My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.
This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.
I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.
Psalm 35
11 Malicious witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know.
12 They repay me evil for good; my soul is bereft.
Verse 9 & 10, as discussed in our previous post, were verses of praise, yet as we find in the context of the psalm, we were in the midst of great confusion. Verse 7 & 8 describe the psalmist’s confusion over the reaction he experienced from his enemies over his good actions. They sought to trap him without cause!
We are now entering into the psalmists confusion again, where he describes his actions of love and mercy towards those who become and are his enemies.
But before we jump into our current verses, lets consider the last time you were confused with God’s working in your life. Have you had terrible things happen to you, even good friends turn on you, become enemies? In the midst of sacrificing for another, has someone thrown it back in your face?
I may not be speaking of the depth of hatred David is speaking of here, but of the daily occurrence’s when a friend says something hurtful, when a loved one seemingly acts out of character to you. Does this knock you off your position of praise to God in your life? Do you, in the midst of a confusing time, look at the surroundings and get your eyes off the Lord?
This is far too common of an experience for myself. I desperately need to understand that God is good, all the time! If we maintain our daily focus on God and His goodness, confusing times will only strengthen us, for He is to be the center of our faith, not our perceptions and understanding of the surroundings.
For we walk by …
Back to our Psalm. David speaks in verse 12 & 13 of his enemies actions toward him.
Verse 12 speaks of a courtroom setting, of witnesses of violence rising up, establishing themselves as an authority, and questioning David as if he had committed crimes. This is surely speaking the the greater David, of the accusations hurled on our Savior, as He took our punishment, our blame, our judgement, our hatred. We are the malicious witness in the grand story. We rise up, and we blame God for things he has never thought of. The evil we conjure up, we place on Him.
We need to admit to our sinfulness.
Is this not where David takes us in verse 12. These evil witnesses repay His goodness with evil. Consider. As we seek to follow the Risen One, to depend on His Word and Spirit, our fruit will be to repay no man evil, but only good.
See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. – 1Th 5:15 ESV
In this psalm, we are confronted with two paths. One where evil is dished out on good actions, and one where acts of goodness is dished out on evil.
What path are you on?
Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.
Considering the Bible 