Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Once every year, we do everything we can to create an absolutely beautiful evening for people with special needs.
[00:00:15] It's called Night to Shine.
[00:00:18] And.
[00:00:23] It is a.
[00:00:26] It is a.
[00:00:27] It's a beautiful thing to bless people who have a life that's much more challenging than we do.
[00:00:40] And church, you always do a Good job. It's February 13th, and we need just 10 more volunteers to make sure that all our guests are cared for the way we want them cared for.
[00:01:04] You don't have to have any prerequisites.
[00:01:09] Our team will help you.
[00:01:12] All you have to have is a loving heart.
[00:01:14] And if you got a loving heart and you're willing to make a nice special for someone, would you talk to Diana?
[00:01:24] She'll meet you at the where at the Night to Shine booth.
[00:01:33] Let's pray.
[00:01:37] Dear Heavenly Father, we're trying to sink your thoughts so that we can live the life that you want us to live this year.
[00:01:50] Ah.
[00:01:53] We don't want to repeat the failures and the ineptness of the past.
[00:02:03] We want to live well.
[00:02:06] We want to live in accordance with your ideas about a quality life.
[00:02:14] So I pray that you'd send your Holy Spirit and you'd help us to understand Psalm 37.
[00:02:22] And then as we understand it, I pray that you'd help us to apply it to our daily lives.
[00:02:29] And I ask this all in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:02:35] Psalm 37 was written by David.
[00:02:39] And I want you. I want to remind you that it's. It is an acrostic psalm.
[00:02:46] If you could see this. In the original Hebrew language, every stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew Alphabet.
[00:03:01] So the first stanza begins with A and the second stanza begins with B, and the third stanza begins with C, and it goes right through the Alphabet.
[00:03:14] And the reason we think this is so is it made it easier to memorize.
[00:03:23] The ABCs, helped you have memory triggers to make this easier to memorize because it was meant to be thought about daily in living a quality life. That was what David was trying to do.
[00:03:43] And in the stanza we're going to study today, David makes a series of comparisons.
[00:03:50] And he said, if you want to live a better life, just start comparing the difference, the different life that righteous live from the wicked.
[00:04:03] Instead of just swallowing the myth that the wicked really have it better off, really look at life and compare what happens in the life of a righteous person and what happens in the life of a wicked person.
[00:04:26] And it's important that we remind ourselves that David is writing in poetry.
[00:04:35] And when he's writing in poetry, we have to understand the poetic image. We can't take it literally.
[00:04:43] So David is going to say in his poetry that the wicked will have their arms broken.
[00:04:52] Okay, you can read that literally and expect wicked people to break their arm at some time in life. All right?
[00:05:01] Or you can read it as poetry. And what is the poetry saying?
[00:05:06] The poetry is talking about in David's time, if you broke your arm, there weren't doctors, and it was a major life disaster.
[00:05:18] And all he was saying is the wicked may have abundance, but their abundance doesn't protect them from disaster.
[00:05:27] Okay? Do you see how we have to understand the Bible and read it the way it wants to be read?
[00:05:34] If you read this literally that the wicked will have their arms broken, you expect wicked people to walk around and cast.
[00:05:43] All right, but if you read it in a poetic way, you're going to see that it's saying your wickedness and the wealth you get from your wickedness won't protect you from trauma.
[00:05:55] And that can be proved a thousand times in human history. All right, so in every one of the stanzas, we're going to.
[00:06:03] We're going to understand what is the poetic image and what am I supposed to learn from that? All right, let's start.
[00:06:11] Verse 12.
[00:06:14] The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him.
[00:06:22] But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming.
[00:06:29] All right, let's start with the image.
[00:06:33] In my mind. I can imagine somebody who is very angry and making threats.
[00:06:41] And then I can imagine someone looking at them and laughing.
[00:06:46] Here is the angry person. They're gritting their teeth, they're making these ugly threats.
[00:06:53] And the person that they're supposed to be intimidating, they're looking at them and they're laughing at them.
[00:07:00] Okay, that's the poet poetic image. Now let's see how we can understand that.
[00:07:07] First of all, I want to say, who are the wicked?
[00:07:10] The wicked are people who choose to live in opposition to God.
[00:07:16] A wicked person is not somebody who just made a mistake. It's somebody who's making a conscious choice to live in opposition to God. I don't care what God says. I'm going to do what I want to do.
[00:07:28] The that's a wicked person.
[00:07:34] I'm reading a Hebrew commentary written by rabbis, so I can understand the Hebrew of this passage better.
[00:07:42] And the rabbis say the wicked are generally those who have been overcome by their wrong desires.
[00:07:52] It's one thing to have wrong desires and combat them.
[00:07:57] It's another thing to have wrong desires and they just take over.
[00:08:01] So the rabbis say the wicked are people who have allowed their worst desires to take over their life.
[00:08:12] The people who have allowed their worst desires to take over their life, they plot evil things.
[00:08:19] I want to be very clear.
[00:08:23] There is evil in the world.
[00:08:25] We. We are not naive.
[00:08:29] The unholy one goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
[00:08:35] Do you hear this? There is real evil in the world. And the evil that is in the world, it plots, it schemes.
[00:08:48] We can look at any number of examples. Ah, all this. All these drugs aren't coming into America because somebody doesn't have a good plan.
[00:08:58] They're not just leaking in here. There are bad people and they're making bad plans and they're getting all this fentanyl in America and thousands of people are dying. All right?
[00:09:14] When I look at the world, I have to acknowledge that I'm living in a world where wicked people are planning evil things.
[00:09:24] That's reality.
[00:09:27] We don't want to be.
[00:09:29] We don't want to be the naive modernist who says, oh, evil is just a remnant of our superstitious past.
[00:09:40] Ah, that's naive.
[00:09:42] All right.
[00:09:44] So David said, I'm looking at next year, and I'm looking at it seriously. And because I want to live a better life, I have to acknowledge that there are bad people out there and they're planning bad stuff.
[00:10:01] Evil is invasive, he said, but at the very same time that I'm acknowledging this, I'm also seeing beyond them, and I'm seeing a God that laughs at them when they are at their most angry.
[00:10:21] Evil does not intimidate God. He laughs at it.
[00:10:26] The evil that intimidates humanity, God laughs at, he's not troubled by.
[00:10:36] He has a bigger vision of, all right, this year you're going to have to face unpleasant evil things.
[00:10:46] When you do, I want you to remember that the Lord looks at these things that seem so overwhelming and traumatizing to you, and he laughs at them.
[00:11:00] Ah, we mustn't allow the reality of evil to intimidate us.
[00:11:09] All right?
[00:11:10] The Lord sees ultimate reality, and he also knows his ultimate justice.
[00:11:18] There is an evil in the world, but God has a justice for every evil.
[00:11:26] If you're treated poorly this. This year, remind yourself that you don't have to avenge yourself, because the Lord is the ultimate arbitrator of what is right and good.
[00:11:44] All right? The second image, the wicked attack, but the Lord turns their violence against them.
[00:11:53] In this image, I want you to see someone with a Roman sword in their hand and it's sharpened very sharp and they're swishing this thing around, threatening people.
[00:12:11] But while they're swishing this thing around, they get just a little too impressed with themselves and they swish and slice themself open.
[00:12:22] That's the image here. This person has this dangerous weapon. They're waving it around and they cut themselves.
[00:12:29] They don't just cut themselves, they pierce their own heart.
[00:12:36] This scene reminds me of one of my favorite cowboy movies.
[00:12:41] The bad guy pulls his gun out and he's twirling it around and he's doing all these fancy moves and he slams it in his, ah, holsters.
[00:12:52] And then Doc Holliday takes out his little cup, he swings it around.
[00:13:00] That's what this reminds me of. Sorry, I get distracted sometimes.
[00:13:06] All right, the poetic image is somebody has a deadly weapon and they're threatening people with it and they make. They end up hurting themselves. All right, that's the image. Now what does. How. My. What am I supposed to learn from it?
[00:13:25] Even when the wicked plan violence against the poor and needy, God defends them.
[00:13:32] God is your defense. Church. When you're at work and people are applauding evil, God is your defense.
[00:13:41] Ah, if you live in a neighborhood where there are some people who don't behave, God is your defense.
[00:13:48] In fact, on several occasions, David said, the Lord is my rock.
[00:13:55] And in David's world, that was an incredible thing because often David escaped trouble by going around the opposite side of the rock than his immune was.
[00:14:07] It was a poetic way of saying, between me and my enemy is the immovable power of God, of God Almighty.
[00:14:17] Between you and those who would do you harm, between you and those who would make your life more difficult, there is a strong defense. And his name is the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:14:33] Ah, the idea is the schemes of the wicked end up damaging themselves and not you.
[00:14:44] This is the idea that we can be ruined by our own evil.
[00:14:52] Evil does not get you where you want to go. It leads to ruin.
[00:14:58] I know you've. I know you've heard all these cliches about the evil get ahead because they cheat. The evil get ahead because they're not fair. They don't get ahead. For a little while, it looks like they're thriving.
[00:15:14] But evil only leads to ruin.
[00:15:21] And God in his great wisdom brings evil.
[00:15:28] The e. The. The evil of the wicked, he brings back on their own head.
[00:15:35] All right, I want to live. Well, this year I'm living in a world of where evil is real.
[00:15:43] Everyone in this room has been hurt by someone wicked.
[00:15:47] Instead of Allowing my resentment and my anger, ah, to make me like them, I need to look at it and say, God sees all of this and God will do what is right.
[00:16:06] It looks temporarily like they're going to get the best of it, but in the end, there is a righteous God and he won't permit it to happen. Church the next image, the righteous.
[00:16:23] What the righteous lack is better than the abundance of the wicked.
[00:16:29] Better is a little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked.
[00:16:37] For the arms of the wicked shall be broken. But the Lord upholds the righteous.
[00:16:43] All right, now let's look at our poetic image.
[00:16:47] The poetic image is you have a paycheck to paycheck person over here and they're living a righteous life.
[00:17:01] You have a wicked person over here and they have made it rich.
[00:17:10] They've hit the jackpot.
[00:17:13] And so the righteous person who's living paycheck to paycheck looks at this wicked person and says, maybe it does pay to be wicked.
[00:17:25] But David is saying, you're only seeing part of the picture.
[00:17:31] Ah.
[00:17:33] Ah. The paycheck to paycheck person who is righteous, they can look to God to uphold them and help them.
[00:17:45] The wicked person, you can't buy your way out of life trauma.
[00:17:50] Do you see what he's saying?
[00:17:52] He's saying you look at the wicked and you say, oh, it pays.
[00:17:57] It pays to be bad.
[00:17:59] But you're not seeing the whole picture. All their wealth can't defend them from, from life trauma, like breaking a bone.
[00:18:08] On the other hand, you're living paycheck to paycheck. But you do have a defense, because the Lord upholds the righteous.
[00:18:16] When you have need in your life, when trouble comes your way, you're not all alone.
[00:18:23] The righteous God stands beside you.
[00:18:27] This year, we're all going to face trouble.
[00:18:32] Ah, Best prediction of the new year, Safest prediction. You're going to have trouble this year. There will be difficulties. There will be difficulties that you are anticipating right now and there will be difficulties that you can't anticipate. All right?
[00:18:55] Sometimes when we face our troubles, we start listening to the whisper of the unholy one. And when he says, ah, look at them, look what they have.
[00:19:17] Used to be something, if you were a millionaire, well, now there are multi billionaires. Ah, but guess what?
[00:19:28] It doesn't, it doesn't keep them from life drama.
[00:19:33] Do you get it?
[00:19:35] David said you can live a better life. This year you're going to face trouble.
[00:19:40] You're going to have times that are difficult. And in those Times of difficulty, you may be tempted to think wrong. But listen to this.
[00:19:49] God is with you.
[00:19:51] Your life trauma in the way he is not with the wicked.
[00:19:56] All they have to fall back on is their wealth. They don't have the living God to fall back on.
[00:20:10] The next stanza.
[00:20:17] The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their heritage will remain forever.
[00:20:25] They are not put to shame in evil times.
[00:20:29] In the days of famine, they have abundance, but the wicked will perish.
[00:20:35] The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures. They vanish like smoke. They vanish away.
[00:20:46] All right, let's find our poetic image.
[00:20:52] The poetic image is the end of. David used this already and we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. It's the end of the summer.
[00:21:07] Fall has come.
[00:21:09] The pastures that used to be green and vibrant with life, they've grown yellow.
[00:21:19] The.
[00:21:20] The. The. The weeds that used to be tall and. And. And blossoming.
[00:21:26] They've become stalks.
[00:21:29] Ah.
[00:21:30] And. And one rabbi says glory can be translated as light. It's. He says, the images.
[00:21:39] The sun is setting in the fall over a pasture that is tan left over from the summer.
[00:21:55] The glory is. The sun is setting on a pasture that's growing. Season is over.
[00:22:03] That's the poetic image.
[00:22:06] Now I want to take that poetic image and try to understand the message.
[00:22:11] Ah.
[00:22:12] The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their heritage will remain forever.
[00:22:19] Ah. But the wicked will perish.
[00:22:22] The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures. They vanish like smoke. They vanish away.
[00:22:31] He's making a contrast between the long term heritage, the long term legacy of the righteous and the short term success of the wicked.
[00:22:44] Listen what he's saying.
[00:22:46] The Lord knows the days of your life.
[00:22:50] And guess what?
[00:22:52] He knows how to protect you from shame.
[00:22:55] He knows how to provide for you in difficult times.
[00:22:59] But more than that, he knows how to lead you so that your life becomes a legacy to your family and the people who follow behind you. Listen what he says.
[00:23:14] And their heritage will remain forever.
[00:23:18] When you live a solid life, when you live the life that God created you to live, when you accomplish with your life what God sent you to accomplish, you don't just live a single lifetime. You make an investment in the people who come behind you.
[00:23:41] Dad, you live a solid life. You be a good man. You. You treat your kids the way they need, they should be treated. And they'll stand up and bless you. Generationally.
[00:23:53] I stood.
[00:23:54] I was right here in this room yesterday when several generations stood up and blessed their dad and their. And their grandfather and said what an impact he made on their lives.
[00:24:09] This is what David is saying. David is saying, you live a solid life this year.
[00:24:15] Don't just think about the temporary things. Think about the influence you're having on your family and friends.
[00:24:26] Because the righteous, their legacy lives on.
[00:24:31] The wicked are like the field that thrives for one summer and. And then you see the sun set over it in the fall and there's nothing of value left if that doesn't capture you. He says, think of it this way.
[00:24:55] Ah.
[00:24:57] You light a fire and it's very, very smoky.
[00:25:02] And that smoke starts going up, and as it goes up, it dissipates and dissipates and dissipates until finally you can't. You don't know that there was ever smoke there at all.
[00:25:18] I have in my head the image of the train wreck in southern Ohio. And when they burned off all those chemicals and that smoke was black and thick and it was bellowing up into the air, and you thought it would never go away.
[00:25:32] If you go there today, you don't know. You don't know that there was ever smoke in the air.
[00:25:38] That's the image.
[00:25:40] The wicked fill the air with smoke for just a little while, but their lives dissipate and it all comes to nothing.
[00:25:56] All right, you got one more in you.
[00:25:59] All right.
[00:26:02] The righteous are generous, but the wicked default.
[00:26:08] The wicked borrows but does not pay back.
[00:26:12] The righteous is generous and gives for those blessed by the Lord will inherit the land, but those cursed by him will be cut off.
[00:26:26] All right, let's get the poetic image.
[00:26:30] Ah.
[00:26:31] In David's world, there weren't banks, there weren't credit cards, and all these financial things we have today.
[00:26:43] In David's world, if you needed a loan, you had to borrow it from somebody who was successful enough to have enough money to lend it to you.
[00:26:53] So I want you to see the person who is able and to lend and the person who's able to give generously. They're living a successful life because they have the resources that they're able to lend that all right?
[00:27:10] And he wants to contrast that to these wicked people who create a scheme to borrow and they never intend to pay it back.
[00:27:23] In fact, they intend to steal it and call it borrowing.
[00:27:27] That's the image here. Ah, ah, ah.
[00:27:33] A man who's living a person. I'm sorry, ladies, I mean generically. The person who's living a.
[00:27:41] A righteous life. The person who's living the life that God wants them to live.
[00:27:47] God is prospering. Them.
[00:27:51] They're using their money wisely and they're able to be generous and give.
[00:27:57] The wicked don't think that way.
[00:28:00] The wicked think, how can I get the money even if I have to lie and cheat to do it?
[00:28:15] It's all. It happened again this week. I saw in the news these people came up with this thing to hang these things on people's doors and tell them that they needed to call right away because there was some. There was some kind of investigation going. And I get calls from time to time, somebody saying, you're in real tax trouble. You better call us back. We can help you out.
[00:28:41] Yeah, I'll do that.
[00:28:43] All right.
[00:28:45] That's this. This scamming, this purposeful taking of money in a way that isn't right and proper. David said it happened in his lifetime. We see it happening in our lifetime. The wicked are always trying to steal.
[00:29:04] The righteous don't have to steal because. Because they see life differently.
[00:29:10] The righteous says, God is good.
[00:29:13] The rich. The righteous say, yeah, God wants to bless me. God wants to show me his favor. God wants to be at work in my life and help me to live a productive and have a successful career. All right?
[00:29:30] And then they live that way.
[00:29:35] And I don't have to quote to you again. The Bible is full of verses that say, when you are generous, God will bless you church.
[00:29:46] If you haven't learned that generosity is a pathway to divine blessing, I feel sorry for you.
[00:29:55] I could tell you hundreds and hundreds of stories of generosity being a pathway to blessing.
[00:30:04] But the Bible also says there are those who should be generous and aren't, and it hurts them.
[00:30:14] All right, so our last poetic image. I want to live a good life this year.
[00:30:23] I want to.
[00:30:25] What does that look like?
[00:30:26] That looks like changing my mind about how I use my wealth.
[00:30:33] I want to use my wealth in productive ways. I'm not looking to cheat anybody. I'm looking to say, what is the most. What is the most productive way I can use the wealth God has given me.
[00:30:48] I'm not going to look at these people who, ah, purposefully cheat, lie and steal and say, well, look what they have because the Lord's going to cut them off.
[00:31:07] The righteous are blessed and prosper. They inherit the land.
[00:31:12] The wicked are cursed, and their evil catches up with them.
[00:31:18] All right.
[00:31:21] In these verses we have a good contrast between the righteous approach to life and the wicked approach to life.
[00:31:34] In these verses we have a good contrast between how God blesses the righteous and their appropriate approach to life and how God curses, the right wicked and their inappropriate approach to life.
[00:31:47] And now we have to look at the world realistically and we have to say, how do I choose to live this year?
[00:31:59] Does my faith in God influence my choices this year?
[00:32:09] Will my choices be righteous because I'm prompted and guided by God?
[00:32:16] Or will my choices be wicked because I've lowered my standards, I've compromised my ethics, I've redefined my morality And I permit myself to live in ways that are inconsistent with what I know God wants.
[00:32:37] Our dear Heavenly Father, I thank you that you gave us this beautiful piece of poetry.
[00:32:47] I thank you that it allows us to think in a clear way about living a better life this year.
[00:32:59] I pray that our trust in you would be unfaltering.
[00:33:04] I pray that our choices, our thoughts and our choices would be righteous and we would choose the right way day by day.
[00:33:14] I pray that we would see that the evil only temporarily succeed, but the righteous leave a legacy that is multi generational.
[00:33:29] And then I pray that Christ will be glorified in our lives. Amen.
