Psalm 73 - When Good Things Happen to Bad People

Thanks, Trevor, for sharing with us, Giff God has given you to produce music like that, and exalt the Lord in doing so. I hope we're not missing any servicemen who have been back visiting with us, but I know last week we had one of our members who was a former servicemen or is a servicemen, had been in Afghanistan today. We have Josh Bird back with us. Josh has served in Iraq and is back for the holidays. Now before you greet him, I want Josh to introduce for us his bride. I don't know that many of you have met him. So would you do that, Josh? Let's show them thanks. We appreciate all of our men and women and family members who stand by them as they have served in our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and other difficult places in the world. And especially for young men who have gone out from us, who are one of us, and Josh certainly is one of those, and Josh is great to see you again. In the 2001 film, Count of Monte Cristo, Edmund Dantes is a man who is a young sailor in France in the 1800s. He is framed and thrown into prison under false charges of treason by a former friend who has betrayed him because of envy. And he is sentenced to the most desperate prison of the day in France during Napoleon's time, that is, Chateau Diff, a prison from which few people will ever come out alive. When he gets into prison, he is believing that God will vindicate him because he is just, he has not done anything wrong, and he finds an inscription on the wall of his cell in that prison that says, God will give me justice. And he carves those words deeper into the stone of that prison, believing in his heart that God will give him justice. But several years pass in solitary confinement in that damp and dark prison cell. And he loses all hope. Until one day, he meets a fellow prisoner who he comes to know as priest. Priest is able to show him some hope, and I want us to look to see how, first of all, the introductions take place between Edmund and Priest, and also what this clip shows us about the despair into which one can get when they begin to doubt God. Let's take a look. I forgive my intrusion, but I was under the impression that I was ticking towards the outer wall. A little wrongly, with the Lyanna. I am a memory for real. I have been a prisoner in shadow deep for 11 years, five which have been spent, ticking this tunnel. It's stuck in it's with a thousand, five hundred and nineteen stones in my walls. I've counted them many times. Have you named them yet? Once I was as you are now, when I promised, it will pass. I promise, I promise. I stand on your shoulders. Take me down. Please take me down. Take me down. I have not seen this guy. He's 11 years. Thank you. Thank you, God. There is no talk of God in here, priest. What about the inscription? It's stated. It's stated from my heart. And what has replaced it? Or revenge. And that's exactly what will happen to you if you do not understand the issue we're going to talk about this morning. If you do not understand what the Bible says about the issue of why do the wicked prosper? And why do the righteous suffer? You will come to points of despair, much like Edmundontes, where all hope and all faith in God is gone. You may well turn your back on the Lord as many have. And walk away from church, walk away from the Lord because you can't make sense of this issue in life. It is an issue that is described in Psalm 73. And I knew that we could not do a series on favorite Psalms without touching on this issue, which is one that many, many people struggle with very deeply. It's often called the issue of the suffering of the righteous. Why do the righteous suffer? Why do bad things happen to good people? Now I haven't gotten the title wrong. I'm going to approach it from the opposite direction. I think the flip side of that issue is why do good things happen to bad people? And that's the way that Psalm 73 addresses the issue. But it is an issue that has perplexed people since time began. Why do people like Job suffer in the Bible like he suffered? After all, didn't God say he was the most godly man on all the earth? The man who was most upright on all the earth? Yes, why does he end up suffering like he does? Why do prophets like Jeremiah get thrown into prison while the false prophets who proclaim a message that is not true to the Word of God at all get by, it seems? Why do apostles like Paul get thrown in prison and false teachers prosper and do well? Why are Christians persecuted in many countries in our world today? Why are small children in Uganda and Sudan sold into slavery and prostitution? Powerless to do anything about it. Why do things like that happen in this world where we believe that God is the God of justice and right? Why does that happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? And conversely, why do good things happen to bad people? In 1981, a rabbi wrote a book. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book called, When Bad Things Happened to Good People. Rabbi Kushner had lost a son and a tragic accident and trying to come to grips with the grief that he was experiencing, he wrote out of his struggle that book. Why bad things happen to good people? And you know what his conclusion was? His conclusion was, well, God is just not powerful enough to keep some things from happening. God is not in control, really, of the universe. We have to somehow try to love him anyway, even though we know God is not in control and those things happen. But despair, that is. That is not at all what the Bible teaches. A few years after that, Warren Wiersby wrote a response to that book called, Why Us? Talking about the suffering of the righteous and why good people do suffer. This is a complex, a difficult issue that people have struggled with for years. I want to approach it from the prospect or the aspect that Psalm 73 does. Why do good things sometimes happen to bad people and the opposite as well? Why is it that we often see ruthless dictators strutting across the stage of history, pillaging and killing like barbarians? Why is it that we often see financial empires built on the backs of low-paid employees? Why is it that we see drug lords and mafia bosses flying in expensive private jets while missionaries fly and run down planes that are held together by bailing wire and duct tape? What's going on in this world? Doesn't the Bible say that God rewards the righteous, protects the righteous, blesses the righteous? And the punishment will come to those who are wicked, doesn't the Bible teach that? Then why doesn't that jive with what we see? That's the struggle that the Psalmist has here. Now this is a struggle of faith. The man who wrote this Psalm, the Bible says, is ASAF, the title of your Psalm, there says a Psalm of ASAF. ASAF was the leader of the temple singers. The leader of the temple choir, he's the man who led worship in the temple. He's a man who knows God, who loves God, who has faith in God and yet he went through a deep crisis in his soul, struggling with this issue. Why do the wicked prosper and why do the righteous at times suffer? Now thankfully, and as any good choir director would do, ASAF gives us a breakdown of his thoughts. Three stanzas to his song and he introduces them with the word surely. Look at verse 1, you find the word surely. Look at verse 13, again the word surely. Verse 18, again the word surely. So what the Psalmist is cluing us into is that there are three stages of this journey, three stages of grappling with this issue of when good things happen to bad people. Let's jump in where he jumps in. Stage 1, this difficulty of faith is first of all the complaint of faith. The Psalmist has a complaint and this is it. Look at verse 1, he begins in this complaint of faith with a creed. This is what I believe. This is my creed, this is a statement of faith, this is what I believe. Verse 1, surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart. And that's what he believes. God is good to his people. That's what we believe too. The Bible teaches that God is good. In other words, he pours out his blessings, he offers his protection, his reward, his comfort, his peace, his joy to his people. So those who the Bible says here are pure in heart, that doesn't mean perfect. It means whose hearts have been set on God who have given their hearts to him, who have an undivided devotion to him. Basically, it's talking about those who know him, who have trusted him as their savior. So we believe that, don't we? That's our creed, that's our statement of faith. We believe the Bible teaches God is good to those who know him, to those who trust him. But something happens in verse 2 to change drastically the tone of ASAP's Psalm. What he declares next is a contradiction. And this, he says, is what I feel. What I feel oftentimes is a contradiction to what I believe. I believe that God is good to those who love him. But look at what he says in verse 2. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost my foothold for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Now, he admits to an unsettling doubt that's creeping into his thinking here. And this unsettling doubt has to do with looking around him and what he feels when he looks around him contradicts what he believes. Because what he feels is when he looks around, he sees all the wicked prospering. And he feels inside is envy. He is envious of the wicked because, hey, they seem to be doing fine. And here I am fighting like crazy just to make life work and try to get through the difficulties and struggles of life. How does that happen if we believe the Bible teaches that God is good to his people? How does that happen? That's a contradiction in his mind because of what he feels when he looks out on the life. There is a sense in which what he feels almost makes these whole three verses kind of cynical. There's almost a tone of doubt back in verse 1 when he's saying, sure, surely you're good to the evil, but you're blessed to good. Surely, God, you bless the good, but you sure don't feel that way. It doesn't feel that way to me. It seems like too often I'm getting what the wicked should get. It sure doesn't feel like blessing to me. That's a haunting question. Why do the righteous suffer? Why do the wicked prosper? Why do the wicked and violent seem to have their way? Get what they want and do fine? And why is it that so often the godly and the honest get stabbed in the back? Why does that happen? That's the struggle that he's got. That's the complaint. Now, he goes on in verses 4 through 12 to literally flesh out his complaint and give more of the complaint that he has. And the complaint basically is what I see. Versus 4 through 12, he describes what he sees. And he makes very clear what he sees around him. This is just a good old complaint session. This is going to sound like a pity party. It's exactly what it is, but many of us have felt this way. When we look around what we see and what we feel does not jive with what we believe the Bible teaches. And here's what he says. This is what I see. And it describes it in very graphic terms. Let's just kind of read down through them. Verse 4, they have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and strong. In other words, I look around at the wicked people. And by the way, this is going to be a bit of an exaggeration. This is obviously not true quite to the degree he states it for every wicked person. But he says, I see a lot of this stuff. I'm looking around at what I see is wicked people who are not sick. They're doing fine. Many blemishes on their skin. They're doing great. They look wonderful. Their bodies are sleeping strong. And here I am struggling. That's what I see. And he goes on to say in verse 5, they are free from the burdens common to man. They are not plagued by human ills. They seem to be above the normal adversities of life, the normal hardships and frustrations of just trying to make a living and get through life. People live wicked lives and seem to do just fine in that regard. He's complaining. Verse 6, therefore pride is their necklace. In other words, they wear their pride and self-importance and arrogance like a piece of jewelry. They wear it on their sleeve like a bracelet. They wear it around their neck proudly like a necklace. They're proud of the fact they're proud. They're proud of the fact they're self-sufficient. They're proud of the fact they can do without God. They don't need God. Who needs God? And they seem to do fine. They wear their pride as a necklace. Verse 6 says, they clothe themselves with violence. They disregard the rights of others to get what they want. They will step on anybody, push anybody out of the way to get where they want to get and do what they want to do and seem to get by with it. Psalmist says, this is what I see when I look around. Verse 7, it goes on, this complaint. From their callous hearts comes an equity. Now if you have a Bible that has notes in the margin of the reference, you may see that there's another way to say this. My Bible says that it could be translated literally from the original language of Hebrew. Their eyes bulge with fat. Now what is that about? Their eyes bulge with fat. I mean, there are lots of places where we have fat, but it's not normally our eyes, is it? Their eyes bulge with fat. What is that talking about? Basically it's saying, whatever they see, they seem to get. They can accumulate. They have, they're wealthy. They have lots of possessions. And so they seem to have everything they need. Their eyes bulge with fat literally. And he goes on to say in verse 7, the evil conceits of their minds, no limits. The word conceits is the word literally for image. And it's used in the Old Testament primarily of graven images or idols. But here in this context, it probably refers to the images of a person's mind. The idea is that every thought, every imagination, plan, scheme in their minds, although it's evil and it's self-centered, they seem to pull it off. They seem to get by with it. And it doesn't seem to hurt them. This is what I see when I look around. The Psalmist says. Now, verses 8 and 9, he talks about how these wicked people know how to use their tongue to their own advantage and look at the different ways they do it, verses 8 and 9. They scoff. That means they know how to use their tongue to hurt other people, to oppress others. So they scoff. They speak with malice, with evil intent toward other people. In their arrogance, they threaten oppression. So they threaten others with their tongue so that they can get where they want to get. Verse 9 is an amazing verse. Look at verse 9. Their mouths lay claim to heaven and their tongues take possession of the earth. You know what that means? It means that these are the kind of people who know how it should be done. I mean, they, and they talk about how it should be done. On earth and in heaven, if I were God, this is what I'd do. He doesn't seem to be very good doing a very good job running the universe. They speak brashly and arrogantly with seeming knowledge of everything and disdain for God. They know how it should be done here on earth and they know how it should be done in heaven. If they were God, they could run this universe right. That's the kind of person he sees as he looks around. He says, I don't understand what's going on there. He goes on, this complaint, verse 10, talks about their influence. Therefore, their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. He's talking about the influence of these wicked people. You know, they have gotten places in life by pushing other people down, by their wickedness, violence, by their lying and gossip and slander and whatever. They've gotten where they want to get to. A lot of people look at that and say, hey, there's a success. There's somebody who's wealthy, there's somebody who's made it and people are attracted to that. They gain a great following. The Psalmist is questioning, how can that be? This person's wicked to the core and look at all the people that just love him. Want to follow them, want to be like them. Verse 11, they say, how can God know does the most high have knowledge? They laugh at the idea that God knows or will intervene in their lives. They can do anything they want and get by with it. And sometimes it seems that way, doesn't it? So he sums up his complaint in verse 12 by saying, this is what the wicked are like. Always carefree. They increase in wealth. He sums it up by saying, this is what I see. Get people getting whatever they want, seemingly having a great life, while those who are righteous who try to live for God's struggle and have difficulty trying to even make ends meat, struggle with this illness, that illness, that disease, whatever. It's just a hard go for them and the wicked seem to have it. Scott free through life, just an easy ride. Now, obviously that's somewhat of an exaggeration, but it is the cry of a heart that sees inconsistencies or supposed inconsistencies in what God does and questions those inconsistencies or seeming inconsistencies. This is not a denial of the faith. This is someone who knows and loves God, but whose confidence, whose spiritual stability is beginning to slip. And this can happen to you, friend. It can happen to you. It can happen to me. It can happen to anyone sitting here this morning. When you begin to get your eyes on only what happens on this earth, only what happens down here. You see wicked people who are prospering and righteous people who are struggling, it can raise some serious questions about your faith. And that's exactly where the psalmist is. These are honest questions and some of you here this morning, no doubt, have those same questions or have had them and have not successfully resolved them. And there is a complaint that comes out of faith, you know Christ, you know the Lord, but there is a complaint about how things happen in life. When you see what appears to be a contradiction between what you see and feel and what you believe, some of you are struggling with that. It's the question of evil. It's a deep question, it's a difficult question. And if you don't deal with it properly and you don't go to the right place to find the answer, as you can slip into the second phase, that the psalmist did in this difficult journey of questioning God. And that is, he moves from the complaint of faith in verses 1 through 12 to the crisis of faith in verses 13 to 17. In these verses, he has hit rock bottom. And he is questioning everything he believes. He is pouring out to God what he feels. And he does it in such passionate terms that I want to try, if I can this morning, to reword what he is saying in these verses in contemporary idioms, in words that we would use in expressions that we might use to sound out the same kind of feelings. In verse 13, basically the psalmist is saying, what's the use? What's the use? Look at what he says there in verse 13. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure. In vain I have washed my hands in innocence. You know what he is saying? He is saying what's the use? What's the point in living a righteous lifestyle? What's the point in living for God when I look around me and the wicked are thriving? And I am honestly trying to live for the Lord and I can't get to first base. I am really struggling in life. Then what's the point? What's in it for me? I look around syndicated crime makes more money than any corporation or business in this world off of pornography and gambling. And I think well then what's the use to live for God? That's what the psalmist is saying. He's saying I look around and I see vast empires of people who are setting themselves up as rulers over nations and they got there by murdering the opposition. I say what's the use? What's the use in living for God? If a guy can get by with that and the mass all kinds of wealth, I see drug lords living like kings, I see terrorists who have unlimited resources to carry out their wicked schemes. What's the use to live for God if that's the way the world operates? Now obviously that's pretty self-centered isn't it? It's somewhat exaggerated, it's very self-centered. Yes, it's shocking that he would even think that but I'll guarantee you I know there are some people sitting here this morning who have felt that way. What's the use? I mean if this is what living for God gets me and I look around and see all of that other stuff happening, what's the use? He goes on in this crisis of faith to say in verse 14, why am I suffering? Look at what he says there, verse 14, all day long, I have been plagued, I have been punished every morning. Now the word he uses for plague is a word for chronic illness and disease. He's used that way in the Old Testament. Some chronic illness, some disease, some affliction that feels like a punishment from God. Not blessing or reward, why am I suffering this way? I'm supposed to be one of the good guys, really I'm supposed to be one of the guys on the Lord's side and it feels like God's punishing me, why am I suffering like this? And somebody else doesn't care anything about God or his word or his salvation and they seem to get along fine. It feels like I'm getting what the wicked deserve. That's what he's saying. Why am I suffering? He goes on in verse 15 to express this, I can't say what I'm feeling. I can't even say what I'm feeling, verse 15. So deep, he says this, if I had said I will speak thus, I would have betrayed your children. In other words, to come out publicly with what he's feeling on the inside, he feels like would be a betrayal of God's people. In other words, he would be saying, I chuck it all, I'm walking away from God's people, I forget about the church, I forget about God. If I really say this publicly, how I'm feeling inside, I'm turning my back on everything that I've held dear for years. Have you ever been there? Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like you were right on the precipice of saying, I don't get it, I don't understand why God allows these things and I'm ready, my questions are so deep and so angry and so raging inside of me that I'm afraid if I blurred them out in public, I will once and for all turn my back on God and on these people and walk away. Have you ever felt that way? It's pretty deep, folks. But there are some folks here no doubt who are hurting like that and who have hurt like that. The psalmist is saying, at least to his credit, I have enough commitment to the family of believers that I'm not going to do that at this point, I'm not ready to do that. But he goes on to express in verse 16, I don't understand what I'm feeling. I can't really say publicly what I'm feeling but I sure don't understand what I'm feeling either, verse 16. When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me. In other words, it weighed me down so much, I couldn't handle it, I couldn't deal with it. I was confused, trying to figure this out has left me confused. You know what? Confusion is a bad place to be. Confusion is a bad place to be. I'm finding that out more and more. The older I get, it's a bad place to be. I have started this unhealthy habit of locking my keys in my office. I've done it about six, seven times the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure what's happening to me if it's early onset Alzheimer's or what, I don't know. I'm getting to get confused. I heard about a policeman that pulled over a car that had been doing 20 miles an hour and he had followed the car for two or three miles and had his lights on and finally the car pulled over, doing 20 miles an hour. So he gets up to the window and he realizes this is a car full of elderly people. The dear elderly lady who's driving the car rolls down the window and the officer said to her, lady, why were you going 20 miles an hour on this highway? She said, well, I saw a sign that said 20, so I was going to keep it right at 20. He said, lady, that was the road sign, the traffic, the road sign for the number of the road that was not the speed limit. He got to looking in the back seat. There were some frantic people in the back seat, a couple of elderly gentlemen who were shaking and he looked back and he said, is everybody okay? And one of the guys brought it out. Yeah, we just got off route 110. It's an awful thing to be confused, isn't it? There really is. Now that kind of confusion we can laugh at, this kind of confusion is tough to deal with. And you're looking at life and it doesn't make sense and you cannot understand why it would God allow me to suffer like this. And I see my wicked neighbor over here and he seems to be doing fine. God, what's up with that? I don't understand that. I don't get it. What's happening? How is this universe run anyway? Now there's some difficult questions and that kind of confusion is hard to deal with. And he ends up in verse 17 by basically blurting out, I need some answers. I need some answers here. Now notice what he does in verse 17. In verse 16 he said, try to understand this. It was oppressive to me. It couldn't deal with it. In verse 17, till I entered the sanctuary of God, then I understood their final destiny. The light is beginning to come on. I need some answers. And thankfully he went to the right place to find those answers. He went to the sanctuary of God, which in the Old Testament is the temple. It's the place where you worship God. It's the place where you hear the law expounded and explained. It's the place where God's word becomes real and the pieces begin to fit. The puzzle comes together and things become more clear. It's the place where you learn what is real and what's not real and how things really operate from God's perspective. He went to the right place to find the answers. Not everybody goes to the right place. Sometimes when people struggle with these deep questions, they go to Oprah or they go somewhere else. Or sometimes they just go to a friend or sometimes they just go off the deep end and leave God back behind them. The place where you need to come is the place where God meets with these people, the church, God's people, where the word of God is explained. And you can begin to see the bigger picture of what God's doing. That's why he says, when I went to the sanctuary, then I understood their final destiny, speaking of the wicked. Now, what you have happening here is a little bit of a light is beginning to show. You see, he's seeing a bigger picture. He's getting a glimpse of what's going to happen because he went to the right place. And most of you this morning would probably be familiar with the name Ted Turner. Ted Turner, the founder of the CNN empire and all the spin-off stations from that used to be the owner of the Atlanta Braves, probably owns half of Atlanta. He is a guy's multi-multimillionaire. He's also a well-known agnostic. He's probably most famous in the Christian community for his statement in 1990 that Christianity is a religion for losers. And that statement was made publicly and he got a lot of heat for that. He eventually did make a public apology for that for making the statement, but not for what he said. He still believed what he said. But that kind of created a firestorm. And I don't know if you remember people began to investigate his background thinking, we want to figure out where this is coming from. Probably he grew up in a pagan home, nothing about religion. You know what they found out? They found out that Ted Turner had actually grown up in a Christian home, a strong Christian home. And early in his life as a teenager he wanted to be a missionary. You know what got to him? You know what turned him the other direction? This very issue. And we read it to you in his own words. In an interview on this issue, he said this, I couldn't reconcile the concept of an all-powerful God with so much suffering on earth. You know what happened to Ted Turner? He turned his back on God and on his faith. Why? Because he went to the wrong place to get the answers. He didn't go to the right place. He didn't come like the Psalmist to the sanctuary to God's people, to God's word to get the answers. And there's a little glimmer of hope here in verse 17 that this thing is going to resolve itself okay. And it does in verses 18 through 28. Because he has come to the right place, this complaint of faith that turns into a deep soul crisis of faith now becomes clear to him. And he describes for us in the last 11 verses the clarity of faith where he comes to in resolving this issue. Now again, we've seen a little glimpse of it in verse 17 where he says, when I got into the sanctuary, I understood their final destiny. I began to see the big picture. And he's going to describe several things that became clear in the following verses. We're going to see those in a moment. But I want to assure you, if you come to God's word and to God's people and you gain some insight into the bigger picture of what's happening on this earth and in eternity's perspective, then you will understand better how all the pieces before that fit together. You know what it's like to watch a movie with someone who's already seen it? You know what that's like? It's irritating, isn't it? When you watch a movie with somebody who's already seen it and you're watching a movie and at some point in the movie they pause and say, did you hear what he said? Now remember that, that's important later on in the movie. Remember that. And you watch a little bit more and they stop the movie and the person's, now did you see what happened there? Did you see, now notice that, remember that because that's very important later on. And I'm saying just let me watch the movie and figure it out for myself, please. It's irritating to watch a movie with someone who's already seen it before. Why? Because they know the end of the story and all the subtle little clues and plots that you normally wouldn't understand till the end, they got them because they've seen the end already. And that's exactly what's happening in this Psalm. The Psalmist tells us, I didn't understand what was going on, didn't catch the clues, I didn't understand the pieces of the puzzle that seemed out of place, the parts of the story, the plot that just didn't make sense. I didn't understand that till I got to the sanctuary and I saw the big picture. I saw the end of the story and when you see the end of the story, my friend, everything else fits together. Now he's going to describe for us the end of the story and how that helped his faith become clear again. And I hope, I hope with all my heart, my friend, if you're struggling today, if you're fighting this battle, this question, this deep question of, does it make sense to follow Christ because of what I see around me? If you're struggling with that, I hope you will listen now to his conclusions in these last few verses. Quickly, I want to give you five things that became very clear to him as he came to the right place to find the answers. The first thing that became clear was the true condition of unbelievers, the true condition of unbelievers, verse 18. He says, surely you placed them on slippery ground, you cast them down to ruin, how suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors. Isn't it interesting that he started the Psalm by saying in verse 2, my feet almost slipped and I had nearly lost my foothold. And then when he sees the big picture, when he sees from the Word of God what's really going on, he says, oh no, wait a second, it's not me that's on shaky ground, it's the wicked that's on shaky ground. Really, it's the unbeliever that's on shaky ground because he recognizes the horrible end they are coming to. You placed them on slippery ground, he says, you cast them down to ruin and it's going to happen suddenly, verse 19, there will be completely swept away. I think he's talking about God's judgment here. He's talking about that ultimate face-to-face meeting with God. And when that happens, the wicked doesn't have a piece of ground to stand on. His foundation that he's built his life on is made of sand and there's nothing to stand on. Now the Psalmist may have felt like because of some of his questions, he was a little bit slippery and he's faith for a while but now he realizes the real person in trouble is the unbeliever, not the believer, not the Christian. The real person in trouble is the one who for sakes God, who doesn't believe in God, who has never trusted the Lord Jesus as his or her Savior. That's the person who's really in for trouble because they're going to face the judgment of God someday. And I'll tell you something, verse 20 is a chilling verse. It is absolutely chilling. Listen to what it says, verse 20, as a dream when one wakes so when you arise, oh Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. You know what that's talking about? He's talking about it kind of looks like, you know, from this side of eternity, from this perspective kind of looks like God's asleep, kind of looks like he's not really aware of what's going on down here after all. Why are the wicked, prospering and the righteous, suffering? Kind of looks like God's out of touch, right? He's not aware of what's going on. And the Psalmist is saying when you arise, oh Lord, the idea is when you do show yourself and intervene in human history, when you do come to judge this world, when we stand before you, he says, the whole life of the unbeliever is going to be like a dream and like a fantasy. That's the idea of the verse. You see, what seems like fantasy and a dream to us, you know, heaven being with God someday, everything being made right kind of seems far off sometimes, doesn't it? Kind of seems like a fantasy. That is reality. What really is a fantasy world, what really is, is like a dream is the 50, 60, 70, maybe 80 years we pass here, drop in the bucket when it comes to eternity. And eternity is reality. That's where things really become real when you meet God. And the Psalmist is saying that is where the wicked are in trouble. Oh, they may look great for 60 years down here. They may be very prosperous, successful, wealthy, whatever, but the reality hits when they meet God. Then they are on slippery ground and have nowhere to stand. So he said, oh, that became clear to me. That became clear, the true condition of unbelievers. Second thing that became clear to him was the true nature of my complaint, verse 21-22. When my heart was grieved and my spirit imbitered, I was senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you. That's an honest admission. You know what he's saying? He's saying the same thing. Some of us have had to say, you know, God back when I was envious of the wicked and I was thinking about how good they have it and how bad I have it, that was senseless. That was ignorant. I was acting like a brute beast, which means I was just acting by instinct. I was just responding to the situation at the moment, strictly by human nature and instinct. I wasn't taking the time to back off and get an eternal perspective on what was really going on here. And so I was acting like a dumb animal. That's an honest admission. But it's one that sometimes we have to make. When we look around us and we see what appears to be inconsistencies in what we believe and what happens in life and we react against that and we rail against God and we get all angry and envious of the wicked, we're acting like animals, just reacting by instinct and the spur of the moment situation. What we need to do is back up and take that long-range perspective like the psalmist did and then it becomes clear, the true nature of my complaint. Oh Lord, that was really senseless and ignorant that I said the way I felt. So that became clear. Third thing that became clear versus 23 and 24 is the true security of the believer. The true security of the believer. You think the believer is on slippery ground and the wicked guy has it good? Well, we've already seen the wicked guys in trouble when he comes to meet God. But look at the true security of the believer in verses 23 and 24. He says, yet I am always with you. You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel and afterward you take me into glory. This is great, this is wonderful, this is the true security of the believer. This is what we have in the Lord. Three things he says, first of all we are grasped. He says in verse 23, we are always with him and he holds us in his hand. He grasps us. We are in his grasp. God has a hold of you my friend. He has you in his hand. And nothing can take you out of his hand. Jesus said that in John 10 when you said my sheep are in my father's hand. They're in my hand and they're in my father's hand. You're in good hands when you're with the father and with Christ. That's what the Psalmist is saying. I mean his grasp, so he grasps us. Secondly, he guides us, verse 24, guides us with your counsel. That's the word of God. We have the promise that we can make sense out of life. We can understand some things if we will come to the word of God and see the bigger picture of what God's doing. So we are in his grasp. He says, afterward, you will take me into glory. That's the end of the picture, my friend. That's where the novel makes sense. That's where everything comes together is at the end, afterward, after all this stuff here, even though we are now in God's grasp and we are guided by his counsel, afterward is the best part. That's when we get to go home and be with him. The word take here is the same word used of enuck in Genesis 5, where enuck walked with God and then it says he was not for God, took him, means to literally translate him into his presence, to take him immediately into God's presence. That's what happened with enuck. That's what's going to happen to every believer in Jesus Christ. When we die or when the rapture comes, we are immediately in his presence. He says afterward, you take me to glory. That's God's presence. So that's the true security of the believer. Grasped, guided, glorified. It reminds me of that wonderful passage in Romans 8, where Paul describes this big picture view of what God's doing with his people. He says for those God for new, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, that he might be the first born among many brothers. Then he says in verse 30, and those he predestined, he also called those he called he justified, those he justified, he also glorified. Now this is the big picture view of salvation. This is not just what's happening right now. This is the whole panorama of salvation. It goes all the way back into eternity past where God for new us. That means he chose to set his love on us. I can't explain that fully. I don't understand that fully. That's what the Bible teaches. God chose to set his love on us. That's what it means when it says he for new us. For those he for new he predestined means simply he marks us out ahead of time to be like his son Jesus. So for every Christian he has a prearranged purpose for you to be made like Christ. And those he predestined, those he did that for, the Bible says he called that means that at a certain point in time he spoke to your heart through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and called you to himself. Then there was another moment where you responded and you trusted Christ and you were justified. And then he says past tense those he justified he also glorified. It's as good as done. The glorified part being with the Lord in heaven. The whole process God sees from beginning to end. Just as certainly as he knew us in eternity past he already has us in heaven in eternity future. That's the big picture you see. That's the security of the believer and the Psalmist said I came to see that. That became clear to me when I went to the sanctuary and I began to understand things from God's perspective. I understood the true security of the believer. The fourth thing the Psalmist understood clearly was the true values in life. Verses 25 and 26 the true value in life whom have I in heaven but you. And earth has nothing I desire beside you. It's a great verse. What it's saying is heaven is heaven because God is there. That's what makes heaven heaven. It's not the pearly gates in the golden streets. Okay, that's going to be great. Nice to see. But you know what? What makes heaven heaven is God. And knowing that we will be there with our Savior Christ. And he goes on to say the same thing is true about earth. Earth has nothing I desire beside you. In other words nothing makes sense down here apart from my relationship with you. And so everything in heaven depends on you. Everything in earth depends on you. If I have that confidence then verse 26 my flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. What he's saying is if I know the Lord Jesus and I have a big picture view I understand how things are going to end up. And I understand that the true value in life is to no Christ, to know the Lord because that's what heaven's about. That's what makes earth makes sense. If I understand that then I can take whatever life throws at me. If my heart fails I can take the aging process. I can take a debilitating disease. I can take tragedy. No it's not easy. We don't take it glibly but I can put it in its proper perspective. If I know that heaven awaits me and the Lord is there and the only way this earth makes sense is to know Christ. If I have that right then I can take whatever life throws at me because you are the strength of my heart and you are my portion forever. Every says portion meaning that my needs are met. I get exactly what I need. God gives the portion that I need. Wow. That became clear. The true value in life and the last thing that became clear to him in verses 27 and 28 was the true difference between unbelievers and believers. Look at this. This is really the summary of the whole thing. This is how it ends up. Verse 27. He describes the unbeliever in verse 27, the believer in verse 28. The unbeliever, he says, are far from God. That's a description of where they are far from God. And he says the result of that is that they perish. They're destroyed. Now that doesn't mean they're extinguished. The Old Testament did not have a full blown view of the afterlife and many people who use verses from the Old Testament used them wrongly to try to express that but the Old Testament did not have a full blown view of the afterlife. That came in the New Testament and the New Testament Testament makes it very clear as it uses the words paration, destroy, words like that that is talking about eternal judgment and separation from God. Let me give you a verse for that. Revelation 20 and verse 10. And chapter 20 and verse 10 says this, after the millennium when there's been one final insurrection by Satan has been released from his prison. The Bible says that Jesus Christ comes, takes Satan and casts him into the lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet are. Now the beast, the Antichrist and the false prophet were cast into the lake of fire 1,000 years before at the second coming of Jesus before the millennium began. At the end of the millennium, thousand years later they are still there suffering. Now the only way I know to explain that is that eternal suffering is literally that. It is an eternity of suffering, perishing, being destroyed, continually suffering. That's the way the New Testament describes it. And that's for those who are far from God but those who are near God, verse 28, he says it's good for me. It's good for me. It's good for me. It's good for me here. It's good for me there, especially. And no matter what I go through here, I know the Lord is my strength. He is my refuge. And didn't it great how he ends up, I will tell of all your deeds. You know, in verse 15 he was saying, I can't say what I'm feeling. I'm afraid I'll deny my faith. And now he says, wow, I've got this perspective from you about what's really happening. I'm going to tell everybody about you. It's a great way to end the chapter. But the point is this, the whole chapter can be summarized this way. If you're struggling with the question of the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked and you can't fit that together, you can't work it out and it's causing your real crisis of faith. The key is to come to the right place and get the big picture, learn the end of the story to God's Word where you will find the end of the story. And trust what God says rather than what you're feeling right now. An army pilot was in training, World War II, just began his training. At Langley base in Northern Virginia. And his instructor took him into the plane first day and showed him the instrument panel and said, now this is your compass. You will need to understand what this compass does. This is your altimeter. This compass will show you your direction. The altimeter will show you your height off the ground, how far you're off the ground. He showed him some other instruments. This is an instrument he said which will help you to know whether or not you're level with the ground or whether or not you're tilting too far one way or the other. And then he looked at this young recruit and he said, you listen to me, you learn to trust these instruments or it will kill you. And the guy looked at him and said, kill me. He said, yes sir, it will kill you. There will come a day when you think you're going one direction and your compass will say something different, you trust that compass. There will come a day when you feel like the plane is leaning too far this way. You trust that gauge on that instrument panel or it will kill you. There will come a day when you will not be able to know exactly where you trust those instruments or it will kill you. My friend, I'm here to tell you this morning, ASAP is here to tell you this morning, God's Word. When you get in a spiritual tailspin and it's not making sense what you see doesn't jive with what you believe, don't trust your feelings. There is an eternal compass that tells us exactly where we are and what God is doing in this universe. It tells us the end of the story. It tells us what's eventually going to happen to the wicked no matter what it may look like in their few years here. It tells us exactly what's going to happen to the righteous. You better trust this compass. Don't trust your feelings. If you're in a crisis of faith right now, my friend, come back to the right place to find the answers and get your life back on the right track. Don't abandon the Lord. Don't abandon the church. Don't abandon your faith. Get back on the right track. Would you pray with me? Father, thank you that you've given us the sole struggle of some people like ASAP because we need to hear that Lord. I would imagine there are some here this morning who are suffering, struggling in this very way. I pray, Father, that you would help them. Help them to realize that your Word does have answers. And even though it may be difficult at times here when we see the end of the story, it all makes sense. Help us to recognize the big picture of the blessing, the eternal value of following you, of knowing you. Father, I pray that if there's anyone here this morning who is lost who does not know Christ, that this would be the day they would come to you. Not pray, Father, for those who are struggling with the very question we talked about today, they would come to understand what your Word teaches, that they would see the right answers to those questions and renew their walk with you, not turn their back on you in Jesus' name we pray.