Psalms 73:23

Helps if you turn this on. Psalm 73, reading verses 12 through 23, our focus tonight on verse 23. 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 innocency. For 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 castest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors? as a dream when one waketh. So, O Lord, when thou awakest, 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 holden me by my right hand. God bless. to us, his sacred and holy word this evening. Many years ago, an S-4 submarine while on the surface was rammed by another ship and sank to the bottom of the ocean. And the entire crew was trapped inside. Ships rushed to the scene of the disaster trying to offer aid. It was right off the coast of Massachusetts. and we don’t know what took place down inside the sunken ship or sub there, but we can be sure that the men bravely clung the life and hoped that they would be rescued before their oxygen slowly gave out. A diver that went down placed his helmet against the side of the vessel, and he listened, and he heard a tapping voice inside. Someone he had learned was tapping out a question in Moore’s code, and as he listened carefully, he could make it out. Is there any hope? A vital question in the midst of such a dire situation. Sadly, in their case, there was not. In this situation, spiritual realm. There are times when we have sin grievously against the Lord. And you look at your transgression and you see the enormity of it like Asaph has done. And you might ask yourself, is there any hope? Is there any hope of being reconciled with God? Is there any hope to be restored to the place of fellowship I once enjoyed? And the answer is yes. and it’s all due to the grace of God. You’ll recall that Asaph is living a godly life. He’s suffering. He looks around him. He sees his ungodly neighbors living very wickedly and blaspheming God and so forth. They prosper. And this man can understand he finds fault with God. God’s being unjust. He’s unfair. He favors the wicked over the righteous and so forth. And then we see this man being brought to an understanding of God’s dealings with men. While he was thinking on a humanistic level, he was bewildered. He was confused. But when he goes to the house of God, we read that he gets understanding. And while he’s thinking about what he hears at the house of God, he gets understanding. understanding about God that he is a holy and just God. About the wicked, they are doomed to destruction and their feet are already set on slippery places. And about himself. How foolish and ignorant that he was. And so he came to condemn himself. We’re thinking so sinfully. He bemoans his sinfulness, his foolishness of heart. He repents. And now we find. in verse 23 that he’s restored to fellowship with the Lord. It’s spiritually profitable as we watch this recovery that he has. And so there are some lessons here, I think, for you and I. Now let me begin by saying this, your despair should lead you to the grace of God. You’ll notice, He says, nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Now, the unsaved man is often swallowed up with despair when he has done something evil. Those who perhaps are somewhat religious, maybe somewhat conscientious people. You read about people. doing evil things and then they commit suicide. In fact, many unsaved individuals, whether they’re moral or immoral like, commit suicide because they cannot say with ASAP, nevertheless. They despair after they have a careful examination of what they’ve done, they throw their hands up. There’s, you know, there’s no hope. Everything’s lost. If you stop while you’re in a state of despair, one can understand where it could lead to the point where there’s just, you think everything’s hopeless. And I’ll just end my life. You remember, Erithrafel, who was David’s wise counselor when he joined in with Absalom, and then his counsel got rejected. He gives up in despair. All is lost as far as he’s concerned. You know, Absalom’s going to lose. against his father, the kingdom is lost. Look, I put myself in a very bad situation. There’s just no hope to go on. And he goes out and kills himself. But his affairs in order and kills himself. Sadly, there are many who don’t stop in their wallowing in their grief and despair. They just get to the point they’re filled with remorse. And there’s just no hope, they think. And that’s a pretty sad situation to be in. I read a story above a 2,000-tonged Portuguese coastal steamer named Save. At 53 crewmen, 300 Portuguese soldiers on board, and 200 Mozambique Africans aboard that was grounded. on a sandbar off the coast of East Africa. And while rescue efforts were underway to re-go out and get them off the ship and rescue them off the ship and rescue them, a fire broke out on board the ship. And the fire spread to the stores of ammunition on the ship, and there was this huge explosion which blew up the ship and killed many people that were on board the ship. and so people were jumping into the ocean. The only problem was there were a lot of hungry sharks in the ocean, and most of them got eaten by the sharks. The few that managed to escape the sharks and the fire swam to shore on the east coast of Africa. But where they swam to shore, there was a mangrove there, which they swam to shore on which they. They ran into lions who destroyed them and ate them. You talk about not having hope, even if you get off the ship, you get eaten by the sharks, and even if you escape the sharks, you get eaten by the lions. That’s a pretty bad situation. You can imagine what the despair they had to be in in in that situation. My friends, we find people that get in such despair. They jump off the bridge. and kill themselves, or they shoot themselves, or they take an overdose of sleeping pills or something. They just end it all. The number of people commit suicide after experiencing fortune and fame is amazing. Multi-millionaire George Vanderbilt killed himself by jumping out of a hotel window. Lester Hunt, twice governor of Wyoming, before being elected of the U.S. Senate, ended his own life. Ernest Hemingway, the famous writer, took his own life. They all became disenchanted with their lives. Thought everything was hopeless and killed themselves. Not too long ago, here in Pennsylvania, there was a Pennsylvania state official, some of you may remember this, named Bud Dwyer. He was guilty of criminal activity. He was actually stealing state funds, and he got caught. and he thought the situation was closed us. So he calls this press conference. All his friends are there, all the press is there, and everything else. And he has this paper bag, and he takes a gun out of it, puts it his mouth and blows his head off on television. While this is being put on television. What a terrible situation. We live in a sinful age and a time where more and more, people are thinking, I can get relief if I kill myself. Well, they’re not really going to get their relief that way. They’re going to go from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak, because they’re going to go to hell in that situation. And things are going to be much worse. But the unsaved man gets swallowed up. He has no hope. You as a believer, however, must look to the grace of God in your time of despair. After humiliating himself, in dust and ashes here. Asaph finds hope in the grace of God. When you as a Christian are brought to a state of the grief and despair, you don’t stay there and wallow in it, but you turn to the Lord for help and comfort. The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is that when the Christian reaches the point of a absolute despair there’s a door of hope. He has a nevertheless in his life. This is an interesting word that he uses. Despite the fact that I was ignorant, I was foolish, I was like a beast, I said all these negative things about God, I had everything confused and backwards, nevertheless, he’s still with the little The Lord hasn’t cast him off. He comes to the conclusion, yes, God is still good to Israel. You can get there by a single jump. God brought him there, step by step. And we talked about this already through these various stages. He came to the nevertheless part. When we’re miserable, when we think there is no hope, You know, the devil would assault us. Say it’s no use going forward. You might as well end your life. And you’re enveloped in darkness and despair. Have you ever experienced what Asaph did? There’s this great shaft of spiritual light that you’re given in the midst of all this darkness, bringing new hope and changing your whole attitude about things. Asaph says here, I was foolish, I was ignorant. a wild beast and suddenly it dawns on him. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Care is the idea of upon your heart, in your hands, under your watch care. He’s still, in God’s presence. He still embraced as one of God’s children. Foolish child, but he’s still one of God’s children. Why didn’t God show him the door? Why didn’t he just say, this is the end of you? You’re unworthy. You’re an ingrate. This is what gives Asaph, I think, a thrill of surprise in a way here, in astonishment. He does not receive the fate he so richly deserved. Nevertheless. Do you not see the amazing grace of God reaches out to us? in our dire circumstances, when we feel like all is lost, there is no hope, there’s no way I can go back, there’s no way God’s ever going to receive me again, but he does. Yes, he will. That should be an encouragement to us and all the failures that we have. We are, like Asaph, a debtor to God’s grace. When God reaches out to save a soul, never gives up on that soul. He never says, I’m done. I’m finished with this person. No, no. He keeps working. He keeps working with that individual. And the whole of our life really is dependent on the fact that God is a God of goodness to his people. He’s a God of grace and mercy to his people. His mercies are renewed every morning and it’s a good thing that they are. You think about our foolish ways. How stupid we are at times. How we let Satan get the best of us. How the temptation, you know, causes us to falter and our steps fail. You shake our head and say, how could I be like that? How could I be so foolish and sinful? And we repent and we think, am I ever going to get to the point I feel like God’s favor rests upon me again, that I’m in fellowship with him again, I feel at a distance. Ever felt a distance from the Lord? I know there’s times I have. And then you think about it, you think, I ought to be cast into hell. That’s how wicked I am. You and I don’t even deserve to get another breath of air. Yet God spares us. God speaks to a still small voice and saying, what are you doing here? Look where your sin has landed you. Come back to me, return to me, and I will receive you. and he began to contemplate how gracious God is to us as his people. My friends, there’s nothing like a nevertheless in your life. There’s nothing like knowing that as much as we fail, boy, there’s every day it seems like we fail in some way. God is there. God receives us back. Return, repent, and I will receive you. So you should, In your despair, it should lead you to the grace of God. That’s what the scripture tells us. Don’t let it overwhelm you to the point where there’s no hope you. Look at it and say, well, but God says I can come back. That he will restore the back slider. Secondly, you should be aware of the various aspects of God’s grace, his saving grace. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. One of the wonderful things. about God is he forgives you. We read that scripture from Psalm 32 where David said when he, you know, held it all in and he didn’t repent. It was like torture to him. He was under the heavy hand of God. But he comes to the Lord, it seeks forgiveness, and God forgives him. It’s a wonderful Psalm about repentance. and being accepted of the Lord. And we realize we’re still one of God’s children. The Psalms are full of this. Psalm 103, He hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. It’s a good thing. Psalm 103, 130, 3 and 4. If thou Lord should dismark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Not one of us. got a whole mountain of iniquities. It’s a good thing there’s another verse that follows that. It says, but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. That’s the wonderful thing about God. There’s no fellowship, there could be no fellowship with God if it weren’t for the fact he was a gracious God. And that he saves, he saves forever. He gives eternal life. God. God doesn’t. not take his mercy from his people. If we ever get to the point, we think there’s something within us that could recommend us to God. or that owes us forgiveness of some sort. you don’t know anything about the grace of God. You know nothing about the grace of God. The grace of God is such that we’re a debtor to it. We don’t deserve any of it. We don’t deserve mercy. We don’t deserve forgiveness. But he grants it anyhow. God has compassion on us. We realize it’s always an act of pure grace on God’s part that we’re saved. The whole of our salvation rests upon the Lord from beginning to end. I’m still with you, O God, because you’re a loving, compassionate, merciful, heavenly Father. saving grace. We see God’s restraining grace. Thou holdest me by my right hand. Now, you know, and I know if we’ve been parents, we have our little kids and we’re walking them and we hold them by the hand. Because they’re liable to trip and fall and get hurt or skin their knee or whatever the case. So, many times you’re holding them by the hand because maybe there’s a dangerous situation out there and you don’t want them to step out on street or something of this nature. So you’ve got them by the hand. Sometimes they slip and, you know, you get all this weight on your hand all of a sudden, but you’re holding them and you hold them up. You don’t let them go all the way down. You hold them up and you pick them back up. I know sometimes my kids, I had them off the air. They were off the ground, I mean, in the air, you know, because you grab them in there. You lift them up. He said, this thing, when I was going down into a fatal fall, you pulled me back. you saved me from destruction. You held me tight. My friend, isn’t it true that God restrains us so that we don’t have a fatal fault? We may slip, but not fatally. As you as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps have well nigh slipped, but they didn’t fully, did they? And why is that? I said, no, no, no, no, no, I got my hand on you. When he gets to the house of God, he begins to understand more about this. God held him back. He steadied him when it seemed like he was going to have a fatal fall. My friends, it’s God that put the thought in his mind. You need to go to the house of God. You need to go to the sanctuary. Why does he go to the sanctuary? Why does he go to the sanctuary? He was done with religion, basically. I’m giving up on this. Why does he end up going to the house of God? Why does he go to the sanctuary? Because God moved his heart, sent him to the sanctuary, that he might hear what he needed to hear to straighten out all his thinking and get him back on track. That’s the way God operates. My friends, God is working in you, both the will and the due of his good pleasure. and therefore everything that happens even the bad things he has a plan here he’s nothing’s happening haphazardly and he’s saying you get yourself to the house of God Psalm 37 24 though the righteous man fall he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord up hold of him with his hand now there’s no promise we will never fall into sin because obviously it happens but you’ll never be utterly cast out. If you backslide, it’ll be a temporary slip, not a fatal one. The Bible does not say that when you were born again, you’ll never sin again. But it does indicate to us that if you’re born again, that life that you’ve been given cannot be taken from you. It’s never removed. And God is in your life working all the time. He’s giving you his spirit. Doesn’t say enough’s enough. He’s going to continue to work in us. You read that passage in 1st Corinthians 5. Here’s a man caught up in a terrible sin of incest with his father’s wife. And Paul has to say, you need to discipline this man, tells the church. And he said, you cast him out of the church. will turn him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. That’s a pretty serious thing, isn’t it? When we read 2 Corinthians, it seems to us that the man is brought to repentance. And he says, I don’t want him sorrowing as if there’s no hope to receive him back. He’s repented. How did he get that point where he repents? God brought him there. Yeah? God used church discipline. God, I think the blow of church discipline was heavy upon him. And the fact that, you know, you turned over to Satan, that’s pretty serious. And so the man is brought to the repentance. He fell, fell badly, but not fatally. God restrains us by his grace. He saves us in a nick of time sometimes. Restraining grace. Grace, God’s restoring grace, thou hast hold me by my right hand. Here he is. He’s ready to give up the faith. And yet, all of a sudden, we find him back in fellowship with God. It’s always amazing thing that God can take us from where we are in such a sadly fallen condition. And all of a sudden bring us back. So we’re in fellowship with him again. You know, David wrote more Psalms after he fell in his sin with Bathsheba. Why is that? Because he was restored to fellowship. The gospel didn’t seem to be true to Asaph at one point. God sends him to the house of God. He gives him understanding. And all of a sudden, everything’s turned around. Martin Lloyd-Jones tells an interesting story about being moved to go to church. He says, I knew a Christian man who fell and became guilty of adultery and deceived and robbed his own wife. He left his home in Australia and came to London and was living in adultery. His money came to an end. He was wretched and miserable. So much so that he was determined to commit suicide. He was down to the very dregs. Finally one Sunday night, he made his way to the embarkment, determined to throw himself into the Thames River, and end it all. It suddenly occurred to him to come into this building, Lloyd Jones’s church. And he came and he sat in the gallery, and I was engaged in prayer. and I didn’t know that he was there, but I said something about God’s love even to the backslider. I said it suddenly, without premeditation, not knowing anything. And what I said, though, just an odd phrase, was like a shaft of light from God, this poor man’s soul. He came back to God and all is well with him. There he was walking to streets when suddenly he felt the desire to come into the sanctuary. why? because God sent him in. God put the thought into his mind and he came in. and God put the thing that I said into my mind and I uttered it in my prayer. I was in no sense responsible. I was quite unaware of it. and that’s how God sometimes works. just when you reach your limit. When despair is taking over, God steps him. As I mentioned, David, he’d sined greatly with adultery and murder, and God set the prophet Nathan to him to tell him the parable, to drive home his sin, thou art to me. David saw his guilt. He repents. He asks for forgiveness. He writes Psalm 51 as a Psalm of repentance. But David does not stop with remorse. He repents. in the first part of that Psalm. But he says, God, wash me in my sin. Cleanse me of it. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Bring me back into fellowship with you. God does. In your Christian life, let us take these examples that we find in scripture. We might find hope in our despair. As the Psalm is said in Psalm 23, he restoresh, my soul. So there’s a lesson here to be learned. That is that God does everything for you as a believer. He never cast you aside. Now think about this. If you’re the one that makes the decision, you decide for Christ, you’re the one that’s all up to you ultimately to believe, that certainly you could get to the point where then it’s up to you to continue believing. Perhaps if you decide you’re going to cast the faith aside. Now what? It’s a good thing salvation is all of grace because once God works in you, he continues to work in you until Christ returns or to your death. He doesn’t stop working within you. Both the will or to do of his good pleasure. So you can’t fatally fall from divine grace. He restrains you, restores you. And when you see this, thank God for his amazing grace, because that’s what comes out in scripture repeatedly. What we owe to God’s grace, let us think about that. Because God is good to Israel even to such as of a clean heart. Let’s close. Thank you.