#804 Slow to Whine

Truly God is good to Israel,

to those who are pure in heart.

2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,

my steps had nearly slipped.

3 For I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 For they have no pangs until death;

their bodies are fat and sleek.

5 They are not in trouble as others are;

they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

6 Therefore pride is their necklace;

violence covers them as a garment.

7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;

their hearts overflow with follies.

8 They scoff and speak with malice;

loftily they threaten oppression.

9 They set their mouths against the heavens,

and their tongue struts through the earth.

10 Therefore his people turn back to them,

and find no fault in them.

11 And they say, “How can God know?

Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

12 Behold, these are the wicked;

always at ease, they increase in riches.

13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean

and washed my hands in innocence.

14 For all the day long I have been stricken

and rebuked every morning.

15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”

I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

16 But when I thought how to understand this,

it seemed to me a wearisome task,

17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;

then I discerned their end.

18 Truly you set them in slippery places;

you make them fall to ruin.

19 How they are destroyed in a moment,

swept away utterly by terrors!

20 Like a dream when one awakes,

O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

21 When my soul was embittered,

when I was pricked in heart,

22 I was brutish and ignorant;

I was like a beast toward you.

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

you hold my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will receive me to glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;

you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

28 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. Psalm 73 ESV

A Psalm of Asaph.

Truly God is good to Israel - As it were the opening confession before it's defense, and now commences the trial of God's goodness. Bring out the scales, the measuring tape, then throw them away, crush them for their is no beginning and no end of God.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled - I stated that God is good, but my heart did not hold up these words. Job's testing by God became the basis for the judgment of his friends against him. They measured that they were more righteous in comfort and health, that those things which plagued their friend were due to his unrighteousness. A high opinion of self will lead to a poor Theology, and assume that that which is good in my eyes is owed to me for my righteousness. This is the slippery slope that Asaph found himself upon, that the righteous deserve good or they are not righteous, or if they are proven righteous, then God must not be good.

For I was envious of the arrogant - What a beautiful confession. I saw what others had, those who flaunted it, and looked down on others, and thought it reason for me to covet. Thou shalt not covet, God says, yet for me this was a loop hole. When I was young I knew men who I thought were wicked, and well they might be, but God says, there is none righteous, not even one. We struggled financially and they seemed to have everything so easily. They made fun of my hand me down clothes, and when I had children of my own, I wanted them to have more, more stuff, more experiences. I wanted them to have material things so that they would feel blessed, more confident and secure, but then what did I believe in? I think it was Jim Elliot who said, "He is no fool, who would give the thing he cannot keep to buy what he can never lose." The greatest gift I could ever possibly want for myself or my children was to see that nothing here could ever compare to eternity. There was no lasting comfort in the material.

…23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am in agony in this fire.’ 25 But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are left to suffer.… Luke 16: 23-25

For they have no pangs until death - They are healthy, confident, rich, what more could anyone want? I have watched the proud die at times, still screaming about the things they wanted to control here, and at other times without the faintest care, only wishing to leave behind a stoic face, a legacy of human greatness. They did not create themselves or the things they managed, but saw their continuance as attached to these things. Empires fall though, we all die, our memories are often romanticized and far from truth, God can raise up children for Abraham from the rocks.

- We have seen godly men bound with doubts, and fettered with anxieties, which have arisen from their holy jealousy; but the godless know nothing of such bands: they care neither for God nor devil. Their strength is firm. What care they for death? Frequently they are brazen and insolent, and can vent defiant blasphemies even on their last couch. This may occasion sorrow and surprise among saints, but certainly should not suggest envy, for, in this case, the most terrible inward conflict is infinitely to be preferred to the profoundest calm which insolent presumption can create. Let the righteous die as they may, let my last end be like theirs. - C. H. Spurgeon

They are not stricken like the rest of mankind - Elijah had to wonder as he ran from Jezebel. The Psalmist asked before, why do the wicked prosper? Joseph was brought very low as a slave, then a prisoner, before he was ever exalted. Moses spent 40 years tending sheep after spending 40 as a prince of Egypt, watching his people be tormented under the Pharaohs. I have seen the rise and promotion of so many that boggle my senses, yet I know now, that I have compared myself to the wrong person. Hold me up against Christ, hold me up against the Word of God, put me before the all consuming fire of God's Holiness, and there is no difference between me and the most wicked man I could imagine.

- All this is clear to the eyes of faith, which unriddles the riddle; but to the bleared eye of sense it seems an enigma indeed. They are to have nothing hereafter, let them have what they can here; they, after all, only possess what is of secondary value, and their possessing it is meant to teach us to set little store by transient things. If earthly good were of much value, the Lord would not give so large a measure of it to those who have least of his love. - C. H. Spurgeon

- They are corrupt. They rot above ground; their heart and life are depraved. And speak wickedly concerning oppression. The reek of the sepulchre rises through their mouths; the nature of the soul is revealed in the speech. They choose oppression as their subject, and they not only defend it, but advocate it, glory in it, and would fain make it the general rule among all nations. "Who are the poor? What are they made for? What, indeed, but to toil and slave that men of education and good family may enjoy themselves? Out on the knaves for prating about their rights! A set of wily demagogues are stirring them up, because they get a living by agitation. Work them like horses, and feed them like dogs; and if they dare complain, send them to the prison or let them die in the workhouse." There is still too much of this wicked talk abroad, and, although the working classes have their faults, and many of them very grave and serious ones too, yet there is a race of men who habitually speak of them as if they were an inferior order of animals. God forgive the wretches who thus talk. They speak loftily. Their high heads, like tall chimneys, vomit black smoke. Big talk streams from them, their language is colossal, their magniloquence ridiculous. They are Sir Oracle in every case, they speak as from the judges' bench, and expect all the world to stand in awe of them. - C. H. Spurgeon

They set their mouths against the heavens - We have it all figured out, and so we must shake our fist in protest against a God that we say doesn't exist. We need others to follow us in this, to make proselytes unto nothing, handing out empty promises, like the devil, exalting ourselves against God. 

Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed. 3 In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.… 2 Peter 2: 1-3

…14 Their eyes are full of adultery; their desire for sin is never satisfied; they seduce the unstable. They are accursed children with hearts trained in greed. 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. 16 But he was rebuked for his transgression by a donkey, otherwise without speech, that spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.… 2 Peter 2: 14-16

8 And Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself as he sat among the ashes. 9 Then Job's wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!” 10“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.… Job 2: 8-10

For the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good. 2 The LORD looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God.… Psalm 14: 1-2

- Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain. Poor Asaph! he questions the value of holiness when its wages are paid in the coin of affliction. With no effect has he been sincere; no advantage has come to him through his purity, for the filthy hearted are exalted and fed on the fat of the land. Thus foolishly will the wisest of men argue, when faith is napping. Asaph was a seer, but he could not see when reason left him in the dark; even seers must have the sunlight of revealed truth to see by, or they grope like the blind. In the presence of temporal circumstances, the pure in heart may seem to have cleansed themselves altogether in vain, but we must not judge after the sight of the eyes. And washed my hands in innocency. Asaph had been as careful of his hands as of his heart; he had guarded his outer as well as his inner life, and it was a bitter thought that all of this was useless, and left him in even a worse condition than foul handed, black hearted worldlings. Surely the horrible character of the conclusion must have helped to render it untenable; it could not be so while God was God. It smelt too strong of a lie to be tolerated long in the good man's soul; hence, in a verse or two, we see his mind turning in another direction. C. H. Spurgeon

It seemed to me a wearisome task - How do we come to understand that all things are working together for our good? We must still always and every day throw away that religion which we have made, that tape and scale for how we measure God and His goodness. Asaph has held his peace and rightly so. He has not loosed this song in part, but has released it in whole, after his own thoughts, feelings and experiences have been measure against the Word of God. Job did not curse God, and Asaph refuses to utter a stumbling block to those who might find it an occasion. It is so much easier and faster to air our thoughts with our mouths, to grumble and complain. We like to find a receptive ear, but so many are willing sell short of the task, which is to find the answer. 

How they are destroyed in a moment - Everything they worked so hard for was in vain. There view of themselves was vain. This is the turning point of Asaph, the other side of  the dream from which men awake, only to find that it was just a dream, a foolish hope.

I was brutish and ignorant - Like Nebuchadnezzar grazing in the field as a beast, not concerned with anything but his food, ignorant of God and all else, so he became as he was as king. God's ways are not our ways, and though men seem lifted up in position, wealth, health, outward appearance, if they look to this as the end and all then they are but animals. This is the sunrise on the mind of Asaph, faith and repentance holding hands as they should forever in the heart of every saint.

I may tell of all Your works - I remember hearing my mom pray often, for everyone, even people I thought had no need of prayer because they had everything that I wanted. She taught us not to love these things, not to covet what belonged to someone else but to give thanks for all we had. I thought she was a fool, that her way didn't work, and as a pragmatist, looking for material blessing, the wicked seemed always a step ahead. She dumped all her hopes and aspirations upon the whipped back, nail scarred hands and feet of a Man that men would hold in low esteem. He was to her the Son of God, Messiah, and the only story worth telling. Some 40 years later I have come to look back on those times, her attempts to lead me in the way that I should go, and I am forever grateful that she took the path less chosen, defied the culture, her relatives, and instead lifted up the name of Jesus. How marvelous are His works, and I am ever in wonder that He would choose someone like me. I look at other people now, the rich, the proud, those who cling to unbelief, and then I think of my mom, one of the richest people I have ever known.