O Lord my God, in You I take refuge;Save me and rescue me from all those who pursue me, So that my enemy will not tear me like a lion,Dragging me away while there is no one to rescue [me]. O Lord my God, if I have done this,If there is injustice in my hands, If I have done evil to him who was at peace with me,Or without cause robbed him who was my enemy, Let the enemy pursue me and overtake me;And let him trample my life to the groundAnd lay my honor in the dust. Selah. Arise, O Lord, in Your anger;Lift up Yourself against the rage of my enemies;Rise up for me; You have commanded judgment and vindication. Let the assembly of the nations be gathered around You,And return on high over them. The Lord judges the peoples;Judge me, O Lord, and grant me justice according to my righteousness and according to the integrity within me. Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous [those in right standing with You];For the righteous God tries the hearts and minds. My shield and my defense depend on God,Who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge,And a God who is indignant every day. If a man does not repent, God will sharpen His sword;He has strung and bent His [mighty] bow and made it ready. He has also prepared [other] deadly weapons for Himself;He makes His arrows fiery shafts [aimed at the unrepentant]. Behold, the [wicked and irreverent] man is pregnant with sin,And he conceives mischief and gives birth to lies. He has dug a pit and hollowed it out,And has fallen into the [very] pit which he made [as a trap]. His mischief will return on his own head,And his violence will come down on the top of his head [like loose dirt]. I will give thanks to the Lord according to His righteousness and justice,And I will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.

Psalm 7: 1-17

A pastor friend in China was falsely accused. In 1956 the government sent him to prison for nine years and then kept him on probation for another sixteen years. Twenty-five years is a long time to remain falsely accused, forbidden to preach the gospel or conduct services.

I have visited with this pastor three times in the past several years. For me, he represents the vast sector of the church outside the Western world where Christians suffer greatly and endure much false accusation solely because they believe in Jesus. We may ultimately face such a time in America. Before the German Nazis began to exterminate the Jews and Gypsies around WW II, they caricatured and dehumanized them through ridicule and false accusation. In America, evangelical believers committed to biblical stands on morality are commonly typed as intolerant, hateful, or even dangerous.

My friend in China was officially exonerated in 1980. By the time he he assumed leadership of his congregation in 1983, he was seventy-five. The church had dwindled to thirty. Now he is eighty-seven, and in these twelve years some six-thousand adults have been added to the Lord and baptized in water.

George Wood

Psalm 7 has been written for those who have been falsely accused. The feelings of being hunted, betrayal and robbery hang in the air. David is suffering undeserved harsh treatment even though his actions have been blameless toward those who have wounded him and he pleads with God to affirm his integrity and to bring justice to those who have treated him wrongly.

George Wood says, “Pain is hard enough to bear when you are mostly or partly responsible; it becomes a heavy cross when you are not at all to blame.”

If you’ve ever been falsely accused or lied about, you know the feeling of being powerless to do anything-other than to trust in God. That is what you must do: trust.”

Man may be against us but Gos is for us and the saints through the ages have survived because they lifted their eyes from their circumstances to the Lord.

In the beginning of Psalm 7 David is terrified and panic stricken, but through prayer calm and confidence enter. He will not be torn apart but protected and those who hunted him would become targets for the arrows of God.

David resolves his pain by knowing that those who dug the pit for him would themselves fall into it. Those who sow trouble eventually reap it.

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked [He will not allow Himself to be ridiculed, nor treated with contempt nor allow His precepts to be scornfully set aside]; for whatever a man sows, this and this only is what he will reap. For the one who sows to his flesh [his sinful capacity, his worldliness, his disgraceful impulses] will reap from the flesh ruin and destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not grow weary or become discouraged in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap, if we do not give in.”

Galatians 6: 7-9

We labor in vain if we spend our lives trying to vindicate ourselves against false accusations for those who perpetrate them usually never confess and those who believe them won’t be convinced otherwise unless God intervenes. We must choose to find our peace and assurance in God rather than attempts to revenge ourselves or to try to prove our innocence. What we do in this time can effect our lives dramatically.

Some years ago, I was falsely accused of using some money that wasn’t mine for my self. In the meeting, I produced a verified documentation of the expenditures and the facts gave evidence to the falsehood. I suppose I thought that would settle the issue but the accuser refused to accept the evidence and instead kept insisting that I had done wrong. I suppose I would have been less hurt had that person not been a friend and had I done something to create doubt. The books balanced, the funds accounted for and I believed that should have been sufficient proof. For years in the minds of other friends that cloud lingered over me. I had no defense and no way to convince them that I wasn’t truly guilty. Years passed and one day one of those friends called me an apologized. After all those years, they finally looked at the reports for themselves and realized that the accusations had been false. I have no words to describe the weight that lifted off my soul that day.

What I’ve learned is that through that dark moment, I learned to trust in Jesus more and it taught me to give such things to God. I’m grateful that through the grace if the Holy Spirit, God kept me from the path of vengeance, blame or self pity. Otherwise it would have left me a bitter, miserable, and useless old man. I tell you the rest of the story with no gladness but with sorrow. The person who falsely accused me lived the rest of their lives in misery as their pattern of false accusations repeated itself over and over. They spent their time lonely and forgotten and their passing was hardly noticed.

George Wood gives us this advice: “Keep praying and trusting during the period of false accusation and the desperate loneliness. It may not change your circumstances, but it will stabilize your spirit. And remember you have a basis for confidence since God himself is righteous. In the end His justice and fair play will abound toward you as well. So like David, worship Him even before you see the resolution to your circumstance. Despite your present need you have a great future……in Christ.”

Dr. John Thompson