June 14th - Eternal Rewards II

Prayer Requests
Camp! Whoohoo!
John Gillis Preaching
Sarah and Tyler going to China

Praise
Your Youth-Pastor and His Wife

Text – Psalm 73

Real quick, what’s going on in Thessalonica? They’ve gotten a letter from someone claiming to be Paul saying they’ve missed the rapture. If they’ve missed Christ’s return, then they are probably thinking the same things we’re going to talk about today.

Since Dave and Channing and others are going through Psalms this Summer, and in order that a passage in Second Thessalonians falls on the right day that I want to teach it, today we’re going to look at a Psalm that I very much enjoy, Psalm 73, on the excellence of serving God.

How many Psalms are there in the Book of Psalms? 150.
How many authors? 7.

Most of these Psalms were written during David’s day and by David, it was an age of great music and writing. Besides that, other authors include Moses (Psalm 90), the Sons of Korah, which was likely a musical group, Solomon (Psalm 72, 127), Heman, and Ethan.

The one we’re going to look at today is Asaph. Asaph wrote twelve psalms, he was David’s chief music minister. His position was like Jimmy’s, only instead of like Jimmy serving Pastor Aaron, Asaph’s position was right under the king of the nation.

Everyone please turn to Psalm 73. The introduction to this Psalm says this: “A Psalm of Asaph.” These introductions were included to sort of give us an idea of what these Psalms would be used for and how they should be sung. A psalm is a song, and many argue that it should have a rhythmic recital. Psalm 73 doesn’t come with a lot of instruction, only telling us that it’s original purpose was to be sung.

Just to show you some others, look at Psalm 74. This one is called a Maskil, which means it is a teaching Psalm, mainly for the purpose of reminding hearers something about themselves and instructing about God. There are a lot of titles in the Psalms telling how it should be sung, without spending too much time on each one, here they are:

Alamoth – Sung in a high key; some have argued that this should be a girls-choir
Sheminith – Sung in a low key
Gittith – A Joyous Psalm, lots of powerful instruments in the background
Mizmor – This is not a rhythmic psalm, but more of a flowing psalm, accompanied by instruments
Neginah – To be accompanied by stringed instruments
Mahalath – To be accompanied by high-pitched instruments
Nehiloth – To be accompanied by high-pitched instruments and a high-pitched choir
Menazzeh – Administrative, this type of psalm is used for coronations, dedications of temples, and other official events
Maskil – Didactic, specifically for teaching

These can intersect a lot.

So that’s way more introduction than we probably needed, but the purpose of a psalm is often important when we start to read it. Each psalm talks about one major topic; these songs are pretty much a holy version of what we hear today; very few songs try to cover more than one topic, and neither do psalms. The purpose of Psalm 73 is to show that service to God is never wasted.

Lets read it, it’s broken into three parts, and introduction of the problem, a revelation of the solution, and an application:

Psalm 73
Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.And they say, "How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

Asaph, whether recounting his personal testimony, or that of someone else, even David, starts out by introducing the problem,

Psalm 73:1-3
Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

God has historically been good to Israel by calling them out of captivity, giving them land, prosperity, protection, and a lot of things, but Asaph wonders, “What has God done personally for me?” We might say the same thing…God has historically been good to the church, but what has he done personally for me? Asaph is going to go on further to say, “I’m not rich, I’m not particularly happy, I’m not well fed, my body aches, some people don’t like me…what’s the point?” He says this by pointing out the seemingly peachy lives of those whom don’t honor nor fear God.

Psalm 73:4-14
For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.And they say, "How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.

Asaph sees that the wicked live long painfree lives and die peacefully in their beds. They boast in themselves, they make their profits on the pain of others. I talked to a baseball player once who said that since his success was his own doing, he didn’t need to thank God for it. Beloved, how conceited this is to use the machine of our bodies given to us by God and fail to give him the credit.

Example – I picked up a cup and pointed out how incredible picking up that cup is. Science would love to be able to make a machine that was so sensitive to be able to pick up something so fragile as a cup. It is very difficult to build a machine that grips the cup and is able to lift it without crushing the cup.

This psalm contains one of my favorite verses for open-air preaching. I tweak it just a little to say, “When you take the name of the Lord your God in vain, you set your mouth against Heaven, you declare war on the God who made you.” (See Psalm 139:20) Think about how ludicrous it is for any person to declare war on God, it’s even more ridiculous than if one of the young ladies in this class called up the Secretary of Defense and declared war on America.

And you remember from James 3 that our tongue leads our whole life; that out of our mouth our heart professes. If my mouth declares war on Heaven, then my heart must be pretty dark and foolish.

Asaph then goes on to say that because of the prosperity of the wicked, the people of Israel turn back to the ways of the world. If the world seeks instant gratification, and the wicked have instant gratification, then they have to find a way to deny God in order to appease their conscience. They ask, “How can God know?” Oh beloved, this is so idolatrous, our equivalent is asking, “Can God really know everything I do all the time? I mean, there are 7 Billion people and he knows them all?” Oh idolatry! It denies the sovereignty of God; beloved, I promise you, God knew you before you were, he ordered your steps, he knows not only everything you do, but also everything you think, he knows the number of the hairs on your head, and he knew how many steps you will take in your life. Do you know how many steps you’ve taken today? God is just a bit smarter than you and I.

But in order to do whatever we want, we have to outright deny God’s omnipotence.

Asaph gets a little mad at this point…the more wicked someone is, the richer and better off they seem in their lives…he basically says, “Everything I’ve done towards holiness was for nothing! In fact, everything I’ve done for God has made my life worse!”

Asaph says he almost started preaching this, but first he went to the temple, read the writings of Moses, and discerned the will of God.

Psalm 73:15-22
If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

Asaph sees what their end is…Hell, because God despises them. Some people in Jesus’ day said there was no resurrection, no Hell, no Heaven, no afterlife, and Jesus pretty much calls them stupid for not knowing their Old Testament. We don’t need to see the word Hell, it is described here. The life of the wicked may be peachy, but their end is utterly terrible, destruction, ruin, eternal hatred by God, separation from the only source of good and love.

Oh wow. I imagine Asaph must have gasped when he realized this. He despised himself for his arrogance in questioning God, in wishing he had the life of the wicked, because their end is the end of demons. We’ll talk more about the end of demons in our second lesson on Second Thessalonians in three weeks.

Psalm 73:23-28
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

We haven’t looked at many other verses during this study, but we need to look at

1 Timothy 4:7-8 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

You’ll never go wrong in reading your Bible, telling people about the wonderful works of God, discerning the will of God: that which is good, acceptable, and perfect. He is continually with us, holding our right hand so that when and if we fall, he will lift us up, because he has ransomed us on Calvary’s cross in order to present us holy and blameless on the last day.

The glory that is to come, the glory that is found in Christ, is so much greater than any piddly pleasure or possessions you might find on here earth. And even better, Heaven lasts forever.

So as we head off for camp, spend the week in prayer, in serious study of the Word of Life, in seeking the will of your Saviour, in desiring to know him and find your whole portion in him, forever.



Prayer
Two things we ask of you;
deny them not to us before we die:
Remove far from us falsehood and lying;
give us neither poverty nor riches;
feed us with the food that is needful for us,
lest we be deny you
and say, "Who is the LORD?"
or lest we be poor and steal
and profane the name of our God. (Proverbs 30:7-9)