and go to my absolute favorite Psalm, Psalm 73
this morning and pray that I'll be able
to do it justice, Psalm 73. God's word says a
Psalm of Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart, but as for me,
my feet came close to stumbling, my steps
had almost slipped, for I was envious of the
arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked
.
For there are no pains in their death and
their body is fat. They are not in trouble
as other men, nor are they plagued like
mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace,
the garment
of violence covers them. Their eye bulges from
fatness. The imaginations of their heart
run riot. They mock and wickedly speak of
oppression. They speak from on high. They
have set their mouth against the heavens and
their tongue parades through the earth.
Therefore
his people return to this place and waters of
abundance are drunk by them. They say how
does God know and is their knowledge with the
most high. Behold, these are the wicked
and always at ease. They have increased in
wealth. Surely in vain I have kept my heart
pure and washed my hands in innocence. For I
have been stricken all day long and chastened
every morning. If I had said I will speak thus
, behold, I would have betrayed the generation
of your children. When I pondered to
understand this, it was troublesome in my
sight. Until
I came into the sanctuary of God, then I
perceived their end. Surely you set them in
slippery
places. You cast them down to destruction. How
they are destroyed in a moment. They are
utterly swept away by sudden terrors. Like a
dream when one awakes, O Lord, when aroused,
you will despise their form. When my heart was
embittered and I was pierced within, then
I was senseless and ignorant. I was like a
beast before you. Nevertheless, I am
continually
with you. You have taken hold of my right hand
. With your counsel, you will guide me
and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I
in heaven but you? And besides you, I desire
nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may
fail, but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. For behold, those who
are far from you will perish. You have
destroyed all those who are unfaithful to you.
But as for me, the nearness of God is
my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge
that I may tell of all your works. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we love you this morning and
thank you for the opportunity to come out
and worship. There are so many things
happening in our time. There are so many
things happening
with our church family here that we ask you to
bless those. But I pray for everyone that's
here that you would bless our ears, our minds,
and our hearts for your truth and that you'd
bless your message in spite of the messenger
in Christ's name. Amen.
Our what we usually call Big Eva or the
general American popular Christianity is full
of voices
that tell us that once we become Christians
and once we follow this thing called
Christianity,
that our life becomes easier, that our life
becomes better, that things work out. You
look at the bookstores and the section on
Christianity and you have all these
psychiatric
psychological manuals on making your life
better just by following these steps. You
go to big churches and the messages are sent
around five things to make your marriage
better,
five things to be successful at work, that
everything that happens to us now that we're
Christians is supposed to be easier and more
prosperous. We have the poor prosperity gospel
that tells us to give all your money, your
seed money, and then God will give you wealth
and cars and stuff in response. And then you
have the middle class prosperity gospel that
you already have all those things anyway so
you give, you serve, you give your time and
then God will just make you happy and
successful and prosperous. But if you've been
a believer
for any time, if you look at it at believers
through history as we've discussed this
morning,
we know that that's not always the case.
Sometimes in his sovereignty and providence he
does bless
us with prosperity like pretty much everyone
here are extremely prosperous when especially
when you compare us to the rest of the world.
But sometimes he doesn't do that. Sometimes
he doesn't give you great health. Sometimes he
doesn't give you great wealth and everything
that your heart wants and great pleasure.
Sometimes he brings problems into our lives
with family and jobs and friends and all those
things. So when the Holy Spirit changes your
heart from stone and into a heart of flesh
that beats for him like Ezekiel says, your
soul is reborn and that regeneration happens
and there's a difference on the inside. But
the reality is that we're still stuck in this
flesh. We're still stuck in this fallen world
with pain and trouble and sin all around us.
So all of us, even as Christians, if we're
believers, we still face internal temptations
and external trials and tribulations that
we have to face every day of our lives. But
the thing that's designed to break the non-
Christian
and to get them to bend the knee to the truth,
to make them look up to Christ in his gospel
is designed differently for us now that we're
Christians. It's designed to prepare us for
glory, for the ultimate success and prosperity
of being before the face of God as we
described
in Sunday school this morning. Those trials
and tribulations that we face, the not always
prosperous times that we have are designed to
chip away at the ugly exterior of our previous
life of a fallen flesh that we still have to
deal with and to conform us more into the
image of Christ, our Savior. So understanding
this is a valuable lesson for us to learn
as believers and that there is wisdom as you
pursue the truth of true success in God's
world and God's eyes and for his glory. And
our text today shows Asaph, the Psalm writer,
the Psalmist that we have here, coming to that
understanding himself, building up from
a false understanding of success into the
truth, realizing the truth about his situation
.
Now, there's 150 Psalms in our Bible and these
are songs written mostly by David, King David.
He wrote a little bit over half of the Psalms,
but there's other authors of Psalms in our
Bibles and Asaph is one of them. Now, either
Asaph or someone in his group wrote about
12 Psalms that we have here and then including
the one that we read today. Now, Asaph was
one of three men, one of three priests, Levite
priests, that were given the job of being
in charge of the music of the temple by David
and he served David as King and he served
Solomon
as well with the building of the actual temple
there in Jerusalem and the dedication to that
temple that Solomon built, that he was
commissioned to be in charge of the music for
that first
service there. And in 2 Chronicles 5, 11, 14,
it says, "When the priests came forth from
the holy place, for all the priests who were
present had sanctified themselves without
regard to divisions, and all the Levitical
singers, Asaph, Haman, Jadathon, and their
sons and kinsmen clothed in final linen with
symbols, harps, and liars, standing east of
the altar, and with them 120 priests blowing
trumpet." It was quite the music happening
there and unison with the trumpeters and the
singers were to make themselves heard with
one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord.
And when they lifted up their voice
accompanied
by the trumpets and symbols and instruments of
music, and when they praised the Lord saying,
"He indeed is good for his loving kindness is
everlasting," then the house, the house
of the Lord was filled with a cloud so that
the priests could not stand to minister
because
of the cloud for the glory of the Lord filled
the house of God. He was one of those
commissioned
for that initial service and so he, he's got
to see all that. He got to see God's glory
fill the temple for the first time and he was
involved in that whole process. But at being
in the head of the music, in the head of a
certain section of the priests, he was
familiar
with the public life and the private life of
many of those around him that were supposed
to be leaders in Israel. And so he most
certainly witnessed the thing that happens in
the public
and private life, of those who are in charge
of things that are still in sin and that are
still in the flesh and still enamored by power
and corruption that comes with a lot of those
positions. And so he saw all this and he wrote
this psalm as a lament against that corruption
.
Now, so many of our songs we like to sing are
all generally happy. We have the blues
and stuff like that, but we generally prefer
songs that are happy and lovey. But there's
many different types of songs in the book of p
salms that there are the happy, there's
a royal songs, there's imprecatory psalms that
that sing against their enemies and want
bad things to happen to the enemies of God.
And there's songs of lament, of pain, of
suffering,
of crying out to God. All of the emotions that
we have as humans can be expressed to
the psalm that really is an amazing thing to
read and to study. So we can see in this
lament psalm, we can see Asaph grow and use
these experiences and the learning that he
has to grow in his understanding and his faith
in the God who loved him and called him to
that ministry. And his growing can teach us
how to react when we see corruption, when
we see people prosper that hate God. And just
like Asaph learned, we all must learn to keep
the true spiritual, eternal perspective about
what true success really is in our lives.
And the first way that I think he shows us how
we can do that is by not becoming frustrated
with the success of the foolish, the success
of the wicked, and the success of the corrupt.
Sometimes many times life can be very
frustrating and confusing. And this is exactly
where we
find Asaph at. He studies the lives of those
corrupt that he sees around and the wicked
and the foolish people. And he's confused and
envious of them, because even though they
are wicked and don't love God, they seem to be
prospering. And it almost causes him to
lose his path. He began to doubt. He began to
be tripped up by what he sees. He has this
little taste of self-righteousness in him. You
know, I'm doing all these things. I'm
a leader in the temple. I'm giving my life to
worshiping God. And I'm going through these
hard times, but all these wicked who could
care less, they're prospering in their lives.
And there's almost this kind of idea of karma,
this kind of idea of a holy reckoning where
if you do good, good things happen. And if you
do bad, bad things happen. He looked at
how happy the wicked were. He looked at how
much stuff they had. He looked at the health
that they seemed to have. And then he looked
at how hard he had it. Now, I don't know if
he had health problems, but they seemed to him
to be healthier than him. I don't know
if he lacked any physical needs, but they
seemed to have an overabundance of wealth.
So he focused on the temporary things in their
lives. And he said, "Well, they seem to be
doing okay." So when he focused on that, when
he looked at the wicked people, he focused
on these couple of things that they had
temporarily. Starting in verses four and five,
he focused
on their health. He said, "For there are no
pains in their death and their body is fat.
They are not in trouble as other men, nor are
they plagued like mankind." So this was
way before universal health care. And I don't
mean universal health insurance given by the
government. I mean the ability to go to the
doctor anytime you want to, to have technology
where you can go on your computer and the
doctor can give you poison ivy medicine like
happened to me without having to go even
anywhere. We just called them on the computer.
They
didn't have all that. Your health wasn't
something that you just took for granted at
the time.
Your health became an indicator of wealth
because if you were wealthy, you had enough
food to eat so you could stay healthy. You
didn't have to work as hard as the poor people
.
You were fed better and then you had overall
less stress in your everyday life. Now that
doesn't mean that we would like to be like a
wealthy person in that time. If you, in
the medieval times, if you are wealthy like
the kings of England, that we have way better
than they did, I promise you, just sanitary
what they had to eat and go through, we have
way better than them. But at that time, you
would look at the health of a wealthy person
and see that they had it better than you. So
the psalmist claimed that when he looked
at these people, they had no pains even in
death. They just went and even when they died,
they died in peace and they just died
naturally in their sleep is what his mind
looked for.
He said that they were fat and we in our
modern times look at fat as a bad thing, but
back
then being a fat meant that you actually had
food to eat. We have to pay people to have
subscriptions to go work at a gym because we
don't even have to work to keep our bodies
fit. We have to not eat as much as we could
eat when they had the complete opposite
problem
back then. So most people during his time
suffer from scarcity and starvation. And so
when
you looked at somebody who wasn't skinny, who
wasn't showing bones around them, it was
because that they were well off if they were
prosperous. He observed that their lives
seemed
easier than others. And remember, these are
the wicked people, the corrupt people, and
they seemed to have it better than he did.
Everything they touched went well for them.
They weren't touched with disease like the
righteous seem to be. So he focused on their
health and then he focused on their lifestyle
versus six through nine. Therefore, pride is
their necklace. The garment of violence covers
them. Their eye bulges from fatness. The imag
inations
of their heart run riot. They mock and wicked
ly speak of oppression. They speak from on high
.
They have set their mouth against the heavens
and their tongue parades through the earth.
And this is a poem. This is a song so you can
hear some of that poetic language in there.
But to him, the lifestyle of the unbeliever
seemed to be carefree. They lived however
they wanted to live. They were easy going.
They went from one pursuit of pleasure to
the next. That is all that they were living
for. They didn't live their lives in view
of eternity. They didn't even believe in
eternity. They didn't have to consider the
eternal cost
of their actions. And this to the Psalmist who
lives every aspect of his life as a priest
in light of the holiness of God, all of his
actions, everything he did and said was
regulated
by the word of God for the holiness and honor
to God. It seemed to him that the path they
were living, living for whatever they wanted,
saying whatever they wanted, was easier. And
not just easier, but it seemed to be working
out better for them. The unbeliever, he says,
flaunts his unbelief like wearing a necklace,
like it's jewelry for him. But he parades
around like, like his unbelief was a, as
wickedness was a fashion trend that they held
what was
good and holy and true and contempt by these
people. In verses eight and nine, they are
so comfortable in their lifestyle of wicked
ness that they continually flap their jaws
without
feeling any shame for what they are saying.
Right now in our society or our culture, it
is the center who is seen to be the moral one.
We talked about it this morning in Sunday
school, how, how morality is inverted in, in
our culture. What's, what's good is bad.
And what's bad is good is looked at as good.
And maybe you've heard this kind of catchphr
ase
that's kind of happened to be on the, the
right side of, of history. So when they speak
about homosexual marriage, when they speak
about transgenderism or about the climate
cult that they look at us as being on the
wrong side of history, eventually we're going
to find out that they were right all along.
But this is due to the, the darkening of their
minds and their hearts have become so wicked
that what's right has become wrong and what's
wrong has become right. It's a result of them
looking at the creator and saying, I will
not have you God rule over me. I will do what
I want, no matter what you've made me for,
or no matter how you've made me to live, I
choose to live in the way that I see fit.
I am the ruler of my own destiny. But this is
the folly that is in wicked people. Asaf
says that they're set their mouths against
heaven, that their tongues strut through the
earth. There's no opposition for them. There's
no nobody speaking out against their wicked
ness.
It's an abomination in our culture today to
speak out against wickedness, to speak the
truth and to go against what has been accepted
as the norm of, of wicked people. We can find
many quotes of thought leaders in our culture
and our society that, that are disgusting
and shameful and blasphemous against our God.
And I found one here, a British comedian,
an actor named Stephen Fry. I'm not sure if
you've heard of Stephen Fry. He was
interviewed
and the interviewer asked him, he is an outsp
oken atheist and the interviewer asked him, you
know, what if you're wrong? What if, if you
die and you find out that there is a God that
you're going to have to answer to him? What
would you say to that God? And Stephen Fry
answered in, in such a wicked and, and blas
phemous way, I'm not going to repeat everything
or
much of what he said, but he wagged his finger
in God's face and called God unjust. And then
he finished by saying this, it's perfectly
apparent that he talking about God is monstr
ous,
utterly monstrous and deserves no respect
whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life
becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth
living in my opinion. So what a falsely proud
thing to say. And, and ASAF started to kind of
go down this path and, and, and, and think
in the same way. But there was no end of it
for Stephen Fry, at least not yet. Stephen
Fry doesn't want for almost anything. He is
relatively wealthy even to us. But, but
ASAF starts to understand this and get that in
his mind and start to agree with what Stephen
Fry kind of said. Life is simpler when you don
't have to worry about living for God
or under his word. He focused on others
responses to the prosperity of the wicked in
verses 10
through 11 on their health, on their wicked
ness, and then on their prosperity. Verse 10
says,
"Therefore his people return to this place,
and waters of abundance are drunk by them."
They say, "How does God know? And is there
knowledge with the most high?" Even as the,
the leader of music in the temple, he had
people under his care and under his management
and they were probably instances when the
people that would come to him that were under
his care would be confused, would be turned
away from the truth by what they saw when
the wicked prospered. There were requirements,
like we said, to be kept to the lifestyle
of those who were priests and who worshiped in
God's temple. And all these people would
ask questions and they would, would bring
tension to ASAF. He knew what he saw. He
knew what he was supposed to say as the leader
and, and he would have to come up with this
response. He said in verse 12, he said, "Be
hold, these are the wicked and always at ease.
They have increased in wealth. Surely in vain
I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands
in innocence, for I have been stricken all day
long and chastened every morning. If I
had said, I will speak thus, behold, I would
have betrayed the generation of your children
."
In other words, he had, he was thinking this,
but he couldn't say it as a leader because
then he would have betrayed those under him.
And so he was conflicted and he had this
ultimate
sense of, of despair as you can clearly feel
as he writes these verses. He feels that,
that his reward for all of his hard work and
all of his pain and all of his labor is rebuke
,
is poverty, is sickness. He doubts, he starts
to doubt that if his, his life of holiness
was worth it to begin with. And he felt he had
nowhere to go and no one to tell. And
finally he comes to the end of his ropes. He
is at the end of his wits. And so he goes
to the temple to seek answers to his questions
. And this is where he found them, verses 16
and 17. "When I pondered to understand this,
it was troublesome in my sight. Until I came
into the sanctuary of God, then I perceived
therein." He had a temporary perspective
on prosperity, on success, on what really
matters. And then he goes to the temple and
he gets a more eternal perspective on what's
really important. And we keep that same
spiritual
perspective by not forgetting what your end
would be without Christ. Verse 18, "So surely
you set them in slippery places. You cast them
down to destruction. How they are destroyed
in a moment. They are utterly swept away by
sudden terrors. Like a dream and one awakes,
O Lord, when aroused you will despise their
form. When my heart was embittered and I was
pierced within, then I was senseless and
ignorant. I was like a beast before you." This
riddle
that he was looking to solve became answered
when he went before God in the temple. As
he was worshiping, as he came before God, as
he heard the scriptures read and sang songs
to God, he was placed in front of eternal
things, things that really matter and that
matter for much longer than our short lives.
And then he understood that the wicked truly
do not prosper, even though it may seem so.
But they're worse off than the poorest man
or woman with Christ in God's care. That the
speed at which this life is lived and that
the relative briefness of this life is against
the backdrop of eternity when you consider
how short this life is compared to the
timeframe of eternity. It makes for a giant
gap in the
thinking of sinful man. We tend to want to
live for the pleasures of this short life
while
ignoring the true pleasure of living forever
in the sight of a holy God in the life to
come. And that is truly the most foolish thing
you can do with your life. The end of the
one who lives this life without Christ, he
found out, past is past suddenly. It ends
shortly and quickly, verses 18 and 19. Surely
you set them in slippery places. You cast
them down to destruction. How they are
destroyed in a moment. They are utterly swept
away by
sudden terrors. We are reminded several times
in this life that our lives are extremely
short. How many of us have lost friends, even
younger friends or younger family members
and that weren't expected to pass? How many
times we come in our Wednesday night prayer
meetings and here request for the loved ones
of those that we love and our friends, our
families that are facing sudden illness out of
nowhere or even sudden death. We live our
lives forgetting how fast our lives can end.
How many of us travel to and from work every
day. There's so much risk involved in driving
vehicles, especially on the interstates and
living in parish. It's crazy. We just take it
for granted and don't even think about
it, but it just takes one accident like the
Williamson family that we've been praying
for and your whole life can change. The Purit
ans realized this and they wanted everyone to
know how short life was. When they had their
funerals, they would have it in the person's
house right there in the living room and they
would lay out the body right there for
everyone
to see, no casket or anything. They would
encourage their children to go and feel the
dead person's flesh. I know it sounds gross
because Kathy's making interesting faces back
there, but when you feel the difference
between the temperature of your skin and the
dead
person's skin, you realize that one day that
is going to be you and that changes your
perspective
on how you live. I'm not saying that's how we
should do it now. I'm saying that's what
they did and why they did that. They wanted
the reality of the shortness of this life
to be understood by everyone. Now, that is
completely the opposite of what we do today.
We act like death doesn't exist. We have
memorial services instead of funerals and we
have these
things called celebrations of life. We don't
even want to think that that person is not
with us. We want to celebrate their lives and
we should celebrate lives that live well
for God. But the reason we do that is not just
because we want to celebrate their life.
It's because we don't want to think that we're
going to die too. We've become numb to the
fact and make no mistake. Death is bad and we
should grieve and mourn those that we love
that pass on, even Christians, although we
mourn differently than those without hope.
But we should understand that all of us one
day will be facing that same end. We will
all die and the unbeliever dies suddenly. The
unbeliever tries to forget this fact and
he tries to dole the sting of death. But that
truth remains that the Bible says it is
appointed
under man once to die and after this the
judgment. And Asaph realized this as he was
placed before
eternal things. He saw that life without
Christ is passed suddenly and it's also
forgotten
quickly. Verse number 20, "Like a dream when
one awakes, O Lord, when aroused, you will
despise their form." All their prosperity in
this temporary life, all the fame and fortune
the power they may have had, all the ide
ologies that they were fighting for all gone in
a
few short years after their deaths. With very
few exceptions, people that have died in the
past are not remembered. We remember a couple
of heroes, a couple of bad guys from just
50 years ago. And then farther you go back,
the more and more people we have no clue how
many, the names of millions and billions of
people that have gone into eternity in the
past. I know my grandfather, my dad's dad,
Pete Peters. And I know some of his story,
although I'm always surprised to hear more at
family events that had no idea. And he's
just my grandfather. I never met my great
grandfather. I don't even know his name on
that side. And you know what? One day it's
going to be me. One day Josh is going to
remember
things, but his kids, my son Josh, they're not
going to remember things about me until
they hear stories. They're not going to know
they're great or great, great grandparents,
most likely. It's happened so quickly. And all
the things that we're living for now,
all those that are in power, the Elon Musk, we
may remember certain things about him.
But farther you get away, the more like a
dream his life becomes. What is he living for?
What am I living for? To be remembered? To
have a legacy? No. Living for God's glory.
And the psalmist sees that. All those that he
thought were the important, the move makers
in Jewish society at the time soon would be
forgotten. And all that they live for would
be forgotten and not remembered, taken up by
someone else. The blasphemer Stephen Fry
in another 20 years. How many people are going
to remember who he is? And if you don't watch
British TV, you might not know who he is now.
You know, he's known by a very few people
and will be forgotten very, very soon. But God
will remember every word he said, and
he will have to give account for that when he
meets his maker. Asaph goes to the temple
and considers these eternal things. In light
of that, he repents of the way he thought.
He repents of looking at this temporary life
and putting so much stock in it. He calls
himself a beast. I was a beast for thinking
this. And that's a perfect illustration of
what he wasn't considering all of it. He
remembered where he would be without the truth
. And he
recalled how good God is to give him the truth
. God took him out of his sinful life. He also
understood that God keeps him. God is the one
who keeps you versus 23 through 28.
Nevertheless,
I am continually with you. You have taken hold
of my right hand. With your counsel,
you will guide me and afterward receive me to
glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And
besides you, I desire nothing on earth. My
flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the
strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For behold, those who are far from you will
perish. You have destroyed all those who are
unfaithful to you. But as for me, the nearness
of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my
refuge that I may tell of all your works.
How many times in just one day are we tempted
to take our eyes off of God and all that He's
done for us and put them on something
temporary and in the long run meaningless? How
many times
do we do that when we're disappointed with how
our life is going with the lot that we
seem to be in? How many times do we do that
when things don't turn out the way that we
think they should? We get so short-sided in
our sinful flesh that we, just like Asaph,
the holy priest of God, a leader among priests
in the first temple, got short-sided and in
his sinful flesh until he came to that temple.
We fall into the same trap that he did. But
the biggest blessing that God gives us is his
grace and his gift of mercy to us that
don't deserve it. He gives us the gracious
capacity to widen our gaze when we are prone
to fall short and look to this life instead of
the eternal life that our Savior has given
us. It's so easy for us to do. God has
equipped us with several gifts to get us
through these
times of doubt and sin. The first one is he
holds on to us. Verse 23, "Nevertheless,
I am continually with you. You have taken hold
of my right hand." Don't we praise God?
Because there will be times of doubt. Many of
us have doubted in major ways in our past
when we're going through pain, we're going
through struggling, but he is continually
holding our right hand. He's holding us from
turning away finally, and he understands the
weakness of our minds. He's considered our
frame as fleshly humans, and he holds on
to us. His shoulders are big enough to carry
us through those times of doubt. In fact,
he uses those to chisel away at that ugly,
sinful exterior. One of my favorite passages
in Romans chapter five, verses one through
five, it says, "Therefore, having been
justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have
obtained our introduction by faith into this
grace in which we stand." So all of our
salvation,
all of our justification is sure in Christ.
Nothing can turn us away from that, but it
doesn't just leave us there just to live this
life and just have that hope. We go on
for that. It says, "We exalt in hope of the
glory of God." We praise God for that
salvation
that he's given us in Christ. But not only do
we praise him for that great gift, it says,
not only this, but we also exalt or praise God
in our tribulations, in our trials, in
our troubles, in all these things, knowing
that tribulation brings about perseverance
and perseverance-proven character and proven
character hope, and hope does not disappoint.
So those tribulations we go through are
practiced for the next one. And we go through
that tribulation
and we persevere through that tribulation, and
we look back and say, "Well, God, help
me through that." And so then we go on in our
lives and we face another tribulation and
we say, "Well, I remember the last time God
helped me through that. He gave me His Holy
Spirit. He's holding my hand continually." And
so that gives us hope to go through the
next one and the next one, and we continue to
grow in sanctification and the Holy Spirit.
It's such a very big blessing that He never
lets us go. He can even use our doubts and
our faithlessness to help us to grow. He
continually holds us. And then He guides us
with His counsel. First part of verse 24, "
With Your counsel, You will guide me." What
a glorious promise. Remember, He was doubting
and then He came into the temple. He came
in and heard the Word of God, the counsel of
God, from His revelation. And His doubts
and insecurities went away when He heard the
truth. And we all need wisdom to go through
life. And God has given us His Word to give us
that wisdom. James 1, 5 says, "But if
any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God
who gives to all generously and without repro
ach
and it will be given to him." He gives us His
counsel and there is no better counsel
in the world. And then finally, He gives us
the hope of glory. Verse, the last part of
24, "And afterward receive me to glory." This
is why, if one reason from this whole passage
why we shouldn't envy the Christless is
because that our end as Christians, no matter
what
our status is here, is going to be eternal
glory with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
We are His bride. We are His people. We are
His beloved. And we will see Him face to face
and be like He is. And they will have no idea
about that. There's no greater wealth to be
achieved. There's no greater goal for us to
have as Christians, no fame or fortune or
power, no political end, no wealth, none of
that stuff, no peace in this time, temporary
time is worth having over Christ in you the
hope of glory. Matthew Henry says this, "Upon
this consideration, let us never envy sinners,
but rather bless ourselves in our own blessed
ness.
If God directs us in the way of our duty and
prevent our turning aside out of it, He will
afterwards, when our state of trial and
preparation is over, receive us to His kingdom
and glory,
the believing hopes and prospects of which
will reconcile us to all of the dark prov
idences
that now puzzle and perplex us and ease us of
the pain we have been put into by some
threatening temptations." This is the great
gift of salvation and there's nothing else
in this world that we should want over it. Oh,
that our flesh wants to trust in our own
abilities over the grace of Christ, wants to
trust in wealth over his mercy, wants to
trust in man over God and his word himself, to
trust in health over eternity, to trust
in our own work over the providence of God, to
trust in our own selves over God's truth.
What in the world can we have greater than
Christ ourselves? So when we go through these,
the hardest times of our lives, the times of
doubt and despair, when everything else
fails us, we can rest in Him and Him alone.
And I tried to find another quote that kind
of explains this better than I could, but
better really couldn't find anything better
than verses 25 and 26, when Asaph realizes
this truth for himself and writes it so
beautifully,
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And besides
you, I desire nothing on earth. Take
everything,
Lord, I've got you. My flesh and my heart may
fail. My very health may fail, but God
is the strength of my heart and my portion
forever, forever. If you trust in me, me,
I'm going to fail you, even if I don't want to
fail you, even if I'm very sincere in saying
that I'm going to do something for you or I'll
do this or do that. No matter how much
I want to succeed, there are things that may
prevent me from keeping my word to you, but
there's nothing in all the universe that can
keep God, nothing external to Him, that can
keep God from keeping His promises." I've
already had to apologize to many of you for
things I've done in the past, or I have a
great tendency to say the wrong thing at the
wrong
time, and you've been very gracious, but God
will never fail you. God will never let
you down. Make Him the strength of your heart
and your portion, and He will never, ever
disappoint you. How close are you to God? ASAP
uses this idea of closeness and farness
to differentiate between those that perish
with nothing in eternity and those whom God
protects, who God holds and who God says.
Verse 27, "For behold, those who are far from
you will perish. You have destroyed all those
who are unfaithful to you, but as for me,
the nearness of God is my good. I have made
the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of
all your works. Those who are far perish, but
those who are near, get God Himself as
their refuge." And, beloved, you will no doubt
find yourself, maybe even today, doubting
God, doubting His Word, finding yourself
looking at this temporary life in
disappointment
and pain and maybe even poverty or lack of
health. But always remember, if you are near
to God, if you have God, He holds your hand
and never, ever lets you go. You run to Christ
.
You run to Christ like ASAP did and get that
greater understanding of the eternal
perspective
that only comes from knowing Christ. And if
you don't know Christ, if you haven't come
to Him in biblical repentance and saving faith
, then please, I implore you, don't let
go of Him until you know Him for real. Let's
pray. Heavenly Father, we, like ASAP, often
fall short of perfection. And we often look
down instead of looking up. I pray that you
would keep us and bless us from that. I thank
you for what you've done in Christ to make
knowing you possible. Thank you for your mercy
and your grace on us. In Christ's name, amen.