STUDIES IN THE PSALMS No. 11

“Psalm 73”

March 28, 2004

Tonight we consider a problem of “spiritual theology,” that is, not of the doctrines of the faith but of God’s way with his people; how we are to apply the statements of the Bible to the practice of the Christian life. Last Lord’s Day evening we looked at Psalm 32 as an example of an “acknowledgement” or thanksgiving psalm. In that psalm David paid the obligation he had undertaken in Psalm 51. He had promised that if the Lord would forgive his sins and deliver him from the guilt of them, he would tell the world about the grace of God and teach others the lessons that he had learned about sin and forgiveness. Psalm 32 is David delivering on the promise he had made, acknowledging the Lord’s goodness to him, and teaching others the lessons he had learned. Tonight we take up another such psalm, another acknowledgement or thanksgiving psalm, Psalm 73. In this psalm too, the writer acknowledges what the Lord had done for him at a time of great crisis in his life; how the Lord had drawn near to deliver him. It is a great psalm and a very important one. It touches on a subject so important that whole books of the Bible are written to address it, in particular Job and Ecclesiastes. And the subject has vast implications for the everyday life of Christians and for our witness to the non-Christian world. Rabbi Duncan, the perceptive Scottish OT professor whom I have a penchant for quoting, as you know, had a special love for this psalm because he said it was a transcript of his own experience: doubt overwhelming his Christian upbringing and, then, wonderfully his doubt being overcome by the revelation of the love of God.

Asaph, the author of this psalm, was a prominent Levite during the reign of King David, the founder of one of the temple choirs, as we read in 1 Chronicles (25:1; 16:5). We know that he was the author of some psalms because in 2 Chron. 29:30 we read that, much later, King Hezekiah ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. However, some of the psalms that have “of Asaph” in their title must refer to the choir rather than to the man because they concern events that happened after Asaph’s life who was, of course, a contemporary of David. Psalm 79, another Psalm of Asaph, for example, refers to such an event in its first verse.

v.1 This is the conclusion of the psalm, stated first as its theme. The “pure in heart” is not here simply a way to refer to believers. The psalm itself will prove to be a study in how what is in the heart and the attitude of the heart determine everything in life, including supremely how one thinks about the world and about God.

v.3 The psalmist is refreshingly candid. His doubt came from envy not, as many in the same circumstances put it, from a desire for justice. [Kidner, ii, 260] And the problem is, as he will later explain, was that he saw the prosperity of the wicked. He didn’t think about it, he just looked at it and wished that he had what he saw others having.

v.6 The psalmist is as much as admitting that had he been given all of this material prosperity, he might well have succumbed to the temptation to pride and arrogance himself. God has his reasons for not giving his children everything they want when they want it. And he has his reasons for giving many good things to unbelievers who will not thank him for it.

v.10 The translation of v. 10 is uncertain but most efforts find in the verse a description of the worship of success.

v.12 In Psalm 10:6 we have another such description of the wicked: “He says to himself, ‘Nothing will shake me; I’ll always be happy and never have trouble.” Earlier in Psalm 10 David writes of the wicked, “…in all his thoughts there is no room for God.”

v.13 That is, what profit has it been to me to follow the Lord and worship him? I’ve got less and do less well than those who scorn the God of Abraham.

v.14 But, being a believer his thoughts of envy and of disappointment in God trouble him. They give him no release.

v.15 The first turning of his thoughts occurs not because the answer appears to him – it has not yet – but in the assertion of his moral duty. The self-centeredness of v. 13 begins to be overcome when he realizes that he has a commitment to other believers, to the household of faith, the children of God. Will he desert them in order to assuage his unhappiness? Here is the spirituality of the man. From unseen depths, even in a time of great doubt and spiritual discouragement, his truest self is still asserting its rights. He sees his duty, but still the main question remains: what about the wicked and their prosperity?

v.17 The NIV’s “destiny” is literally “end.” C.S. Lewis criticized Rudyard Kipling by saying that Kipling “lacked a doctrine of ends.” The same could be said of a very great many people! But, take note. The breakthrough comes in worship. We don’t know what it was that God used – the singing of a hymn, a prayer, the sermon (OT worship was more like ours than you might think!) – but whatever it was God drew near to him and he “saw” with his faith what had become invisible over the past while: the glory of God, his love and grace, his own salvation, heaven and hell. The Psalms remind us over and over again that it is in worship that the realities of the unseen world are most often and most powerfully brought home to the soul. He went to church that day out of a sense of duty, perhaps even only out of habit or custom. He did not “rejoice when they said to [him] let us go to the house of the Lord,” because he had lost his joy. But he found it again there, in God’s house. There is an argument for faithful attendance at worship if ever there was one. That is where the Lord will meet you, if you are there! How many times do you suppose that Thomas kicked himself for the rest of his life because he wasn’t with the other disciples on that first Easter Sunday and didn’t get to see what they all saw and couldn’t therefore remember for the rest of his life what they remembered. When he got again a clear sight of God himself, the petty enjoyments of unbelief are swallowed up in thoughts of eternity.

v.20 The wicked’s lack of faith in God will eventually cause them to lose all they have obtained and to face God’s wrath, whereas the believer’s future is unendingly bright with hope and joy.

v.22 Nothing is so blinding as a sense of envy and grievance and they had blinded the psalmist even to the glory of God and salvation. How true this is in life and how often we see this principle worked out in human affairs. The worst thing about treating others unjustly is that those who have been treated in that way are likely to think about nothing else! We see this in our political life all the time and it makes progress much more difficult to achieve. Notice, by the way that in v. 2 he confesses his own danger from his envy of the world and his spiritual doubts, and in v. 13 that he was near to betraying his spiritual brethren. But here, in v. 22, he acknowledges the offense that he had given to God. [Kidner, ii, 262]

v.23 From v. 23 to the end of the chapter the psalmist gives expression to the convictions that now have flooded back into his soul because of the impact of his encounter with God at that church service. He thinks of the wicked, “There will be no one to hold their hand, and I was envious of them! I, whose hand the living God holds himself!”

v.24 One of the clearest statements of the expectation of heaven after death in the Old Testament. The verb “take” in the phrase “take me into glory” is, for example, the same verb used in the phrase “God took [Enoch]” in Gen. 5:24.

v.25 Having recovered in his mind the glory of his salvation and the surpassing wonder of the future laid out before him, the psalmist “comes to rest in what God is to him, however unpromising his situation.” [Kidner, 263] Rabbi Duncan once wrote about the first question and answer of the Shorter Catechism: “I pass over the first part mainly with an intellectual approbation of its moral rectitude as a requirement, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God’; while every fiber of my soul winds itself round the latter part, ‘to enjoy him forever,’ with unutterable, sickening, fainting desire.”

v.26 “My flesh and heart may fail” are best taken as a reference to death, the culminating affliction of human life.

v.28 The psalm finishes once again with the real, the ultimate contrast between the believing and the unbelieving. Whereas before the psalmist can only keep his thoughts to himself (v.15), now his lips are open to praise God his Savior! [Kidner, ii, 264]

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This psalm can be made the basis of many sermons. It is a simply magnificent text, almost unbearably beautiful, and with many valuable lessons. We could consider it for what it teaches about worship, about doubt, and about the mysteries of life. We could speak of the future from it, both the future that awaits the wicked and that which awaits those who trust in the Lord. As one preacher characterized this man’s state of mind when he had given himself over to the envy of the wicked and doubts about his own faith: “I was blinded by their headlights as they rushed to outer darkness.” And as another British preacher, speaking to a congregation familiar with the European train system, summed up its message, “It isn’t the class you are traveling by, it is your destination that matters.” [Ian Tait]

But tonight I want to address another matter raised in a very beautiful and important way in this great psalm. Several weeks ago I found myself in a lunch table conversation with another Presbyterian Church in America minister. We were talking about the promises of God and how we are to understand them, particularly the promises of prosperity that God makes to the faithful. That was this man’s problem. He looked at the world and it seemed to him that the wicked were better off than the righteous. If God is on the throne and if he promises to bless his children, then where was the evidence that those who trusted God were better off for it? When God promises a long life to children who honor their parents; when he says, as he does in Deuteronomy (28:1-14), that those who trust in him and obey him will enjoy every manner of earthly prosperity (children, crops, the defeat of their enemies, their reputation in the world, and so on) how is it that it is not obvious, and has never been obvious that the faithful Christians of the world live much longer, are much healthier, have healthier children, are more prosperous and successful in their jobs than those who do not believe in God or Christ?

Now this was not a theoretical question for this other minister. We fell to talking about the question because the morning before he had conducted the funeral for one of his parishioners, a doctor, a husband and father, who had died of cancer at 34 years of age. This was the very question the devastated young widow and mother of little children asked him when he visited her after her husband’s death. Why? My husband was a faithful Christian. Didn’t God promise to give him a long life on the earth? Didn’t he promise blessing and prosperity? How can we reconcile God’s promises with what has happened? It is an inevitable question. It must be asked, it will be asked. The Bible asks it itself many times which is proof enough that the Lord is very sensitive to the apparent inconsistency between his promises and the actual circumstances of his children’s lives. It is a question taken up at great length and with wonderful literary power in Job and in Ecclesiastes. It is a question that Jeremiah and other prophets put to the Lord with great passion. There is no glossing over the problem in the Bible. It is faced head-on many times.

But what is the answer to the question? This pastor friend of mine, a godly and discerning man – a man who lost his own wife to cancer a few years ago – told that bereaved and desolate wife that such promises as God makes to bless his children and give them prosperity in the world are only general promises. They usually apply but not in every case. They are, in a word, proverbial, usually but not always true. For example, when in the Proverbs we read that “If a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him,” we understand that there is a proverbial character to that promise. It cannot always be true or there would never be a martyr. The Lord Jesus himself told us that if they persecuted him they would persecute his followers too. Jesus is a supreme example of a faithful man whose enemies were not at peace with him. But it is very often the case that the godly are, in their way of life, attractive even to those who have no sympathy with their faith in Christ. They are kind, honest, sincere, humble people. God’s grace has made them that way and all of those virtues are attractive to people. So the promise is general, not universal.

But I told my minister friend that I didn’t think we could solve the problem that way, that we couldn’t say that God’s promises were only general and not universal. And let me tell you why.

1. First, it is important to say that much remains shrouded in mystery. Both Job and Ecclesiastes teach us that there is a great deal about God’s ways that we do not and cannot understand and that it is wisdom on our part to accept that fact and to live within our finitude and creatureliness. Whatever we say about the question, the Bible is absolutely straightforward in teaching us both that God promises blessing to his children and that life is full of dark mystery that we will not understand and will not be able easily to reconcile either with God’s sovereignty – for he is absolutely in charge of everything that happens – or with his love – for he is absolutely committed to the welfare and happiness of his children.

2. Second, the Bible never seems to teach that we are to take these promises of prosperity and blessing for the people of God as mere generalities, to take them proverbially. What is more, it gives us no way of distinguishing between the promises of God that ought to be taken in that more general way and those that should be taken strictly and absolutely. We certainly don’t say to someone, “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and most of the time a person who does that will be saved – not always, but usually.” This is a very important consideration because God’s promises of grace are all mixed together in Holy Scripture – promises of earthly blessing and of heavenly blessing are uttered with the same breath. If we generalize the former, how do we justify not generalizing the latter?

3. A good example of that mixture raises a third problem. People are much more likely to generalize the promises of the OT than those of the NT but the same problem confronts us in the teaching of Jesus and Paul as it does in Deuteronomy or the Psalms. Take, for example, the Lord’s famous statement: “I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them persecutions) and in the age to come eternal life.” [Mark 10:29-30] Now, in the first place you have that problem of promises concerning this present life and the world to come in the same breath, surely we ought to take them with equal seriousness and embrace them with equal conviction. But, it is also perfectly obvious that none of the twelve disciples, to whom that promise was first made, ended their lives as real estate moguls, many of them died comparatively young, and, at least Paul was neither married nor a parent. In other words, if we take Jesus to mean that we would get literal fields, literal wives for our service for Christ, the promise in not more general, it is actually nullified, for no disciple and very few faithful Christians since have been great landowners. But few who might wish to solve the OT problem by treating the promises as only general and not universal, as not necessarily applying in every situation, would be willing to do the same with the Lord’s promise here. So we are faced with specific promises of prosperity that do not come to pass in the literal terms in which the promises are put. Fields don’t become fields, or wives become wives, at least they didn’t for the apostles and for many other early disciples.

4. So here is how I formulate an answer to the question. Hebrews 11, for example, reminds us that the faithful of the OT never thought that Canaan, the real estate of the Promised Land, was what was really and ultimately being promised to them. They were looking for a heavenly country, an enduring city. The Promised Land bespoke a greater blessing, was a portent of higher and everlasting things. The promise of the land, that is, stood for greater promises still. And what is true in regard to the relationship between temporal and eternal blessings, is true with regard to the blessings of this life. They also stand for deeper, higher things.

5. Here is where Psalm 73 helps us think about this. In v. 25 the psalmist says that he now realizes that the knowledge of God is a far greater thing, and far greater gift, a far greater blessing than anything the earth has to offer.

6. And, then, in v. 26 he says that the Lord is his “portion.” That word, the Hebrew word hēleq, is the word used often to refer to the share of the land that was apportioned to a particular Israelite tribe or family or individual as his inheritance. Remember the Promised Land was distributed to the various Israelite families by lot originally, and whatever they received was their portion. Now the Levites, you remember, were given no portion of the land. In Numbers 18:20 we read: “The Lord said to Aaron, ‘You will have no inheritance [portion] in the land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance [portion] among the Israelites.’” Now, Asaph was a Levite, and here he confesses that fact. The Lord is his inheritance. He is his land, his earthly prosperity, his wealth. But, interestingly, David says the same thing about himself in Psalm 16: 5-6. God is his portion as well, though this is not so clear in the NIV: “The Lord is my chosen portion…” is what he says. [ESV] The Lord, in other words, is David’s piece of the Promised Land! The piece that really matters.

Now, do you get the point? What is true of the priest, that the literal blessings of worldly prosperity – lands, crops, families, long life – is a pointer to the true riches that belong to every believer, the real prosperity, the authentic wealth and happiness: the knowledge of God and his love, the forgiveness of sins, the instatement of every believer in the church of Jesus Christ, the promise of eternal joy in heaven itself. The Lord is our portion. The Lord was never really talking primarily about houses, fields, crops, and long life in good health – though he often bestows those blessings – he was always talking about salvation, about eternal and unchanging benefits that he bestows on those who trust in him. So, when this man in Psalm 73 comes at last to a right mind once again, he understands that the wealth of the wicked means nothing. They have nothing. Without God, without forgiveness, without heaven, they have nothing. With God we have everything and always have everything, no matter the outward circumstances of our lives. The promise is not general, it is absolute, but it refers to higher things under the figure of lower things, to heaven under the figure of the land, of the fulfillment of life under the figure of earthly bounty, of eternal joy under the figure of long life on earth.

There are, to be sure, many earthly blessings that come to Christians from their heavenly Father’s hand. Paul may not have had sons and daughters in the physical sense, but he had them in the spiritual sense, and brothers and sisters, and friends. He may not have had a bride, but he gave his life to preparing the bride of Christ. He may not have had a great deal of wealth as the world counts wealth, but he lived a life that was far more valuable and laden with far richer rewards than anyone ever has lived who imagined that money told the tale!

Every Christian knows this. He or she reads the end of Psalm 73 and realizes that the wealth of the wicked is nothing, vanity, worthless – as Bernard of Clairvaux put it, “There are no greater miseries than false joys” and all the joys of the wicked are false because they do not know God and have no future. But, he realizes that his or her own wealth, the knowledge of God and God’s love being poured into our hearts, is greater and more wonderful than he or she can possibly imagine. “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

God has never failed to keep his promise of prosperity and wealth and health and happiness to his children. Never once. He has kept it always and he kept it in the case of that 34-year-old doctor who died several weeks ago in Greenville, South Carolina.

“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.”

Do you think that that man, now gazing upon the glory of God, now rejoicing at the fulfillment of all his hopes and dreams as a human being, do you think he thinks that God did not keep his word and his promise. And for those left behind, God takes care to be sure that they never are allowed to start looking at this world too fondly and take their eye off the real prize!