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Why Are The Wicked Wealthy? |
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Written by Pastor Darrell Cooper
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Sunday, 03 May 2009 20:59 |
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Psalm 73
May 3, 2009 - Lindsborg Cov.
“Why Are The Wicked Wealthy?”
(Reward and Punishment)
Sermon
One evening this week I was doing dishes and listening to the TV when a commercial came on featuring a woman who is famous for being grossly immoral. If I said her name many of you would know it immediately. When I heard that commercial I thought, “Why did the marketing department of that big company choose her to represent their product? Why are they honoring her? Why are they lining her pockets?
I felt a bit incredulous. I felt angry. But if I were totally honest with you, I would have to admit that I felt jealous. I felt a twinge of jealousy in my heart when I heard her voice. When I turned and saw her face I thought, “Now, why are they holding her up as a model for people to emulate? She should be ashamed of herself. Instead, she seems proud of her sin. And what is even worse is that people admire her for it! They reward her for it! It just doesn’t seem fair.”
Have you ever felt that way before? Have you ever looked around and seen the prosperity of the wicked and felt, well . . . jealous?
For example, maybe you are the primary breadwinner for your family. You work hard for your paycheck. You pay your taxes honestly. You give to God’s work generously. You save what you can. You are careful to live within your means. You cannot afford many of the things you would like to provide for your family. In fact, sometimes you struggle just to pay the bills and you can’t help worrying about what will happen if this downturn in the economy translates into the loss of your job.
But then you look around. You see many of your peers who are selfish and reckless with their money. They don’t have a strong work ethic. They call in sick and then go golfing. They cheat on their taxes. They do not invest in God’s Kingdom; they are building their own kingdom. They live way beyond their means, but they seem to be borrowing their way to wealth. For many years they have been enjoying toys and gadgets that you are still trying to save up for. They live in your dream home and regularly take vacation trips to places you can only visit online.
Sometimes when you drive through their neighborhood and see their fleet of brand new vehicles parked outside their three car garage because they cannot fit them inside because their garage is packed with piles of expensive toys they cannot fit into their 8,000 square foot home, you wonder, “How do they do that? What in the world do they do for a living? How are they able to afford all those things and why can’t I have some of it too? It just doesn’t seem fair!”
Or perhaps you are a student, and you have made a solemn promise to God that you are going to remain pure in your heart and your body so that you can one day present yourself as a virgin to your future spouse. But you have found that to be a difficult and often lonely road. There just are not very many people out there looking for that kind of virtue in the heart of a young woman or man, and you are beginning to wonder if you are ever going to go on a date. You are beginning to think you may never have a boyfriend or girlfriend.
What makes it worse is that you look around at school and see so many of your classmates are sleeping around. They don’t seem lonely. They seem fulfilled. They are certainly popular. They all have boyfriends or girlfriends. They get invited to dance at the school dances. They are happy and accepted, while you are lonely and rejected, and even ridiculed at times.
Perhaps you wonder, “Is this really worth it? What am I waiting for? I feel like I am missing out on life. It is just not fair!
Or maybe you are a sincerely devoted follower of Jesus. You would be the first to admit that you are far from perfect, but still, you love God with all your heart and live to serve Him.
For example, maybe you serve as a helper for the 3rd grade Sunday School class or you regularly sacrifice your Saturday mornings to help on the moving crew. Perhaps you bake cakes for funerals or you come early on snowy Sunday mornings to help Ralph shovel the sidewalks. Maybe you have given generously, even sacrificially so the youth can go to CHIC this summer, or you sponsor a child through Compassion International. Maybe you come to most every prayer meeting at church or you are faithfully reading your Chronological Bible this year.
Maybe you do all this and more, and yet you still suffer from some horribly painful chronic health condition. It has been going on for years and seems to be degenerative. It can be debilitating at times, not to mention expensive.
That would be hard enough, but now your children are sick. One of your children has been diagnosed with some terrible disease, or sustains a serious sports injury or is killed in a car accident.
And then you look around at your co-workers. Many of them smoke. Many of them abuse alcohol. They don’t exercise. They don’t eat right. They cheat on their spouses. They cheat on their time cards. They live for the weekends and neglect their children. They don’t go to church at all and think it strange that you do. They repeat jokes that make you extremely uncomfortable and use your Savior’s precious Name as a swear word.
And yet they could not be healthier! Oh, they use all their sick days every year, but not because they are sick. Their medicine cabinets are empty and they laugh at people who take vitamins. Their teeth are perfectly white and their bodies are perfectly tanned. They are handsome or beautiful and they know it and they enjoy it and they take it for granted.
Their children are all healthy and strong and athletic and popular. Their children don’t get injured in school sports and instead receive huge scholarships to the college of their choice.
Do you ever wonder, “Why me, God? Why me? What have I done to deserve this? And what’s more, what have they done to deserve that? Is this really how You reward Your faithful servants?”
Can you relate to that at all? Have you ever been tempted to envy the evil? Have you ever thought to yourself, “Why am I trying so hard to honor God in my heart and life? What has it gotten me? I mean look around! The pagans prosper. The heathen are healthy. And, the wicked are wealthy. It just isn’t fair!
Well, if you have ever thought those kinds of things or ever felt that way, you are not alone. In fact, you are in very good company. That is precisely what was happening in the heart and the life of today’s Psalm writer. This is where we find the psalmist in Psalm 73. If you would like to turn there you certainly may.
In Psalm 73, the psalm writer is pouring out his heart to God and he is being very honest. He is talking about what he sees around him, that the wicked prosper. I am going to begin in verse four and I will be skipping through here a little bit.
The psalmist, referring to the wicked and addressing God says,
“They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.
They are free from the burdens common to man;
they are not plagued by human ills.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.
From their callous hearts comes iniquity;
the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.
They scoff, and speak with malice;
They say, “How can God know?
Does the Most High have knowledge?”
This is what the wicked are like—
always carefree, they increase in wealth.” (Psalm 73:4-12)
Does that sound familiar?
Now, in order for us to get down into the very heart of this Psalm I want to use an analogy from high school. If you are a little closer to retirement than high school, forgive me. I would like you to think back to when you were in high school. Try to remember what you were like. Think about what kinds of things were important to you. What kinds of things did you value? What were your priorities?
If you were like me, you were preoccupied with concerns about who was popular. Who is the most popular guy in school and why? Who is wearing what? What kinds of clothes are the latest fashion and am I wearing them? Who is dating whom?
And you usually derived much of your identity solely from what your peers thought of you. Your status in the social food chain determined your reality and experience.
I remember so well that when you are completely immersed in this high school world it is extremely difficult to not believe that this environment is real, that it is true, and that it will last forever. It is almost impossible to imagine a world in which you not only don’t care what your peers think of you, but you don’t even think about it anymore. You simply cannot believe that you will ever reach a point where you will no longer be consumed with the clothes you wear, what kind of cell phone you carry, who went with you to the prom, what college you might get into, and again, what your friends happen to think about you this week.
Those concerns, those values not only feel very real, they feel eternal. They feel permanent. It feels like it will always be this way.
UNTIL . . . Until . . . Until you enter the gymnasium for your 20th high school reunion. Then it all changes. When you enter that gymnasium or that banquet hall and look around and see all your classmates you went to school with, and you see her.
Carrie. You remember Carrie? Who could forget Carrie, the cheerleader, the beautiful brunette who always had a boyfriend. She could have had any guy in the school and was rumored to have had many of them. As an extremely popular girl she was selected as homecoming queen and voted most likely to become Miss America.
Until . . . until you enter the gymnasium for your 20th high school reunion. Someone has to point Carrie out to you because you hardly recognize her. You hear that she is twice divorced and now living with an even bigger loser. She has an unmentionable disease. She has painfully discovered that her beauty is not carrying her nearly as far in life as she thought it would and her loose morals have not only ruined her reputation but nearly destroyed her life as well.
Then you notice Barbara. Remember Barbara, the girl who was mocked and ridiculed for being a devoted follower of Jesus Christ? In high school she was known for loving music, photography, and God. But she couldn’t get a boyfriend to save her life. She had to go to Prom with a couple of her girl friends. She was declared prudish for maintaining her virginity and judged for being judgmental.
Until . . . until you enter the gymnasium for your 20th high school reunion. You discover that Barbara is now happily married to a godly man who honors her as a godly woman. They were not able to have children of their own, so they have adopted several with special needs. Barbara spends her days teaching piano lessons to neighborhood children, she leads the worship band in her church, and once a year she goes on a mission trip to Haiti to serve the poor.
What happened? I will tell you what happened. High school ended and the rules changed. What used to be of paramount importance now seems somewhat trivial and almost forgotten. Priorities and preoccupations have radically shifted, and in some cases, reversed. Enough time has elapsed to begin to see the harvest of people’s lives. What each of those students chose to plant in the field of their life is now emerging for all the world to see. Some of them are now surrounded by weeds or barren land. Others have a healthy, bountiful crop. Either way, whether they find themselves surrounded by weeds or wealth, almost all of them wish they knew then what they know now.
This is the kind of world in which we live and the kind of world the psalmist lived in as well. The psalmist was trying to live right. He was trying to honor God in his heart and his lifestyle. He was trying to walk in righteousness, but he, like us, found that to be a very difficult road to travel, and often lonely. Because you see, there is usually no immediate reward for doing the right thing. In fact, it is often costly and demands painful sacrifices.
This would not be so bad if it were not for the apparent injustice of the world around us. The principled are poor while the pagans are prosperous. The saints suffer in sickness while the heathen enjoy their health. Worshipers go on welfare while the wicked become wealthy. The disciplined become destitute while the debaucherous are delighted. In short: the pagans prosper, the heathen are healthy, and the wicked are wealthy. It just isn’t fair, and what’s worse is that it feels like it is always going to be this way. It feels permanent.
UNTIL . . . Until . . . “Until I entered the sanctuary of God”. This is what the psalmist says in verse 17. This is the verse the rest of the Psalm pivots upon. When we get to verse 17, everything changes. “Until I entered the sanctuary of God”
Look with me, if you will, at verse 16. The psalmist has been pondering the apparent injustice of the prosperity of the wicked. He says, “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me,” Your translation might say, “It seemed hopeless” (HCSB) or “It was too painful for me” (NKJ), or “It was troublesome in my sight” (NASV), or “It seemed to me a wearisome task” (ESV). “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me . . .” UNTIL . . . “till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.”
And what was that final destiny? In short: the pagans will be punished and the righteous will be rewarded.
First of all, there is coming a day of reckoning in which pagans will be punished. Look with me, if you will, at verse 18. “Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.”
The pagans will be punished. But the righteous will also be rewarded. Look down to verse 23. “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
“When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me . . .” UNTIL . . . “till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.”
There is one other thing I want us to see in this passage before we leave it. It is something that is implied in this passage and it has to do with the very heart and character of God. What is implied here and what is explicit in other Scriptures is that God is merciful. God does not want anyone to perish. Because of this, He often waits far longer than I would to judge the wicked. He is longsuffering. He is full of mercy, so He often allows ample time and opportunity for sinners to admit their guilt and turn away from their godless lifestyles.
In the meantime, while we are waiting, it can seem to us like God is ignoring the arrogant, violent, oppressive schemes of the wicked, or even worse, that He is actually rewarding them. But please hear this: what we often mistake as the endorsement of God is actually the endurance of God. He is not approving of their sin, but rather He is appalled. He will not condone their rebellion but will convict the guilty and He will condemn the unrepentant. And, on the flip side, the faithful will be fulfilled. The obedient will be honored. The righteous will be rewarded.
And so, as we catch a glimpse today of the honest heart of the psalmist, frustrated over the results of choices made in this life, extremely frustrated until he stopped looking around at people and started looking up at God. “Until I entered the sanctuary of God”
And when he did, his perspective changed and his heart shifted. By the end of the Psalm we see a radically changed man. He is no longer preoccupied with the wicked and consumed with what is happening to them. Listen to the heart of the psalmist after having visited God in the sanctuary: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26)
“Until I entered the sanctuary of God.” Let us enter the sanctuary of God and worship Him at His table.
Communion
On the day Jesus was crucified, it sure looked for all the world like the wicked had won. Clearly, evil had triumphed and the holy went into hiding.
However, there was a great reversal and it changed everything. Jesus came back from the dead! It seemed like evil had triumphed but in fact, righteousness ruled and reigned.
Likewise, we live in a world where it often seems that the wicked are winning. Until we enter the sanctuary of God. We come to the table today as a way of entering the sanctuary of God, and it is my prayer that as we gaze upon His face and meditate on his broken body and shed blood, that our perspective will change and our hearts will shift and we will be able to say with the psalmist:
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
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