Psalm 37-22 — 2 Corinthians 4

0:00 Good morning. Good morning. Do want to thank Scott for his graciousness and letting me have Psalm 37. Now I'm wrestling, but Roger had to do a little intervening. While you're turning to Psalm 37, I'm just gonna quote a verse from second Corinthians four and eighteen.

0:31 If you can't remember, it's the last verse of second Corinthians four and eighteen. I think it gives us a good introduction to the theme of Psalm 37. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but that which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. The temporary and the eternal.

1:07 And that's what Psalm 37 focuses on. Before we read it, we'll just speak to the Lord and ask for his help. Our God and our Father, as we think of the blessing of thy word, the truths that it teaches, the proper perspective that it gives us on life and the problems that we face. We pray that the word of God would speak to each one of our hearts, first to the speaker and then to the hearers, that we might find encouragement, that we might find correction, that we might be able to live in a way that would glorify thee and thy son, for we ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. When we look at Psalm 37, it deals with the issues of why the wicked prosper and while the righteous struggle through life.

2:06 It seems out of balance, but what it also shows is the ultimate end to each of those classes. It's not just the temporary focus on the eternal. And as we look at the style that David wrote this psalm in, it's very similar to some of the proverbs, and we'll be referring to various proverbs as we go through it. But because of the fact of the style it's written, it's a little difficult to break down, but I think there's four basic sections to it. The first 11 verses, and that's what I want to focus on primarily this morning, there's exhortations and encouragements.

2:58 Then in verses 12 through 20, we have the ultimate doom of the wicked. Verses 21 through 31, the blessings to the righteous. And then the final verses, the finality of God's justice. And it was written by David, as we'll see in the psalm, as he was older in life. It was written from the standpoint of his perspective, of seeing the events of life.

3:33 And David had his share of trials and problems, but David also had a very close walk with the Lord. The scriptures refer to him as a man after God's own heart. And as we look at this psalm, focus on the contrast between the righteous and the wicked in their ends, And you'll find again and again that word but in contrast to the two classes. But Psalm 37, the title is a Psalm of David. Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb.

4:44 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret, it only causes harm.

5:12 For evildoers shall be cut off. Here's the first of the buts. But those that wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more. Indeed, you shall look carefully for his place.

5:31 It shall be. But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance. The wicked plots against the just and gnashes at him with his teeth. The Lord laughs at him for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn the sword and have bent their bow to cast down the poor and needy, to slay those who are of upright conduct.

6:03 Their sword shall enter their own heart and their bow shall be broken. A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked, for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time. In the days of famine, they shall be satisfied, but the wicked shall perish.

6:36 The enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the metals, shall vanish into smoke. They shall vanish away. The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. For those blessed by him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. The steps of a good man are ordered by the lord, and he delights in his way.

7:02 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the lord upholds him with his hand. I have been young, and now I'm old. Yet, I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his descendants begging bread. He is ever merciful and lends, and his descendants are blessed. Depart from evil and do good, and dwell forevermore, for the Lord loves justice and does not forsake his saints.

7:36 They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell on it forever. The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongues talks of justice. The law of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide.

8:00 The wicked watches the righteous and seeks to slay him. The Lord will not leave him in his hand or condemn him when he is judged. Wait on the Lord and keep his way, and he shall exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you shall see it. I've seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a native green tree, yet he passed away, and behold, he was no more.

8:30 Indeed I sought him, but he could not be found. Mark the blameless man and observe the upright for the future of that man is peace. But the but the transgressors shall be destroyed together. The future of the wicked shall be cut off, but the salvation of the righteous is from the lord. He is their strength in time of trouble.

8:55 The lord shall help them and deliver them. He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him. Now as we look at the beginning of this psalm, do not fret in verse one. You have it again in verse seven, do not fret. The end of verse eight, do not fret.

9:53 Do not become obsessed with anger at the prosperity of the wicked, and do not be jealous of the workers of iniquity. Now it's a human tendency to be jealous of those that prosper. It's a godly tendency to be angry with the wicked. And what the psalmist is saying, don't focus on that which can be upsetting. Don't focus on the fact that the wicked are prospering, and they're doing that which is against the word of God.

10:39 They're cheating. They're cutting corners. They're involved with trying to get ahead and take advantage of others. We see it from the federal government on down. They're prospering.

10:59 And those that are godly, those that are trying to follow the word of god, they're going through trials. Where is god's justice? Why do things like this happen? David says don't get focused on that. What he's basically saying is let's focus on that which can really give peace, rest, enjoyment.

11:28 And so he comes in verses three through seven with a fourfold formula for a way to focus on the Lord himself and get our eyes off all the distractions of the temporary. Because when we focus on the Lord, we're gonna be focusing on that which ultimately leads to eternal rest, and peace, and joy. And we were singing, 'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. In verse three he says, trust in the lord and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness.

12:21 Trust in the lord, Do good. Then dwell and feed on God's faithfulness. Feed on it. Meditate on it. Read the scriptures and just enjoy how much God has done and his faithfulness.

12:51 You know as we look at this, we were reminded Wednesday night in the prayer meeting, and I realize some of you weren't able to make it because of the storm that came through. But they were reading a little note from the Eichenhaus, and they were talking about the fact that they are packing their belongings in faith, not knowing where they're going to be moving to after the end of next Monday. Packing in faith. And they quoted those verses in Isaiah 26 verses three and four. You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in you.

13:48 Trust in the Lord Jehovah for in him is the strength. Thou will keep him in perfect peace. When you can write that in a time when you're packing up all your belongings and not knowing where you're going to put them the next week or two. That is perfect peace. Now we're praying very hard that the Lord will open up something for them, But we know that thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee.

14:28 Trust in the Lord. As we come to verse 11, I'm not jumping ahead but just referring to a phrase there, the abundance of peace. Where does peace come from? This world knows so little of peace. The nations are at war with each other.

14:56 Families are torn apart. Workplace is full of violence. The schools are full of violence. Where does peace come? It only comes from one place.

15:09 It comes from God through a relationship of meditating and trusting upon his word. As it says, feed on his faithfulness. I'm reminded of Jeremiah and Lamentations three. Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.

15:38 Great is your faithfulness. The Lord's faithfulness is tremendous. If we stop, we sometimes sing that little chorus, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Count your blessings. Focus on them.

15:59 Dwell on it. Feed on it. But then he goes and he says in verse four, delight yourself in the Lord. Just before we go on to that, I wanna just ask the question, what does it mean to trust in the Lord? I think we have an example in Daniel chapter three.

16:57 And they're reported. And they're brought before king Nebuchadnezzar. And he says to them, I hear that you men will not bow down. I'm giving you one last chance. Or it's the fiery furnace for you guys.

17:14 And they said, our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us from your handle king. That's a pretty bold statement. He says, we'll see about that. He has them bound and thrown into the furnace that's heated seven times hotter. The men that threw them in some of the strongest soldiers in his army were overcome and killed by the heat of the flames.

17:51 These three young men thrown into the furnace. The king looks and he says, wait. We threw in three men, but there's four. The fourth one looks like the son of god. God honored the trust.

18:16 O king, the god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. He will deliver us from your hand. O king, I wonder how many of us would have that kind of faith In a situation that's a lot less strenuous than that. God honored their faithfulness and their trust. And god brought honor to himself as Nebuchadnezzar had to acknowledge that the god of heaven was the true god.

18:51 We think of Job as he went through all the trials that he endured. All that he suffered. First of his possessions and then of physical health himself. And Job thirteen fifteen says, Though he slay me, yet will I trust Him. Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.

19:26 That's what it means to have trust. As we look at some of these examples, may it speak to us about it. But in verse four it says, delight yourself also in the lord. What does it mean to delight? The example that I enjoy is the thought in the word that you're coming to the dessert buffet table and it's loaded with all these delicious pastries and desserts.

20:00 For the chocoholic, a lot of them are chocolate. That's... Those are the ones that I go for first. But you just take and sample. This pastry is delicious.

20:12 I'll try the next one. The next one is even better. Keep going. You keep going down the line enjoying each of the pastries. You're delighting in them.

20:26 And this is the thought. It only gets better the more time you spend in the word of God. Delight yourself in the Lord. The more we concentrate on the one that we trust, the more we're going to be able to enjoy him. And you can only delight in one that you have trusted.

21:14 And he shall bring it to pass. Commit your way. What does this entail? Submission and contentment. They don't always go together but in this case they really need to.

21:36 Commitment and contentment But it's an unknown pathway, and that's the difficult part. You know, if you know which way you're going, you know what's going to happen next in life, it's easy to kind of prepare yourself for it. But when you're going through an unknown pathway and the only one you know that knows the way is the lord himself and that's all that has to know. We don't have to know what's going to happen. We just have to have the confidence and the faith of the one who does and who will lead the way.

22:21 We think of the example of Abraham's servant in Genesis 24. Abraham wants a bride for Isaac, his son. And he sends out his unnamed servant, which I believe is Eliezer, the senior servant in his household and he says, go to the land that I came from and find a bride for my son. That's what he did. He said, you go.

22:53 And the servant said, well, pray that I'll be guided by your god. And as he makes that long journey and he comes to the area where that he is is his target. He just says, oh god of my master, Abraham, as I come to this well, I pray that the first one that comes will be able to not only draw water for me but for my camels. It's the young lady that you've sent me to find. That's a pretty bold prayer.

23:34 After a long journey. But we find that Rebecca comes and fulfills that situation. And then as she takes that servant back to her family. And that servant could say, I being in the way, the lord led me to the house of my master's brethren. I, being in the way, a way that was totally unknown to him.

24:07 But a way that was guided by god. Commit your way to the lord. Trust also in him. He shall bring it to pass. Proverbs three, five, and six, trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding.

24:29 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. He shall direct your paths. That's a verse that Audrey and I have tried to use throughout our married life as a... The kind of the key verse to our our marriage. Trust in the lord.

24:51 Lean not onto your own understanding. But trust in the lord with all your heart. And then in verse six, when you do that, when you commit your way to the lord and trust in him, he brings it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light.

25:23 I'm reminded of Proverbs four and eighteen. The path of the just is as the shining light that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. Now years ago, and I'm... This is years ago because I was in my twenties at the time, I heard a rendering of this verse that I've never forgotten. I don't remember exactly where he got it from.

25:51 But what the trans... The verse was quoted as saying, the path of the just is as the brilliant light of dawn that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. You know, as you go out and you look at a sunrise, before the sun comes up, you have that beautiful pink hue in the sky on the clouds, and it becomes brighter and brighter and brighter and more intense. Then the pink color fades, and the sun comes up and becomes brighter and brighter and brighter. I shouldn't say the sun comes up, but the sun comes into view.

26:34 And so we find that the brilliant light of dawn, the path of the just, is as the brilliant light of dawn that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. This should be the theme of our lives, shining and reflecting the light of Christ to a world of darkness, to a world that is so self centered and so turned away from the reality of a god that has an absolute standard. Trust in the lord. Delight yourself in the lord. Commit your way to the lord.

27:50 Wait patiently for him. Some of us don't have as much patience as others, but wait patiently. Patiently. But it does not say wait complacently, because sometimes I think we have that mixed up, at least I do in my life. Sometimes there's more complacency in our waiting than there is patient expectance, eager expectance in waiting patiently.

28:35 You know, Psalm 46 and verse 10, be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. When Chris Schroeder was here, he was speaking on Psalm 27. He focused a lot on the last verse, verse 14. Wait on the lord.

29:06 Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the lord. You know, that verse spoke to me so much that I had to go back and memorize it. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart.

29:24 Wait, I say, on the Lord. I think the waiting is the last of these four steps because perhaps we can't wait properly unless we have the trust and the delight and the commitment. It's only then that we have the peace, that we have the Christian maturity to wait on the lord and rest in him and wait patiently. You know, there are times when we get things a little out of balance, at least I do. I can remember back in the mid nineties.

30:11 There was a crisis of morality in the White House, There were talks in congress of impeaching the president. And I was reading through the Psalms in Psalm a 119 verse a 126. I got what I thought was a verse from the lord. It is time for you to act, oh lord, for they have regarded your law as void. I said, yes, lord.

30:40 It's time for you to act. I used to pray that. Lord, it's time for you to act. It's time for you to act. It wasn't time for the lord to act.

30:51 I had it all mixed up. The lord not only allowed what happened, but the moral downward spiral of this country has continued and accelerated. The Lord is acting. He's carrying out the preparation for his final return, for the rapture of the believers to take home to heaven, and for his return then afterwards to judge the nations and to rule in his millennial reign for the thousand years. That's the Lord's timetable.

31:33 I just thought it was time for the Lord to act, but I was wrong. I wasn't waiting patiently. But, you know, when Denzel was speaking, he was speaking on the book of Ruth. And there's an example, I believe, of waiting. Waiting expectantly and waiting with rest and yet patiently.

32:00 As Naomi says to Ruth in the final verse of chapter three, Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out, for the man that was Boaz will not rest until he has concluded the matter this day. Sit still, my daughter, for the man will not rest. He's... Boaz will work, and God will ultimately work behind him. Sit still until you know how the matter will turn out.

32:45 I believe that's a good example of resting in the Lord and waiting patiently for him. You know what it says in verse seven at the end? Do not fret. Become a him who prospers. Then verse eight, cease from anger and forsake wrath.

33:08 Do not fret. It only causes harm. That's true physically, medically. Being obsessed with anger can have its result physically upon the body. But there's another truth to this that goes beyond that.

33:30 Because I believe the force of this phrase is, do not fret. It only causes harm, and it can be interpreted. It tends only to evil doing. In other words, we can become so obsessed with something, we can then do something which we should not do. Because our eyes are on the wrong issue.

34:01 Our eyes are on the evil instead of being on the lord. Verse nine, for evildoers shall be cut off, but those that wait on the lord, they shall inherit the earth. And I realize there's a prophetic part of this psalm as well. Like many of the psalms, there's the experience of David in the psalm, and there is throughout the psalm. There's a prophetic aspect of it, speaking of that time during the millennial reign of Christ when the righteous will inherit the earth forever.

35:05 I don't think that's what we wanna focus on. But verse 16, a little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked. It was interesting that the translation of that word riches is both for wealth, but it also can be interpreted as noisy confusion. And you know, so often, the wicked are so involved with all their plans of scheming that there's no peace. It's only noisy confusion.

35:47 Probably the stock market is one of the greatest examples of noisy confusion. But in first Timothy six and verse six, godliness with contentment is great gain. In verse 21, the wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. The wicked borrows and does not repay. And there are some versions that put that as, the wicked borrows and cannot repay.

36:24 You say, well, how can it... How can that be? We're reading about the wicked being so prosperous. The wicked borrows and cannot repay. I don't have to remind you that there are no end of wealthy individuals that became so greedy.

36:47 And whether it was from overextension of credit or pyramid schemes or whatever way was used, bankrupt, facing prison. The wicked borrows and cannot repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives. We find that again in verse 26. He is ever merciful and lends, and his descendants are blessed. The contentment of just following the word of god, being obedient to the word of god.

37:29 It tells us that we're to show mercy to the poor. But then in verse 23, the steps of a good man were ordered by the lord, and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the lord upholds him with his hand. The steps of a good man are ordered by the lord, and he delights in his way. In verse four, we're commanded to delight ourselves in the lord.

38:04 When we do and it affects our life, in our walk, in our speech. Verse 23, god delights in the way of a believer walking for him. And though he follow, he shall not be utterly cast down. We think of examples. We've talked about...

38:27 Referred to Job. We think of Joseph, of all that he went through in prison, put there unjustly, hated and sold by his brethren whom he had such a delight to try to help. David himself went through times of stumbling. David was speaking from experience. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholds him with his hand.

39:01 If you look at that verse and then you go back to the last verse of the chapter before, thirty six and twelve. There the workers of iniquity have fallen. They have been cast down and are not able to rise. But in verse 30 through 31, we have the mouth, the tongue, the heart, and the steps of a righteous person. The righteous person that's meditating on the lord and meditating on his word will have his heart affected.

39:48 What affects his heart affects his speech and his steps, his words and his walk. Verse 34, again, we come back to waiting on the lord and keep his way. Wait on the lord and be obedient. Wait for him to show, to work, to act. Just be obedient and wait.

40:55 He'd been hunted down as an animal on the loose. And he says in verse 40, the Lord shall help them and deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him. So we've come full term. We're right back to where we were at the beginning of the Psalm. Trust in the Lord.

41:48 As the hymn writer has said, we can almost hear his footfall on the threshold of the door. And our hearts our hearts are longing to be with him evermore. He could come today. I'm not saying he will, but he could. And we should live today as if he would.

42:07 Shall we pray? Our god and our father, we're thankful for the blessings of thy word, for the encouragement, the exhortations, as well as the perspective that it gives. Father, we pray that the spirit of god would help us to remember and to put into practice. Our father, we confess it's so easy to hear and so hard to put it into practice consistently. Help us to do so, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.