A Jet Tour Through the Psalms #2

God, having given to us a book that speaks and expresses the deepest things of our heart, and not only expresses it, but tells us how to get from point A to point B, to move from sorrow and discouragement to joy and triumph, to move from an earthly perspective to a heavenly perspective. Welcome again to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm Bill Wright, and today Don continues in his ministry of teaching God's people God's Word as he takes us on a jet tour through the Psalms. Last time Don introduced us to the first of five essential points to be gleaned from the Psalms based on its five-book structure.

We are to pursue the righteous life. But Don, today you'll be providing insight that's so relevant to the confusing and rather tumultuous times in which we live. These are daunting times for us in the Christian life as we go through the world that we're living in, and there's so much sorrow and confusion. What I want you to see in the message today is that God's Word, especially in the Psalms, show us how to persevere through those trials and to be able to confidently and joyfully praise the Lord through them all. This message is going to be a great help to your life and give you a perspective on the Psalms that maybe you've never seen before. We're glad you're with us today on the Truth Pulpit.

Thanks, Don. And friend, have your Bible open to the book of Psalms as we join our teacher right now in the Truth Pulpit. You might be tempted, and we'll call it a temptation because this view of spiritual life comes from the devil himself. And it is reinforced all too often by perhaps well-meaning but certainly uninformed people that would say, well, if you're going to pursue that, then your spiritual life should be a constant high. H-I-G-H. Not high. Not that.

Not that high. You know the mindset. Some of you have come out of that kind of teaching that says if only you have enough faith, your life will go well. You'll experience good health. Your family will go the way that you want.

You will have everything that you could possibly want in this earthly life. And the perversion of spiritual life that that represents is is that if you just put in your nickel of faith, God will spit out the blessings that you want. That's not true. That's a lie from hell.

Let's just be real clear and distinct about that. Particularly on a day like today where I know some of you come in to this room distracted and burdened by really heavy issues in your life. You feel the weight of sorrow because of past conditioning from silly teaching that doesn't understand the Bible. You feel a little bit ashamed, embarrassed by the fact that you're discouraged. You feel like something's wrong.

You somehow missed the boat. That God is punishing you because of your lack of faith. Well, beloved, when you study the Psalms, you realize that's not true at all.

That is not true at all. You see, when you enter into book two of the Psalms, the psalmist is down. He is discouraged. He has a heavy heart.

Imagine that. A guy with a heavy heart, God used to write inspired scripture that he intended to stand the test of the ages. Heaven and earth will pass away. God's word will not pass away. And as you read the Psalms, you find discouraged, heavy-hearted men expressing their hearts to God. You see God pronouncing blessing even on them. You see them modeling for us how we walk through our own heavy times in a way that God not only finds acceptable, but that He ordained to be the way that His people would go. This turns the prevailing silliness of so much modern teaching that passes for Christianity. I won't give it the adjective Christian because it's not.

It just gives the lie to it. What are you supposed to do in those times? Point number two. You persevere through sorrow. You persevere through sorrow. As you turn from the end of book one that ends with blessing God from everlasting to everlasting, amen and amen, you go to book two and it's different than what you might expect. You find a thirsty, discouraged, weeping man opening book two in the Psalms. Psalm 42 verse one.

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me all day long, where is your God?

God, I am weeping. I thirst for you, but I'm not finding satisfaction in my soul. When, O God, will your presence be restored?

Will the sense of blessing be restored because it's not my present experience right now. Look at verse four. These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. This man used to lead the people of God and now he separated from them. This man used to be the voice of joy and thanksgiving to the people of God and now things have changed.

He eats his tears. His past life of joy and leadership is but a memory. And that Psalm goes on and shows how that he came out of that discouragement. But here's what I want you to see for today in this big overview that we're doing, this jet tour through the Psalms. The righteous life will sometimes lead you through discouragement. The righteous life is not a continual road leading up to the peak of Mount Everest where you just breathe in that rarified air and you have the glory of vistas that are glorious and everything you're on top of.

It's not true. Psalms put the light to that. Sometimes the righteous life is going to take you down into the valley where it's dry, where there's dirt and sand and there's not much sign of life. Sometimes that sorrow will be over our own sin like in Psalm 51 which is tucked in the middle of this book too. But remember beloved, remember how the Psalms opened and said the righteous man is like a tree.

As a plant pushes its roots deeper in times of drought to get to life-sustaining water. That is what is supposed to happen in your spiritual life as well when it seems to go dry. It's not a sign that somehow you're off the path. Rather, it is an opportunity to sink your roots deeper in the midst of those trials and temptations. You are supposed to persevere through that kind of sorrow. It is not the condemnation of God on that sorrow. It is part of the training that he takes righteous people through. You display the glory of God when you persevere through sorrow when you show forth the worth of God by being faithful to his word, by continuing to pursue that righteous life when there is no outward sign or encouragement that you should do so. When people stand on the sidelines and mock you and say, where is your God now? A lot of good it has done you to follow Christ.

Look at your miserable life. And they mock you in the tears. They mock you as it were on the hospital bed and say if you only had faith you would get up and walk away from here rejoicing. Psalms teach us to recognize the terrain, the spiritual terrain that says there will be sorrow. But as you go through the sorrow, as you go through these Psalms, here's the promise. Not the immediate relief from the difficulty. That's not it. If I could do one thing in my pastorate, well there's a lot of things I'd want to do in my pastorate as I think about it.

I couldn't narrow it down to one thing. If I could do this one thing for you is to change your perspective on the fact that what we seek in our trials is not relief from the circumstances. That's not what we're supposed to be seeking. Prayer is not an end to manipulate our circumstances so we have a pretty smooth road to walk on. The purpose of prayer, the purpose of the pursuit of the righteous life is not about our circumstances. It's that we would show forth the magnitude of the greatness of God by praising Him when everyone else would fall silent. That in the midst of this sorrow, in the midst of a parched spiritual throat that says, oh God I'm so thirsty, oh God my tears are what I eat day and night. That in those kind of circumstances that we're all going to go through sooner or later, that there would be that little green sprig poking up through the stump as it were.

A heart that says I still love my Lord. I will still praise Him even though there does not seem to be much external reason to do so. Go to the end of book two which is found at Psalm 72. My suffering discouraged brother or sister in Christ. Your discouragement is not a sign of God's abandonment. Your discouragement, your sad soul is not a sign that you've done something wrong. This is part of the righteous life and Psalms teach us that. Your hope is not that it's going to change today or tomorrow or some kind of silly breakthrough that false teachers promise that you'll get if you just send them one more check. Those despicable men of the devil. Your hope is that at the end of this trial, at the end of the pursuit of this righteous life is certain guaranteed blessing.

It's not about today. It's about what the certain outcome is that God has guaranteed to those who delight in His word. Psalm 72 verse 18. Notice at the end of verse, book two ends like book one ended with the praise of God on his lips.

72 verse 18. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel who alone works wonders and blessed be His glorious name forever and may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen. The echo, the cornerstone, the defining aspiration of the righteous heart is that surpassing desire that whatever happens to me, be it in blessing or in sorrow, I recognize the great inherent worth of God and my desire is not for temporal circumstances what thrills my heart? The righteous man, the righteous woman says as they look in the mirror, his my God is blessed forever. My God is the one who alone works wonders. Blessed be His glorious name forever. Let the whole earth be filled with His glory. And there is pulsating in the redeemed heart this incessant pursuit of the glory of God, this pulsating desire, this throbbing affection for the glory of God. And knowing who He is, knowing what He has promised.

When those sorrows come, we say we find the spiritual courage and strength to persevere. Say I'm going to walk right through this confident that what God has promised to me He will deliver. Confident that I don't want to go anywhere else. Where would I go?

Oh Christ, you have the words of eternal life. Where would I go if I turned away? You know where you'd go? You'd go to the wind with the rest of the chaff. There's no alternative.

There's no option. And even if there were, you wouldn't want it because your heart is fixed on the glory of this word and the glory of the person that it reveals. And so you persevere through sorrow. You pursue the righteous life and you realize, okay, this may come with sorrow attached to it, but I am undeterred. I will walk right through it and my commitment to my God and to His word will remain undiminished. Now, even with all of that said, the opening of book three in Psalm 73 reinforces this theme of perseverance. It introduces a new element that we may sometimes have to face.

What do you do? Well, you pursue the righteous life. You persevere through sorrow. Point number three, you prevail over confusion. You prevail over confusion. Life will sometimes seem, it will seem, it will look like the righteous path is being contradicted.

It will look like this has been a huge mistake. When you look out on the world around you, you're going to look out and you're going to see wicked people in their prosperity while you're over here weeping in the corner of the house of God. And that's the dilemma that the psalmist in Psalm 73 faced.

It's the hinge. It's what introduces the third book of the psalm. And it's teaching us, again, another perspective to realize things aren't always going to seem to line up with what you thought were the expectations. Sometimes everything is going to seem to contradict what you've committed your heart to pursue. And you're going to look like a fool. And you have to prevail over the confusion when that time happens.

Psalm 73 verse 1, he opens with the conclusion that he wants to teach in Psalm 73. Surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart, but he's going to teach you his life lesson here. But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling.

My steps had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked. There are no pains in their death. Their body is fat. They're not in trouble as other men. They're not plagued like mankind. Verse 10, waters of abundance are drunk by them and they say, how does God know?

Is there knowledge with the most high? He's looking out on life. He's seeing the mindset of the world on full display and in their seeming time of apparent prevalence, prominence, success, they have the goods and he's off to the side.

Envious. Why can't my life be like their life? Why can't I have the good health of that wicked man who never darkens the door of a church? Do you realize how much I've pursued my career and it's just ended in virtual ruin?

I've been ripped off again and again and I'm left with nothing and the people who cheated me are over there in the Caribbean on their 15th cruise in the past four years. What kind of fool have I been? Why don't I do it like they do? They're getting the better end of it.

It's confusing. Life seems to contradict the righteous path. The true people of God could feel that right now looking at the just repeated news stories again and again and again in our day of another homosexual victory in the courts, another homosexual finding prominent place in society. Why am I doing this?

They're winning, so it would seem. The Psalms teach us the way through that path so that we don't get confused, that we prevail over it, that we understand how to respond. Look at Psalm 73 verse 16. The psalmist is contemplating the prosperity of the wicked while he's been sidelined with sorrow and difficulty. Verse 16, he says, when I pondered to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight until it wasn't a permanent condition of my mind. It was troublesome, yes.

It was a difficult issue, yes, but it only lasted until I did something. Verse 17, I came into the sanctuary of God and then I perceived their end. He's echoing the same theme that opened the entire psalm in Psalm 1. The way of the wicked will perish. They will be blown away like chaff in the wind, carried away like dust in a whirlwind. Their place will not be seen. And in the midst of his confusion, he looks beyond the present circumstances and says, no, no, no, no.

I know how to interpret this. Their prosperity is temporary. The blessing of God could never ultimately escape and pass by his people. The wicked, the sinners, could never rise up successfully against God so that they prevail in the end. Never.

That can't happen. And so he says in verse 18, surely you set them in slippery places. You cast them down to destruction. How they are destroyed in a moment, they are utterly swept away by sudden terrors. It's like a dream when one awakes, oh Lord.

When you're aroused, you will despise their form and the psalms teach us to look at what is happening around us and to interpret it properly. God's righteousness will certainly prevail, no matter how that may seem to be in jeopardy at the time, no matter what the momentum of news reports and prosperity of bad people may be. Listen.

Please listen to me. It cannot possibly end the way that it appears that it is going. As we read in 2 Peter chapter 3 earlier, God will intervene. God will vindicate his righteousness.

As we saw at the beginning from Psalm 1, God will bless the righteous and the wicked will be carried away in judgment. Therefore, the whole point of this is, when you find yourself confused about what's going on, go back to these fundamentals, these very basic principles that shape the direction of the universe. Go back to them.

Get your roots there again. Go deeper into that and rightly interpret the world around you so that you are not tempted to go with wicked people and that you understand what is happening so that you would stand firm as a righteous man pursuing the will of God in the word of God to the worship of God. And don't get blown off course. That's how you prevail over the confusion. Watch this. Go back to verse 16 of Psalm 73. It was troublesome in my sight until I came into the sanctuary of God and then I perceived their end. What do you do when you see a wicked world succeeding? What do you do in your private life when you see things collapsing about you? How do you get through that with your spiritual course intact? You direct your mind to worship.

Don't allow the sorrows or confusions of this world to overcome you. Trust God's word, as the Psalms encourage you to do. Pastor Don Green will have the final two points to glean from our jet tour through the Psalms on our next broadcast. Tune in then on The Truth Pulpit. Meanwhile, we invite you to visit our website, thetruthpulpit.com. There you can download podcasts or find out how to receive CD copies of Don's radio messages for your personal study library. And if you want to go even more in depth, you'll also find the link Follow Don's Pulpit. That will take you to Don's full length weekly sermons, not subject to the time editing we need for radio broadcasts. By the way, if you're in the Cincinnati area, be sure to check out the service times for Truth Community Church also on our website and maybe plan a visit. We'd love to welcome you. Now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit as Don continues teaching God's people, God's word.