come. And if you've waited for the bus on a cold winter day before, you know exactly what I mean when I say here and point to expect when you're freezing cold waiting for the bus, you're not on your phone distracted. No, your your fingers are way too cold for that. Your only hope is that that bus comes ASAP. So you keep looking down the road as if for some reason that's going to make it come faster. This is an active waiting on the bus. You're desperate. You look, you wait. Very active. This, friends, is what I mean by expect. You actively look, you actively wait for something to come. So when it comes to our text, to expect God to be a just judge is to actively look, actively wait for his just judgment to be displayed. This is what David shifts to doing in the second-half of the Psalm. And it is a shift, a very important shift that you have to notice. David has spent 9 verses asking God to be a just judge. In other words, praying to God, right? You see that it's all like, God, do this, God, please do that. God, show your judgement here. Now we're going to see David expecting God to do all the things he just prayed. Here in verse 10 to 17, we see the unshakeable truths that David is confident in that fuel his prayer and his expectation. And there are basically two big truths in this second-half, two truths that David's holding on to and expecting to happen #1 the just judge will upend the unjust. Look at verse 10. My shield is with God who saves the upright in heart. So here you can see David is no longer praying to God. It's descriptive of right, God is my shield. God saves the upright in heart. But there's more. Verse 11. God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day. So in case you had any doubts about who God is, David sets the record straight. Again, God is a perfectly righteous and just judge. He executes perfect justice against the wicked, and as we saw before, perfect justice paired with the fact that God knows everyone and sees everything. He knows the hearts of all people. Think on this for a minute. God needs no eyewitness in a courtroom, and God's not swayed in the slightest by faulty eyewitness testimony. God needs no jury and does not, He does not need to deliberate with anyone about who might be the right one, who might be the wrong one, what the punishment should be for the unjust, what should happen to the the good guy? No, none of that. In fact, God is such a righteous judge and such an all knowing perfect judge that he feels indignation. You see that he feels righteous anger at sin every day. So lest you be thinking that God doesn't see what you're going through, no, every day God sees it. Think about how encouraging that is. All that is evil and wicked in this world, all who do evil and wicked things, God sees it all. And God feels anger, righteous anger at it every day. So if you're righteously angry at wickedness and rampant evil in this world or in your life, you're in good company. The just judge sees it and he hates it. And here's what's going to happen. Here's what he's going to do about it. Look at verse 12. If a man does not repent, so there's the condition. If someone does not repent, God will. Wet will sharpen his sword. God has bent and readied his bow. God has prepared for him, for the unjust. Who's not repenting his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts? You see what David's saying, right? We're down here getting beaten up while God is prepping his weapons. We're suffering, wondering if God sees any of it. Meanwhile, God sharpening his sword. I don't know if that's how you sharpen a sword. It's something like that. God's bow is bent and ready. His deadly weapons are all set to fire. His arrows are good to go. You see that, right Christian? You don't need to doubt God's character. What you need to do is endure your just suffering. Keep on entrusting yourself to the judge who judges justly. Keep on expecting God to judge justly. He will, He promised. Because according to verse 12 to 13, God is ready to let loose against all wickedness and evil. God is ready to put an end to all evil and the evil ones who refuse to turn away from it. God is angry at the wickedness and the evil ones every single day. And by golly, he's ready to do something. And then until then, David will keep on waiting, waiting for his suffering to go away. Here's another question for you though. What does this judgment look like? So God's getting ready to judge. What does that actually look like? What does that mean? Well, David tells us next, right? And he says God will upend the wicked. God will put an end to them all. We're about to see this, but first look at verse 14. We first get a window into who these wicked are. So this is key. Who are these wicked people? Verse 14, behold the wicked man. What does he do? He conceives evil. Note this progression conceives evil, is pregnant with mischief, and gives birth to what? Lies, deceit and the fact that the wicked man lies is very important to note. Remember, this is a Psalm about unjust suffering at the hands of the unjust who have lied or falsely accused the righteous king and are out to get him. You can see that progression. The wicked conceive evil, they are pregnant with mischief, and they give birth to lies. If you need an illustration, think of the Pharisees, think of shimmy eye, think of Judas, conceive evil pregnant with mischief. Lies is what comes out of their mouth because of all the rest of the garbage that's in their heart. And brothers and sisters, in light of this progression, it's hard not to think about the horror of something like the abortion industry, but then very quickly turn to the Lord and praise Him for something like the PCC that Pastor Tristan just prayed about. Pregnancy care Center. Think about the evil that is conceived in the name of choice, the mischief and wickedness this evil is pregnant with, and then the lies that the whole thing gives birth to. The lies that so many vulnerable people are tempted to believe. It's wrong, but make no mistake, the just judge will not stand by and do nothing as these lies continue. And that's one of the reasons why we do and why we should continue to pray for something like the Pregnancy Care Center. And it's one of the reasons why we should pray that God would put an end to evil like this in our nation and in this world. We know God cares and we know God will act. And as we pray, we can also praise God for his grace in the lives of all who have repented of this evil, who heeded something like verse 12 and turned away from it. And the same things can be said about issues like made, about issues like human trafficking. And sadly, that list just keeps going on. But friends, these evils won't forever, because the just judge judges. It's as simple as that. Look what David says in verse 15. He, the wicked man, 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. Guys, this kind of thing is all over the Bible. The wicked being judged in a way that relates to the sin that they committed all over the Bible. And make no mistake, it's not karma, it's God's Providence. Remember verse 12 to three? Who's behind the judgement? God sharpening his sword, God making his weapons ready. God putting his fiery arrows into action. The just judge will not allow the wicked to triumph over the just. So as you suffer unjustly, don't forget this friends, expect it. You know what happened to Shimmy I, the one who spoke false words about David. He dies by order of David's son Solomon himself. His false words came back on his own head. And don't think that that's random. The just judge judges. It's simple as that. So God will upend all the unjust. David's confident of that, but he's also confident of this. The just judge hears the second truth will uphold the just. So he's going to upend the unjust. He's going to uphold the just. This is what David says in verse 17. Look at it. I will give to the Lord. He says the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord. The most high and the most important thing to hear in the note is the future tense. I will, I will give to the Lord the thanks due to His righteousness. I will sing praise to the name of the Lord. What's happening right now? Right now he's experiencing unjust suffering, but he's going to praise. In verse 16, He told us what He's expecting will happen to the wicked. They're going to be upended. In verse 17, He tells us what he's expecting will happen to Him. He is going to be upheld, saved, delivered. In other words, David's enemies don't have the final say, and they certainly won't be tearing his soul apart like he says in verse 2. There's no question that David is going to be upheld, and you know what he's doing until then. You know what verse 17 signals to us that he's doing? He's expecting it. He's actively looking for it. He's waiting for that day, for that moment that God will show His just judgment. All this to say, David ends the Psalm confident that God will bring about his verse one request. You see how it all ties together here at the end in verse one to two, look back at it. David asked for deliverance from the wicked. God deliver me in verse 15 to 17. What did we just see? He knows that that's exactly what's going to happen. The wicked are done. He's going to be fine. And the rest of the Psalm, the in between, where he is now, where we are now, we, the church are holding on to verse 1517 as our hope while we pray verse one and two. We're asking for it. We're expecting it, at least we should be, because God has already started bringing it about. Jesus, Our King, Endured Unjust Suffering for Us Think about the the true righteous king, right? David is innocent on this matter. We know the sins he's committed before. You can read other psalms all about that. No, Think about the true righteous king, the one who took on the form of a servant to suffer unjustly, to suffer unjustly to the point of death itself. He took on all the wrath of God that every one of us deserved. Every Christian deserved all the wrath that you that I deserved. Think about that. God himself suffering unjustly to the point of death, and doing so for the unjust, for me and for you. We suffer unjustly as Christians, as we follow Christ our King. But never forget that once you were verse 14, that's exactly who you were. You were unjust once. You deserve the end described in verse 15 to 16. You deserved to be upended, judged, condemned, but by the grace of God alone you did what David says is the only hope for receiving life. Verse 12. You repented, God opened your eyes and for the first time you were able to cry out with a genuine heart, God save me, God deliver me. And just like that your future went from verse 16 from punishment and death to boom verse 17, grace and life, all because of Christ and God was able to do this all because of the righteous king, the perfectly innocent king who suffered unjustly for us and who, as the apostle Peter will say, get this, says this in first Peter 2, who when he was reviled did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten. What did he do? He continued, entrusting himself to him who judges justly. You see what's happening in the Psalm. This Psalm is giving you a screenplay before your own eyes of exactly how redemptive history is going to play out. And we can be certain of all of it because of Jesus, the righteous King, the one whom this Psalm is pointing to, who as he suffered unjustly, kept on entrusting himself to the judge who judges justly right up until the point He died on the cross to pay for your sins so that you could do the same thing today. Christian, your King knows unjust suffering better than you ever will. Think about it. Jesus endured the betrayal of Judas, his own disciple. Jesus endured the false accusations and charges that the Pharisees kept hurling at him. And he endured it all to the point of death on the cross. That you could be saved so that you could have the opportunity to suffer unjustly for His sake. And it is an opportunity, friends, it is. Jesus doesn't just empower you to entrust yourself to the just judge. He secured your hope that you now have in your unjust suffering, and now your suffering is in a strange way, actually a grace of God to you that just keeps on reminding you that you're another one of his suffering sons on the way to a glorious resurrection. A resurrection that will fly in the face of Satan, that will fly in the face of all wickedness and the wicked. At King Jesus's resurrection, hope was secured forever for the just Satan, the deceiver, the liar was defeated forever. The Pharisees false charges came right back on their own heads. And As for Judas, he died as he what hung on a tree. The one who got Jesus put on the tree dies hanging on a tree. Sounds like verse 15 to 16, doesn't it? Brothers and sisters, God's judgement of the unjust and His upholding of your righteous king means this. You have every reason to expect that God will do the same for His church, for you. Humble Repentance or Holy Retribution: Your Choice And you have every reason to ask Him to do so, that you ask Him out of the overflow of your expectation, your confidence, your trust, belief that it will happen. I want to say something to you if you're here and not a Christian, I want to make sure that you, if you're not a Christian, understand what this Psalm is really saying to you. The key verse I want you to focus on is verse 12. Look at verse 12. Look at those first words. If a man does not repent. And you know what follows? Because we just saw it. Horrible judgement will fall upon those who fail to repent, upon those who fail to turn away from their wickedness and evil. And notice what wickedness and evil is in this Psalm. It is setting yourself against the righteous king. You see that the whole Psalm, David, the righteous king, the evil opposed to him. This is just a picture of all of us with Christ before we were saved. And if you're not saved, if you're not a Christian, this is still you. You are opposing the righteous king. And this Psalm does not have good things to say about your future if that's what you're doing. And so I plead with you out of love. I plead with you, and so does every other Christian in this room. We plead with you, turn away from your evil and wickedness and turn towards the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who will save you. Follow behind Jesus along the path of unjust suffering in this life that leads to joy and peace in the next. Friend, what none of us want for you is to see you spend the rest of your life opposing the righteous King only to receive the just judges holy retribution when you no longer have the chance to repent. You see, there's two options for every single person in this world. Option one, humble repentance, verse 12. Option 2, holy retribution. And we want you to know the 1st Christians in this world are like Mr. Simmons. They are familiar with unjust suffering. But there's a big difference between his story and between our story. Mr. Simmons was never promised that his unjust suffering would end 48 years, but he didn't know it would be 48 years. Who knew how long it was going to be? But according to this Psalm, Christian, you do know. So let me ask you again, is there any help or hope for you as you suffer unjustly? You bet there is, because you know what's coming. The just judge judges and He will save you, and He will put an end to all wickedness. So friends, keep on asking God to judge justly and keep on expecting Him to do just that. A Prayer for God's Justice and Our Endurance Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank You for Psalm 7 that reminds us that You are the just judge who will one day put an end to all the evil and the wickedness that we are so familiar with in this fallen world. And Father, I pray for each one of us, myself included, that you would keep us until the day you return in judgement over all sin and evil. Keep us, Father, strengthen our trust in You, Strengthen our confidence. Help us to continue to ask you to help us and to judge what is evil. We pray these things in Christ's name, Amen.