Would you turn to Psalm 73. 73rd
Psalm. Truly, God is good to Israel. even to such as are of a clean
heart. But as for me, my feet were almost
gone. My steps had well nigh slipped.
For I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. For there are no bands in their
death, but their strength is firm. They're 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 a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness.
They have more than their heart could wish. They're corrupt and
speak wickedly. Concerning oppression, they speak
loftily. They set their mouth against
the heavens and their tongue walketh through the earth. Therefore
his people returned hither and waters of the full cup rung out
to them. And they say, how does God know? And is their knowledge in the
most high? Behold, these are the wicked or the ungodly who
prosper in the world. They increase in riches. Verily
I've cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency.
For all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning. If I say I'll speak thus, behold,
I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought
to know this, it was too painful for me until I went into the
sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end. Surely thou did set them in slippery
places. Thou castest them down to destruction. How are they brought into desolation
as in a moment? They are utterly consumed with
terrors as a dream when one awakens. So, O Lord, when thou wakest,
thou shalt despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved and
I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I and ignorant,
I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless, I am continually
with thee. Thou hast hold me up by my right
hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven
but thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For lo, they that are far from
thee shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all them
that go a-whoring from thee, but it is good for me. to draw near to God. I put my trust in the Lord God
that I may declare all thy works. Let's pray. Lord, how we thank you for who
you are How we thank you for your word. How we thank you for
the gospel of your free grace. How we thank you for the salvation
that's in thy son. How we thank you for the forgiveness
of sins. Lord, accept our thanksgiving
for Christ's sake. We ask that you would enable
us to truly confess our sins and take sides with thee against
ourselves. Lord, we ask for the gift of
faith that we might be enabled to believe your gospel. We pray
that you would cause your gospel to be preached in the power of
your spirit, and that we might be enabled to worship thy dear
son. Give us grace to love you more and truly love one another
more. In Christ's name we pray, amen. I do not know if there is a more
base emotion than envy. Envying someone. Being uncomfortable
at the blessing of somebody else thinking it should be to me.
I would rather have it for myself than them. And actually feeling
ill will toward someone. I don't know of a more base emotion
And I don't believe anything could be more unreasonable than
a believer envying an unbeliever. Yet that is what is going on
in this psalm. This is what the psalmist is
correcting himself for, his envy of unbelievers. And he ends up,
as we saw in reading that, saying, I was like a beast. I was so
base, I was like a beast before thee. That's how he concluded
what he was before God. Now, look in verse 1 of Psalm
73. Truly, God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. Now, listen to the language. God is good to Israel. Now he's
good to all of his creatures in a way of he's not cruel or
capricious or capricious or he's good to everybody. Nobody can
say God wasn't good to me. Nobody can say that. What about
all these people with physical impairment? Well, God's good
to everybody. I know we can think of objections. And when we think of objections,
we're in a bad place because that means we're becoming God's
judge. Don't be God's judge. He's a lot better than me and
you are. infinitely better than me and you are. But when he's
speaking of God's goodness here, he's talking about God's goodness
to Israel, and he's not talking about national Israel. He's talking
about the true Israel of God. Every single believer. I'm an Israelite. I'm a Jew. So is every other believer. We're
the true Jews and God is good. This is the goodness that's spoken
of in Exodus chapter 33 when Moses said, show me your glory.
God said, I'll make all my goodness to pass before thee. And he's
talking about his saving goodness, his capacity to show mercy to
people like me and you. Truly, God is good to Israel.
And don't miss this. Here's how they're described.
Even to such as are of a what? Clean heart. That means morally
pure. Without sin. God is good to such
as are of a clean heart. What did the Lord say in the
Beatitudes? Blessed are the what? Pure in heart. Now the only way
that that can be understood is in light of the two natures of
the believer. A believer has a holy nature,
a pure heart that the Lord spoke of, and he's got his old nature. And that's just what the scripture
teaches. You can't really undo it. If that's not true, then
what are you going to do with this thing of a clean heart?
You don't have one. I mean, can you look in your heart right
now and say, I've got a morally pure, clean heart? Of course
not. It's defiled, and you know that. But if you're a believer, you
have a new heart. That's the heart that believes.
That's the heart that recognizes your sinfulness. You wouldn't
see that without this clean heart being spoken of. Now, truly,
God is good to Israel, such as are of a clean heart. They've
been given this new heart. Remember when David said, created
me a clean heart, O God? You know, even when you have
a clean heart, that's the heart that cries out all the time,
created me this clean heart. Now, you take that away. People, people
kind of argue against two separate natures. You better hope it's
not that way. Because if, if there is only,
if there's not two natures, this verse of scripture leaves us
with no hope. You see that? No hope. Now let's
go on reading. But as for me, my feet were almost
gone. My steps had well nigh slipped. I was overcome with a completely
wicked and ridiculous attitude. Now, can a believer get that
way? Well, do you? That's easy to
answer that question, isn't it? I mean, he says, as for me, I
looked at where I was going, what I was thinking, and my feet
were almost gone. I mean, my steps had well and
I slipped. And here's what the problem was.
Verse three, for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked. Have you ever been envious of
the prosperity of somebody? Don't raise your hand. How foolish for a believer to
be envious of an unbeliever no matter how quote good they have
it. How foolish. And the psalmist
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is speaking of himself. He said, how I was envious at
the prosperity of the wicked. Now, I want you to think about
this. Romans 8 31 says, if God be for us, who can be against
us? But the opposite is true. If God's against you, who can
be for you? If you're of this number called
the wicked, who could be for you? It's true. All things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. That's very true. It's also true. All things work together for
bad to them that have no love for God, to them who are not
the called according to his purpose. And I'm envying somebody like
this. Yeah. How horrible, how evil. And the psalmist doesn't present
it to be anything less than that. I was envious at the prosperity,
the wicked. Now here's what he says when
he observes their prosperity. He says, there are no bands in
their death. Their strength is firm. There are no fetters in
their death. They die happy quite often, happy. Somebody says the death of the
unbeliever can be terrible. Well, a lot of times it's not.
Everything's been downhill for them. They feel good. I'm good
to go. I've been a good person. I'm
not afraid to die. And they die like that. No bands
in their death. Their strength is firm. They
stay healthy, wealthy, and wise up into the end. They have a
good life, so to speak. Verse five, they're not in trouble
as other men are. Neither are they plagued like
other men. It seems like they just have
easy lives, no sickness, they've got plenty of money, plenty of
friends. Everything is going well for
them, and I'm jealous of them. I don't see it that way for me.
It seems much more troublesome for me. Now, remember, this is
Asaph, the psalmist, speaking under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit. And he's being honest. You know, most of us, we probably
wouldn't admit to this if we were talking to somebody. We'd
kind of keep our mouth shut and probably it would be wise to
do so. As a matter of fact, most of the stuff we say would be
better left not said. And the psalmist is going to
go ahead and say that in a few moments. But he says, verse six,
therefore pride, because they have such a good lives, therefore
pride compass them about as a change, they pat themselves on the back.
Hey, I must be doing something right. Violence. cover them as
a garment. They're going to do whatever
they want to get their way. They're going to manipulate every
situation. They're going to press to get
their way. That's what this violence is
speaking of. This is not just talking about
somebody hitting somebody. This is talking about getting
your way, whatever it takes. Verse seven, Their eyes stand out with fatness.
They have no needs. Everything seems good. They have
more than their heart could wish. They got so much money. They're
having so much fun. They got such good lives. Verse eight,
they're corrupt and speak wickedly. Concerning oppression, they speak
loftily. They're gonna get what they want
and they're gonna use their words to get it. They set their mouth
against the heavens and their tongue walks through the earth. Therefore his people return hither,
and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. Trouble, trouble,
trouble. Trouble in my heart, trouble
in my home, trouble in my health, trouble, trouble, trouble. Man that's born of woman is born
to trouble. Job said it says sparks fly upward. Trouble. And they say, and I believe this
is not talking about God's people. I think this is still talking
about the wicked. They say, how does God know? Is there knowledge
in the most high? We're not worried about the way
things are. Now look what he says now. Behold,
these are the ungodly. These people I'm talking about.
These are the ungodly who prosper in the world, and they do! They increase in riches! They
got a maid! They're going downhill! Everything's
easy for them! So what does The psalmist say,
when he looks at their prosperity and their increase in riches,
he says, verily, I've cleansed my heart in vain and washed my
hands in innocency. I've done all this good stuff.
What good has it done me? Look, they have it better than
me. Now this is the psalmist speaking and he's talking about,
you know, one of the amazing things, one of the many amazing
things about the psalms is they express reality. And this is
what's going on here. Asaph is talking about his jealousy
and envy at the prosperity of the wicked. He's saying, here
I have served the Lord in vain. What good's it done me? They
have it much better than me. Verse 14, for all the day long
have I been plagued and chastened every morning. I haven't had
it like them. Verse 15. If I say, I'll speak thus, behold,
I should offend against the generation of thy children. If I say what
is in my heart, it'll be offensive to God's people. And he realizes
this when he was speaking this way, he says, um, I, Even thinking
this, if I bring it out loud, it'll be offensive to God's children.
And I shouldn't really be saying this is what he's saying. And
what I took out of that is most of the things that we say probably
shouldn't be said. Most of the things. As far as
what is going on, he said, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't think this
way. That would be offensive to God's children. And then he says in verse 16,
when I thought to know this, what was going on inside my heart,
this jealousy, this envy, it was too painful for me. I was just overcome with my own
stupidity, how I could let myself get in a shape like this, actually
being jealous of the wicked until, verse seven, until I went into
the sanctuary of God. Well, what's that? Well, it's
where God is. Well, somebody says, isn't that
everywhere? Yeah, but it's a realization of it. The holy place, Christ
Jesus, the Lord. When I went into the sanctuary
of God, my perspective totally changed and I saw how foolish
I was in being envious of somebody like this. Look what he says.
Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their
end. Verse 18, surely. Now don't miss that word. Surely. Thou did set them in what? Slippery places. where they're
going to fall to their own destruction. Who set them there? God did. Now, am I going to be jealous
and envious of someone that God has put in a slippery place?
Now, understand, We want to have money to pay
our bills. Money is a blessing in that sense. I want to be in
a place where I'll have heat, air conditioning. I want to have
a car that's dependable, all those kinds of things. Y'all
feel that way. But the love of money, Paul says, is the root of all
evil. The love of money. The love of,
for instance, it makes you think you, it indicates that God's
blessing is upon you. Look all I've done. It could
be you're under God's curse. financial prosperity could be
the curse of God. And this is what he recognizes
at this time. He says, these people who have
it so well, who are always healthy, they're always wealthy, they're
always wise, they have easy lives, no trouble, God put them in slippery
places where they're just going to forget about Him. They don't
care. Look how well things are for
me. Well, God's put them in a place
that is slippery where they're going to slip and fall. There's
another scripture that says they shall slide in due time. In due
time. Thou castest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation? As in a moment, they are utterly
consumed with terrors." Now, they may be very self-confident
now, one of these days they won't be. They're going to be utterly
consumed with tears when they stand before a holy God without
Christ, without His grace, without His mercy, without the blood
of Christ. They're going to stand before
a holy God, a sin-hating, and this is who He is, a sin-revenging
God. He says, vengeance is mine. I
will repay, saith the Lord. God always pays his debts. You
can write that down. And these people are going to
be utterly consumed with terrors. Look at verse 20. As a dream, when one awakes,
so, O Lord, when thou awakest, it seems like you're asleep while
they're having such a good time and everything seems to be unreplied,
and they speak against the heavens. But here's what's going to happen.
As in a dream, when one awakes, so, O Lord, when thou awakest,
thou shalt despise their image. These people that I'm envious
at, these people I'm jealous of, God is going to despise their
image. Now, how does the psalmist feel
now about now that he's seen things as they really are? What
God's going to do with these people, Verse 21, thus was my
heart was grieved and I was pricked in my reins and my emotions. I was so ashamed of myself. I
was so grieved at the baseness of my own heart. So foolish,
look in verse 22, so foolish was I and ignorant, I was as
a beast before thee. That's why I felt like I was
nothing more than a beast with these base emotions of envy and
jealousy of people that you have despised and set them in slippery
places. And you've been merciful and
gracious to me. And the thought that I had been
envious of these people, I felt myself to be no different than
a brute beast. That's how I felt about myself.
You ever felt that way about yourself? Nothing more than a
brute beast. Well, that's how the psalmist
felt. But look here in verse 23, nevertheless. You know, the gospel is in that
word. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, turn with me to
Psalm 106 for just a moment. Psalm 106, verse six, we have
sinned with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly. 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. Spurgeon has a sermon on this
where he said, with regard to verse seven, they were a spiritually
stupid people. They didn't understand his wonders. They were an ungrateful people. They remembered not the multitude
of his mercies. They were a provoking people.
They provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea. Nevertheless,
nevertheless, he saved them for his name's sake. That he might make his mighty
power to be known. There's the gospel. He saved
them, not for any goodness in them. He saved them for his namesake. Now back to Psalm 73, the Psalmist
said, I was no different than a beast. Nevertheless. Now, do you know that union with
Christ never takes a break? It's continual. And God's people
are never viewed at any time independently of their union
with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's saying. He says,
nevertheless, I am continuing. When I was like a beast, you
know what? I was with thee continually. When I was jealous and envious
of the wicked, nevertheless, I'm continually with thee. Union with Christ never takes
a break. Nevertheless, I'm continually
with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right hand." Even during
all those times, that grip has never relaxed. I'm always in
his hand. Thou hast holden me by my right
hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel and afterwards receive me into glory. I'm going to have to be guided
by his counsel, the steps of a good man, that's every believer,
are ordered by the Lord. Do you know every step you take
is ordered by the Lord? Every step. Most of the time,
you're not aware of it, but it's still true. The steps of a good
man are ordered by the Lord. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel, with thy purpose, and afterwards receive me to glory. I'm going to be in your very
presence, perfectly conformed to the image of Christ. Now here's
what he says now, and he'd been jealous of the wicked when he
saw their prosperity, but look how different he is now. Verse
25, whom have I in heaven but thee? What more could you want? Is there anything to covet? Is
there anything to be jealous of? Whom have I in heaven but
thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire. beside thee. What a different
perspective. Now, he goes to verse 26 and
I think once again, this is only understood with regard to the
two separate natures a believer has. Now he says with regard
to his flesh and his heart, what's it do? It faileth. With regard to everything, with
regard to me, failure. Failure. My flesh and my heart,
failure. But God is the strength of my
heart and my portion forever. Now, the new heart, God's the
strength of that heart. That's the pure heart that the
Lord spoke of in the Beatitudes. You know, I was thinking about
just the Beatitudes and blessed are the pure in heart. You're
the evidence of being pure in heart. You're poor. You mourn,
you're meek, you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you're merciful,
you're a peacemaker, and you're persecuted for righteousness
sake, Christ's righteousness sake, not your own. That is the
pure in heart. And then he says in verse 27,
for lo, they that are far from thee, shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all them
that go whoring from thee." And I think of that, the language
of that. There is only peace and safety
in the covenant. The covenant David said, although
my house be not so with God yet, hath he made with me an everlasting
covenant. Now in a marriage, You're not
to go outside of that covenant. And you're not to go outside
of the covenant God has made, where you find all your comfort,
all of your security in that covenant only. The psalmist says, but it's good for me to draw near
to God. Draw nigh to God and he'll draw
nigh to you. Somebody says, well, how am I
supposed to do that? Let us draw near in a true heart,
in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an
evil conscience. What that means is you draw near
through the blood. That's the only way you draw
near, but you're drawn near and come and welcome through the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You're always welcome. I think
it's. sad how when we try to get our
hearts prepared, you know, I got to be less sinful. I've got to,
I've got to get this taken care of before I can come into God's
presence. That's just works. That's all
that is. Just works. It's good for me
to draw near to God. And the only way I draw near
is through the blood, but through the blood I draw near. It's good
for me to draw near to God. I put my trust in the Lord God. That's where my trust is. It's
not in me, it's not in you, it's in Him. What a place for trust. And here's why, that I may declare
what? All thy works. Works of creation, providence,
and salvation. Okay.