Turning Point

Narrator (Male): Welcome to Turning Point. Do you feel cheated because unbelievers are the ones who seem to be having all the fun in this life? Today, Dr. David Jeremiah explains why there's no reason for Christians to feel short-changed and every reason to feel blessed. From his series, God, I Need Some Answers, here's David to introduce today's compelling message.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Why do good things happen to bad people? And over the years, you've probably heard people speak about this question. Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, in this lesson, we've turned the tables because in Psalm 73, that seems to be what's going on. From this great Psalm, we're going to answer some of the questions you have. When you look at people who don't know God, who look like they don't have any reason to know God or want to know God, and yet they seem to be so successful and thriving. Why is it that good things happen to bad people? Psalm 73 will help us with that. This is just one day that we're going to talk about this. So listen carefully, take good notes, and follow along in the Bible.

Narrator (Male): During the month of May, we are featuring a very special resource that has never been offered before. It's brand new, just off the press. A 236-page hardback gift book called Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life. This takes you into five very well-known and important Psalms and helps you understand how they can make a difference in your life. This is a great resource, the book of Psalms, and it deals with such practical things as we're going to find out today. By the way, if you haven't already ordered your book, Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life, be sure to ask for it when you send your gift to Turning Point today. During the month of May only, this book is available for a gift of any size.

Dr. David Jeremiah: Well, let's get into this question that plagues so many people's minds. Why is it that bad people seem to be doing so good? Here's some answers.

I'm very glad that God allows us to ask questions, aren't you? Sometimes we almost get the impression that if we're godly and spiritual, we won't ever ask any of the hard questions. The Bible tells us we need to be more like little children. Little children are not ever afraid to ask any question. But you know what? As we get older, our questions get harder, don't they? And they get more sophisticated and more difficult to express.

Surely what we have before us in the 73rd Psalm is a question like that. For the writer of this Psalm, who is a man by the name of Asaph, writes from the struggle within his own heart about a problem with which he has been wrestling. It's evident by reading the Psalm that this has not been a short-term problem. He begins by telling us in verses 1 through 3 of his inner conflict.

He writes, "Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled and my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." Asaph said that he understood two things. He understood that God was good and truly had been good to Israel. He believed that. And yet, he looked around in his life and saw some things which seemed to him not to make sense.

For while God promised to be good to those who knew and loved Him, He also seemed to bless those who were ungodly and to honor those who did not name the name of God in faith. Asaph was a faithful Jew, obedient to the law. He had a pure heart and clean hands, but he was not enjoying the goodness of God. By reading the Psalm, we discover that he was in a time of pain and pressure and problem in his life.

He couldn't sort this out. This conflict was just ripping him apart in his soul. It had bothered him so terribly that it created a deep resentment in his heart. He says in the Psalm that he came close to slipping off of the foundation of faith. How could it be, he thought in his heart, that the ones who honor God with their lives seem to fair in a less beneficial way than those who he describes here as ungodly? And please remember that the definition of ungodly is not being as bad as you can be or even necessarily being bad. But to be ungodly is just to live your life without God.

Asaph is tormented in his soul because here over on this side, he has this truth, what he knows to be true about God, that He is good, that He honors those who are good. Yet he sees some people that he knows are not good, and they seem to be doing a lot better than he is. His inner conflict, you see, was based upon an outward contradiction. For in these verses that follow, Asaph describes how he views those who are ungodly. He uses three or four words here to give us his understanding. He describes them, first of all, by way of their prosperity, and he is tremendously bothered by this.

He says in verse 3, "For I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death. Their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like other men." To begin with, he saw their prosperity. The word peace and complacency is wrapped up in that word prosperity. The psalmist, as he writes this ode, he complains that the ungodly don't seem to have the pains and struggles that he has. They seem to be sailing right through life with no problems at all. They don't seem to have the pangs of death. They're sleek and most of the time presented as having all their problems in order and no major difficulty. They're prosperous.

Then he says, if that bothered him, the thing that really bothered him was the fact that they were prideful. Verse 6 says, "Therefore, pride serves as their necklace, and violence covers them like a garment." Asaph said it would be bad enough if God seemed to be blessing those who did not honor Him. But the ones who are benefiting like that are walking around boasting about all the stuff they have, and all the things they have gotten, and all of the progress and the prosperity they have in their life. In a sense, they're shoving it down your throat.

Then he goes on to say that not only is he bothered by their pride, he's bothered by their profanity. Notice verses 8 and 9, he says, "They scoff and speak wickedly concerning oppression. They speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens and their tongue walks through the earth." He said they not only boast of their bountiful blessings, but they mock God. They come up to you and say, "Why are you trusting God? Look at us. We don't trust God, and look at all the good things we have. You people, you pray, and you read your Bible, and you go to church. Who are you kidding, man? You just got to get out there and do it, man, and look, you'll have what we have."

They mock. Asaph says, when he watches this, it just tears him up in his soul. He says he's bothered by their prosperity, and he's bothered by their pride, and he's bothered by their profanity, and he's bothered by their popularity. These seem to be the people everyone looks to. Verse 10, he says, "Therefore his people return here, and waters of a full cup are drained by them. And they say, 'How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the ungodly who are always at ease and increase in riches.'"

His problem is that Asaph has noticed that the people we treat with the utmost respect seem to be the ungodly and the profane and the gangsters. In fact, his inner conflict, which is based on this outward contradiction, explodes in verses 13 and 14, and he says this, "Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence, for all day long I have been plagued and chastened every morning." Do you get what he's doing? He's really now beginning to feel sorry for himself. He said, "Lord, I'm doing right. I'm trying to live for you. I've cleansed my hands. I've tried to walk in a godly way."

"Look at how all these people are prospering, and look at what's happening to me, and I sometimes wonder, Lord, maybe this is all meaningless." Someone said a long time ago, "There is more faith in an honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." But there's probably not a Christian who at some time in his life, in a moment like Asaph is described, has asked himself that hard question: What if? What if they're right, and we're wrong? What if life is really just getting all you can get while you're here, and then you die as a dog and go to your grave? What if there's nothing to live for beyond today? What if I'm living this kind of a life and it's all based on a myth?

Well, the inner conflict, which is based on an outward contradiction, leads in the last part of this Psalm to an upward confidence. At the risk of being commercial, I want to tell you, this is the real turning point in the Psalm. Because the psalmist now begins to climb out of this feeling that has swept over him. In fact, he takes six or seven steps out of this response. The thing I love about the Psalm is this: it helps us to understand how we can work through things like this. The Psalms are wonderful to help us understand that it is okay for us to express our emotion and then to work through it before God.

I want you to follow the psalmist as he works through this problem in his life because he's going to end up in the right place, but it's not a short journey. It takes some steps back to God. First thing he does is this. It's kind of incidental, but I want to mention it to you, he resists the urge to voice his doubts to people who wouldn't understand. You know, there are some folks you just can't go to and say, "Let me tell you what I'm working through in my spiritual life." You tell them about your doubts, and it just blows them away.

Listen to what the psalmist says in verse 15. He says, "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' behold, I would have been untrue to the generation of your children. When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me." The psalmist says, "I wanted to tell somebody about this. I wanted to express how I was feeling about the prosperity of the wicked, but I was afraid to do it because I was afraid that if I did, I would lead some of your children astray. Maybe they couldn't understand my doubts." So, he just kept quiet.

Whatever else you want to say about Asaph at this point, he's got a nugget of faith there, doesn't he? There's an evidence that he's got a little bit of something going on in his life. He's at least sensitive that he doesn't want to take anybody else down the path that he's gone down in his frustration and unbelief. But then the key ingredient takes place, step number two, he returns to the presence of God. Notice verse 17, "Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I understood their end."

"Surely, you set them in slippery places. You cast them down to destruction. Oh, how they are brought to desolation as in a moment. They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, so Lord, when you awake, you shall despise their image." Listen to what he says. By going into the sanctuary, Asaph puts himself in the presence of God. Now watch carefully. If you try to sort out spiritual problems through natural thinking, you will get into very difficult trouble.

Up until this time, Asaph has been wrestling with this problem with God off at the side of the stage. But he says, "Now I go into the sanctuary, which was probably the temple, and in the temple, he finds himself in the presence of God. And now he wrestles with the prosperity of the wicked in the presence of God, and when he puts God into the equation, everything changes." Now he begins to see not just a small portion of the picture, but the scope is widened, and he sees how God sees. The thing is, when you get close to God, you get God's perspective. When you get far away from God, what happens is you see as the world sees.

Asaph had been evaluating life on the outward accoutrements of success and prosperity. He was looking at the assets of his friends and making subtle evaluations about the importance of life. But when God came back into the picture, something happened. He moved out of the realm of the natural and into the realm of the spiritual, and all of a sudden, things started to change. What happens to us? What happens to me? Is that when I begin to have doubts like that, my tendency is to remove myself from the one place where I'm going to find the answer.

You can't get out of the presence of God and work through spiritual struggles. Some of you people have gone through that, and the first thing you do is you quit coming to church. Listen to what he said, "When I went into the sanctuary, then things began to make sense to me." He began to think about God's perspective. The third step is that he reviews the rest of the story. This is sort of Paul Harvey in reverse. The rest of the story. You see, what happened to Asaph was this, he only saw a little slice out of the life of these people who appeared to be prosperous.

He saw their toys and their trinkets. He saw what looked like success. He saw all of the outward aspects of prosperity. And he made his judgment on the basis of that part of the picture. But when he got into the presence of God, then he began to see the lives of these people in their totality. And what he sees is this, he sees that they're on a slippery place, that they've been cast down to destruction, that they are brought to desolation as in a moment, that they are utterly consumed with terror, and it's like a dream. When the dream is over, there's no reality to what happened in the dream.

Asaph saw the future judgment of these people he thought were so successful. He discovered that without God, men cannot have inner strength, and that what looks like success is often just a mirage. So, the psalmist is trying to help us get a picture of the real story. He tells us, step number four, that when he made this evaluation, he reevaluated his own life. Verses 21 and 22, he says, "Thus my heart was grieved, and I was vexed in my mind. I was so foolish and ignorant. I was like a beast before you."

You know, one of the things that's good is when you realize you've made a mistake or you haven't thought through something correctly, it's good when you realize that to realize why you did it so you don't do it again. So you're not like the person who instead of having 25 years of experience, had one year of experience 25 times. You know people like that? A lot of folks live their Christian lives like that. They get one year of Christian experience 25 times because they keep doing the same thing wrong one time right after the other. The psalmist is not going to do that. He's going to back away from this whole thing and say, "You know what, as I evaluate what happened, let me tell you where I'm at. Boy, do I feel stupid."

Do you ever feel like that? Anybody here beside the pastor ever say on any occasion, "Boy, do I feel stupid?" The psalmist says, "I feel stupid, and I feel ignorant." There's a whole lot of things I could have known that I didn't know. You see, he could have gone into the sanctuary way back here when he was going through the beginning stages of this, and then he would have known what he needed to know to work through this. But no, he pampered himself. You know you can do that. You start thinking these thoughts, and then you just carry them on, and you carry them on, and you pamper yourself, and you let them go. The psalmist says, "I feel stupid, and I feel foolish."

Then he says, "I feel like a beast." What was that? Like a rat, like a dog, like a snake in the grass. He says, "I feel like an animal." Step number five, he reassures his heart of God's love and goodness. This is where the Psalm gets so good. He says in verse 23, "Nevertheless," I've drawn a circle around that word. You get down to that part of the Psalm, it's "nevertheless." Here's all of his problem, but "nevertheless," and it says, "Nevertheless, I am continually with you, Lord. You hold me by my right hand, and you'll guide me with your counsel, and afterward, you're going to take me to glory."

You see what's happened? Way back here, he started up out of this, and now he's come back, and he realizes that while he was questioning God, God was never questioning him, that God had a hold of his hand in the past, that God holds his hand in the present. The greatest thing is God's going to take him by the hand and lead him into the future glory that He has planned for him. He said, "God, I realize now that I am the object of your love, that you have loved me all of this time. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee."

Then step number six, he reestablishes his faith in God. Verses 25 and 26, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." The psalmist comes back to the real bottom-line fact of life, doesn't he? Hey, if you've got God, you've got everything. Amen. You say, "Pastor, I sure would like that BMW." Well, try driving it to eternity. It won't get you there. Amen.

"I'd like to have that big house." Well, if you're like Randolph Hearst, and you can't sleep in it, what good is it to you? You know, I'm not trying to be foolish, and I'm not trying to say that nice things don't matter. All of us, because of our humanity, need to understand that God has given us all the good things to enjoy, and there's nothing wrong with them, unless that becomes the focus of our life.

I want to tell you something, if you get in the game of comparison, which is what Asaph was doing, there's always somebody who's got a little bit more than you have. There's always somebody who lives in a little nicer house and drives a little better car and's got a little better job and a little better benefits. If this is a game of comparisons, there's no way you can ever find peace. The psalmist comes back and he says, "You know, I realize that I've just missed out in evaluating my life. I've got God. And what else could I ask for?"

You know the difference? Here it is, folks. The world is into price tags. God is into value. Does that grab you? The world is into price tags, but God is into real value. God doesn't have price tags. God deals with genuine value. When you have God, you've got the genuine article. You don't have to be examining price tags. The world loves to show you how much it cost. God loves to tell you how much it's worth.

When you've got God. You may be listening to my voice today and you say, "Pastor Jeremiah, I'm so poor. I've hardly got enough to keep body and soul together. I don't know where next week's rent's coming from." I want to tell you something, I know that doesn't feel good, but if you have a heavenly Father who knows and loves you, you know he's going to take care of you. And you know he cares about you. And you know that in him, you have the most valuable relationship that is possible to man.

So, the psalmist, step number seven, resolves to stay near God. Listen to this. "For indeed, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who desert you for harlotry. But it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all of your works." Take this Psalm apart, and go back and read all the things that Asaph said about the wicked at the beginning, and then write down all the things that he said about them at the end. Write down all the things that he said about the godly at the beginning, and write down all the things he said about them at the end. What you'll see is that when Asaph got into the presence of God, everything got flip-flopped.

Now he sees the wicked for what they are. They're going to perish. They're not prosperous. They're going to perish. Do you see the difference? And the godly who seem to be suffering, they're going to be taken to glory by the hand of God Himself. The only difference, the only difference was that Asaph got back in sync with God. And James says it this way. Watch. "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you."

I want to tell you something, family of God. We live in a world that bombards us with signals that totally distort our whole priority system. Everything we watch on television, everything we interact with in our workplace, all of the value system that is communicated in the window of our world says that the only way you can be happy is to have more and to spend more. Rise to power. God comes along and washes that all away, and he said, "Let me tell you what really living is." Really living is to know God and His son Jesus Christ and to walk in fellowship with Him every day.

If you've been feeling sorry for yourself as a Christian, shame on you. But don't feel too bad because we've all done it. Get out of that despondency and despair. Take a good long look at who you are in God. Take inventory of what you have in Christ. Be thankful for how God has blessed you, and you have been blessed, I promise you. Don't let these sorry people on the outside who are trying to sell us a bill of goods that they've got it made. Don't let them tell you that they've got it made because if they had it made, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. They're empty inside, and they've tried everything they can to fill that emptiness, and it doesn't work. I'm telling you, you've got God, and He fills the emptiness in your life.

Here's the question the Scripture asks. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? That's not just about salvation. That's about losing who you are, your soul, your very, your very being. Even Christians can sometimes so negate their soul that it's almost like they lose their soul. If you build everything around your outer life and nothing around your inner life, you risk the loss of your soul. That's what the Scripture teaches, not in salvation, but in everyday fellowship with God. Don't make that exchange. We've learned a lot today that will help us not to want to make that exchange.

Narrator (Male): Tomorrow, here on Turning Point, part one of, "How can I be truly forgiven?" Forgiveness is one of the great great practices that God presents that helps people more than anything else. If we could just forgive one another, there would be so much less sickness and so much more peace. How does that happen? We'll talk about it tomorrow right here on Turning Point. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series, "God, I Need Some Answers," please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio. Or call us at 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, Five Psalms for a Flourishing Life. It will help you abide with God, and it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New King James versions, available in your choice of attractive cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org/radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue, "God, I Need Some Answers," on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.