Psalms 73:12-19

Tonight I direct your attention once again to Psalm 73. I want to read verses 12 through 19. Psalm 73 versus 12 through 19. Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence where all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning. If I say I will 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 did, cast us them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment? They are utterly consumed with terrors. May God bless to us is sacred and holy word this evening. Most of you are familiar with the name Madeline Murray O’Hare. She was America’s foremost atheist, and she is the one who established a very powerful anti-God organization, America’s atheist. She liked to style herself the most hated woman in America. And it was a title that she well deserved. Miss O’Hare, Mrs. O’Hare, was best known for her 1963 Supreme Court case that ended school prayer. She said this about the Bible. The Bible was a fraud concocted by a bunch of Jews starved wandering around in the Sinai Desert. She thought she had honestly liberated America sexually. She simply believed in this principle, do what thou wilt shall be the only law. She gained power. She gained wealth. gained prestige, even though she lived a very wicked, vulgar, profane life. Her language was so bad that the media stopped courting her because they had to edit so much of what was said. Bleep it out. Her son, William J. Murray, explains what life was like around her. William J. Murray, if you don’t know, was a man that did profess to come to know Christ and broke away from his mother. He said, my mother was an evil person. Not for removing prayer from America’s schools. No, she was just evil. She stole huge sums amount of money. She misused the trust of people. She cheated children out of their parents and heritage. She cheated on her taxes that even stole from her own organization. She once printed up phony stock certificates on her own printing press to try to take over another atheist publishing company. When I was a young boy of 10 or 11 years old, she would come home and brag about spending the day in X-rated movie theaters in downtown Baltimore. She was proud of the fact that she was the only woman in the movie house watching this filth. My mother’s whole life circulated around such things. even wrote articles for Larry Flint’s pornographic magazine, Hustler. He said the statutes that they had in their house were those of mating animals on virtually every piece of furniture that they had. The family liked to live a good life, or as Murray put it herself, or Mary or hair put it, high off the hog. She was a prosperous woman and her words carried away. Now, as a Christian, you may be bewildered by this. I thought, you know, if you see something like this in our own time frame, begin to realize that this is not unusual what ASAF is troubled about here in this text of Scripture. Why would God allow such woman to gain such power that she could actually, you know, put prayer out of our public schools? forth. Where were the divine thunderbolts striking down this blasphemous woman? Why was God silent? Here you are. You’re attempting to live a godly life. You’re suffering all kinds of things, all kinds of ways, and this ungodly atheist is prospered in every way possible. You see, this is the kind of thing that ASAP is wrestling with in our text. He’s troubled by what he’s experienced. He’s a godly man, but he’s suffering. The wicked are prospering. He finds that really difficult, verses 12 to 14. He’s perplexed. But with God’s help, he’s brought to the right conclusion. Next right conclusion is what we read in verse one, that God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. This is true. This is good. is truly the case, the Psalmist says. Now, we need to figure out the way he came to this conclusion. One of the things we said was he needed right thinking. He did not just speak impulsively. Verse 15 indicates to us he held back what he was thinking lest he offend his brothers. We also saw that ASAF began to think about his problem from a spiritual perspective because what he was doing was only thinking from a human perspective until he goes to the house of God. Then he gets God’s perspective, which we should always be focused upon. The heavenly divine perspective. And we saw that the house of God is the place that gives you understanding. It gives you really the full picture of life. And now we see that ASAF thinks about God’s providence and God’s character in connection with the wicked. and in verses 17 to 19 in particular. Let me begin by saying this. You always need to keep in mind the providence of God when contemplating the wicked. We read about God setting them in slippery places. God sets them. We have the doctrine here, the biblical doctrine of God’s providence. The Bible indicates to us that not nothing happens apart from God. That God is the one who governs and controls everything that happens. That the wicked don’t have free will to do as they please, but indeed they are under God’s control and under his power. As the Creator, God preserves this world and he governs it, he orchestrates everything that happens in this world according to his eternal plan. The Lord, Most High is terrible. He is a great king over all the earth. Psalm 47, 2. He rules like a king. The Lord killeth, the Lord maketh alive, he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up. The Lord makeeth poor and maketh rich. He bringeth low and he lifteth up. Psalm 2, 6, and 7. Part of Hannah’s prayer. That these men are rich, it’s because God made him rich. That the psalmist is poor, perhaps. It’s because God made him poor. And so we find here it is God that lifts people up. It’s God that brings people down. God, we could think about this as maybe the chess master who moves all the pieces on the chessboard. Not only the righteous, the white pieces, but also the wicked, the black pieces. He sets up the circumstances. He directs all things so that his ultimate purpose is accomplished in the end and the wicked or checkmated. The biblical doctrine of God’s providence. Now, the biblical record of God’s providence, providential dealing with the wicked is that he brings them to destruction. Read through the biblical record, it’s the same lesson. We get the same lesson over and over again, and that God triumphs over his enemies. You see, God raced. You see, God raced. up and giving power the very wicked men. And yet God is doing so with the purpose of ultimately bringing them to destruction, as our text indicates to us. You look at Pharaoh, here is a mighty monarch. No one is his equal at this time. Egypt was one of the great, nations of the earth in his day. Pharaoh persecutes the people of God. He kills the male infants. He ridicules and mocks God’s messengers, Aaron and Moses. He enslaves the people of God. Why has God given Pharaoh such power and authority? Why has He ordained? the suffering of the people of God under the hand of this wicked king. What does God reveal to us in Romans chapter 9? It’s also found in Exodus 916. For this cause, if I raised thee up, were to show in thee my power that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. He raised favor up that he might show his wrath and make his power not. So God gave Pharaoh power and authority and prestige and honor and luxury, and that he would even be accepted as a God at that particular time by his own people. God’s providence, however, in doing this was for the purpose of bringing down destruction on Pharaoh. And we see that happening at the Red Sea. We see it happening in the plagues that he rains down upon the nation. First he destroyed. waste the nation, but then he ends up destroying Pharaoh and his army too in the Red Sea. Consider King Ahab. He’s a worshiper of Baal. His wife, Jezebel, is a most cruel and wicked woman, and Ahab is declared to be the most wicked king of Israel. He kills. He harms the prophets of God. He hunts down Elijah with the purpose of killing him. And God spins the web in such a way that he will bring King Ahab to ruin. And he sends a lying spirit to deceive the king, who puts false words into the mouth of the king’s prophets. And the dogs end up eating Jezebel, and the dogs lick the blood of A. out of his chariot when he was shot. Time, you know, prevents us from talking about Bel Shazer, prevents us from talking about Haman or Balak or Herod, or many of the others that we find in scripture, but the same thing happens every time. What needs to be understood is that God is always directing the end of the wicked in such a way that they’re going to be brought down. Sometimes in this life, but most assuredly in the life to come, as we talked about last week in particular. God has set the wicked, he says, here, in slippery places. What we need to understand is the place of the wicked is most precarious. It’s the most dangerous. It’s like you were walking on sheer ice. and you’re going to fall at any moment. Age and decay and death and judgment are certain. They don’t see. They don’t seem to comprehend that the pomp and glory will come to an end, and sometimes very suddenly, the Lord reigneth, let the people tremble. Their whole position is dangerous. And you’ll notice here, God does not set his friends in such places. He sets the wicked at such places. Why don’t the righteous prosper all the time? Well, they prosper spiritually, but they don’t always prosper in the things of this world because it’s a slippery place and God doesn’t put you there. But he puts his enemies there. Jonathan Edwards, in that tremendous sermon he preached, sinners in the hands of an angry God, July 8th, 17th, these are his opening words here, or part of them. There’s nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. But the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficult. There’s no security in the case of the wicked man. He’s actually in the most dangerous place he could possibly be in. What precautions can he take to elude the wrath of God? Can he deny that his death is coming? Can he deny that hell awaits him? Can he avoid that? He may not see any visible danger that God can easily snatch a person from this life. Heart attack, stroke, an earthquake, car accident and life is snuffed out in a second. The same hand which led him to the heights of prosperity and wealth that he enjoys and the world the comforts that he has can cast him down from it in a moment. And he falls headlong into hell without warning. Without any hope, without any mercy, he’s consumed. with tears. The word consumed here certainly speaks of the entirety of this destruction in hell. It’s like the smashing of a vase on the ground. It’s just shattered to pieces. There’s no hope of restoring it. God’s Providence puts ice under their feet. Snow covers their path. Suddenly they slip and fall to their doom. This is O’Hare that I had mentioned earlier. America’s so-called foremost atheist. They had that power and prestige and wealth and prosperity. In the end, God caused her to die a horrible death. A victim of the godless world that she helped to shape. O’Hare enjoyed hiring criminals who had served their time. And she even got a sense of power having men work for her who had taken human life. It was her love of power over people which finally brought about her death though. Because in August of 1995, O’Hare, who was 77 years old, and two of her family members were kidnapped. They were kidnapped by a group of convicted. convict felons who worked for her. David Waters, Gary Carr, and Danny Fry. These men looted her various bank accounts, stole at least $54,000 from her atheist organization. And besides the monies and the bank accounts and the cars and the jewelry, they uncovered half a million dollars in gold coins that O’Hare had hoarded away. Then O’Hare and two family members were brutally murdered. It took the police almost five years to discover who the killers were. On January 28, 2001, FBI agents and Texas Rangers recovered a metal artificial hip from a 5,000 acre camp or ranch called Camp Wood, Texas. The serial number on the hip was matched to O’Hare. So one federal agent at the scene speaking to her son, William J. Murray, of how gruesome the situation had been. She was tortured before her death. One of the family members was repeatedly raped, and they believe that for 30 days, she was bound and gagged before they brutally murdered. her and then burned her body to get rid of it. This was the tragic end that God brought her to. William J. Murray said this. I can see her now looking down the bearer of a gun and saying, you don’t dare shoot me. I am Madeline Murray O’Hare. Of course, the killers didn’t care who she was. No doubt, maybe they follow the principle of her atheist organization. Do what thou wilt. Shall be the law. The minister Thomas Jones explained the problem of Providence in this manner and why we have so much trouble with it. He said, Providence is often mysterious and a source of perplexity to us. Walking in Hyde Park one day, I saw a piece of paper on the grass. I picked it up. It was part of a letter. The beginning was missing. The end was not there. I could make nothing of it. Such is providence. You can’t see the beginning or the end, only a part when you can see the whole, then the mystery will be unveiled. But when we only see part of it, we just can’t be sure what God is actually accomplishing in these things. So keep in mind the providence of God when contemplating the wicked because he has set them in slippery places. Now, secondly to 9, you always need, to keep in mind the character of God when contemplating the wicked. Thou has set them in slippery places. We see the power here and the greatness of the God we serve. He is in complete control the situation. His power extends to the lives of the wicked. This is the godly that merely speaks. and the world leaped into existence. This is the God that created everything out of nothing. He suspends the universe in space. He’s quite capable bringing the wicked down at any moment. It is nothing to him. He is the everlasting and eternal God. Everything on Earth is nothing as dust on the scales in his sight. There’s no lack of power in God to snuff out the wicked. The strongest, most influential man has no power to escape God’s hand. You know how easy it is. If you see an ant on the ground and how easy you can just go over that black hand and step on it. Nothing to it. My friends, with God, it’s the same thing. When it comes to the wicked, no matter how much power, prestige, authority they get, it’s nothing to him. He laughs at them when they defy him. Their puny defiance against him, the almighty God. It’s nothing. Nothing to worry about. I like what Abraham said. When he had questions about what God was going to do, shall not the judge of all the earth do what’s right. And that’s what we have to think about. When we look at God’s providence, He is a God that will do what’s right. What’s honoring to him and what’s beneficial to his kingdom on this earth. God has not changed, nor will we ever change. And so Abraham’s statement there is something we always have to keep in mind for ourselves. He can’t do anything but what is right. God, God’s character as such, he can’t do anything evil. He can’t do anything that would be wrong or foolish. He always has to do what is right. Asaph realized this when he went to the house of God. Notice the covenant promises of God to his people as well. In verses 23 and 24, we read these words. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou is holding me by my right. hand. Here’s God’s providence on Asaph, protecting Asaf. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel with his word. And then what? And afterwards, receive me to go. So Asaph came to the conclusion that God’s promises are ever sure and faithful and that God will always carry out and perform what he’s promised. God cannot lie. He won’t break his promises. And so this is an all important thing to Asaph. He’s one of God’s people. He is certainly in the covenant of God. And truly, God is good to Israel, the true Israel, those that are of the clean heart. They were special people that the Lord loved. He didn’t put them. in slippery places by giving them wealth, prestige, and so forth. That is not what they should have. Instead, he would rather develop graces in their life by keeping them humble, perhaps chastening them every morning in order to benefit their soul that they would be conformed to the image of Christ. Yet the wicked, who seem to be prospering, we find that it does them more hard. than any good. In the sanctuary, the psalmist realized that the prosperity, the wicked, was entirely different than what he envisioned it was beforehand. Before, he saw it as an enviable, enviable blessing. Then he gets to the sanctuary, and he says, wait a minute, this is a slippery place. that leads to destruction. What a difference, huh? Augustine talks about the damning that comes with the prosperity of the wicked. Prosperity makes those who are foolish to begin with drunken. They are besotted with the enjoyment of earthly life apart from God. He says there is no greater calamity than the happiness and prosperity the ungodly. It is a strong wine which makes them drunk in their unrighteousness, and they incur thereby a huge amount and heavy load of God’s wrath. The sliding of the wicked into destruction by their prosperity is God’s doing. He has set them in this situation. God gives prosperity to the reprobate wicked with the very purpose. that their prosperity brings them to room. Their prosperity doesn’t lead to the repentance. their prosperity doesn’t doesn’t lead them to honor God. it makes them harder in their sin. and so he sets them in slippery places so that the vessels of wrath ultimately come to the place that God has ordained for them, and that is destruction. this is the teaching. This is the teaching. in scripture. This is what God would have us understand when we come to this passage tonight. Let us close. The word of praise.