Pulled Back from the Brink

[0:00] Let's press on and read God's Word and we are in the book of Psalms. Edward is leading us through a few of the Psalms this month and we are in Psalm 73.

[0:12] And you'll find out if you're using one of the visitor Bibles on page 485, 485, Psalm 73. Psalm 73, a psalm of Asaph.

[0:39] 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.

[0:54] 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.

[1:08] 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.

[1:20] Their eyes swell out through fatness. Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice. Loftily, they threaten oppression.

[1:33] 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.

[1:45] And they say, how can God know? Is their knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the wicked. Always at ease, they increase in riches.

[1:57] 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.

[2:12] But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God.

[2:23] Then I discerned their end. Truly, you set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin.

[2:34] How they are destroyed in a moment. Swept away utterly by terrors. Like a dream when one awakes. Oh Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

[2:47] 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.

[2:59] You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel. And afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom I have high in heaven but you. And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

[3:13] 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.

[3:29] 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.

[3:42] That I may tell of all your works. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. And may he bless it to us this evening.

[3:52] Let's bow our heads and have a further moment of prayer. Man shall not live by bread alone.

[4:12] But by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God our Father. We long to hear these words that bring life to us.

[4:25] That raise the dead. And we pray therefore that your words to us in the psalm tonight. May give us fresh vigor. Fresh life. Fresh understanding.

[4:38] A fresh delight in you. And a fresh desire indeed to serve you. And we ask it in the name of Jesus. Our Lord. Amen. Well, let's turn, friends, to Psalm number 73.

[4:54] Which you'll find on page 485. In our church Bibles. My title for tonight is Pulled Back from the Brink. One of the distinctive marks of the Christian church is that it sings.

[5:16] If a Martian were to drop in here one Sunday evening. He'd probably send a radio message back to his fellow Martians. With a sense of astonishment. That these Christians stand up on their hind legs.

[5:30] And make melody. It is a remarkable phenomenon, isn't it? The Scottish Parliament doesn't punctuate its debates with renderings of the bonny banks of Loch Lomond.

[5:43] When the captains of industry meet with their boards or their shareholders. They don't sing between the items on the agenda. But we folk, we're always singing.

[5:54] We sing on Sundays. We sing at the prayer meeting. We even sing at the annual general meeting. Now we sing because the Bible teaches us to sing.

[6:05] Think of Paul the Apostle. He encourages the churches to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. To build each other up by doing so. Jesus, we read this in both Matthew and Mark's Gospels.

[6:18] Jesus sang hymns with his disciples. It was part of their regular practice. And above all, we have the 150 psalms in the book of Psalms. The songs of the old Israel and of the New Testament church.

[6:32] And why do we sing? Well, surely because song expresses truth with feeling in a way that our ordinary speech simply cannot.

[6:43] Can you imagine the Beatles standing on stage in their best suits and looking out to the audience and saying, She loves you. Yes, yes, yes.

[6:57] Truth with feeling. The mind is informed, but the heart also is stirred. Now these psalms, all of the psalms were written to be sung. And we all know, and we all know because there's so much music available to us these days at the touch of a button.

[7:14] We all know that songs somehow get very deeply into our systems. They lodge deep inside us. They lodge in our memories. And the psalms, the songs of the Bible, the Lord's own songs, are intended to penetrate deep into the hinterland of our thinking and our feeling.

[7:31] They shape our emotional life as well as our understanding. They help us to think more as God thinks and to feel more as God feels. They teach us joy, how to rejoice.

[7:44] They teach us sorrow, how to express sorrow, how to be sorrowful. They teach us repentance and longing and frustration and how to express pain, how to pray, how to thank and praise God and so much more.

[7:59] In fact, whatever part of our inner life you care to mention, the psalms, or a psalm here or a psalm there, will be able to express that part of our inner life.

[8:10] The psalms, you might say, are a compendium of the Christian life. They touch us at all points. Now, our psalm for this evening, number 73, is a rare jewel.

[8:22] It's a unique psalm. There's no other psalm like it in the book of Psalms. And it's a psalm that has rescued many a struggling Christian from the brink of collapse. Look at verse 2.

[8:34] That's the brink of collapse.

[8:45] The author is picturing himself there at the top of a very slippery slope, and he's just about to lose his footing. He's tottering on the brink. What he means is that his faith is barely holding together.

[8:58] Something is happening to him which is pulling him away from the Lord and back into the world. Just what that pressure is, we'll see in a moment.

[9:09] But let's think first about the author of this psalm, who is named in the title as Asaph. If you can get hold of a study Bible, one of those Bibles that has a central column of cross-references to other parts of the Bible, it's a great help if you're trying to trace information about a person or if you're trying to follow a theme through in the Bible.

[9:31] Now think of it. Christmas is on its way. Dear Mother and Father, here's my letter. Please may I have for my Christmas present this year a cross-reference Bible so that I can trace both themes and people.

[9:43] Amen. I mean, lots of love, Sebastian. Now I did this with Asaph. I traced him down in my study Bible to several points of reference in 1 Chronicles, we won't turn this up now, but 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles.

[9:57] And I discovered that Asaph was a musician in the time of King David. Let me read you a little excerpt from 1 Chronicles chapter 15. David also commanded the chiefs of the Levites to appoint their brothers as the singers who should play loudly on musical instruments, on harps and lyres and cymbals, to raise sounds of joy.

[10:21] So the Levites appointed Heman, the son of Joel, and amongst the other Levites, Asaph, the son of Berechiah, and then several others are mentioned. We learn a bit later in the same chapter that Asaph played the cymbals.

[10:36] And if the purpose of all this music was to raise sounds of joy, I imagine that he didn't play the cymbals too quietly. But he wasn't just a singer and a cymbal player.

[10:48] In 1 Chronicles 25, we learn that he also prophesied, he and his sons, under the direction of the king. So this means he was some kind of a preacher as well as a musician.

[11:00] And here's a fascinating footnote. In 2 Chronicles chapter 29, we read the history of King Hezekiah's reign. And Hezekiah reigned and lived some 250 years or so after David.

[11:14] So let me quote a little snippet from 2 Chronicles 29. And Hezekiah the king commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord using the words of David and of Asaph the seer.

[11:29] So that can only mean the Psalms of David and the Psalms of Asaph. Asaph is described as a seer. And the word seer means one who sees. It's a seer.

[11:40] A seer is a prophet. One who sees and hears the words of the Lord and then brings them to the people. So some two and a half centuries after David's reign, the songs of David and of Asaph were being regarded as part of the temple canon, part of the temple repertoire.

[11:57] Much as you and I might regard the hymns of Charles Wesley or John Newton as being part of our staple diet. Now the record in Chronicles only gives us bare facts.

[12:09] The facts that Asaph was a musician, a singer, a prophet, and a songwriter. When I say songwriter, there are some 12 Psalms ascribed to him in the book. But it's when we actually read his Psalms that we really begin to get to know him.

[12:23] And we find that he was a man of flesh and blood and heart and feeling just like ourselves. Yes, indeed, he's a man of God. He's chosen by God. Chosen by God to write part of the Bible.

[12:36] What an honor that is. But at one point in his life, his faith nearly collapsed. And that near collapse and his rescue from it is what this Psalm is all about.

[12:48] But it's a tale of very great difficulty followed by wonderful recovery. So let's look at Asaph in three phases of his experience. First of all, Asaph, the brutish beast.

[13:03] The brutish beast. That maybe sounds a little bit harsh, but I'm only picking out his own phrases in verse 22. Look with me to verses 21 and 22. 21.

[13:14] When my soul was embittered, when I was deeply bitter inside, when I was pricked in heart, in great pain, I was brutish and ignorant.

[13:24] I was like a beast towards you. There's the brut beast. Now, you, of course, is God himself. And Asaph is saying there to the Lord, I reached a point in my life when I was brutish and ignorant and beastly towards you.

[13:38] So what kind of influences could have turned this sensitive and gifted singer-songwriter, this man of God, into a brutish beast in his relationship to the Lord?

[13:51] Well, he sums it up in verse 3. Look back to verse 3. Here's the problem. I was envious. Envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

[14:03] And then verses 4 to 12 give us a startling and vivid picture of the arrogant men that Asaph has been fooled into envying.

[14:14] They're the kind of people that you meet in police dramas like Happy Valley or Rebus. Do you know the kind of person? The bosses of organized criminal gangs. It's an exquisitely painful portrait.

[14:25] So let's look at some of the details of these people who, for a period, were so attractive to Asaph. First, they never seemed to need the doctor. They're a picture of health.

[14:37] Look at verse 4. They have no pangs. They're as fit as a ferret till the day they die. Their bodies are fat and sleek. And we must think of fat a little bit differently from the way that we think of it today.

[14:50] There was much less food about in those days. There was no mother Tesco just down the road with her shelves groaning with goodies. So most people in that society would have been slender and even thin.

[15:02] So to be fat was desirable. It meant that you had plenty. You had a loaded table and plenty of money. And then verse 5. They're not in trouble like the rest of us.

[15:14] They're not stricken. They're not burdened with problems in life like most people. So, verse 6, they exude pride. They flaunt their pride as if it were an expensive necklace.

[15:27] They strut about with their tummies thrust forward and their heads held high. And verse 6. Everything they do suggests the threat of violence.

[15:38] And we know that violence is always the tool of the hardened bully. Pay up or get beaten up. Violence is the tool of extortion. And no doubt Asaph knew men in Jerusalem who'd been permanently lamed or scarred by thugs who'd beaten them up.

[15:55] And look at their eyes in verse 7. Their eyes swell out through fatness. You can just picture that kind of face. Big cheeks. Big jaws.

[16:06] Big jowls. Big angry threatening eyes which look as if they're going to pop out of the man's head. And says Asaph. Their hearts overflow with follies.

[16:16] They're scheming. They're planning their next move. They're working out how to grasp yet more money as they oppress poor people. Then the prophet turns from their eyes and their hearts to their tongues.

[16:29] Verse 8. They scoff. Nothing is sacred to them. They deride everything. They scorn everybody. They don't know how to speak with temperance or kindness. And worse still.

[16:41] Verse 9. They set their mouths against the heavens. They're not afraid to speak derisively of God himself. And their tongue. Talking and yapping and boasting.

[16:52] It struts through the earth. They have no shame. No fear. Just an endless overweening self-confidence. And yet Asaph envies them.

[17:04] Why? Well look back to verse 3. He envies their prosperity. Their luxury homes. Their tables groaning with caviar and champagne.

[17:16] Their treasure chests full of jewels and coins and other ill-gotten gains. Their array of servants. Their gardens. Their farms. Their Havana cigars. He looks down at himself at his own thin little body.

[17:30] He tightens his belt another notch. And he says, If only I could have what they have. Doesn't verse 3 have the words self-pity written all over it?

[17:42] Now verses 10 and 11. Let's look there. Those two verses are a bit difficult to understand in our translation. But I think what they mean is. The people. The populace.

[17:53] They're confused and dismayed as they look at these proud men. The people don't know which way to turn. They dare not find fault with them. They dare not call them out or blow the whistle on them.

[18:05] And the people say. Verse 11. Does God realize what is going on? Is the Most High even aware of what is happening here? In other words, these arrogant men appear to be invulnerable.

[18:19] And God appears to be unwilling to call them to account. God seems not to have noticed them. And then in verses 12 to 14.

[18:30] Asaph reaches the very bottom of his experience. The bottom of his morale. Here is the brutish beast at his most brutish. He says in verse 12. Look at them.

[18:41] They're always at ease. They get wealthier and wealthier. And this means, verse 13. This means that all my efforts to live a godly life.

[18:51] All my efforts to live a clean life. An innocent life. Have been useless. Vain. What is the point of trying to live for God? If all I have to show for it is poverty and weariness.

[19:06] Have you ever felt like that? Ever been tempted to feel like that? Looking at other people enviously? Well there is Asaph at verse 2.

[19:17] His feet are just about to slip away from beneath him. Or as verse 21 puts it. His soul is embittered. His heart is full of pain. As if it's been pricked by some sharp instrument.

[19:30] It leaves him as a brute beast. In what sense then is he brutish? Well surely in the sense that he has become spiritually incapacitated.

[19:41] He can't see clearly. He misreads his life. And he misreads the lives of these arrogant fat cats. A life and a lifestyle which is in truth ugly and disfigured.

[19:54] Appears to him to be attractive and enviable. Now friends this sort of thing could happen to any of us. People like us.

[20:04] We can become worn down. Overworked. Perhaps short of money. Perhaps short of friends. Perhaps short of domestic happiness. And we look at some rich strutting playboy.

[20:15] And we think. I wish I could be in his shoes. So isn't the Lord kind to put this psalm in the Bible for us. He's put it here to warn us. Because he loves us.

[20:27] His message to us is don't be a brute beast. Don't allow this kind of lie to deceive you. Don't allow your capacity to distinguish what is true from what is false.

[20:39] To be clouded over. Don't let the deceiver deceive you. Into thinking that godlessness will bring happiness. It can never do that. Well thank God.

[20:50] Asaph turns the corner. The Lord rescues him. So let's turn from Asaph the brutish beast. To secondly. Asaph the true seer. The true seer.

[21:01] The man who at last sees the situation. For what it really is. Now he begins to turn the corner. At verse 14. Verse 14 shows him at rock bottom.

[21:13] He says all the day long. I've been in mental agony. I've been stricken. Every morning. I wake up feeling miserable and rebuked. As if somebody's just slapped me across the cheeks. And then in verse 15.

[21:27] Then. I began to realize that if I were to go on speaking like this. And thinking these things. And envying these arrogant people. I'm going to betray your children.

[21:38] Oh God. Suddenly. He begins to feel a sense of responsibility. Towards his fellow believers. He begins to say him. To say to himself. I'm letting the people down.

[21:50] After all. I'm a leader. I'm one of David's senior lieutenants. The king is relying upon me. To honor God with my words. I'm a prophet. And am I talking true prophecy.

[22:00] When I speak like this. About these arrogant people. I'm certainly not. This line of thinking. Is going to lead other believers astray. If they follow me. I would be betraying the family.

[22:12] If I go on like this. Verse 15. I would have betrayed the generation of your children. Oh God. So in verse 16. Struggling to understand his predicament.

[22:24] Weary and worn down. He drags himself finally. To the place of prayer. The place that he calls the sanctuary of God. And he sits down quietly.

[22:36] To think it all through. And verse 17. Then he says. It was at that point. That I discerned. Their end. I understood the true destiny.

[22:47] Of these arrogant people. Truly. Verse 18. Truly. This is the truth about them. Here is what the Lord revealed to Asaph. About these godless people.

[22:58] Verse 18. The truth is. You set them in slippery places. They're the ones who are in danger of slipping. You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed. In a moment.

[23:09] Swept away utterly by terrors. Like a dream when one awakes. Oh Lord. When you rouse yourself. You despise them. As phantoms. This is the truth about godlessness.

[23:21] That's what Asaph saw. Look at the verbs here. This is the godless. Fallen to ruin. Destroyed. Swept away. Despised. By God.

[23:33] It's a wonderful revelation for Asaph. It's a moment of clear sight. It's a moment of truth. Which he never forgot. God. And God caused him to write all this down.

[23:44] In this immortal psalm. So that we too should grasp the truth about it. That those who choose. To live without God in this world. Will live without God forever.

[23:55] That they will be swept away. Into ruin. And destruction. Now friends. There's a battle for us on today. For this fundamentally important truth.

[24:06] The truth that God does eternally reject. Those who reject him. If we'll learn from Asaph. If we'll accept. What Asaph saw so clearly. We will then be true gospel people.

[24:18] But if we reject what Asaph so clearly saw. We will trivialize the whole biblical revelation. And our so-called Christianity. Will be like a house of cards.

[24:31] Just to give an example of this. About 10 days ago. I was listening to Thought for the Day. On Radio 4. If you're not familiar with it. Thought for the Day is a short religious broadcast slot.

[24:43] It lasts about three minutes. And it comes on every day of the week. On Radio 4. At about 7.45 in the morning. I think really it's a kind of odd relic. From the days when the BBC felt.

[24:54] That they had an obligation. To educate the nation. In morality and faith. Now the speaker on this particular day. About 10 days ago. Was the vicar. Of a famous and fashionable church in London.

[25:06] An articulate and intelligent man. And in his short talk. The nub of it was this. He said. Of course. Nobody can believe in hell. These days.

[25:18] It's a relic from the Middle Ages. No modern person. With any sense or sophistication. Could possibly accept such an outdated idea. I am to love God. He said.

[25:29] I'm to love God. Not so as to escape hell. And equally. I'm to love God. Not in order to enjoy heaven. The reason for me to love God. Is simply for God himself.

[25:41] Now in speaking like that. In casting out heaven and hell. This man was riding a coach and horses. Through the Bible's teaching. On what Jesus came to the earth to achieve.

[25:52] That kind of teaching. Can only be given by a man. Who refuses to take the Bible seriously. The twin pillars. On which the whole biblical revelation rests.

[26:03] Are the pillars of salvation. And judgment. Jesus came to save us. From eternal ruin and judgment. Because eternal ruin. Is real. Asaph saw the truth.

[26:16] About these godless men. And we would be wise to accept his teaching. We must accept his teaching. If we're to survive as Christians. Daniel.

[26:27] Book of Daniel chapter 12. Daniel speaks of the end of history. And the final judgment. In these simple words. There are two destinies.

[26:47] Life or shame. In the sermon on the mount. Jesus speaks of those who refuse to submit to God. And he says that on the day of judgment. He the loving savior.

[26:58] He will have to declare to them. I never knew you. Depart from me. You workers of lawlessness. To dismiss the teaching. About hell and judgment. Is simply to dismiss Jesus himself.

[27:11] That is a perilous thing to do. But Asaph sees. Not only the destiny of the godless. He sees thirdly. The glorious reality.

[27:23] Of eternal life. With the Lord. And he expresses it beautifully. In verses 23 to 26. This is what he sees clearly. Now that his brute beast ignorance.

[27:35] Has fallen off him. So let's look at this wonderful little passage together. 23 to 6. Asaph sees first. The truth. That the Lord is with him.

[27:45] And that he is with the Lord. Verse 23. Nevertheless. Here's the truth. I am continually. With you. That is the Christian life. I am with you.

[27:57] The Lord. The Lord Jesus. Dwells with us. He abides in us. As we abide. In him. It's he in us. And we in him. We don't see him yet.

[28:08] Of course not. But he is with us. And what's more. Says Asaph. In verse 23. You hold my right hand. You're my strength. My stay. My protection.

[28:20] I'm a bit like a toddler. Who needs to cross the main road. And there's danger. And traffic. So I put my hand up. And the Lord says to me. Edward. I've got you by the hand. You're safe.

[28:31] What can man or devil. Do to you. If the Lord has your hand. Firmly in his grip. It means that. Even in the most trying. Testing. Circumstances.

[28:42] For example. When you're in hospital. Seriously ill. Or when you're standing. At the graveside. Of someone you've loved. Burying your dead. Or perhaps when you're being. Made redundant.

[28:52] Even then. The Lord is holding you. By your right hand. He's not going to drop you. At the most painful moments. In life. He's going to hold you. All the harder. Then verse 24.

[29:05] You guide me. With your counsel. Counsel means advice. And teaching. And the Bible. Is God's means. Of giving us advice. And teaching. The Bible.

[29:16] Answers. Every serious question. That human life. Throws at us. There's not a serious. Human question. Which is not dealt with. By the Bible. Now of course. The Bible won't tell us. Certain things.

[29:27] Like the age of the rocks. On the coolant ridge. On the isle of sky. It won't help us. With the laws of thermodynamics. Whatever they are. But it will answer. All our questions.

[29:38] About the purpose. Of our lives. And the way to behave. And it will teach us. All we need to know. About God. And his wonderful plan. Of salvation. Achieved through Jesus Christ. Verse 24.

[29:50] Just look at. Look with me at it. It's about this world. And it's about the world to come. So in this world. You guide me with your teaching. So that I can live with confidence and joy.

[30:01] And then after this life. You will receive me to glory. So it's knowledge of. How to live in this world. But also the promise of glory. In the world to come.

[30:12] Now look at verse 25. Surely. One of the greatest verses. In the whole Bible. It's Asaph's declaration of love. To the Lord.

[30:23] Whom have I in heaven. But you. No one. There could be no other. I don't need anybody. But you. I don't need to worship the sun. Or the moon.

[30:34] Or the stars. I don't need guidance. From the zodiac. Or the constellations. All I need is you. And I have you. You are mine. And I am yours. You are my God.

[30:44] And I am your child. It's all I need. And he goes on. There is nothing on earth. That I desire. Besides you. There is nothing to compare with you.

[30:56] In this world. Now friends. We are flesh and blood human beings. Just think of some of the things. That we might sometimes desire. And think of as being most attractive. Most wanted.

[31:07] A happy marriage. Beautiful holidays. Dogs. Winning the Six Nations Rugby Championship.

[31:20] An evening at a fabulous concert. Fish and chips with salt and vinegar. I am sure that Asaph had his own equivalence. To all of these sort of things.

[31:31] He was a flesh and blood man. But he says here to the Lord. There is nothing. Nothing on earth. That I want. Except. You. And the next verse.

[31:43] Opens up this line of thought. Further. My flesh. And my heart. May fail. He is looking there ahead. To the days when everything. In his body and mind.

[31:54] Is beginning to fall apart. He is thinking of himself. In the Zimmer frame years. His body has become feeble. His heart. His heart. His heart. His heart. Which is the powerhouse. Of his thinking and feeling.

[32:04] That too is becoming dull. And incapacitated. But he says. Even then. I'm full of joy. Because God is the strength. Or rock. Of his heart.

[32:15] And his portion. Forever. Portion means possession. So Asaph is teaching here. Not to be afraid. To look forward. To the days. When body and mind.

[32:27] Begin to fail. As they will for all of us. Unless the Lord. Returns in the meantime. It is good friends. To practice old age.

[32:38] And to practice dying. Think of it like this. We do practice. For all sorts of things. Which we can't be sure. Are going to happen. You might practice.

[32:48] The piano for a concert. But you can't be certain. It's going to happen. You might get the flu. The day before. You're a rugby player. You might practice. Your place kicking. For a game of rugby. But you might get.

[32:59] A foot of snow. On the day before. And not be able to play the game. But unless the Lord. Returns in the meantime. It is certain. That we will die. So let's practice. Shall I show you.

[33:10] How to practice. I'll practice now. Here I am. Lying in bed. I'm dying. Okay. My mouth is. Suitably opened. I'm feeling totally weak. At this point in my life.

[33:23] I can no longer enjoy. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. My brain is so weak. That I can't even enjoy. Listening to my favorite.

[33:34] Pieces of music. That somebody might be playing to me. Through a. CD player. I can't even cope with that. I'm on the brink. Of eternity. But what is true of me.

[33:45] As I'm slipping away. In this state of great. Physical and mental weakness. What is true of me is this. Verse 26. God.

[33:56] Is the rock. Of my heart. Therefore. My heart is secure. And God. Is my portion. My possession. Forever.

[34:06] In the end. When everything else is stripped away. Everything is gone. It's a question of me. And him.

[34:18] And we've been brought together by. The Lord Jesus. And his loving sacrificial death. Then in verse 27.

[34:29] Asaph reminds himself. And us. Of the truth. About the destiny. Of the arrogant unbelievers. He comes back to that point. For behold. He says. Those who are far from you. Shall perish.

[34:40] You put an end. To everyone. Who is unfaithful to you. Ruin and perishing. No glory. For those who turn away. From the Lord. But. Verse 28.

[34:50] For me. It is good. To be near. Dear God. I have made. The Lord God. My refuge. Why? For my sake. Well.

[35:00] Yes. For my sake. Certainly. But also. For other people's benefit. So that I may tell. Of all your works. This truth. Is far too good. To keep to myself. I must tell the world.

[35:12] About it. So friends. In thin times. In difficult times. When we are tempted. To give up. The Christian life. When it seems.

[35:22] That following the Lord Jesus. Is too costly. And too difficult. At times like that. Let's turn to Psalm 73. When we're tempted. To be brute beasts.

[35:33] When godlessness. Looks attractive. Let's turn to Psalm 73. When we need reassurance. About the truth of heaven and hell. Let's turn to Psalm 73.

[35:46] Psalm 73. And when we can't find words. To tell the Lord. How much we love him. And how much we trust him. Let's turn to Psalm 73.

[35:59] Let's pray together. Whom have I in heaven but you. And there is nothing on earth.

[36:12] That I desire. Besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail. But God. Is the rock of my heart. And my portion forever.

[36:24] Dear God. Our father. How you have loved us. And how you have given us. Reassurance and joy. In the words of this Psalm. We do thank you for Asaph. And for his. This bad time.

[36:35] This episode of being nearly. Over the brink. Nearly unable to hold on to you. But we thank you that you held on to him. And that he was able to write these things down afterwards.

[36:47] For our benefit. We pray indeed that you will write these things. Deeply in our hearts. Giving us solid security and joy. So that we may serve you well.

[36:58] We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[37:31] Amen.