Shooting by Slander

And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God, for they shall wisely consider of his doing. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory. Would you pray with me tonight? Our Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together once again, and we give you thanks for being our savior, for loving us with an everlasting love. We thank you for the exhortations and the charges that you give to us in your word. Lord, help us to receive these things with all humility and meekness of mind. Lord, I pray that you would hone us, knock off the rough rough edges, make us more faithful believers, make us people who are more intent on doing the will of god and on on living in a way that is upright and holy in your sight and also before others.

And so, guide our study tonight, we pray that you would control everything that’s said, and also everything that’s received. Lord, that our hearts might be tender, that we would receive the word with meekness. And so Lord, help us, guide me, and help me to say the things that you would have me to say in the way that you would have me to say them. Lord, we need your help tonight.

Bless our time in your word. Bless it to our hearts and lives, in Jesus name, Amen. Now, as you see here in verse number one, actually verse number two, three, and four, but we’ll come back to verse number one, is the subject of this Psalm is those who are shooting at David. Notice verse number verse number two, hide me from the secret council of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity who wet their tongue. Wet just means to sharpen.

Who wet their tongue like a sword and bend their bows to shoot their arrows even bitter words. That they may shoot in secret at the perfect, suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not. So this idea of of wetting the sword, that you know, you’re sharpening the sword, preparing it for use, but then he he turns to the arrows. Now, you know what an arrow is.

An arrow is designed to shoot at someone from a distance, to wound them, obviously used in war, but what he’s saying here in verse number three, and this is basically the whole psalm is about this, and you’ll see it in a minute, that he is comparing, he’s he’s Even though we we know in the Psalms David talks about warfare a lot. Right? But he often being a man who is What does David talk about a lot? He talks about sheep and shepherds a lot, and he talks about the desert a lot, if you remember, and he also talks about warfare a lot. You see that a lot? Why do you think that is? Well, because he was a shepherd who spent a lot of time in the desert with sheep, and he was also a man of war. And so, with all of those things combined, that’s the things we see in the Psalms.

And David, in this case, he’s talking about an aspect of warfare. He’s talking about weapons. He’s talking about shooting arrows. But he he doesn’t mean it in a literal sense. I can show you why we know that. Verse number three, notice what it says, who wet their tongue, now he’s talking about his enemies now, who wet their tongue like a sword and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, what does it say? Even bitter words. So is he talking about literal arrows? No. He’s talking about words.

So the so the analogy here that David is using is he’s referring to his enemies who take their arrows out and shoot arrows, bitter words at David. And so what we’re talking about is very similar to what we saw on Sunday night or Sunday afternoon, which is this idea of gossip, this idea of slander, or this idea of an evil report, evil speaking, speaking evil one of another, like the disciples led by Judas Iscariot were speaking evil together of Mary of the good thing that she was doing. And so David is talking about the same basic thing, but he’s using the analogy, he’s comparing it figuratively to shooting someone with an arrow.

Now the imagery here that we see of shooting them, now you think about an arrow, of course we don’t use arrows in that way, they’re only used for hunting now or archery for sport. But what’s the purpose of shooting with an arrow? You have one purpose in the context of war, and that is to wound your target, or kill in the case, in that case. To wound or to kill your target. And so this idea of shooting another person with an arrow to wound them using your words, is the idea is, of course, when you’re aiming at someone, like if I was gonna shoot an arrow at Ben, the idea is to wound Ben.

But in the context of what we’re talking about here, our words, we’re speaking to him to wound him, because that would be something different. We’re speaking to them to wound him. You see you see that? The difference is we’re shooting arrows at him. He is our target, but our words are spoken to a third party, another about him to wound his character, to wound his name in the eyes of this person to whom we speak.

Everybody with me in that analogy? Now notice in verse number one who David is complaining to. Why is he? David is whining in verse number one, and for good reason, but he’s whining, but to whom is he whining?

He’s whining to God. You know why? Because it is useless to try and defend yourself when you are the object and the target of gossip and slander. It’s useless. The best thing that you and I can do in those cases is talk to God about it. And we’re gonna come kind of full circle when we get down to verse number seven, but talk to God about it.

Because you can say, well you don’t understand, but you have to understand there’s more to this idea of slander and vilifying you, there’s more to that than just what you did. It has a lot to say about the person speaking it, as much as it has to do about the target. Okay, so just because we say, well, no, I’ll I’ll straighten this out. I’ll take the bull by the horns and I’ll straighten it out. Yeah, okay. Let me know how that goes. It’s not gonna work out well for you. The best thing to do is to take that matter to God, which is what David does in verse number one.

But notice what he says in verse number two, hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. Now, it’s funny that David is whining and complaining, given the fact that as far as we know at this point in his life, we can’t know for certain, but we know David was a king, he reigned for forty years, many of the Psalms were written during that time.

And he’s being vilified, and he’s being slandered by those who are unhappy with his rule. That’s what’s indicated by the word insurrection. You see, insurrection is not just regular old gossip with a peer. Insurrection is the gossip that is directed at someone who is in a place of authority, right? That’s when we talk about the January sixth insurrection, that’s the idea. That’s, I’m being facetious of course. But the idea of insurrection is it’s a revolt against authority.

It’s a revolt against authority. And you know, that’s something we see in scripture fairly often, and the best example of that is when do you see, in scripture, when do you see people murmuring and complaining in the Old Testament over and over and over again? In the wilderness, right? When they were wandering in the wilderness. Now to, at whom did they direct that murmuring? Moses. Why do you think they directed it at Moses? Because he’s the leader.

And oftentimes, the bad the bad things that were happening, the evil that was happening to them was directly their fault, but they looking for someone to blame, they found a man who was Who had a lot of face time, who was in front of them, and he was an easy target. You know why? Because he’s the leader. Whether it was his fault or not, the truth is in the case of Moses, it wasn’t his fault. Now there was one exception, where Moses messed up. But the vast majority of the time, they didn’t have water, it wasn’t Moses’ fault, Moses is just following God, and yet they directed that gossip at Now, when the Bible says they’re murmuring, they’re not going to Moses. You know what they’re doing? They’re lobbing arrows at Moses to all their friends in the camp.

Right? Moses is the leader is the easiest target. And this is just, listen, this is just a fact. If you are gonna be a leader, it doesn’t matter if you’re gonna be a leader in your family, if you’re gonna be a leader in a church, if you’re going to be a leader in your job, if you’re going to be a leader in the political world, I mean, think about these elections.

Absolutely disgusting, mudslinging, and villainy, and maligning one another. Well, that’s just politics. No, it’s wickedness. It’s evil. It’s evil. Just because it’s political and just because people do it doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s evil. And yet, it’s become a but but see, listen, you’re gonna be in a place of leadership in that way, you might as well get, you might as well just prepare yourself because because people are going to gossip about you and malign you and vilify you and slander you.

Brother Joseph, do any of your workers ever do that to you behind your back? That, listen, this is just a this is just a thing that goes along with leadership. Now someone might say, well, if that’s the case, then I’m not gonna lead anything. Well, the idea is not to dissuade someone from taking leadership in whatever realm scope that God gives them, but to prepare you for that. If you and I are gonna take on any kind of leadership, we have to be prepared for our motives to be maligned, for our actions to be questioned and maligned, and questioning’s one thing, but gossip and slander’s another.

So if you’re gonna take up the mantle of leadership in your home, you know one way that in a family that this kind of gossip and slander, and I wanna talk to those of you who are a little bit younger. One of the primary ways that gossip and slander happens in the context of leadership is when kids talk to each other about their parents and the things, the rules they don’t like about their parents behind their parents back to vilify their parents to their siblings. You know what that is? That’s evil.

Just because he’s your family doesn’t make it right. That’s evil. And yet it is so common, it is so common. If you’re gonna be a deacon in a church, brother Vernon, you’ve been a deacon how many years? More than a few, more than a few. No doubt brother Vernon has had people say negative things about him. I know it’s true of me, it’s true of pastor Stewart, and it’s true of pastor Craig.

Every leader in a church, that’s the case. And so here’s the challenge, here’s the challenge to you. It’s not that leaders in a family or in a job or in politics or in a church, it’s not that we’re somehow immune from criticism. That’s absolutely ridiculous, that’s not true. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about slander and maligning to others.

If there’s an issue, the best thing you can do is go to that person. Because you’re not slandering them if you go to them. You’re not gossiping about them if you go to them. If you have a problem with leadership, no matter what level or sphere you’re talking about, go to that person. That’s how you deal with it the right way. And get it taken care of.

But leadership comes with that risk, and not just risk, with that reality. That’s just the way it works. But notice something else in verse number, verse number two. Notice what it says here, hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity, who wet their tongue, who bend their bows. Notice, the secret counsel. So, these people who are slandering, these people who are vilifying and dragging one’s name through the mud, these people are are they they David is asking to be hidden from their secret counsel. Then, you look at verse number four, that they may shoot in secret at the perfect. That’s that’s how they do it. Nobody draws an arrow to slander another person and to gossip and vilify them out in the open.

Now, if they were gonna do that, they would just go to the person. Now, they do it secretly, so you can’t really tell what’s happening. So, they it can’t be, you know, and that’s one thing about slander and gossip that’s so difficult to deal with is that I heard such and such.

That’s secrecy, right? Not only that, verse number five says this, they encourage themselves in an evil manner, they commune of laying snares, what’s that word? Privilee, secretly, Secretly. Three times here, these people, these gossip and slanderers are are doing things secretly. We saw that on on Sunday with with the with the Jews at the beginning of Matthew 26 because the Jews sought to take Jesus by subtlety and deception and we saw how that that’s that’s a good red flag. If you’re practicing deception for any reason, whether you’re trying to erase your web history or you’re trying to keep things from somebody or you’re trying to cover your, you know, any kind of or you’re trying to lead somebody to believe one thing that’s not exactly right or you’re leaving out relevant information, right? Any kind of any kind of deception should be a red flag that you are way off base, you are way, you have you have veered from the path of righteousness already and that should be a shining light, a red light is going, but another one is secrecy.

You see, when we find ourselves speaking about others in secret, we’re speaking about Ben to this person in secret. We don’t want what we’re saying to get out. It should be a warning to ourselves that we’re out of line. See, you see if we can’t say or unwilling to say what we’re saying out loud, should we be saying it saying it secretly?

Because we know the scripture says this, our lord told told us this plainly, we know that one day, everything which we have spoken in secret will be announced for all to hear. Luke 12 verse two says this, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed. Neither hid that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light, and that which you have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

You see, that’s, you notice they’re doing it secretly? You walk up on a conversation and all of a sudden it gets quiet. Now if you’re having a private conversation, you’re trying to get some advice about something private, I mean, that’s not what we’re talking about, obviously. But all of you would probably, I know brother Joseph has and anybody who’s in a place of leadership, I know as a parent, I’ve walked into a room where all of a sudden it got quiet, know, listen, listen, that’s a that’s a key indicator. Kids, think you think your parents don’t your parents know everything.

I mean, you might as well count. They know everything. Keep them their age for a whole year. Yes. They know everything. And even if they don’t know exactly what’s going on, there’s a strong like deeper sense of something’s off that they can’t really put their finger on, but they are gonna dig until they uncover whatever it is. I know I do.

Secrecy, secrecy. You see, if you’re practicing secrecy, if we’re practicing secrecy, that should be another alert that we’re we’re veering out of the way of the Lord. Now notice if you would in verse number verse number five. Speaking of these same slanderers, these same ones who gossip and smear and denigrate others behind their back, they encourage themselves in an evil manner. They commune of laying snares privily. They say, who shall see them? You know what you see in verse number five?

You see coordination. They encourage themselves, that’s plural. They commune of laying snares privilege. In other words, this one who’s gossiping and slandering is talking to other people. They’re coordinating with others. In other words, what I’m saying is, it’s not possible to gossip and slander alone. It’s not possible. There is coordination involved. Others are involved in the deed. Now think about this, even if that person, see here’s the problem with this kind of speaking evil of others. Here’s the problem.

The moment that you walk up to another person and you start that conversation, when you take the evil thing that you want to pass on to them, what you’re actually doing is you are attempting to rope that person into the evil that you are doing. You’re attempting like the verse, verse five says, to commune with them in an evil matter. That’s what verse five says. You’re trying to bring the Hey, I got something I gotta tell you about so and so. You’re attempting to bring them in. And then once you tell them, they can take that and then the idea is they spread it to another and they call somebody and say, you know, you’re you’re but the idea is, hey, I told you something and nobody ever says, what I told you I want you to secretly pass on to someone else to tear down the name of this person. No, nobody ever says it, but it’s implied.

It’s an unwritten rule. That’s what juicy gossip is all about, right? Right? Spreading it. And so whenever we approach another person and we say hey, let me tell you something about them or let me tell you what happened to them, what you’re doing is you’re trying to rope them into your evil, your evil deed to get them to do the evil deed. You know what that is?

That is you or whoever is the gossip, that is you tempting them to do evil. That is you, that is me, that is playing the part of the devil tempting them. Because you’re tempting them to listen to something that is evil. So in that way, you’re not only doing the evil, but you’re tempting another to do the evil with you.

This is the problem with gossip and slander. It’s not just a sin to me who is speaking it, it’s also laying a stumbling block and a temptation before the person who hears it, to take part in it as well. So remember this, this is a rule, is a good biblical principle. And we saw it in Matthew 26, when Jesus, what did Jesus do? They were gossiping about Mary and her sacrifice of that ointment, right? When she poured it on his head. They were gossiping, and if you read carefully, you can see that initially Jesus didn’t know or wasn’t aware, of course he’s omniscient, but you know what I’m saying. From the human perspective, he didn’t initially know, but then but they were having this private side conversation gossiping about her and whispering about her.

And then when Jesus heard it, what did he do? He shut that thing down in an instant. What are you doing? You have no business slandering this woman. And then he revealed that the motivations that this woman had were not nearly as evil as they suspected.

So you need to remember this as a biblical principle. Any time someone brings evil words about another to your ears, you are being tempted by that person in that moment.

You are a temptation is being laid in front of you to sin. And if you listen and you harbor that and you provide a place for that slander to rest, you are accepting that temptation.

Our Lord did not do that, in Matthew 26. So, what we see here in in this Psalm, it’s not just it’s not just the exhortation and what the Lord’s reminding us is, he’s not just saying, don’t gossip and don’t slander. Don’t speak evil of others. He’s not just saying that. He’s also saying, don’t listen to it. Don’t hear it. Don’t participate. Don’t yield to the temptation.

Don’t yield to the temptation. Proverbs sixteen twenty eight says this, a froward man soweth strife and a whisperer separateth chief friends. Now, I’m I’m a say something about this in just a minute but here’s another one. Proverbs 17 verse nine, he that covereth a transgression seeketh love but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends. I said this on Sunday but it’s true.

The gossip says, well it’s true. That’s not the question. It might be true, it might not be true, you might think it’s true, you might not have the information. Most of the time, what a gossip does is assumes evil. But that’s beside the point. Given that it is true, doesn’t mean it has to be repeated, but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends. Think about these two verses, separateth very friends. So here’s what you have in this verse. Follow me.

Of course, you have the gossip, the slanderer, the evil speaker, that party that’s party a. You have the person to whom they were speaking, trying to spread it, that’s party B. And then you have the third party. We’ll just call this person party C. So party A, the gossip is speaking the evil of it’s speaking the evil to party B about party C. So party C is the target.

That’s the one we’re shooting, that’s brother Ben. Sorry Ben. We’re shooting arrows at Ben. And I’m talking to Andrew about Ben. So you have three people. That’s what this verse says. Separated chief friends, very friends, right? So I’m talking to Andrew about Ben.

Okay, so Ben is my target. What is the effect of my gossip? I’m speaking to Andrew and if Andrew receives what I say, the effect of that will be the destruction of Andrew’s relationship with Ben. Here’s the thing, Ben might have done something wrong to me, right? He might have said something, he might have lost his temper, he might have been a jerk or whatever, although Ben’s The only fault that Ben has, no this is not true, but the main fault that Ben has is he has a lot of that dry northern sort of Sometimes Ben’ll jab you with a comeback when you least expect it because he looks so nice.

But here’s the effect of my gossip to Andrew about Ben. Here’s the effect. Now Andrew and Ben’s relationship is separated. Their relationship is damaged. Now Ben might have hurt my feelings and that might be the subject of the gossip.

But now the effect is now Andrew and Ben are alienated too. And here’s the thing, Ben might have done something to me, but he didn’t do a thing to Andrew. And now Andrew is distance himself from Ben based upon what I said, even though he has not been harmed by Ben at all.

Are you with me? This is what we’re reading in Proverbs. This whole thing could have been stopped if Andrew had said, no. And refused to entertain it. That’s the right thing to do. Now, here’s the principle I want us to take away, we’re almost finished, but here’s the principle I wanna take away from this. If you or I are separating from people based upon the story or narrative or tale that you have been told by a third person, and on that basis, you think ill of this person who has done done you no wrong, you, you, have fallen to the temptation of the gossip.

If that person has not harmed you, your relationship to them ought to be good to go. It ought to be good. I don’t wanna have a problem with brother Moses if Moses have Moses hasn’t actually done something to me. And if he has, what’s the right way to do with it? Go to him. But if he has done me no wrong, why would I allow another person to destroy my relationship with him? And you know how it is, it is subtle.

It is subtle. A little seed of evil is put in our heart about that person and we mull on it and it grows and grows and it grows and starts to bear fruit until we find ourselves whereas before we used to be friends, now we’re kind of pulling away. Why? Not because that person harmed us. That is wrong. That is not right. That is not consistent with the love that Christ intends between his people.

But this is the effect separating chief friends. Look at you at verse number six. Speaking of the same group, they search out iniquities. They accomplish a diligent search. So, these are the these are the same gossipers. They accomplish a diligent search, both the inward thought of every one of them and the heart is deep.

What are these people looking for? It says they search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search. What are they looking for? Why are they so diligently searching? Is it godly to perform a diligent search and have an eagle eye out for the faults of another? That’s what they’re searching out iniquities. They’re looking for faults. Fault finding, we call it. Is it godly to search for the faults of another?

No. And the thing is, if you’re looking for a fault in me or another brother and sister in Christ or want a family member or anybody in this world, I promise you, you will not have to look long.

You will not have to look long because faults are not hard to find. Every one of us has them, but the question I have for you is, why look?

That’s the probing question. Why are we looking for a fault? Why are we hoping to find it? Do you see, it is the search itself that reveals the wicked heart. For it is a wicked heart that stands watch hoping to catch some evil in another person. That is not godly.

Whether that be, whether we we perform that search to confirm the the ill feelings that we already have about this person before or whether we were whether we’re standing watch hoping to catch a fault so that we can quickly spread it to others. Either way, it is not Godly. This is why, this is why, listen, whenever you might by chance hear some evil about a person, that’s why we need to try our best to assume that it’s wrong.

To assume it’s false. Don’t want to believe it. And you know the way you do that? The way you do that is with love. It’s with love. You know, those of you who have children who are of any age, I know Moses, Joseph, maybe to a lesser degree just because his kids are a little bit younger, but those of you that have kids, as your kids get older and they’re able to do more and get into more trouble, you you love your kids.

And sometimes you start to suspect something’s going wrong, right? Do you like, man, I hope I hope they’re looking at that trash on the internet. No. In your heart but out of love for them, you you dread it sometimes to a fault, right? And so you won’t look. You won’t check up because you’re afraid that they you might find something. I’ve been in this boat. And so we don’t look but what where does that come that comes out of a heart that doesn’t want it to be true.

You know what that is? That’s love. You see, love thinketh no evil, charity thinketh no evil. That’s what first Corinthians 13 says. Proverbs 16 verse 27 says this, an ungodly man diggeth up evil and in his lips, there is a burning fire. Notice the connection between digging up evil and the lips burning. The idea of I gotta spread it.

Irresistible urge. Verse seven, this is where we finish. So notice David brought his complaint to God himself. He didn’t try to make it right, didn’t try to fix it, he brought it to God himself.

And then it comes back to God in verse seven, but God shall shoot at them with an arrow. What have we been talking about this whole time? We’ve been talking about lobbing arrows at our target to to tear down their name and malign them, right? That’s what we’ve been talking about. Lobbing arrows at them. And now the Lord’s lobbing arrows.

The Lord is shooting at the gossip now with his arrows, and it says, suddenly shall they be wounded, so they shall make their own tongue, so we’re still not talking about actual literal arrows, we’re talking about words, so shall they they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves, all that see them shall flee away. In verse seven and verse eight, the Lord takes this same analogy of shooting arrows and he extends it to his own shooting.

God says he shoots arrows at the one who is targeting others, and that person is wounded. In other words, just as this person has smeared the name of someone to another, so the Lord smears that person’s name to everyone so that their name and their character are exposed for everyone to see. Now, I’m finished, listen. So here’s the lesson, it’s not just about don’t gossip and don’t slander. We know that, that’s part of it.

But it’s also don’t entertain it. Don’t listen to it. Don’t yield to the temptation to listen to it. Right? That’s part of it too. But on the heels of that, on the heels of that, in verse seven and eight, is to remember that the Lord shoots his arrows such that the person who is doing the gossip reveals something about themselves in the act of the gossip. So, not only do you resist the temptation to entertain it, and you plug your ears and you close your heart to it, but you also take a note.

If someone brings a five gallon bucket of evil on another person and they want to dump it at your feet, you have just learned something about that person. That’s the thing, the arrow the Lord is lobbing. Because that is the same smear of their character now that they have performed on themselves by bringing the gossip to you, You see?

And so this is a The Lord is just reminding us of the right response to this thing that we unfortunately have to deal with. May the Lord help us to respond to it in the right way, to be like, to follow the example of the Lord Jesus and stand against it and say woah woah woah woah woah woah woah. Mm-mm. To be that guy who is willing to take that awkward step, that uncomfortable step and stop it in its tracks.

Right? Let’s pray together.