Psalms 73:1-28

Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

The trouble of Asaph

In human biographies men are wont to cover up their heroes’ imperfections. They see no reason why they should be recalled, but many why they should not. And in religious biographies what evident exaggeration there often is. But this can never be said of the lives of the men told of in the Bible. They are evidently men like ourselves. They have known our misery, passed through our struggles, and often, like us, have had to bow their heads in repentance. By this single trait I recognize the book of God. Nothing but the guidance of the Spirit of truth could have held back these writers from glorifying their national heroes. Now, this psalm tells of one who undoubtedly was a believe, but nevertheless passed through doubt and knew all its bitterness. See--

I. What made asaph doubt. It was the sorrow Of those who feared God combined with the prosperity of the wicked. The spectacle of this world is a great school for unbelief, and makes more unbelievers than all the books of atheists. Instinctively we believe in the God of holiness and love; but when we look out into the world we cannot find Him. Fatality is what we see. In nature, for it cares neither for our prayers nor our tears. In history, for if now and then there seems to be a providential law therein, more often there is no trace of anything of the kind See the fate of those vast empires which for ever have passed away. In life: was not the old prophet deceived when he said he had never seen the righteous forsaken? How often our prayers are not heard. Fatalism is what the world teaches every hour. Antiquity was fatalistic, and so are our chief thinkers of to-day. What problems are brought before us by the sorrows that befall the godly. Poverty, sickness, injustice--this most unendurable of all.

II. What saved him from his doubt.

1. He believed in God, the God of his race and people. He came--and it is a blessed thing to come--of a holy race.

2. But he could not explain these problems. Human reason cannot. There are the mysteries, insoluble, of affliction; yet more of sin; and of the future life. Science has no answer for them.

3. But Asaph went into the sanctuary of God, and then he understood the end, the purpose of God in all this which the future alone, and not the short-lived present, can unfold. Now, Asaph saw God’s purpose in regard to the wicked, and his tone changed from bitterness to pity, as he thought of the “slippery places” in which they stood, and of the “destruction” which was their end. How all changes to our eyes when we consider things from God’s point of view. And he saw God’s purpose in regard to those who wait on Him and fear Him. Even now consolation, sweetness, peace are theirs. The meanest calling is invested with grandeur when God is served in it. Without doubt the struggles of God’s people have been terrible. But consider their end--“Nevertheless I am continually with thee.” Asaph has come out of the sanctuary, and his face is beaming; his tears are effaced. His look is brightened by a divine hope, and it is a song of thanks which comes from his lips. And so shall it be with all them whose trust is in Asaph’s God. (E. Bersier.)

The Asaph psalms

Here in the beginning of the third book of the Psalter we have eleven psalms which are grouped together as being Asaph’s psalms. Those psalms have very much of a common character and a common style; they are the production of some oriental Bacon, of some Tacitus of grace. They are obscure if you will, they are oracular, they are sententious, they are occasionally, it must be admitted, sublime. And, first of all, Asaph’s was no affected scepticism; Asaph was a real doubter. In a certain sense he may be looked upon as the St. Thomas of the Old Testament, but the doubt of St. Thomas, as we all know, was about a fact and about a dogma which underlay that fact--the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead--the doubt of Asaph was about the moral truth of the government of God, for the cause of his doubt about the goodness of God was the inequality of human society, the fatal injustice as it appears to some in the distribution of the good things of this life. It was the base and mean character of many of those who are the most tremendous winners in what seems to be the ignoble lottery sometimes of a successful life. These men did not repeatedly hear the summons of the grim sergeant, Death; they were not repeatedly dragged by chains; “there are no bands in their death;” that oppressive burden that lies on the rest of our suffering humanity--they seem for a time clean outside of it; they are not in trouble as other men. And then there comes the deterioration of character, the encompassing pride, being robed with violence; the fulfilment of the words of that fierce satire, “Their eyes stand out with fatness, they have more than their hearts can wish.” There are hearts and hearts, and they have all, more than all, that hearts like theirs can wish for. Now, the means of removing Asaph’s doubt we find to have been these four.

1. In the first place, there was his own spiritual life. If these haunting doubts about the goodness and the justice of God were real, if there was no good God in the heaven above, then his whole spiritual life was worthless. Well might he say in the thirteenth verse, if it were so, “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.”

2. And the second means of the removal of this doubt was the spiritual life of the children of God--“If I say I will speak thus, behold I should offend against the generation of Thy children”--he would be doing wrong to them, he would be breaking faith with the saints of God, who had lived this life upon earth and who had passed into the home beyond with this full faith.

3. Then a third means of removing this doubt we find in the closing part of the psalm (Psalms 73:23). The spiritual life is also an eternal life, an eternal life in God and with God. Now, this psalm might almost be marked as the great psalm of the Hebrew “Summum Bonum, The Highest Good.” We are told by St. Augustine that the ancient classical philosophy had worked out no less than two hundred and eighty-eight different views or solutions of the “Summum Bonum,” the highest good of man. It was, we have been told on great authority, a sort of scholastic theology of the Pagans, but here is Asaph’s view of the “Summum Bonum,” hero is the view of all the saints of God. How nobly the psalm begins! The prophet had long been encompassed about with the shadows of darkness and doubt. At last he looks upward and he says, “And yet, after all, God is good to Israel, even to those who are of a clean heart”; and as the psalm begins so it ends: “It is good for me to draw nigh unto God.” Take this in, take in the eternal life with God in the home above, take in that and no doubt will arise about the distribution of God’s good things, and we shall say with the psalmist: “So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before Thee.”

4. And then the fourth means was this--it was a revelation in the sanctuary: “When I thought upon this, it was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God.” All of us who love the Psalter have critical friends who tell us not to be too mystical in our views, not to think of Christ or Heaven in the psalms; but when they comment upon this verse they begin to turn mystical and say, “Think of some inward sanctuary in your mind, think of some place where you may be alone with God”; to which I only reply, “My literal friend, you must be literal here at all events.” The word unquestionably means the outward sanctuary of God, the visible sanctuary built up upon Mount Zion, the place upon which men walked with human feet, and listened with human ears. This was where Asaph learned to find the solution of his difficulty. (A. Alexander.)

A perplexing problem, and satisfactory solution

I. A perplexing problem. We live under the government of God, and His government extends to all persons, and all interests in every life. This is a fundamental fact. From what we know of the character of God as good and just, and seeing that He has power to carry out all His decisions, we might expect that in every instance virtue would be rewarded and vies would be punished. But, in observing the circumstances of men, this expectation is falsified. For a time, at least, some of the wicked prosper, and some of the righteous do not prosper, until bad men say, and good men are tempted to say in their depression and doubt, surely the sympathy of the Divine Ruler must be on the side of vies, the reins of government must have fallen out of His hands, and what ought to be an orderly creation is simply a chaos. Why is the life of many a good man embittered by the wickedness of his son, whilst the ungodly father in some instances is surrounded by the best children? Why is the breadwinner taken away when the family seem to need most the strength of his arm, the intelligence of his mind, and the influence of his example? Why is it that some of the beautiful and noble, full of intellectual and Christian promise, are out off in youth, whilst not a few of the stained and mean are allowed to drag their ignominy through a long, stained and dishonoured life? Why is it that sunshine and sorrow seem in so many eases to follow no rule of effort or desert? Ah! those are some of the dark riddles, the strange perplexities, of which many a life is full. Here we are confronted with a business problem. Now, nothing is more clear than that in worldly affairs the battle is not always to the strong. Whatever we may say in our conceit, worldly success does not always reflect commercial genius. It is surprising indeed with how little brains some business men succeed. They ought to succeed in business, for they exhaust themselves in the one supreme and strenuous effort of money-making, and have no time or taste for anything else. Some of the most shallow and superficial men I have met are men of this mould. Beecher said of such: “They resemble a pyramid, which is broad where it touches the ground, but grows narrower as it reaches the sky.” In saying this I do not wish it to be understood that the righteous man is less fit and likely to succeed in temporal affairs than the unrighteous. No, religion helps a man to get on in the world. Other things being equal in the man, that man who is honest, industrious and persevering is more likely to succeed than his neighbour, who may have the same natural ability, but no Christian principle. Undoubtedly religion quickens and expands the whole man, and fertilizes the wide area of life. A man who is formed, reformed, and informed by religion will do far more effectual work than the same man without religion. Another fact must also be borne in mind. Some good men, whom we like to hear sing and pray in the “sanctuary,” are not strong and smart at the “receipt of customs.” Business is not their forte. They are estimable men in their home and Church relations, but they lack the keenness, suspicion, alertness, push, and enterprise so greatly necessary in these days of keen competition and quick movement. One can easily see why some easy, confiding, unsuspicious men who do not adapt themselves to certain changed conditions in business do not succeed. The wonder would be if they did. But baying said this, we all know worthy men who comply with the conditions Of worldly success, and are even then disadvantaged, kept down and back by the greedy, avaricious worldlings, with whom they do not and cannot compete in certain questionable and wicked practices. Some are too delicately fibred, too considerate of justice, generosity, handsome behaviour, too Scripturally conscientious to chord in practice with those who do not scruple at lying advertisements, fictitious capital, adulterated articles. And so they secretly and silently suffer in mind and state. They are beaten and baffled, not simply by the greedy and gigantic monopolies, which appear to be the order of the day, but by the positive wrong-doing of the unscrupulous, who will have gain by means fair or foul. And so it is in my pastoral round, I have seen the good man--a struggling tradesman “fretting” because of evil-doers, “envious” against the “workers of iniquity.”

1. It tries his trust. It is easy to trust God when the “cup runneth over.” But it is very hard for a man with an ill-stocked larder, and an ill-furnished wardrobe, to lean his whole weight upon God.

2. It proves his zeal. “Money is a defence.” The rich man is protected by earthworks against much that beats pitilessly and cruelly upon the poor man.

3. It tests his humility. To retrench the pleasant superfluities of life, to abridge his sphere of usefulness, to curtail his gifts, to live in a smaller house, to miss his name from the subscription list, to rank among the unfortunates and be quiet--all this goes against the grain of a spirited, mettled man, who, although poor, is still a man of desire and ambition.

4. It taxes patience. Baffled and utterly bewildered, there are sad moments when the tempted Christian says he cannot understand the Divine dealings with him.

II. A satisfactory solution. For a moment Asaph’s conscience wavered, for a time giddiness seized him. How is it he did not fall into the abyss? Asaph believed in God. He could not after all believe in chance. That was the saving thought. Like a ship swinging at anchor, he swayed about by the ebb and the flow of the tide, but he did not drift from his moorings. What was it that wrought the vast change in the psalmist? It was going into the house of God. This is the Divinely-appointed place where God graciously answers those who are perplexed and pained, and who kneel, saying, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” The judicial faculty to weigh things, to take a calm survey of the entire situation, needs stillness and retreat. It is here, in the sanctuary, we see the relationship of this brief and broken life on earth to the wide, boundless kingdom of the eternal. Wait calmly until the clouds roll by. Said Dr. Dixon, “It is in the nature of a cloud to pass away.” Possess your soul in patience, and, amid the sweet silences and kindling visions of the sanctuary, you shall change your murmur to a psalm. Revelation reconciles, if it does not explain, by telling us that there is a magnificent future, veiled, but certain, for which present inequalities and seeming injustices are the necessary, the suitable, the merciful preparation. You are now moving in the twilight, but it is the morning twilight, to be followed by the glory of eternity, when all these tangled things shall be smoothed out, and the vexed things of earth made plain in the light of heaven. (G. Woodcock.)

The goodness of God to Israel

I. The description given of the people of God.

1. Their name.

2. Their character.

II. The considerations by which their interest in the Divine love may be proved.

1. By His Son He has saved them from hell.

2. By His Spirit He purifies them from sin.

3. By His providence He guides and guards them on earth.

4. At their death He receives them to heaven.

Lessons:

1. If the goodness of God to the true Israel be thus great, how great should be their confidence in Him, and the love with which they love Him in return!

2. Let the sinner so come and share with the Israel of God in the blessing described in the text. (Evangelical Preacher.)

Bad men in good circumstances, and a good man in a bad temper

I. Bad men in good circumstances. The bad men are described as the “foolish and the wicked.” Folly and wickedness are convertible terms. Sin is folly. Man sinning is man violating all the laws of reason, all the principles of true policy. Such are the bad characters before us, and they are found in good circumstances, they are in great prosperity. The material heavens shine on them, the earth yields up her fruit to gratify their every taste and to supply their every want. Providence pours into their lap those gifts which it denied the Son of God Himself.

II. A good man in a bad temper. Asaph, the supposed writer of this psalm, acknowledges that he was “envious” of these bad men who were living in good circumstances.

1. He was in an envious temper.

(1) Now, envy is ever a bad thing. It is ever the attribute of selfishness, and selfishness is the root of wrong.

(2) Nor could envy well appear in a more unreasonable aspect. He was “envious at the wicked.” This is truly irrational. Poor godless wretches, what have they of which the good should be envious?

2. He was in a murmuring temper (Psalms 73:18).

(1) A right act. Cleansing the heart and washing the hands means the cultivation of personal holiness; and this is certainly a right work for man. It implies--

(1) The consciousness of personal defilement.

(2) The possession of a cleansing element.

(3) The effort of personal application. Moral evil is the defilement; Christianity is the cleansing element; and practical faith is the personal application.

3. A wrong opinion. The writer thought that it was “in vain.” Three facts show that this is a great mistake:

(1) That moral holiness involves its own reward.

(2) That moral holiness is promoted by temporal adversity.

(3) That moral holiness will meet with its perfect recompense hereafter.

No; this cleansing the heart is no vain work. No engagement is so real and profitable. Every fresh practical idea of God is a rising in the scale of being and of bliss; every conquest over sense, appetite, and sin, is a widening and strengthening of our spiritual sovereignty; every devout sentiment, earnest resolve, and generous sacrifice attunes our hearts to higher music. (Homilist.)