Refuse God - Rise Against Men - Psalms 54-56

Refuse God - Rise Against Men

Psalms 54:1-3 (ESV)
1 O God, save me by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
2 O God, hear my prayer;
give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers have risen against me;
ruthless men seek my life;
they do not set God before themselves. Selah

The above lines are the beginning of a song composed by fugitive, David. Saul is looking for him to kill him because he sees David as a threat to his throne.  In fact, he is a threat.  God promised David, through the prophet Samuel, to make David king over Saul.  Saul is out to get him.   But why?  Yes, Saul will lose power.  Yes, Saul wants the praise of men.  Yes, Saul simply has evilness in his heart. But the real reason that Saul is hunting down David is stated by David in verse three above.  As a result of the bounty Saul put on David’s head, absolute strangers have now started to pursue David.  The exact moment David is referring to is probably found in 1 Samuel 23 where the Ziphites alert Saul that David is “hiding among us.”   David sees their treacherous and evil behavior.    Why do they act this way?  Why do they wish to harm an innocent man?  It is because they have “not set God before themselves.”  When man rejects God they rise against mankind.   That is the formula for all the wars, arguments, fights and displeasure and distrust in the world.   When mankind rejects God they seek their own fleshly ways.   Note how James says it:

James 4:1-4 (ESV)
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

That is the ingredients for evilness.  When the Ziphites rejected God they turned on David.   When men reject God they turn on fellow man.