(I gave this sermon on 17-2-2015 in Danish Mission Hospital,
Thirukoilur)
A Psalm of Asaph.
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.
(Psa 73:1-28)
I will divide my sermon into three topics, Exposition of
Psalms, Doctrine and Practical Application.
Exposition:
The psalmist is a righteous man who has written this psalm
from his perspective. He sees the lives of two types of people, an upright man and
an unrighteous sinner. The unrighteous man is always proud (v.6) with all types
of riches and wealth (v.12). Inspite of all these blessings he never thanks God
or honour Him rather, he mocks at God (v.11). Even then he still never has any
sufferings in this world (v.4,7).
But the psalmist is an upright and holy man of God (v.13),
yet he is struggling with many sufferings (v.14). So he is actually envious of
the unbeliever (v.3)
When he sees this from the Sanctuary of God (v.17), he
understood the end of the evil men. God has kept them in a slippery slope
(v.18-20) and they will be destroyed by God. Then the righteous psalmist
realised his folly of envying the unbeliever and he was praising God for being
his portion and strength for him (v.23,26)
Doctrine:
a)
God is
sovereign over both believers and unbelievers:
God controls everything He has created. He
upholds the universe by His word (Heb 1:3). So God is in control of the life of
both believers and unbelievers.
b) God is in control of both riches and
poverty for His glory:
I am going to show you three examples how God can use both
riches for destruction of a person and poverty for blessing a person.
First is the example of rich man and poor Lazarus. Rich man
had all the wealth and comfort with all the pomp in this world. But his end was
a miserable one since he was not upright. Whereas poor Lazarus, though he was poor
in this world, yet he was a righteous man thus when he died, he entered heaven
and was with God. Another instance is the story of Haman in Esther. God used
Haman’s wealth for his own destruction (Est 9:12). Here we see that the earthly
comfort which the evil men have is not good before God but rather they are for bringing
destruction to evil people.
God can use poverty as a means of blessing for an elect. Job
lost all his wealth and his health yet God used that for testing the faith of
Job. Bible says in Rom 5:3-5: More than
that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does
not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:3-5). In other words,
trials for a Christian is good and it will make him even more holy and upright
before the Lord and ultimately will glorify God.
Conclusion:
Riches and Poverty doesn’t
determine blessedness. Only righteousness is considered as blessed by God:
If you are in Christ, if you are a child of God, even if you
are suffering, that is ultimately for your good. If you are having worldly
blessings like good health, wealth and prosperity and you are a believer, then
it is your responsibility to use that worldly blessing for God’s glory.
Ultimately, in front of God’s eyes, righteous man is the blessed man and only
he would inherit the heavenly kingdom. He may be poor and miserable in this
earth but he would eventually be satisfied by God in Heaven. So to be blessed,
we have to be righteous. Let us seek God’s righteousness and seek to glorify
him to the utmost.
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