Where’s The Referee?

Psalm 7:10-17

10God is my shield,

saving those whose hearts are true and right.

11God is a judge who is perfectly fair.

He is angry with the wicked every day.

12If a person does not repent,

God will sharpen his sword;

he will bend and string his bow.

13He will prepare his deadly weapons

and ignite his flaming arrows.

14The wicked conceive evil;

they are pregnant with trouble

and give birth to lies.

15They dig a pit to trap others

and then fall into it themselves.

16They make trouble,

but it backfires on them.

They plan violence for others,

but it falls on their own heads.

17I will thank the LORD because he is just;

I will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.

In football, referees tell you whether a catch was made in bounds or not. In tennis, linesmen render instant judgment calls on whether a ball landed in or out. In baseball, umpires signal fair or foul.

But in life it often seems as though the game isn’t being played fairly and that no one is around to call foul. Flagrant violations of the rules go unnoticed, and so many people are playing out-of-bounds and getting away with it.

David seemed to feel this way in Psalm 7. When he called upon the Lord to save those whose hearts were true and right, it wasn’t because he believed he had never missed the mark. He knew he had. But his opponent was consistently out-of-bounds and never seemed to be penalized. Was there no justice?

Sometimes we do see the harmful effects of playing out-of-bounds (see verse 15 of this psalm or Numbers 32:23). But other times the Lord’s ruling extends farther than our mortal eye can see. Paul told the Athenians that God “has set a day for judging the world with justice” (Acts 17:31), so we can trust that he will one day set everything right, although we may not see his ruling in our lifetime.

David knew this, too, and that’s why he concluded this psalm as he did, thanking and praising the Lord for his ultimate justice. Let us thank God that he is the just Judge over all the earth.

Fatherlike he tends and spares us;

Well our feeble frame he knows.

In his hands he gently bears us,

Rescues us from all our foes.

CAROLINA SANDELL BERG

Bible Networking

Regarding verse 16, see Esther 7:10 and Daniel 6:24 to learn about two troublemakers whose plans for violence backfired on them.

Notable Quotable

“Every sin is a lie.”

SAINT AUGUSTINE