Open your Bibles to the book
of Psalms and let's turn to Psalm 37. Psalm 37. I want to give us a short history
lesson of one English Bible translation before we look at these first
seven verses. In the 1880s, scholars from both
England and the United States met together to modernize the
King James translation. Out of their work came the ESV
and the ASV English translations. The ESV, English Standard Version,
was printed in England sometime before 1900, and the ASV, the
American Standard Version, was printed in the United States
in 1901. I mention this tonight because I read several daily
devotionals, books, and one of the ones that I read, the author,
he uses the ASV, the American Standard Version. And recently,
in one of the devotions, it concerns some verses here from Psalm 37,
and the last few words of one of the verse really stood out
to me as being different. Now, two differences between
this new translation and the King James Version is that the
word Lord, L-O-R-D, all the letters capitalized, we recognize in
our King James translation that it's the name Jehovah. Well,
in the new translation they put the word, or the name Jehovah. They did not use Lord. And another
difference is in the ASV, they took out the word ghost in most
of the places where It reads the Holy Ghost, and they substituted
the Holy Spirit, which I believe is a better word to speak of
the third person of the Godhead. Because the word ghost, maybe
its meaning has changed, as is common in any spoken language,
words change over time. And most people associate the
word ghost with something that has come out of a body. And we
know the Holy Spirit has never had a physical body. The only
member of the Godhead who has ever had a physical body is the
Lord Jesus Christ. When he joined to his deity,
that body which was prepared him by the Holy Spirit from the
Virgin Mary, so that he became bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh. Thank God we have a kinsman Now
tonight, I'm going to read these first seven verses in the ASV
translation, and you follow with me in your King James version,
if that's what you have, and notice the similarity and the
very little difference. Fret not thyself because of evildoers,
neither be thou envious against them that work unrighteousness.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as
the green herb. Trust in Jehovah, and do good. Dwell in the land, and feed on
his faithfulness. Delight thyself also in Jehovah,
and he will give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit thy way
unto Jehovah. Trust also in him, and he will
bring it to pass. And he will make thy righteousness
to go forth as the light, and thy justice as the noonday. Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently
for him. Fret not thyself because of him
that prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Now I'm sure that you noticed
two differences. The first difference, of course,
where you have Lord I read Jehovah. And secondly, at the end of verse
3, I read, Feed on his faithfulness where you saw verily thou shalt
be fed. And those are the words that
especially stood out to me in that translation as I read the
comments the other day. And so I want us to look at these
words in this translation, but I also have two other points
for us this evening. And think of the words, fret
not thyself, as two bookends, just like you would have two
bookends to keep the book standing up. Think of these words, this
phrase, fret not thyself, as two bookends. For we see them
in verse 1 and verse 7, we are told, fret not thyself. In verse 1 it is, fret not thyself. over evildoers, and then in verse
7, fret not thyself over those who prosper by evil devices. The English word fret, we don't
use that very often, but the meaning I think most all of us
recognize, it is to be agitated or to be anxious. But the Hebrew
word, which is here translated by the word fret, it also includes
growing warm or hot. The thought of anger is included. Fret not thyself. Don't get angry. Remember that a part of the fruit
of the Spirit, we looked a few weeks ago at the fruit of the
Spirit in Galatians chapter 5, and part of the fruit of the
Spirit is temperance. That word, of course, means self-control. Self-control. Don't allow yourself. Don't allow yourself to be anxious. Don't allow yourself to be fretful. Fret not thyself because of evildoers. And the fact that there is associated
with this word in the Hebrew, anger or hotness or temper, Let
us recognize that all anger is not bad. Now, most of the time
it is. I agree when it concerns us. But all anger is not bad. In
fact, I looked in the verse in Mark, in his gospel, he tells
us about the time when the Lord Jesus Christ was in the synagogue,
and that man was there with a withered hand. And he asked the Pharisees,
is it lawful and good to heal on the Sabbath day? And none
of them would answer. And the scripture reads like
this, when he looked round about on them with anger, this is the
Lord Jesus Christ, when he looked round about on them with anger
and was grieved for the hardness of their hearts. Now we read
in just a few minutes ago in Ephesians, where we were exhorted
to put on the new man, the Apostle Paul said, be angry and sin not. John Gill noted that anger is
not bad. It's not bad when he said it
is kindled not against persons, but sins. Not against persons,
but sins. Now, in the psalm here tonight,
the two verses where we see the word fret not, it seems to be
more against the people. Fret not thyself because of evildoers. Fret not thyself because of him
who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Are you ever guilty of just fretting? I am. Do you ever watch the news? I mean, right now at this time
of the year, in our country's time of life, I mean, I see a
lot that if I'm not careful, I just get angry, fret, get anxious
over what I see. What about you? Fret not thyself
because of evildoers. And as I thought about this,
I thought about the fact that we should not allow ourselves
to fret, to be agitated, and to be anxious because of evildoers. We should keep these things in
mind. Now, I wrote down these three
things. There's other things, but we
should keep these things in mind so that we do not get anxious
and agitated by things which we see and hear. Number one,
keep in mind, now remember, fret not thyself because of evildoers. Keep in mind, it is only because
of the grace of God that I am not the evildoer. When we see
someone doing evil or we hear about someone doing evil, let's
keep in mind, there go I but by the grace of God. There's no difference in our
nature and that person's nature. We both have inherited a fallen
nature from our father Adam, and we still have that sinful
nature, that old nature. So always keep in mind the grace
of God makes you to differ. If you see an evildoer and you're
tempted to get hot and get angry and get anxious and fret over
that, just remember this. There go you, there go I, but
by the grace of God. As I thought about that, I wondered,
do you remember, some of you have heard this, I know, but
do you remember hearing what Matthew Henry said when his wallet
was stolen? Someone robbed him and he lost
his wallet. And I think he maybe was thinking
about that scripture that says, give thanks in all things. And
so he listed four things. He said, first, let me be thankful,
first, because he never robbed me before. Second, let me be thankful because
although he took my purse, he didn't take my life. And I tell
you, we see that, don't we? We see that in Houston, Texas,
every day of the week almost. And third, let me be thankful
because although he took all I possessed, it wasn't much. I didn't have much, he said,
for him to take. Because, let us be thankful,
because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed. So when we have a temptation
to get anxious or agitated, fret not, it's only by the grace of
God that we are not the one doing the evil. The evildoer can only
do as much evil as God allows him and no more. Always keep
that in mind. The evildoer, he can only do
as much as God allows and no more. The psalmist said this
in Psalm 76 in verse 10. Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee, the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. I just wonder if we knew, and
we don't and we never will, but if we knew how much wrath God
is restraining every day around us, we would be amazed. If God just took his hand off
of evil men, there's no telling. We think things are bad. There's
no telling what this place would be like. Well, the psalmist said, Surely
the wrath of man shall praise thee, the remainder of wrath
shalt thou restrain. Number three, the evildoer will
meet his end. He will. She will. They will
meet their end. Look at verse two. Threaten not
thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against
the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like
the grass, and wither as the green herb. Look down to verse 12. The wicked ploddeth against the
just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh
at him, for he seeth his days coming. The wicked have drawn
out the sword, and have bent their bow to cast down the poor
and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into
their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. And then down
to verse 17. For the arms of the wicked shall
be broken, but the Lord upholdeth the righteous. And then verse
20. But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall
be as the fat of lambs. They shall consume the smoke,
they shall consume away. So first of all, fret not thyself. It's good for us to be reminded
ever so often not to fret because of evil doers. Now second, think
of the Lord's name Jehovah. We have this name four times
in these seven verses, and I read 15 times in the whole psalm.
Now the Jews, maybe they carried their reverence for this name
to an extreme, and they influenced the translators of the Septuagint. Remember when the Hebrew was
translated into the Greek, I believe that was in 300 B.C., sometime
in that time range. And they would not translate
the word Yahweh. They would not use it. We know
that. So the Jews, they influenced that Septuagint translation,
the Hebrew into Greek, and that carried on to the translation
of the King James Version. The King James Version, only
four times. You have a King James Version?
That's what I have. Only four times in the King James
Translation do we have the name Jehovah. Every other time, and
it's many places, but every other time it's always Lord. capital L, capital O, capital
R, capital D. And we recognize sometimes we
see the name Lord and every word, every letter is not capitals.
That's not Jehovah. That's not the name Yahweh. But
here only four times in the scriptures do we have that name and attempt
at least to translate that name Yahweh by the name Jehovah. God appeared to Moses in the
burning bush and called him and sent him to lead Israel out of
bondage. Moses, you know that passage
I'm sure very well, Exodus chapter 3. Moses, he didn't want to go,
number one. Isn't it amazing how that Some
of the men that God called to preach and God sent to do a work,
they did everything they could to get out of going. They did
everything they could. I think of Jeremiah. Remember
how God called him and he had all kinds of excuses, didn't
he? Moses sure did. But Moses knew this. He said
this to the Lord. He said, when I come to the people,
and tell them that you sent me, they're going to ask me, what's
his name? What's his name? And I've got
to be able to tell them your name. Well, God told him this. Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, Jehovah. Now, in your Bible it says the
Lord. Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, The Lord, Jehovah, God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name forever. Now, in that experience, God
revealed to Moses and to us through the pages of Scripture what is
recorded. the name Jehovah means. We usually say, well, I am that
I am. Yes. But if you ever considered
the fact that when Moses turned aside, he turned aside because
here he is in the desert, and there's a bush, and there's fire
in that bush. But the bush is not consumed. You're familiar enough with fire
to know that fire has to have something to feed upon. When
it runs out of anything to feed upon, it goes out. It dies out. Well, the fire in
this bush was not feeding upon the bush. And the name Jehovah
declares unto us that God is self-existent. that he doesn't
need anything or anyone. And not only is he self-existent,
but he is all-powerful. You tell them, and boy, they
move. Here you come in here with a
staff in your hand and you tell us God has sent you to deliver
us out from the iron furnace, out from Egypt. Out from underneath
the power of the greatest military on the earth at that time? What's
his name? You tell them Jehovah sent you. The one who is self-existent,
the one who is all-powerful, and the one who is a covenant
God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. Aren't you thankful tonight that
God has revealed himself in the scripture? The fullest revelation
of God, of course, is in Christ. He that has seen me has seen
the Father. But now think, the third thing,
think of the words, Feed on his faithfulness. Now that's the
way it's translated, the last part of verse 3 in the American
Standard Version. Feed on his faithfulness. This
stood out to me because it's different from what I'm accustomed
to seeing. But I thought about this. One
of the problems that believers have, one of the problems that
I have, one of the problems that you have, no doubt, is that we
feed more on our unfaithfulness than we do his faithfulness.
Feed on his faithfulness. How? How can we feed on his faithfulness? Well, I've noted down a few ways,
I believe. First of all, to feed on God's
faithfulness, Consider these truths about God. God must be
faithful. He must be faithful. The scripture
says he cannot deny himself, and if he were to prove unfaithful,
he would deny himself. That's one of the reasons I believe
it's so important that we study and hear and learn and go over
and hear again and hear again and be reminded of the attributes
of God. We feed on His faithfulness,
just consider the fact that He must be faithful. He cannot deny
Himself. He must be faithful because He
cannot change. He must be faithful because he
cannot lie. Feed on his faithfulness. Consider
these truths about God, the attributes of God, his all-powerfulness,
his omnipotence, his omniscience, that he knows everything, and
his omnipresence, that he is everywhere present. at the same
time. So first of all, consider these
truths about God. He must be faithful. Feed on
his faithfulness. He must be faithful. He can't
be anything but faithful and not continue to be God. Number
two, sing. Sing of his faithfulness. I thought
about the psalm, Psalm 89, verse 1, where the psalmist said, I
will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever with my mouth, will
I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. Every time
we sing the hymn here, Great is Thy Faithfulness, I'm blessed,
are you? It's just a blessing to sing
that hymn and the words of that hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness,
O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning
in thee. Thou changest not. What a blessing
to sing about the faithfulness of God. And then number three,
as you read the scripture, look for examples where the faithfulness
of God is brought out to us. I just jotted down a few of these
places that we come across. Remember when Noah came out of
the ark. God had destroyed all flesh except
for those eight souls in the ark and the animals, but everything
else God had destroyed. God promised Noah that he would
never ever again destroy all flesh with a flood or by a flood. And he put the bow in the sky,
the rainbow, right, as a token of the covenant that God made
with Noah. Well, you know, that's been,
what, maybe 5,000 years, 6,000 years, I'm not sure, a long time
anyway. There's been a lot of floods,
and there have been people who have died in floods. I remember
reading about the Jamestown flood up in Pennsylvania several years
ago. A very interesting book. But
how that water just came down that river, I forget the name
of it, there in Pennsylvania. And town after town, people were
taken out into eternity. I don't know how many hundreds
of people. But the promise is all flesh. God said, I will never
again destroy all flesh by flood. He's been faithful, hasn't he?
It hasn't happened, and it's not going to either. It's not
going to. Then I thought about God promised
Abraham a son. Abraham, I believe, was 75 years
old. One year passed, another year
passed, Five years passed, ten years passed, and they came up
with that plan, you know, that maybe God would give him a son
through the handmaid. And God gave him a son, but it
wasn't the son that God had promised him. And so what happens when
he's 99 to 100 years old? Isaac was born. Someone said
one time, God is always on time. His time. His time. We want to hurry things up, don't
we? Always. We're always in a hurry.
God's got all the time in the world, all eternity. But he's
faithful. He promised Abraham a son, and
he had a son. He promised the nation of Israel
the land of Canaan. Look with me at this place in
Joshua. He promised Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob that their descendants would inherit the land of Canaan.
Look in Joshua chapter 21, just a moment, Joshua 21, beginning
in verse 43. And the Lord gave unto Israel
all the land which he swore to give unto their fathers, and
they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the Lord gave them
rest round about according to all, notice, according to all
that he swore unto their fathers. He did what he said he would
do. He gave them all the land of
Canaan that he swore that he would give. God's faithful. That's
what I'm looking for. Feed on his faithfulness. Don't
feed on the faithfulness of any man. Don't put your faith, your confidence
in any man. I don't care who he is. You'll
be disappointed. But put all your confidence,
all your faith in God, in Christ, and you'll never be disappointed.
The Lord gave them rest round about according to all that he
swore unto their fathers. And there stood not a man of
all their enemies before them, that the Lord delivered all their
enemies into their hand. Notice this, there fell not ought. You know what aught is, don't
you? That's a big zero, isn't it? There fell nothing, there
fell not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto
the house of Israel. All came to pass. I want you to look at another place.
Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 44. Isaiah chapter 44. And verse 28, that saith of Cyrus, that is
God, saith of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and shall perform all
my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built, and to the
temple thy foundation shall be laid. Now, you know Cyrus was
not born when God spoke this word through Isaiah. The nation
of Israel had not yet been captured, conquered by the Chaldeans, by
the Babylonians. They were not in captivity, but
God named this man 210 years before this came to pass. Notice what it says. that saith
of Cyrus, he's my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,
even saying to Jerusalem. This is what he's going to say.
And then we read in Ezra chapter 1 and verse 1, now the first
year of Cyrus, king of Persia, he said, Thus saith Cyrus, king
of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms
of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem. God's faithful. Feed on his faithfulness. Look in John chapter 2, the gospel
of John chapter 2. John chapter 2 and verse 18. Then answered the Jews and said
unto him, What signs showest thou, and do I seem that thou
doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto
them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it
up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple
in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake
of the temple of his body. Did he rise on the third day? He did. He's faithful. Feed on his faithfulness. And
think about this, his word in Matthew 11, Come unto me all
ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Are you heavy laden with sin,
with your conscience pricking you? Our Lord said, Come unto
me. How do you come to Christ? By
faith. Look to Christ. Trust in Christ. He's faithful. Feed on His faithfulness. He
said, come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. One last thing. How do we feed on his faithfulness?
Consider these truths about the Lord. He must be faithful. Sing
of this truth of his faithfulness. Look for the examples in the
word of God which show us over and over and over again his faithfulness. And number four, find one of
these promises in the scripture and make it yours. Make it yours. A promise that speaks of God's
faithfulness. For instance, 1 Thessalonians
chapter 5 and 21. And I've tried to make this my
promise. Faithful, faithful, faithful
is he that calls you who will also do it. I was reminded the other day
that in the daytime the stars are shining. They're always shining,
but we can't see them. But if you've ever gone down
in a well or underground and you look up, it's still daylight,
but now you can see the stars. I've experienced that. I know
many of you have too. And isn't it true, my friends,
that many times in the deepest trouble that God brings us into,
that's when we really see The shining of God's faithfulness. Faithful to his word. Faithful
to his covenant. Faithful to his promise. Faithful
to his church, to his people. I pray that the Lord would bless
these thoughts and words to all of us here tonight. Great is
thy faithfulness, O God my Father. Let's sing a couple of verses
of a hymn.