Today I read from Psalm 73. Asaph, the psalmist, spends most of the first half of the passage writing about his frustration that the wicked seemed to flourish, while the righteous seemed to always be on shaky ground. “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.” I understand this feeling. There are many wicked people who seem to flourish in whatever they do. They are rich, powerful, and care nothing for God and his people. Its easy for one to be envious of them, because they have everything they need and more. There is no living day to day, or suffering because of being generous and in a low position.
The turn in the passage comes midway through the chapter when Asaph says that he could not understand this, until he went to the sanctuary. “Then I discerned their end,” he says. The end of the wicked will not be like the flourishing they may currently experience. “Truly you set them in slippery places.” This runs parallel to verse 2 where Asaph feared he would slip. As Asaph spent time in God’s sanctuary, his frustration turned to faith. Verse 24 says, “You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me into glory. How does God rectify the reality that there are wicked people, undeserving of the riches, power, and fame who get them as though they were not wicked.... “those who are far from you will perish,” he writes. God is just. He will make all things right in the end. The lowly will be lifted up, and the arrogant will be torn down. God solves all things in eternity. Part of putting your faith in God is believing that he will do this, that justice will ultimately be carried through by God.
An Application: If there is any personal application of Psalm 73, it is that we should be faithful in every circumstance. We should not embrace evil in any of its forms because we know that in the end justice will be done. If you believe that about God, you will not bend the rules to get more money, control, power, or respect. Because if you did bend the rules you would find yourself on the receiving end of God’s righteous judgement, rather on the end of his merciful redemption.
Suppose you find a way to cheat on your taxes, and you know you won’t get caught. Do you go ahead and do it, knowing that you get a little more money in your pocket? For those of you responsible for areas of a budget, do you exaggerate a little bit when you are trying to get your item through? Or suppose, you discover an opportunity to off-handedly bad mouth a co-worker competing for the job you would like to have? While the lying, gossiping, and stealing here are subtle, the motivations behind them are what is truly sinister. Why not be completely honest on your taxes? why not be brutally honest on your budget requests? Why not build up the reputations of your competition? The motivation that pushes us in this case are desires for financial security, respect, control, and many other things. When you remember that in the end underhandedness will lose the very things you had hoped for (security, respect, etc.) you will find yourself gaining the kind of security, respect, etc. that you really wanted in the first place, by simply having integrity and being faithful.
A Gospel Clarification: At the end of the day, we all fail in one way or another when it comes to being faithful to God and just in all our actions. Subtle sin has existed in our hearts for a long time, every one of us, all of humanity. Not to mentioned the many ways we have failed to love our neighbors, care for the poor, and bring hope to the hurting. Jesus solves this problem with his death. For those who are “in Christ”, our lack of faithfulness has been paid for with the wrath absorbing power of God himself. God himself, in Jesus, received all the judgement that should have been ours. The justice that should have come to us in that final day, is now replaced only with blessing because of Jesus’s reception of that judgement on the cross.
