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Welcome to Kootenai Church this morning. Couple of announcements here at the top of our service before we begin. First, next Sunday is our annual potluck and business meeting. That's not for members only.
You're welcome to attend if you're not a member, but we do talk about ministries of the church, what we're doing this coming year and what we have done this last year and recognize new members. That's next Sunday after our worship service.
And then there is a graduation meeting for parents who are graduating homeschool or public school or private school kids. Our church service hosts a graduation service for them in May. And if you are wanting to participate in that, there is a meeting for you as a parent and your kid this afternoon after the service, 1215 in the fifth and sixth grade Sunday school class, which is out here in the hallway across from the nursery.
And then up on the, one correction, up on the slides here, it said that the word of the day was lorum ipsum, some Latin words. That is not the word of the day. I've never said that. I'm not going to say that during the sermon.
So don't be listening for that. Instead, if you were paying attention to that, the word of the day for the kids today is the word bread. We're going to have a scripture reading here in just a moment from Psalm 37, but before we do, let's begin and open with a word of prayer.
Let's bow our heads. Our Father, you are gracious and good, loving and kind and merciful to us as your people. You have called us out of darkness and into light, out of our sin and into righteousness and sanctification.
You have delivered us from the domain of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of your beloved son. You have redeemed us from the slavery of our sin and instead made us slaves of the King, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You have brought us into your kingdom, into your family, into your domain and dominion. You have called us sons who were once your enemies. And for all of these things, we are grateful. You are merciful and loving and motivated by that eternal love, which found us in Christ Jesus before the world ever was.
You are worthy to be praised for all of your graces and your mercy. Worthy to be praised for your provision, for your protection, for your sovereignty, your goodness, for your rule over all things, all of creation, every kingdom, every King, and over your people and your church.
And so we praise you and thank you for these graces, these kindnesses. And we ask that as we gather together today as your people to worship and praise you, our great King and our God, that you would be honored through our praises, the meditation of our hearts, the thinking of our mind, the reading of your word, the preaching of your word, our fellowship with one another and our love for one another.
We ask this for the glory of Christ, our King, in whose name we pray. Amen. Will you turn your Bibles to Psalm 37 for the scripture reading? Psalm 37. We're going to read together verses 16 through 26 of Psalm 37.
And when you found your place, will you please stand with me as we read? Psalm 37, beginning at verse 16. Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord sustains the righteous.
The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their inheritance will be forever. They will not be ashamed in the time of evil and in the days of famine, they will have abundance. But the wicked will perish and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastures.
They vanish like smoke, they vanish away. The wicked borrows and does not pay back, but the righteous is gracious and gives. For those blessed by him will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off.
The steps of a man are established by the Lord and he delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the one who holds his hand. I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants baking bread.
All day long, he is gracious and lends and his descendants are a blessing. This is the word of the Lord.
Let's open up our music service this morning and sing together Psalm 9, wholehearted thanksgiving.
It says, Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness will pursue me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of Yahweh forever.
Let's end our music service this morning and sing together. The king of love, my shepherd is. Amen, you may be seated.
And you'll need your Bibles open to Psalm 37. Psalm 37, a passage that we read earlier is the passage we're gonna be in this morning. And before we begin, let's bow and ask the Lord's blessing on our time.
Our great God, you are our shepherd and it is our prayer today that you would feed us, your sheep, from your word. We pray that we may understand your good hand in our provision, that we may see your hand of providence working out all things for our good, for the advancement of your kingdom, for the good of your people and for the glory of your great name.
We pray that we may see this in your word this morning, that you would comfort us and encourage us that any who are here who do not know the Savior and the shepherd may come to see their need for salvation in him, the forgiveness of sins and the goodness that you have in store for those who bow the knee to Christ in repentance and faith in his finished work on the cross for his people.
We pray this for the glory of our King in whose name we pray, amen. Psalm 37, verses 16 through 26, we read it here just a few minutes ago. This section deals with the nature and sufficiency of God's provision for his people.
And this is something that as Christians, we struggle with. And as we grow in grace, maybe the struggle with God's provision and understanding the sufficiency of it might lessen over time, but it is still something that is sort of the natural struggle of the human heart.
Sometimes it comes up as envy or covetousness. Sometimes we just wish that we had more in life's circumstances, or we wish that we had better in life's circumstances or even different from what we do have.
We don't know the future. And so we are prone to worry about what is to come and ask ourselves questions like, what if today or the provision of today is more or less than God's provision for tomorrow?
What if tomorrow brings famine? What if tomorrow brings destruction? What if tomorrow, because of some freak technological glitch or some massive radical change to the American lifestyle brings a time, even a long time of want and deprivation?
How will I provide for my family? Will I have enough? Will I be able to do that? Will I have access to those things that allow me to provide for my family? Will God forget about me and will he fail to keep his promises to me?
Now, asking those questions that way, will God forget about me and will he fail to keep his promises to me? We don't actually ask those questions, do we? We ask all the ones that came before, but really that bottom question, that last question is really the question at the heart of all the other questions.
Would God forget about me? Would he break his promises to me? Will he forsake me?
Will he leave me? Will he starve me?
Will he abandon me and abandon me to a time of deprivation or a time of want? Will he actually allow me to starve to death? This is something addressed in this Psalm, which is about the prosperity of the wicked.
We are given here in verses 16 through 26, a section that describes God's faithfulness to his people in keeping his promises of provision, even for the poor and even those who have little. Now last week, we just sort of started verses 16 through 26 and we looked at the comparative verse in verse 16, better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked.
We kind of fleshed out what that means and noticed that that is sort of the overarching theme of these verses 16 through 26 that deal with the subject of God's provision and his sufficiency and his faithfulness in providing for his own.
And then I suggested to you last week that those verses 17 through 26 could be kind of nicely divided into two halves of five verses each. And that there is a verse in the first five that sort of corresponds with a verse in the second five.
And barring any better outline than that, we're simply working our way through these and noticing how the themes are developed in each of these two sections. So we took last week, verse 17 and verse 24, as we noticed that the Lord sustains the righteous materially and spiritually.
And I suggested to you last week that Yahweh makes the little of the righteous better than the much of many wicked. And that's the overarching theme of verses 16 through 26. Yahweh makes the little of the righteous to be more or better than the much of many wicked.
One righteous provision is better than the much of many wicked provision. And the Lord does this in five ways. Last week, verses 17 and 24, He sustains the righteous materially and spiritually. And today we're looking at the next two ways that the Lord does this, taking a verse from the first group of verses and a verse from the second group of verses.
That's our pattern. So today, verses 18 and verse 22, we see that the Lord blesses the righteous eternally. Look at verse 18. The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their inheritance will be forever.
Verse 22, for those blessed by Him will inherit the land and those cursed by Him will be cut off. And then we're gonna notice the third way that the Lord makes the little of the righteous better than the much of many wicked.
The Lord provides for the righteous in lean times. Verse 19, they will not be ashamed in the time of evil and in the days of famine, they will have abundance. That they is the righteous there. Verse 25, I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread.
So those are our two ways that we're gonna look at today. The Lord blesses the righteous eternally and the Lord provides for the righteous in lean times. And then next week, we will deal with the final two of those five ways that the Lord makes the little of the righteous better than the much of many wicked.
Namely, the Lord establishes the steps of the righteous in verses 20 and 23, and the Lord uses the righteous as a blessing in verses 21 and 26. So the Lord blesses the righteous eternally, verses 18 and 22.
We're coupling those two verses because they both describe God's eternal blessing. Verse 18 again, we'll read those two verses. The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their inheritance will be forever.
Verse 22, for those blessed by him will inherit the land and those cursed by him will be cut off. Now, verse 18 says that the Lord knows the days of the blameless. And this is not the first time in our study of the Psalm that we have observed how the Lord broods over or knows and knows in an intimate and personal way, the ways, the days, the deeds, the works, the people who are the righteous ones.
We saw that back in chapter one, Psalm one, verse six, when we studied Psalm one. This word knows is not describing a dispassionate knowledge of something like you and I might know that two plus two is four, or we might have sports trivia crammed away in our noggin, or we might be somewhat familiar with pop culture references from the era in which we grew up.
It's not that kind of a knowledge. It is an intimate, personal, focused, brooding knowledge where the Lord knows intimately, he knows personally, he knows by inspection, he knows by decree, he knows by intense interest the days of the righteous.
Not simply a passive observance as if the Lord can see it and he's learning what is unfolding over the course of time in the lives of the righteous, nor that he simply looks down through the corridors of time and observes the things that happen to the righteous in sort of a dispassionate way, but rather the Lord broods over the righteous, guarding them, protecting them, cowering over them, watching over them with an interest and a personal intensity for each one of his righteous ones.
That's the sense of this word. He knows them intimately. And what does he know? He knows the days of the righteous, the days of the blameless. To say that the Lord knows the days of the blameless is simply a way of saying that the Lord knows not only the content of our days, but he knows what happens to us in each of those days.
He knows what every day that you face will bring, goodness or deprivation, a raise or losing your job, the birth of a child or a miscarriage, an inheritance or the total loss of everything that you have.
The Lord knows the content of each day. Further, the Lord knows the number of your days, how many of them there will be down to the very last one. Psalm 139, verse 16 says, "'Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, "'and in your book were written "'all the days that were ordained for me, "'when as yet there was not one of them.
"'Before I ever took a breath of air, "'the Lord knew the content of my days, "'the number of my days, the length of my days, "'and he knew that intimately.'". And that is a fact that can never be changed.
I will not die one day later nor one day earlier than God has already ordained for me and written it in his book. My death day is as certain in the foreordained plan of God as my birthday was as certain in the foreordained plan of God.
He knows the content of my days and he knows the length of my days, and further, he knows the everlasting nature of our days. Look at the second half of verse 18. "'Their inheritance,' that is the righteous, "'will be forever.'".
So it is not just that the Lord knows the content of your days here on earth, but the Lord knows the content of your days 10 ,000 days from now, 10 ,000 years from now, and 10 ,000 eons from now. He knows the content of all of that.
He knows every joy, every delight, every surprise, every activity, every pleasure, every grace, every mercy, every relationship that you will ever have in the new creations in the new earth. None of it will take him by surprise, and that will go on forever and ever and ever, and the Lord knows every last one of those days.
He sees not only the days of our life here, but looking ahead, he sees where we will be at 10 ,000 eons from now, and he delights in that, and that is why he is not in the least bit concerned with what unfolds in our lives in this life as if it is the only life that we are to live.
He is concerned in the sense that he broods over our days, but the content of our days for good or for bad, for profit or for loss does not concern him in the sense that it worries him, makes him anxious, because he sees what we are 10 ,000 years from now, and he sees the content of those days and that they are everlasting days, endless days, and furthermore, he sees the days of the wicked in the same way.
He sees where the wicked will be at 10 ,000 years from now, and therefore, he laughs at them. That's verse 13. Remember, the Lord laughs at him, the wicked one, for he sees his day is coming. He sees that day, and he knows when that day of judgment is, and so the Lord is unconcerned that the wicked are going to overthrow his purposes, that the wicked are going to somehow subvert his plan for his righteous ones.
He is not concerned about that. The days of the righteous bring a forever inheritance, and the days of the wicked bring a forever loss. The word blameless here doesn't, by the way, describe somebody who is sinless.
If you read that and you said, well, the Lord knows the days of the blameless, and I certainly am not blameless because I know that I have sinned, and thus I need a savior, so this must not describe me.
The word blameless here is not a word that means sinless. It means blameless in the sense of that we are righteous. We are credited the righteousness of Christ, and therefore, no blame can be brought to our account because this word blameless is used to describe men who are clearly sinners, men like Noah.
He was blameless in the sight of God, but he was clearly a sinner, so it's not describing a sinlessness, but it is describing one who in the eyes of God's courtroom before the bar of his justice, their sin has been taken out of the way, and they have been declared righteous by judicial fiat.
They have been declared righteous based upon the work of another, that is Christ, and so they have no blame that can be placed to their account because in the eyes of God, they are righteous, not because they have done righteousness or they deserve righteousness, but because by virtue of faith in Jesus Christ, their sins are forgiven, their iniquities are taken out of the way, and anything that could be brought before them in a court case before the bar of God has been dismissed, and therefore, they have been declared righteous, sinless, innocent in the eyes of God, blameless in that sense, so no ill, no crime could be charged to their account because they have been credited the righteousness of Christ.
That's the way in which we should understand that, and those righteous ones, those blameless ones don't have just an earthly inheritance. Their inheritance is forever. This tells me that it is not referring to a land inheritance given to righteous Jews in David's day as if it's referring to a plot of land given to them by their ancestors or by their father or their tribe.
It's not describing a physical inheritance during David's time that would last them until they died. That's how a number of commentators typically take that phrase. Instead, this forever inheritance is referring to the inheritance described throughout the rest of the psalm.
Look at all the other ways that this psalm speaks of our inheritance. Look at verse nine. Evil doers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord will inherit the land. Verse 11, the humble will inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.
Verse 22, those blessed by him will inherit the land, and those cursed by him will be cut off. Verse 29, the righteous will inherit the land, and dwell in it forever. Verse 34, wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land.
When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. So what is the inheritance of the righteous? It is the land, but it is not the physical land of David's day that the righteous inherits, because that's not an everlasting or eternal forever inheritance.
That would only last you till you died. Then you pass that off to the next person. Instead, what's being described is the physical land of Israel in a renewed and regenerated state. We saw that in verses nine through 11 when we looked at the land promises.
There will come a day in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ when the righteous are resurrected, the wicked are cut off, the land promised to Abraham and his descendants will be renewed and regenerated, and the righteous will dwell in the land and inherit that land forever.
And at the end of that kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, that self-same land will be purged by fire, recreated, resurrected, and the new Jerusalem will come down and the saints will dwell in that resurrected, regenerated, and renewed land forever.
That is the inheritance of the righteous. You will rise to possess the land and you will possess it forever. That is the forever inheritance. Psalm 16, verse 11 says, "'You make known to me the path of life "'in your presence is fullness of joy.
"'In your right hand there are pleasures forever.'". Isaiah 60, verse 21, "'Then all your people will be righteous.'". This is looking forward to that day when the righteous are resurrected and the wicked are cut off.
"'Then all your people will be righteous. "'They will possess the land forever, "'the branch of my planting, "'the work of my hands that I may be glorified.'". The inheritance described in Psalm 37 is not a temporary inheritance of land to us in this life.
It is a future blessing. It is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, the fulfillment of the promise to David. It is a land and a king and a kingdom, and it is not a spiritualized promise. It is not a symbol for something else.
The Jews of David's day knew exactly what David was saying, that they had been promised by God. Look at verse 22. This blessing, eternal blessing, is here put in terms of a curse and a blessing. Verse 22, "'For those blessed by him "'will inherit the land, "'and those cursed by him will be cut off.'".
Notice the contrast there. Sort of a proverbial way of saying there are those who are blessed, there are those who are cursed, there are those who get the land, and there are those who cut off from the land.
By the way, there are only two possibilities for where you fall on that spectrum. There is no middle ground. You're either among those who are blessed by faith in Jesus Christ, and you will inherit the land, or you are among those who are cursed and under your sin, and if you die in that state, you will be cut off everlastingly and perish under God's judgment.
Here, the righteous and the wicked are contrasted with the description of blessing and cursing. Similar to Proverbs 3, verse 33, "'The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, "'but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous.'".
Those are two ultimate destinies, two ultimate and unalterable conditions once you are dead. If you die in your sin, you are forever cursed. So there is a contrast here between time and eternity, between now and then, the righteous and the wicked, the blessing and the cursing, and those who are cursed are cut off.
That's also a phrase used throughout the Psalm, verse 9. Evildoers will be cut off. Psalm 37, verse 28, descendants of the wicked will be cut off. Psalm 37, verse 34, when the wicked are cut off, you will see it, and look at verse 38, the posterity of the wicked will be cut off.
And therefore, the wicked are cursed, and this brings us, then, to something that we have to conclude that seems contrary to our natural inclination, our natural intuition. If the riches are possessed by the wicked, and the wicked are cursed, then that means that their riches are not a blessing.
If the riches are possessed by the cursed, by the wicked, and the wicked are cursed, then the riches they possess are not a blessing. You see, we see the wicked with all of their prosperity, and we tend to ask, why does God bless the wicked?
He doesn't. He doesn't.
You say, yeah, but they have prosperity. That's right, but that prosperity is not his blessing upon them. Riches to the wicked are not tokens of God's blessing them. They are preparations for their judgment.
They are a curse, because if the wicked are cursed, and the wicked are prosperous, then their prosperity is not a blessing. It is a curse. Archibald Alexander said this about worldly prosperity. In fact, I have four quotes for you.
I'll finish with Spurgeon, because I like him the best, and a couple of these other guys, I don't know who they were. So Archibald Alexander said this. He's one I don't know who he was. "'Worldly prosperity has ever been an unfavorable soil "'for the growth of piety.
"'Prosperity tends to blind the mind "'to spiritual and eternal things, "'dry up the spirit of prayer, "'foster pride and ambition, "'furnish the appropriate food to covetousness, "'and lead to a sinful conformity "'to the spirit, maxims, and fashions of the world.
"'In general, God in mercy refuses "'to give worldly prosperity to his children. "'He has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith. "'That is, he has commonly chosen poverty "'as the safest condition for his children.'".
Close quote.
This, by the way, is how prosperity upon wicked people is a curse, because it numbs them to the truth. It weds their heart to their sin and to worldliness and to their bondage to evil. This is how it is a curse.
Thomas Watson said this. "'Oftentimes, the more full a man is of the world, "'the further his heart is from God. "'Pride, idleness, and luxury are the three daughters "'which are bred by prosperity. "'Samson fell asleep in Delilah's lap, "'just so millions have slept their way to hell "'in the lap of prosperity.
"'The world's golden apple bewitches.'".
Thomas Brooks, earthly riches are the golden snares that Satan uses to catch poor souls. That's a good one. Put that one on a calendar, your family calendar, and send that out at Christmastime. That's a good one.
And here, lastly, Charles Spurgeon, he said this. "'High places are dizzy places, "'and many have fallen to their eternal ruin "'through climbing aloft.'". Now listen to this. "'I dread prosperity more than adversity.
"'I dread prosperity more than adversity.'". Now you say, but Jim, I thought I read somewhere that it is the blessing of the Lord that makes one rich and he adds no sorrow to it. Did I read that somewhere?
You did. Proverbs 10, 22, the blessing of the Lord makes one rich and he adds no sorrow to it. So did I just overturn everything I've said? No, I have not. "'Because when the Lord gives prosperity to the righteous, "'it is a blessing and not a curse.
"'When the Lord gives prosperity to the wicked, "'it is a curse and not a blessing. "'Whom does the Lord bless and he adds no sorrow to it? "'It is the righteous. "'When the Lord gives the very same thing to the wicked, "'it is sorrow compounded upon sorrow everlastingly.
"'So it is accompanied by sorrow.'". The Lord can use the same thing to accomplish two different things with two different purposes in the lives of two different people. So prosperity to the wicked blinds their eyes and numbs their soul and hardens their heart and turns them to the world and their sin and weds them to it, making their impenitence hardened, their heart hardened and their repentance unlikely.
And the Lord to the righteous then takes that same prosperity and uses it as a blessing to meet needs and to grace others and do good to others. That's the last way that the Lord uses the little of the righteous to be better than the abundance of many wicked.
God can bless with prosperity and God can curse with prosperity. How do I know when God is blessing with prosperity? When he grants it to one of his righteous ones. How do you know when God is cursing with prosperity?
When he gives it to the wicked. That is the differentiation. If the wicked are prosperous and if the wicked are cursed, then their prosperity is not a blessing, it is a curse. And we have to frame that in our minds lest we forget that that is true.
The ultimate blessing that the Lord bestows upon the righteous is yet future. It is an eternal inheritance of endless days and endless prosperity. Look at verse 11 of this Psalm. The humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity or abundant shalom.
And their inheritance, verse 18 says, will be forever. Now second, the second way today that we're looking at, the Lord provides for the righteous in lean times. This is the way that Yahweh makes the little of the righteous to be better than the much of many wicked.
He provides for the righteous in lean times. Look at verse 19 and verse 25. Verse 19, they will not be ashamed in the time of evil. And in the days of famine, they will have abundance. Verse 25, I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread.
Verse 19 describes an evil time. The righteous, they, the righteous, will not be ashamed in the time of evil. And in days of famine, they, the righteous, will have an abundance. What is the times of evil mentioned in verse 19?
During which the righteous are not ashamed. There are three possibilities, and I will suggest to you that whichever one of these three possibilities you feel most comfortable with, the days of evil referring to, it's the truism, the statement is true, regardless of which one of these three.
But first, it's possible that the days of evil or the time of evil here is a reference to today, the days while the wicked prosper, the days in which we live. These are the times of evil. During this time of evil, while the wicked prosper in their evil, and the righteous seem to have nothing, the righteous are not ashamed during this time.
Why?
Because the righteous know that Yahweh is our provider. Our God gives to us exactly what he determines that we need. He provides abundantly. He provides faithfully. Every good gift comes from his hand.
It comes down from the father of lights in whom there is no shadow of turning. And so the righteous knowing that and knowing what their future is and that the Lord knows the days of the blameless and that their inheritance is forever the righteous, during these days of evil now, while the wicked are prospering, they're not ashamed.
They're not ashamed of what they have. They're not ashamed of their God. They're not ashamed of their provision. That would be the sense of it. They're content with it. Second, it's possible that the times of evil or time of evil here is a reference to the famine mentioned in the second half of the verse.
Look at verse 19, in the days of famine, they will have abundance. So then there would be sort of a parallelism in that verse that the time of evil is the time of famine, that the not ashamed is having the abundance that is provided during the famine.
That is certainly a possibility. The word evil, or yeah, the word translated evil here in time of evil in verse 19, is a word that can mean disaster or misfortune or distress. It's not necessarily describing a moral evil.
It could be describing a cataclysm, in which case it would be referring to the famine. During the famine, a famine is a cataclysm. It is a time of distress or misfortune or disaster. And if that's the case, then what David is saying is, during those disastrous, unfortunate times, the Lord is the one who provides for them.
They have an abundance for their needs during those times, and therefore the righteous are not ashamed. Or it could be, third, that evil time here is a reference to the time of judgment when the Lord rights every wrong and suddenly the wicked are cut off and the righteous inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.
But what is being referred to here is that day that is coming, that is mentioned in verse 13, the day of judgment upon the wicked, that that is the evil time. That is the disaster, the misfortune that strikes, not the righteous, but the wicked.
And when the righteous see that judgment upon the wicked, they themselves will not themselves be ashamed. Why is that? Because Yahweh is their defender and they have been declared righteous. Therefore, they are not ashamed in the judgment.
Our heads will not be brought low in the day of judgment, but we will be exalted. That's what verse 34 says. Wait for the Lord and keep His way and He will exalt you to inherit the land. So the righteous, rather than hanging their head in shame on that day of judgment, which is most certainly coming, we will not be ashamed at that time.
Instead, the righteous will be exalted to inherit the land and we will delight ourselves in abundant prosperity. When we see everything that is wrong now being made right and justice done, and the righteous given what God has promised to them, we will not be ashamed.
You may have shame now. You may have little in the eyes of the world now. You may look like the least of all people and not have what the wicked have, but the promise of Scripture is that your exaltation is coming just as certain as today's sunset is coming.
He is fixed today and it will happen on that day, the day of judgment, the righteous will not be ashamed. Now I suspect if I had to choose between the three of those, if you hung me out over a ledge and said, you have to get this right, which one of these three would you choose?
I think my suspicion is that what he is describing is the day of judgment. Since the psalmist describes the exaltation of the righteous, he's describing that final day. When that day stands and the wicked are cut off, we will not be ashamed on that day of anything.
Our shame will end when that happens. Ecclesiastes, by the way, that phrase evil time is also used to describe the judgment, the day of judgment. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 12, moreover, man does not know his time like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare.
So the sons of men are ensnared at an evil time when it suddenly falls on them. There's a judgment that is described there, a catastrophe. Micah 2, verse 3, therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I'm planning against this family a calamity from which you cannot remove your necks and you will not walk haughtily for it will be an evil time.
The judgment that is coming is described as an evil time. In that time, in the time of famine, here in verse 24, or sorry, verse 19, there is the promise of provision even in famine. Verse 19, they will not be ashamed in the time of evil.
In the days of famine, they will have an abundance. Now, this is not a promise, notice, that the righteous will never see famine. You notice that? He's not promising that we won't see famine. In fact, he's almost suggesting that the righteous will see famine, that that is possible, but the promise is that in the midst of that famine, the righteous have a God who knows their needs, watches over their ways intently, knows the content of their days, and provides for them according to his goodness and his pleasure.
The righteous do see lean times. We're not promised that we won't. The righteous do see lean times. We're not immune from want in this world or from need in this world, and we are not promised that we will be immune from those things.
God does not abandon us. Instead, in times of leanness, in times of famine, the Lord is the one who provides for the righteous, and he does so in a way that the psalmist describes in verse 19 as having an abundance.
God gives us what we need. This statement of faith is very similar to the one we read at the end of the book of Habakkuk, when Habakkuk, after questioning whether God was righteous, why didn't you judge the wicked people?
And God says, oh, I'm gonna judge your wicked people. I'm gonna send somebody more wicked than you to come judge you. And then Habakkuk says, hold on, that doesn't make sense. You ought to do something about this.
How can you use a people more wicked than us to judge us? Then God says, God describes all of the sin of the nation of Israel and the judgment that will fall upon Israel. And at the end of it, Habakkuk says this.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, and though there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls.
What does that sound like? Famine. It sounds like famine. Habakkuk says, yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord is my strength. He has made my feet like hinds feet, and he makes me to walk on the high places.
Psalm 33, verse 18, behold, the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those who hope for his loving kindness, to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. That's the promise.
Now, we have clear examples in scripture of this very thing happening, don't we? You probably think most quickly or naturally of Joseph in Egypt and how God provided for Israel and saved two nations through that, Joseph and the patriarchs of the Israel nation.
You can also might think of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, how the Lord miraculously provided both flour and oil to keep the widow and her son alive, and Elijah as well during the drought and the famine.
Maybe you're thinking of the prophets in Obadiah's cave who were hidden in groups, and the Lord miraculously provided even under the hunting observation of King Ahab, wicked Ahab, he provided for those people in those caves.
Those are all examples of the Lord providing for his people in famine. We may know lean times, but ultimately God is our hope and he will provide for our needs, that is his promise. Now, there is probably some kind of tension in your heart, even having read these things, and I'm assuming that some of you are already feeling this tension of this sort of perplexing issue.
The issue is this, it does seem in this life as if sometimes the righteous do go without and their needs are not met, doesn't it? Particularly in countries that are not as affluent as ours is, in countries that do not have provision so readily available, social services that swoop in to meet needs and food banks in every community and running water and government assistance and programs and churches to meet needs, et cetera.
It does seem that sometimes, especially compared to our age and our standard of living, that the righteous do go without, that they do go hungry, that they are sometimes destitute and have nothing. And yet I read in verse 25, I have been old or young and now I am old and yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread.
David, are you suggesting the righteous never are reduced to poverty? That the righteous are never reduced to begging? Never?
Ever?
None of the righteous and none of the righteous descendants are ever without? They never starve to death in any country?
That seems like a hard sell, doesn't it? If we just watch the news? I've traveled to a few different countries. I don't have any kind of breadth of travel or experience but when I was in the Philippines earlier this year, I saw people that were pretty poor.
That's not the poorest country that exists. Our friend Justin Peters, he's preached in countries and been in countries around Christians where the hotels he stayed in were more like abandoned prisons.
That's all they had for hotels. You just slept on a metal grate for the night. The toilet was a hole in the floor. That was their sustenance. And there were Christians there who were begging. There were Christians there who were without.
How do I reconcile that with verse 25? Charles Spurgeon in his commentary says this regarding verse 25. I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread. Spurgeon said this, quote, "'It is not my observation just as it stands.'".
In other words, I have seen this. "'It's not my observation just as it stands "'for I have relieved the children of undoubtedly good men "'who have appealed to me as common mendicants.'". Meaning beggars or panhandlers.
"'I've seen the children of good men "'who have appealed to me.'". And Spurgeon says, "'I have had to meet their need. "'The descendants of righteous men "'have been reduced to begging.'". So how do you reconcile verse 25 with that observation?
And it says that I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread. Does that refer to all descendants? Is that a guarantee that me as one who stands declared righteous in the sight of God as a believer in Jesus Christ, that none of my descendants, no matter what they do, will ever beg bread?
We're all descended from Noah, Noah's righteous man, and yet there are beggars, right? I mean, to put it in stark contrast like that? What do we do with this? Let me give you a few considerations. And I don't wanna take away from the force of this promise or David's observation, but I do want to give some considerations to this promise that I think will help ease the tension of what we do perceive as an overstatement, right?
Here it is. Number one, I would suggest to you, there's a way of resolving this that Spurgeon did. So Spurgeon said, it's not my observation just as it stands. And what Spurgeon was basically saying is, David says, I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread.
And Spurgeon is simply saying, that is David's observation, but it's not my observation. My observation is different. In other words, he's not overthrowing the truth of what David said. He is saying, I have no doubt, Spurgeon is saying, I have no doubt that David never saw this in his lifetime.
David lived, Spurgeon would say, at a different era, in a different time, in that kingdom. David never saw that during his life, but that's not a promise that nobody will ever see that during their life.
It's not necessarily then to be understood as in an absolute sense, as if it is a promise, Spurgeon would say, it is David's observation, though Spurgeon would say, it has not been my observation. Second, I would suggest this.
This is a proverbial Psalm. And a lot of the verses in this Psalm are Proverbs. Now, if you've studied Proverbs or you're familiar with Proverbs, then you know that the proverbial statements in the book of Proverbs are not absolute promises, but they are truisms.
That means that when we read a verse like this or a proverbial statement like this, we can say that generally speaking, this is true. Generally speaking, it is true that things go better for the righteous than they do for the wicked in this life.
Generally speaking, it is true that the descendants of the righteous will be well off when the righteous conduct themselves in this way and the descendants follow in that righteousness. God is their provider.
They would be better off that way than if they were the descendants of the wicked in the same circumstances. So it doesn't mean that disaster never strikes and that nothing ill ever happens because sometimes the descendants forsake righteousness and thus they are abandoned or forsaken.
Sometimes the descendants of the righteous make bad decisions and their provision dries up or they lose what they have. In other words, the sentiment is not that this will never happen, but that it's happening is so rare that men like David could say he had never seen this happen.
In other words, this happens so rarely, though it does happen, it happens so rarely that it's very likely that you will know people who have never known a righteous man to be without or to be forsaken.
That's genuinely possible. A third consideration. The statement here in verse 25 is about being forsaken and abandoned. Notice it, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken. God does not abandon his people to utter forsakenness.
Does he allow us to go without?
Yes.
Does he allow us to suffer famines?
Does he expose us to want and to deprivation from time to time? He does, but he will not utterly forsake us. David is not saying I've never seen the righteous afflicted. He is saying I have never seen the righteous utterly forsaken.
Because even in times of want, God's grace sustains the righteous and they are not utterly forsaken. Fourth, I would offer you this consideration. You and I do not get to define what needs are. We don't get to define what needs are.
In this world at this time, God is meeting everything I need and abundantly so. We don't get to define what a need is. What do I need? I need oxygen several times a day. I need oxygen several times a day.
I need some level of sustenance or food that my body will function. I get, obviously you can tell far more than what I need to just be alive. I need some level of food. I need water and I need some level, to some extent of protection from exposure in either heat or cold that would take my life from me.
That's what I need. Oxygen, some level of food, some level of water, some level of protection from the elements. God has obviously provided for me and for you abundantly beyond what we need. But here's the thing.
At some point, the Lord is going to stop providing me oxygen. He is going to stop providing me nutrition. He is going to stop providing me protection from the elements and from the things that threaten my life.
And at some point, he is going to stop my heart from beating and I'm going to go home to be with him. At some point, the Lord will starve me of everything I need so that he can take me to be with himself.
And he will call me home by ceasing my provision. And until that happens, his promise is, he will meet everything we need up until that moment. When that moment comes, the promise is not in place, because he's going to cut off everything you need to take you to be with him.
And that's going to happen to every person in this room. Fourth, sorry, that was fourth, fifth, this observation, believers may feel forsaken without ever being forsaken. Believers may feel forsaken without ever being forsaken.
To the observer, the poor destitute believer looks abandoned but he is not, because they will see that the Lord provided for them in his best interest, in their best interest, that he sustained them, that he upheld them, brooded over their provision because he knows their days.
The believer in this life may be brought to destitution. He may be impoverished, in prison, starved, persecuted, ruined, robbed, and despoiled of everything, yet he would in fact be blessed and well-provided for.
And I'm not trying to be coy or make this symbolic or over-spiritualize this in any way whatsoever. Paul deals with this interesting contrast in his own epistles, 2 Corinthians particularly, where Paul describes the contrast between having nothing and yet having everything at the very same time.
As a servant of Christ, Paul said, he was persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 6, nine through 10, he says, we are unknown and yet well-known. Now listen to these contrasts.
Unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold we live, as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, and as, listen, having nothing yet possessing all things.
How do you reconcile that? I have nothing but I possess all things. What is the apostle saying? That viewed from one vantage point, looking at the life of the apostle Paul, you'd say this guy has nothing, nothing in this world, nothing worth desiring, persecuted, shipwrecked, beaten, hunted, hated, the scourge of men, the off-scourging of society, that man has nothing, and yet if you walk around to the other side and look at the apostle Paul, you'd say from the perspective of eternity, that guy possesses everything.
That's the dichotomy. I have nothing and yet I possess all things. A believer may be sitting in a prison cell with no provision of this world's goods. He may be hungry, thirsty, and abandoned by men and have nothing, but I promise you, that believer is better off than Elon Musk because Elon Musk, if he dies in his sin unrepentant, he will lose everything and gain nothing, and if the believer in those circumstances dies, he loses nothing and gains everything.
So he has nothing, but in reality, he possesses everything.
Because God blesses his people eternally. Yahweh blesses his people with endless days and with daily bread all the way up until he calls them home and then his provision ceases. He has not promised to provide for us everything we need in this life forever and ever and ever, otherwise we would live forever.
He has promised to meet all of our needs up until the moment he calls us home and that is exactly what the Lord does. Psalm 145, verse 16 says, "'You open your hand and you satisfy the desire "'of every living thing.' "'And thus Yahweh makes the little of the righteous "'to be more than the much of many wicked.'".
Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your precious promises and your grace, your goodness, your good provision. We delight in these abundant graces in our day, in our lives, knowing and trusting that we have a sovereign God who knows our days, watches over our days and provides every last thing that we need until you call us home.
Thank you for such faithful provision. Thank you that you are a promise-keeping God and thank you for the greatest provision of all, which is righteousness through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, without whom we would all be justly damned in our sin and consigned to everlasting shame, everlasting disgrace and everlasting loss.
But thank you that the kingdom belongs to those who are in your Son. May glory be to our great triune God for your work of redemption and good provision. In Christ's name, amen.
Would you please stand as we end our service this morning and sing together how deep the Father's love for us.
Those who are the called, beloved in God the Father.
And kept in Jesus Christ, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. You are dismissed. Have a great week.
