Well, let us turn once again
to God's Word. Turning to the psalm that we
were reading, Psalm 73. And our text is found at verse
22. Psalm 73, 22. So foolish was I, and ignorant
I was as a beast before thee. Psalm 73, 22. So foolish was I and ignorant
I was as a beast before them. And I want to try to say something
with regards to what Asaph is saying as a child of God, a believer,
as he utters these words. A believer confessing his spiritual
ignorance. is the theme then that said before
us, so foolish was I and ignorant. I knew not, says the margin,
I was as a beast before thee. And there are many things of
course that do perplex the child of God, things that he cannot
begin to comprehend or to understand. We know that there is a mystery
in God's dealings, God's providences things seem to be so contradictory
at times and surely in this psalm we see something of the problem
that was troubling the psalmist the prosperity of the wicked
that he was observing all around him how he speaks of these things
time and again throughout the psalm. In verse 3, I was envious,
he said, that the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Verse 7, there I stand out with
fatness, they have more than heart could wish. Why is it that
God deals with them in such a fashion that they have everything that
they desire? He says at verse 12, Behold,
these are the ungodly who prosper in the world, they increase in
riches. And he couldn't understand, he
couldn't fathom what God was doing. How foolish was I and
ignorant I was as a beast before them. He was aware, of course, of the
pride of the wicked. He says a great deal about that
pride as he speaks in the psalm. They set themselves against the
Lord God Himself. Verse 5, They are not in trouble
as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore
pride compasseth them about as a chain, violence covereth them
as garments. And the language that he uses,
at the end of verse 8, they speak loftily. They set their mouth
against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. For these are the ungodly that
God denieth. Verse 11, they say, How doth
God know? And is their knowledge in the
Most High? Oh, He's aware, you see, of the
pride of man and the wickedness of man in all his opposition
to God and the goodness of God. We go back to the beginning when
we see how God worked in creation and then Oh, he makes man in
his image after his likeness, but puts man to the test, sets
him in the paradise which was the garden of Eden, and speaks
of a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man is not
to eat of that tree. And God says in the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And oh, Satan through
the serpent comes and tempts the woman. And what does he say? in order to draw her into his
gin, into his trap. If she will but take of the fruit,
ye shall be as gods. Ye shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil. And so we find how instead of
submitting to God and the truth of God's word, they embrace,
they believe the lie of the devil and they partake. And there's
unbelief and there's pride all together bound up with that unbelief. And it is spoken of as a snare
of the devil, isn't it, when Paul is writing to Timothy concerning
his duties as one who is engaged in the ministry of the word of
God and the need to appoint men to the office of overseer and
the sort of men that should be appointed and he says there in
1 Timothy 3.6 not a novice, not a novice lest, being lifted up
with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil." Pride
is the condemnation of the devil. And do we not see something of
that in the language that we find in Isaiah 14, where we read
of Lucifer? I know in the context here of
this 14th chapter in the prophecy, Isaiah is clearly speaking of
the king of Babylon. Verse 4, Thou shalt take up this
proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor
ceased? The golden cities cease. The
Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the scepter of
the rulers. He's speaking against the king
of Babylon. He goes on to use that expression
in verse 12 of Lucifer, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground, which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in
thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God, I will sit Also, upon the mount of the
congregation in the sides of the north, I will ascend above
the heights of the cloud. I will be like the Most High."
That was the language of the king of Babylon. He would be
as a god. But surely, there's more than
a mere man here in what the Prophet is saying when he speaks of one
Lucifer, son of the morning. nor son of the morning who will
be like the Most High, it's the devil himself, in all his pride
setting himself against the Almighty, nor the wickedness of men, the
pride of men. And this is in part what is perplexing
Asaph here in the language of the psalm. He can't understand
the ways of God, so foolish was I and ignorant I was as a beast
before them. how really the godly man is so
different to the ungodly man there is a difference here, there
is a contrast between the psalmist himself and those that he sees
round about him the multitudes of the ungodly and so to consider
something of this ignorance and as Aesop is the man of God. It's a spiritual ignorance that
he has. And he confesses that ignorance. He cannot understand. There are many things that we
cannot understand. We cannot really understand the
very truth of God. The doctrine of God. It is the
first and the greatest of mysteries. Because we see from scripture
that God is one. There is only one God. Hear O
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And yet, we see that there
are these three persons spoken of, the Father, and the Son,
and the Holy Ghost. Oh, what a mystery it is, three
persons and yet not three gods. three distinct persons subsisting
in one undivided and one indivisible God. That's the first mystery
but there's another great mystery when God reveals himself and
reveals himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
when we think of the person of Christ because we see that this
one is a man, he's a real man and yet he's God. he is God and man and he is not
two persons he is one person in that one person these two
distinct natures he is altogether beyond our understanding
these truths are ineffable we can't explain them we can't begin
to fathom these things we think sometimes of the language of
of the hymn writer, where reason fails with all our powers, where
faith prevails and love adores. It's a matter of faith. We're
foolish to think that we can reason these things out. It's
beyond our reasoning. And even here in the psalm there
are things beyond what Asaph can really not only never explained
but he can't work them out he's perplexed by the prosperity and
the pride of the ungodly and he confesses he confesses these
things, so foolish was I and ignorant I was as a beast before
the and it's interesting I've said it before we have this little
word as in the text and it's in italics and we know that that's
a word that's been interpolated, introduced in the translation.
It's not a rendering of any particular Hebrew word that is there in
the original. So really the text, although it's set before us in
our Bible as a simile, it's more than that really. It's not saying,
I was as a beast, but more particularly, I was a beast. I was a beast
before them. God made man in his image after
his likeness made his body of the dust of the earth breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life he becomes a living soul
a rational soul, he has a mind he can think, he can understand but what's happened to this man? Oh a brutish man knoweth not,
we read in another psalm Neither doth a fool understand this. What's happened to this man who
was made in God's image and after God's likeness? When God created man he made
him upright but they alas have sought out many inventions. How can he understand anything?
he has to come to some understanding of himself first of all how important
that is when we read in the Ecclesiastes there the wise man Solomon the
preacher speaks about how God must make us to understand these
things he must manifest these things to us and cause us to
see and feel what we really are by nature And the language that
we have there in Ecclesiastes 3.18, I said in my heart, concerning
the state of men, that God might manifest them, and that they
might see that they themselves are beasts. All God has to show
us what we are. And isn't in a sense that part
of the purpose of God giving us His Word? James speaks of
the Word of God like a mirror, a glass, a looking glass. And
the man looks into that glass and he goeth his way and forgeteth
what manner of man he is. Or remember the prayer that was
taught the little Highland maid. She asked her minister, she said
she found it so hard to pray, she knew not what to pray. and
he said there were two simple petitions she needed to come
to God with and to ask Him show me myself and then show me thyself
oh God has to show us what we are and this was true of Esau
verse 17 until I went into the sanctuary of God then understood
I dare it it's when he comes before God God will show him
the end of the prouds and the God despisers but God
will do more than that God will show him something of himself
he'll see where he is and what he is and how necessary is that remember the language of the
apostle when he writes there in 1 Corinthians and in the opening
chapter of that epistle in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 19 it is written
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. O God, you see, hath chosen the
foolish things of this world, to confound the things that are
wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. This is the way of God. He confounds
all the wisdom of the men of this world. He shows his people
where they are, what they are, their complete dependence upon
him, their native ignorance. They know not anything at all. they can only know as God is
pleased to work in their hearts new life from Him we must receive
before foreseeing we rightly grieve says the hymn writer how
true it is a man must be born again and how the Lord Jesus
Christ emphasizes that so clearly to a man like Nicodemus who was
such a religious man and couldn't understand Verily, verily, except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, says
the Lord Jesus. Prefixing that tremendous statement,
not with just one, but with two verilies. Truly, truly, literally,
that's what he's saying. Amen. Amen. So be it. So be it. There's an emphasis
there. Man by nature, you see, though
made in the image of God and though so created that he might
know God and enjoy God, yet he has rebelled against God. He's
in a state now of alienation. He needs to be a new man. He
must be born again. And though it's emphasised time
and again, isn't it, the teaching of the Lord Jesus there in John
3, the necessity of regeneration, but then how Paul speaks of these
things several times in the course of his epistles. When he writes
to the Colossians he speaks of how they have put on the new
man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. Renewed in knowledge after God's image. A man must be born,
born from above He says much the same, doesn't he, when he
writes to the Ephesians, that he put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness of ourselves with those who are
so ignorant. And where there is that new life,
that spiritual life in the soul, there will be some understanding
then of what we were previously. why we were in that state it's
sin, it's sinful ignorance it's sinful ignorance it's learning
the awful truth of our natural condition by nature you see the
doctrine of total depravity we might speak in terms of those
great doctrines of grace, you know, under the mnemonic tulip. What is the first of those doctrines?
Total depravity. That's where we have to begin.
And so, salvation is of the Lord. If salvation is of the Lord,
there must be all the work of God. There's the Father, unconditional
election. He has made choice of the people
whom He will save. The Father is that one who is
sovereign in election and then the work of the Son, limited
atonement, that work that Christ came to accomplish. He wouldn't
just make salvation a possibility, He would accomplish salvation
for a specific number of people. We sometimes speak of limited
atonement in terms of particular redemption, a particular people
to be saved. The Father in election, the Son
in redemption and then irresistible grace. And isn't that the blessed
work of God the Holy Spirit who comes to apply all that Christ
accomplished? all that the Father purposed,
all that the Son has procured by His dying upon the cross made
a blessed reality in the soul of the sinner when that sinner
is wrought upon by the Spirit of God effectually called the
irresistible grace of God and so ultimately the perseverance
of the saints the tulip all the saints will persevere
to the end. He that endureth to the end,
the same shall be saved, says the Lord. Or they're preserved
in Jesus Christ and so they must keep persevering in that blessed
way. But where we begin, you see,
we have to come to that sad understanding of what we are and where we are
of ourselves. and we see it again in the language
of the wise man Solomon the wisest of men his language there in
the book of Proverbs surely I am more brutish than any man and
have not the understanding of a man oh the paradox you see that's
the language of a wise man He's not looking to himself, he's
not resting in himself, he's not resting in his own reason. He doesn't imagine for the moment
that he can work these things out by use of his own feeble,
frail understanding. No, the Lord must show him these
things. Isn't real religion, isn't true
Christianity a revelation? That was Paul's experience. It
pleased God, he said, to reveal his son in me. Oh, this man who
was once so certain of his position, a Pharisee. He'd been schooled at the feet
of one of the great rabbis, Gamaliel. He was so versed in the scriptures
of the Old Testament by touching the righteousness of the Lord
of God he was a blameless man he he gloried in all that he
was and all that was taken away from him and he came to realize that he
could do nothing for himself nothing to save himself I know that in me that is in
my flesh he says dwelleth no good thing That's what he's brought
to. It's the same here with Asaph,
the Sami, so foolish was I and ignorant I was as a beast before
them. But as I said, it's not just
a simile here. It's more than that. It's a statement
of fact. I was a beast. I was a beast. Interestingly, when one turns
to the commentaries, and it's always Profitable, worthwhile
to turn to the commentator to see what he has to say. And turning
to dear Dr. Gill. Dr. Gill, of course, was
a most learned man. He was a brilliant Hebraist.
He would be well familiar with the original here. And he makes
his telling point, he says that this noun, beast, is not a singular
noun, it's a plural noun there in the scripture. More literally,
it's beasts. I was as beasts before thee. And the girl said, that's a superlative.
When he says beasts, he's emphasizing. He's just like the brute beast.
And yet he was created in God's image and made after God's likeness.
He had a rational soul. And what is man? He's as beasts. Another psalm says, Be ye not
as the horse that hath no understanding, whose mouth must be howled in
by bit and bridle, lest he come near unto them. Don't be like
beasts. You know, there's a sense, alas,
in which men are worse than beasts, aren't they? When Isaiah begins
his ministry, and we have it there in the opening chapter
of the book, almost the opening words, verse 3 of chapter 1,
as he addresses the people of God, the children of Israel. The ox knoweth his owner and
the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know. My people
doth not consider. Why are they worse than this?
The ox knoweth his owner, the ass his master's crib, You know,
when we have pets, how they are so dependent on their masters.
They look to their masters. Their masters to feed them, and
care for them. They know who their masters are.
And how faithful they are to their masters. Well, the ox knoweth
his owner, and the ass his master's crib Israel. Doth not No, my
people does not consider, says God. Comes home, doesn't it?
Comes home to us, it's us. Can we not say with the Prophet
then, so foolish was I and ignorant I was as a beast. I was worse
than a beast, Lord God, before the... Or the ignorance. The ignorance that is in us by
nature, we know nothing. But not only that, In a sense
here he's confessing more than he's ignorant, he's also acknowledging
his own impotence, his inability. We have the reading in the margin,
ignorant, could be rendered, the Hebrew we're told literally
says, I know not. So foolish was I and I know not. Or we have no ability to know
anything. We have no ability to even know
anything in our natural state, our natural condition. We can't
even think aright. That's what Paul says there,
writing in 2 Corinthians 3, not that we are sufficient of ourselves
to think anything as of ourselves. This man, who was once the proud
self-righteous Pharisee, what is he saying now? is not even
sufficient to begin to think right thoughts left to himself. We can't think any spiritual
thoughts left to ourselves, we know that. The natural man receives
not the things of the Spirit of God. That foolishness to him,
neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. What lessons we have to learn
if we are those who are truly the Lord's people and know the
Lord. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. The carnal mind, the same word really, the natural
mind, is enmity against God, it's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. And I can remember many times
failing to quote that verse are right. The carnal mind is enmity against
God, not subject to the law of God, neither can be. I miss out that little word indeed.
Neither indeed can be. Or there's such an emphasis.
The inability, the enmity, of the mind of man against God,
and we have to confess it. God made man upright. We've referred
to those words in Ecclesiastes, love, or behold. You know the significance of
those two letters, love, or behold, sometimes rendered. And it simply
means, you know, here's something you look, you consider. Here's
something to look into. Here's something to think over,
to ponder upon. Although this only have I found,
that God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. And what are our inventions?
Our foolishness. Where men set themselves against
God. They say, how doth God know,
and is there no knowledge in the most heart, nor the arrogance
of man, the pride of man? How foolish man he is! Again
another Psalm, Psalm 69 and verse 5, O God, thou knowest my foolishness,
and my sin is not hid from Thee. Sin is of man. Sin is of man,
isn't it? We're sinners. But how can we
have a sense of our sin? That can only come from God.
Sin is of man. The sense of sin comes from God.
God has to teach us. God has to show us. God himself must work within
us. We need to know that working of the Spirit of God in our hearts. What are we when we are left
to ourselves? We need that power of the Spirit's working within
the hearts. You remember how Paul speaks
of it as the exceeding greatness of his power in them that believe. the exceeding greatness of His
power. And it's according to the working
of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised
Him from the dead. He says there in Ephesians chapter
1. What was there when Christ was raised from the dead has
to come into our hearts, into our souls when we're dead in
trespasses and sins. Because we have nothing. We are
nothing. It's God who must do the work,
thou also hast wrought all our works within us, says Isaiah. O Lord our God, other lords besides
thee have had dominion over us. By thee only will we make mention
of thy name. It's so humbling an experience,
this salvation. God brings us to the dust, to
the end of ourselves. Thou turnest man to destruction.
and say us return you children of men are we ready for that
that God should put us as it were in our place and teach us
that a man can receive nothing except it is given him from above
the gospel you see when he comes to us oh it's a
gospel that gives all the glory to God to the Lord Jesus Christ No man can come to me, he says,
except the Father which hath sent me to draw him. We have to be that people who
are made willing in the day of Christ's power. This is the day
of Christ's power, thank God for that. This is the day. The acceptable day, the day of
salvation. And yet, or we cannot do it,
or could I but believe, we sang it just now. Those words of dear
John Newton, or could I but believe, then all would be easy, but I
would but cannot, Lord relieve, my help must come from Thee. And look at the, look at the
context here of the text, and the words that follow. Nevertheless,
I am continually with thee, says Asaph to his God. Thou hast holden
me by my right hand, thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and
afterward receive me to glory. Oh, what a nevertheless is this!
And we need to be thankful to God for all the nevertheless's
that we find here in His Holy Word. We have another one later
in the 106th Psalm. Similar really to what we have
here in Psalm 73. Verses 7 and 8 there in that 106th. Our fathers understood not thy
wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude
of thy mercies, but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red
Sea. Nevertheless, he saved him for
his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known."
Isn't this what God does? Every time a sinner is saved,
every time a sinner is truly saved, God makes known his power.
every conversion is a real miracle of grace oh thank God for these neverthelesses
that we find here in holy scripture and so we have it here in verses
23 and 24 and what do we have in the words that follow the
text we have really a two-fold promise the promise of God's
presence first of all nevertheless says Asaph I am continually with
thee God is continually with him goes
on verse 25 whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon
earth that I desire besides thee ultimately God will take his
people all together to himself You know the great glory of heaven
is that, isn't it? That the believer is forever
with the Lord. We see it there in the opening
part of Revelation 21, the tabernacle of God is with men. That was
the glory of Israel in the Old Testament, the tabernacle. We
were reading only on Thursday evening those words in Exodus
25, the furnishings that were all gathered, all the materials
gathered for the building of the Tabernacle. The first thing
that we read of is the Ark of the Covenant and the top of that, the Mercy
Seat. There I will meet with thee,
says God. The Mercy Seat, God's throne, God sitting in the midst
of Israel and when they When they come into the promised land
they set the tabernacle up at Shiloh and three times a year
the males are to go to where the tabernacle is for the three
great feasts. They go where God is. He's enthroned
in the midst of his people. And then of course David eventually
takes the tabernacle and it's removed to Jerusalem. It's set
up there upon Mount Zion. And so they go to Jerusalem.
And then King Solomon builds the Temple of the Lord. They
go to the Temple of the Lord. But it's God. God is in the midst
of Israel. And that's the great glory of
heaven. All forever with the Lord. The
Tabernacle of God is with men, but here is the promise, I am
continually with you. says the Psalmist. God says I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee to his servant Joshua there
in the opening chapter. Remember how Paul refers to that
in Hebrews 13.5 I will never leave thee nor forsake thee and
in fact in the Greek there in Hebrews 13.5 there are some five
negatives and it's brought out wonderfully in the words of the
hymn I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake. Five negatives. How emphatic is that? God will
never forsake his people. God's presence. That's the promise
that God gives to his people there. or they need him. So foolish was I, and ignorant
I was as a beast before them. But to have the presence of God,
and not only the presence of God, to know something of the
power of God. Thou hast holden me by my right
hand, says Asa. God takes his people by the hand.
God leads them in the way, in the narrow way, the way that
leads to life. And He gives them, doesn't He,
a multitude of, of fear not, so many of those gracious words
that we have time and again in Isaiah, in Isaiah 41 and verse
10. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee, be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee,
yea, I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. Oh God, hold his people with
the right hand of his righteousness. Verse 13, I the Lord thy God
will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I will help
thee. And the Lord brings us to that. We fear ourselves at times to
be such fools. We fail to understand the ways
of the Lord altogether beyond our comprehension. As I said
at the beginning, the mysteries of his providences. And this
is what is troubling us, I feel, when it comes to our understanding
of the doctrines, the great truths of Holy Scripture, the doctrine
of God, the doctrine of the person of Christ, the doctrine of the
work of Christ. the doctrine of the Holy Spirit
and His blessed works in regeneration. Oh, we are not worthy of the
least of His favours and all that truth that He has shown
unto us. We are such ignorant creatures. We feel our complete and our
utter inability. We are so hopeless so helpless
left to ourselves but what do we read concerning those
pilgrims in the narrow way in Isaiah 35 we read of wayfaring
men strangers pilgrims on the earth Isaiah 35a the wayfaring
men though fools though fools shall not err therein or we we
have to look away from ourselves We have to continually look to
our God, to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's faith. It's
not our minds, our reasons, our powers of comprehending things.
It's faith. It's resting in all that God
is, all that Christ has done. Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us. wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption that as it is written, either
glorieth or let him glory in the Lord. What can we glory in
ourself? So foolish was I and ignorant. I was as a beast before them. I was beasts before them. Nevertheless, I am continually
with them. Thou hast holden me by my right
hand, Thou shalt guide me with Thy countenance, and afterward
receive me to glory. And in the closing words of the
psalm, I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare
all Thy works. It's all God's work. It's all
God's work. It's all of grace. And all the
glory then must go to God, and we are those who are the foolish
creatures. And yet God has mercy upon such. The fools don't hurt in that way. It's
a way of life. It's a way of salvation. Oh,
the Lord be pleasing to bless His word to us. Amen.