Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 7, 2018 | When God Doesn't Make Sense - When God Seems Unfair

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October 7, 2018 | When God Doesn't Make Sense - When God Seems Unfair · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're right on time.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else is early.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: So good to see you today.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we're beginning a six-week series, so you'll get to see that bumper video a bunch more, and you'll also get to see the waving wheat, which is the symbol of this uh new series.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it uh it'll be sobering at times, like this morning.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is Emily, Emily Adams, missionary kid, Indonesia, and she's 20 years old, studying pre-nursing and science and so forth, down at John Brown University, where I've been since uh Wednesday evening uh for board meeting.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Emily uh has had a longtime boyfriend, his name's Noah, also an MK missionary kid, also from Indonesia, and been dating for a number of years.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is by the way, over in Indonesia, is where they uh these kids met, became friends with uh our missionary's son, Corey Burger's son, Arnold.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um so if you go on Emily's Facebook page, Arnold's face, I'll be right there.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so um their life stretching out in front of them, love, marriage, children, service to God.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: She's thinking about being a nurse, thinking about maybe uh being missionaries and so forth, until uh Thursday night.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Until Thursday night.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Route 412 runs through uh northwest Arkansas, runs right through the main street of um Salome Springs, and then one of those weird, strange, awful, uh meaningless uh events, a car came out and crashed into Emily's car and killed her on Thursday night.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Killed her.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't find out about it until the next day, and I found out about it by accident.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the middle of our second day of board meeting, and our president who's spoken here a few times, Chip Pollard, wonderful man, said, Listen, uh, if you don't mind, I'm gonna dismiss board meeting for the next hour.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to go over to chapel.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to go over to chapel, fine, didn't say anything more.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went over to chapel and just found my way, sat in the midst of a group of kids, not knowing at that point they were Emily's friends and doormates.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's when, and I couldn't understand why everybody else, a thousand kids coming to chapel were so sober, so so frozen, it was so quiet.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then chapel started, and you know, the first questions I heard were why and where was God last night?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was holding on to a uh brochure they'd passed out, homecoming brochure, with a number of glossy pages.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's Homecoming Weekend at John Brown University, and everybody, on every one of those pages there, the ones playing Ultimate Frisbee, the ones, the boys playing rugby, the ones uh taking a tour, doing the picnic on the front lawn, everybody smiling.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not one smile, didn't see one person laughing in chapel on Friday morning when I was there.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, I was thinking, same time, Kathy Hope's mother's service, funeral service, Mary Rickle service was right here, up here in Topeka.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I found myself thinking about the phone.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: The cell phone was weird.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking about what it must have been like a few hours before when uh phone rang in Georgia, where Emily's dad and mom were home on furlough temporarily and picked up the phone, and the question came, is this Emily's dad?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is this Emily's mom?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, but we have some awful news.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I thought of a boy who was in chapel on Friday morning sitting behind me, Noah.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I thought of him getting a phone call on his cell phone the night before at midnight.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is this Noah?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm sorry, we have some awful news about your girlfriend.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think any of these people would be blamed if you found out later that their faith had wobbled during this time.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care who you are, he can be the most mature Christian in the world when my little brother Dougie suddenly died of a home accident, two-year-old, my father's faith seriously wobbled.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he was a professor of Bible at a Christian school, traveled around.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was the most spiritually mature man we knew.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that earthquake, that news, shook the bedrock of his faith.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if your faith has never been shaken, then you certainly have never lost a child.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And for thousands of years, when things like this have happened, God's people have turned to a psalm in the Bible, a famous psalm.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's Psalm 73.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to tackle that psalm in the first episode of the series When God Doesn't Make Sense, a sermon entitled When Life Seems Unfair.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: For Psalm 73 is the personal confession of a man named Asaph, who was one of the worship leaders in ancient Israel.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the tent of meeting, he was uh he was no ordinary man, he was clearly a spiritual leader, and he would be appointed by King David soon as the head worship minister in the tabernacle, which was soon to be the temple.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And his creed, what he believed, is etched here in verse one God is indeed good to Israel, to the pure in heart.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a ringing word of faith, and yet this man then confesses, I haven't always felt this way.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've had my low times.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: As for me, my feet almost slipped, my steps nearly went astray.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: One time he says, I nearly lost my faith, the Hebrew word feet, regal, it doesn't include just your foot.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: It goes all the way up and includes your knee, includes your calf.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I hear him saying something like my knees almost buckled.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I almost, I almost slipped over the side and plunged into the chasm of despair.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I suspect that that's as up to date for some of you this morning as this morning's cup of coffee.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're on the twisting and winding road of life and you're facing problems of life.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And those problems seem to be winning to your dismay.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: For some of you, this happened in the past.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when you fought the problems, the problems won, and you went over the side.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: You lost your faith, unlike the psalmist.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your knees did buckle and you slipped over, and at least for a while you lost your faith.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, listen, let's be honest.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: The fact is, there's not one of us who can't sing prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: A well-known British author named Sheldon Vonnegan, a young man, lost his beloved bride to liver disease.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wrote a wonderful book about it called A Severe Mercy.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And says in that book, as my wife lay dying, I reached a point where I considered just forgetting all about God.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then he wrote his first letter to C.S.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis and started a correspondence that saved him.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what was it that caused Asaph to nearly lose his faith entirely?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently it was this.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: He tried to get the facts of life to match up to the facts of faith there in verse one.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the facts of life seemed to outweigh the facts of faith, which came up short.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: His belief didn't seem to fit reality.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: His belief was simply here.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, what we call the providence of God, that God cares for his people, that God's good to his people, to the people of his people who are who have good hearts.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it only seems logical then to people like us and to people like Asaph that God's people should always sort of come out on top, should always succeed, and God's enemies should always fail.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: That if God's really righteous and he's all powerful, and if what he says is true, his promises, the good should basically always win, and bad should always lose.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this simple faith's been with us since the beginning.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: You read about it in the book of Job.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Job's friend says, Whoever perished being innocent.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: No one.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Disciples say in John chapter 9 to Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our children's books are the same way.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: The good guy always scores the touchdown, the bad boy always fumbles the ball.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's from Jacksonville going against the Chiefs.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do you expect?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, or in golf, if you're three put if you're like me, golf a little bit, but you're bad, and your three-put, three-foot putt always seems to rim the hole.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't say it someone else well, that is you must not be living right.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you sink a 25-foot, but on the other hand, you suddenly become Maria in the sound of music somewhere in my youth or childhood.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I must have done something good, right?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's simple.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tragedy has to be the result of transgression.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Prosperity must be the result of purity or piety.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why this kind of faith dies such a hard death is it has a lot going for it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, it's reflected in those Old Testament promises in Deuteronomy 28 at Sinai, when God says to Israel, obey me, obey my Torah, my law, and I will bless you, you'll have success.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Disobey me, rebel against me, and the curses will fall on you.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or, for instance, in an even more familiar passage, in Proverbs chapter 3, it's full of these kind of promises.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Honor the Lord with your wealth, first rich crops, then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: How can it be clearer?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: The good guys will always prosper, the bad ones will suffer.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not only good Bible, it's admitted, it's good logic.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it make logical sense that a person who lives right and you know isn't now caught out at bars at 2 a.m.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: in the morning is gonna live a little bit longer and is better able to handle life's pressures and stresses than those who walk their own way.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But listen, let me say it clearly, that those who, even if you find good Bible verses to suggest it and good logic to support it, if you go out into life thinking that good people will always prosper as the world counts prosperity, then you're going to be destined to spend your life in slippery places and you're going to be in danger of losing your faith altogether.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What was the trigger for Asaph?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: What brought this whole problem home to Asaph?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the issue was that he looked around the corner or down the block and he saw someone who didn't care at all about God, who didn't care about spiritual things, who never went to church, who didn't have any time for this kind of a stuff, but they were doing remarkably well.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, verse 3.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I envied the arrogant, I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's having trouble paying the monthly bills, right?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the guy down the street who doesn't care about God, he's got the latest chariot in his garage.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's always eating, you know, prime rib at home, and his crops are higher than anyone else's, right?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then not only that, they're always healthy.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: They have an easy time until they die.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Their bodies are well fed.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: He he's got a pile of medical bills at home.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this guy and his wife and his children, they don't have, they seem to outlive the righteous people.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they never seem to, you know, get sick or any of that stuff.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: They have no struggles.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not only are they healthy and and wealthy, but they always seem, you know, disgustingly lucky.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're not in trouble like others.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: They they get in the market and the market goes up.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: He gets in the market and it's 2008 and it crashes, you know, and and and they're not afflicted like most people.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: When the viruses go around, you know, he gets the flu and so forth, but they never seem to get sick.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They just, they always win.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Their houses are never broken into, they never get sick like anyone else, and so forth.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then what turns the knife in ASAF's gut is the way they handle their success.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: For one thing, they're proud.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, therefore, pride is their necklace, and violence covers them like a garment.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're arrogant, they walk around with pride like a necklace, they they're just, they, they, they swagger, they flaunt their well.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know people like this.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and violence, they're crooked.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Their violence covers them like a garment.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: If they have to lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and they clamber over you to get to the top, and the imaginations of their hearts run wild.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're not only proud, not only crooked, he says, but they're bullies.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: They mock and they speak maliciously, they arrogantly threaten oppression.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're smug about the whole thing.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're superior, they set their mouths against heaven and their tongues strut across the earth.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're full of boasting.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then what bugs them really is how slick they are, as he looks around, he sees some of his friends deciding that they're gonna follow them.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, this is a really hard verse to translate, as your study Bible probably tells you.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, his people turn to them and drink in their overflowing words.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: A good perhaps paraphrase would be so that even God's people turn to them and eagerly believe whatever they say.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when he thinks of this, that they're wealthy and healthy and lucky and bullying and slick and so forth, it's just, it's just all he can handle, he gets so frustrated, he asks the question, he says, Well, what am I good for nothing?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what what's been the benefit of being good?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's so frustrated, surely in vain.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've stayed pure and I've been innocent because I'm afflicted all day long and seemingly punished every morning.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: The facts of faith for Asaph don't match up with the facts of life.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: The doctrine of God's providence has this big hole in it, which is I'm trying, Lord, I'm doing the best I can.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: That person's not even trying.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: How come they're always winning and I'm always losing?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem to pay to go God's way.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so Asaph, the lead singer in the tabernacle, begins, in a sense, singing the songs of Zion in a minor key.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I envy them.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: He admits it in verse 13 and in verse 3.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever envied someone else who has it better?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't help thinking of Noah, who this week will be walking on campus at John Brown.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And up in front of him on the sidewalk, somewhere, there'll be a boy and there'll be a girl that he knows, and they'll be holding hands.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he'll be thinking, well, just one week ago today, Emily and I were holding hands like this, just talking about our future.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do you not envy someone like that?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I remember after Dougie died, two-year-old, then you'd go to church and you'd see someone else who's holding a two-year-old, and you'd think, God, why it?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why couldn't you leave that two-year-old on earth for us?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you find yourself comparing and even envying wicked people, people who don't follow God.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever sort of spit a prayer like this toward heaven, basically you know what it feels like to feel like life is unfair.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so Asaf says, you know, when I tried to understand all this, it just seemed hopeless.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, in the Hebrew, it's it was trouble in my eyes, or as the NIV says, it was oppressive to me.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It just pressed down on me.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just when I tried to figure this out, I I couldn't figure it out.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the interesting thing is we're halfway through the Psalm almost exactly, and now the whole thing turns because Asaph says, I found an answer.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we know he found an answer, because remember verse one, he's back to believing that God is good to those who are pure in heart.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: So where does Asaph find an answer to the problem of the prosperity of the wicked and the poverty of the righteous?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Where did he go to find the solution?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is simple.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's so simple it's almost embarrassing, and I'm almost embarrassed to say it as a pastor.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says that he found the answer when he went to church.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: He says, when I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless until I entered God's sanctuary.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then I understood their destiny.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know there are a lot of differences between the sanctuary back then and the sanctuary today, but I think there are even more similarities than there are differences.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think back in that day, as today, there are times he went and didn't like the music.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it wasn't his kind of music.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think there were probably times that he went and the giving was small because the people weren't generous and probably the priest gave even less.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think there were times he went and he looked around and the sheep came hungry and they went away without getting fed.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think there were probably times back then the congregation around him had about as much spiritual vitality as warm yogurt.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's still true.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: But in spite of that, Asaph says that he found the answer to his problem when he went into the sanctuary of God.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Today, as you know, the church has become the easiest thing all week to miss.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's become a poor substitute for golf on a rainy Sunday morning.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or a bad substitute for any kind of sports on every on any morning.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even we Christians can sympathize with the people who say, I can worship God just as well at the beach or in the park as I can at church.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Story of a guy who felt that way, and he decided, you know, I think I'll go to the beach this morning.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it'd be better.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sunday morning came down, and teenager's in the kitchen, she's fixing herself breakfast, and he knows how much she likes.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: She's used to going to church.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he says to her, honey, let's go to the beach this morning.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: She says, Well, I like to go to church.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yeah, but you know, we can worship God just as well at the beach as we can at church.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, But we won't, will we?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't, do we?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are a few times where we do, but I would suggest to you that something happens in the sanctuary of our God that really doesn't happen anywhere else.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: That reality breaks through the routine.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think of it a little bit like 9-11.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody here who's 20 years old or more probably remembers where they were on 9-11.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was in my office.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was a Tuesday morning, and Tuesday is the day after my day off, so it's my busiest day of the week by far.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it was Tuesday morning, and I was busy, and when the noise, when the I was up here, it's back when we had our offices here, and you know, Secretary, and I could hear a rumble and some talking with some of the others out there, and I was a little disturbed.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: They were making so much noise, so I shut the door so that I couldn't hear them.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then Hank, frustrating, I can hear Hank, he's dragging out the television, he's plugging it in, he puts it right outside my door.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I sort of go, plugging my ears and so forth, because I have got routine.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have got so many things to get done on Tuesday morning, and finally starts banging on the door.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I come to the door, I say, What is it?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You need to come out here and watch.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I come out here just in time to see the second plane flow into the fly into the second building.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what had happened for me is that reality had broken through my routine.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems to me that that happens sometimes when you go into the sanctuary of God, that you live in a certain routine.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And even when you come into the sanctuary, you have a certain routine, a way of worshiping and a way of thinking.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes that routine continues and you leave church caught in the routine, but once in a while something happens.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Reality breaks through the retur the routine, and God speaks to you in a way that just changes your life, maybe forever.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that really I don't think happens as often or just doesn't happen when you're watching Christian TV or listening to messages online or when you go to the park or the beach.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you that I wouldn't be involved in the job I'm involved in.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't give a nickel of my money or an hour of my time to be involved in church like this if I didn't firmly believe and if I hadn't had experiences myself before I ever got into this job, where God broke through my routine with the reality, a reality that changed my life.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Walter Lippman, a famous news columnist, uh I think described what happened to ASAP and what can happen to us when we come into the sanctuary of God.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: This famous guy once said, What distinguishes men from animals is that men are able to take the long view of the past and the longer view of the future.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: What I think happened to ASAP is that God broke through.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Into his routine with reality that in the sanctuary, God gave Asaph a long-range perspective.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: He gave him the long-range view of life.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And looking at life now suddenly with a long-range view, Asaph discovered that in the light of eternity his neighbor was not prosperous at all.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: That, for one thing, his demise was inevitable.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I understood their destiny, verse 18.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, you put them in slippery places.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: You put them in slippery places.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was in a slippery place, but you actually put them in slippery places.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: You make them fall into ruin.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: He realized that that person around the corner, their fall was inevitable.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Second, he realized their ident would be sudden.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: How suddenly they become a desolation.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: They come to an end, swept away by terrors.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And third, that when they're gone, they'll be forever gone.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: How do we fix that?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: At least they know at the back that something's happening and they can run up and do something about it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is our first time trying this new uh technique.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So but anyway, I don't know if you can see this, but all of a sudden, uh.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it'll work out.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, you know the last time you had a dream, maybe last night or last week, and then you you suddenly woke up from the dream.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: The dream is so amazingly vivid.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you hated the dream, maybe you loved the dream, you know, but you were sure that was reality.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had a dream that's that vivid?
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then you wake up, and if you like the dream, you know, you sort of are like grabbing after it.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, get back here, get back here, get back here.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was really fun, you know.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Disneyland, right?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh, or if you hated it, you know, slipping away, and you're so glad it's slipping away, and you get up and walk around for a little while because it's it's so shocking.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, like one waking from a dream lord when arising, you'll despise their image.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: At times it must have seemed to ASAP that his neighbor's wealth was absolutely permanent, that his health would last forever, that his financial investments were as good as gold.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: But there in the sanctuary of God, Asaf saw something.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: He looked at life from the long-range view and saw that all of that health and wealth and success was like a dream.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: That one day it was about to slip away, that his health and his wealth were impermanent, and the only thing his neighbor really had locked in was inevitable doom because he was only enjoying a temporary immunity from the wrath and judgment of God.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you this.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Can you, are you able to look at life with a long-range view?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: One of the greatest NFL runners of all time, name was Eric Dickerson.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: He had just run for over 2,000 yards, set an all-time record, and they're asking, how come you can do this?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: How come you know you ran for 800 yards more than even the guy who was in second place?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And his answer, at least on TV to the interviewer, went something like this.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I think it really gets down to vision.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think most runners are looking right in front of them, but there are times when I break through a hole and I feel like I can see the entire field and everybody on it at the same time.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a perspective thing.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's sort of a nice description of what I'm talking about.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a bad description of a wise Christian, that he isn't caught with tunnel vision, that he's not looking only at what's right in front of him or her.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: He sees, she sees the whole field of life and not and looks at life with sort of this wide-angle lens and long-range view.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way that Christians are supposed to look at life.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, by the way, ASAF gains, you know, these, these, these really amazing perspectives.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: For one thing, he gets a new view of himself.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 21, when I became embittered at my innermost and my innermost being was wounded.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was stupid.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was an unthinking animal toward you.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean you were an animal?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yeah, remember, an animal doesn't have a long-range view of life.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: An animal has tunnel vision.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that goldfish in your bowl, or or or uh, you know, dog in your yard or the cow in the field, they just look at what's right in front of them.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they're sort of unthinking, they're sort of stupid.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And a man or woman who only takes his cues, his view of life from what he sees right in front of him is no better than an animal.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And can I stop and say, any Christian, if you envy your wealthy neighbor, or that Hollywood scarlet, or that super athlete, or that business tycoon, or that lottery winner, then you for that moment are no better than an animal just looking right in front of you and forgetting that this is just success as the world defines success and will disappear so quickly if you have a long-range view.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, he got a new view not just of himself, but of God.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Yet I'm always with you.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: You hold my right hand.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Even when I was slipping and about to slip off the cliff, I realized now that you were gripping my right hand and you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up in glory.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: He suddenly has this view of God as not his enemy, but his closest companion.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then he gets a new view of happiness.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: He realizes that God knows better than he does what would make him happy.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: I talked about this a month ago, and he says, Who do I have in heaven but you?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I desire nothing on earth but you, my flesh and my heart may fail, but God's the strength of my heart, my portion forever.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Asaph has realized what Christians for thousands of years have finally realized that if you have everything in life but you do not have God, you are indescribably poor, and if you have nothing in life but you have God, you are indescribably wealthy.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: So he has a new view of himself and God and happiness, but finally he has in the last two verses of the chapter, he has a new view of life, even when it's unfair.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Those far from you, he realizes will certainly perish.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: You destroy all who are unfaithful to you, but as for me, God's presence is my good.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have made the Lord God my refuge.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell about all you do.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, his neighbor down there still lives in the biggest house, still has the latest chariot in his garage, still has the finest food on the table and the highest crops in his field.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing visible has changed, but having gone into the sanctuary of God, Asaph, right, has changed because now he has a long-range view of life.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he sees everything differently than he saw it before.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think he came into the room, into the sanctuary, feeling sorry for himself and feeling envious of his neighbor.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: But now, walking out of the sanctuary, he feels sorry for his neighbor and thrilled with all he has.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: He came into the sanctuary thinking his neighbor was rich and he was poor, and now he's going away thinking his neighbor is terribly poor, and he is indescribably rich because he's changed, because he has a long-range view of life.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: The story is told of a Midwestern farmer who had a rather strong disdain for spiritual things.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as he would be riding his tractor out in the field, harvesting or planting or whatever, and he saw on a Sunday morning cars driving by of his neighbors going to church, he would wave and laugh at them in his heart.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And October came, and this farmer had his finest crop ever.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was such an incredible crop that he got interviewed by the local newspaper.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in the interview, he sort of belittled Christian farmers for abandoning their tractors on Sunday mornings to go to church.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: He said, faith in God must not be worth much, he said, if someone like me can be so successful.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, the response by the Christian community was polite and quiet.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: In the next edition of the paper, someone wrote a note to the editor.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: It read simply, God doesn't always settle his accounts in October.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: The letter writer was perceptive and biblical.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like ASAF, that Christian had learned to take the long-range view of life.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Something like that happened down at John Brown University on Friday.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Going into the Cathedral of the Ozarks, the kids were broken and they were brittle.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Their faces were frozen.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: But then we just sang songs, song after song, and there were prayers amidst tears.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, surrounded by the kids, I was surrounded by Emily's friends, doormates.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't help crying along with them.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Something happened as song followed song.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally we got to uh that final song, and you could tell something had changed as the kids sang the words to really what is a great old hymn.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Be still, my soul.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is on your side.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because in everything he, faithful, will remain.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll at long range.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Be still, my soul, the hour is hastening on.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: When we shall be forever with the Lord, when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, and love's purest joys are restored.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Those kids had come in, slipping, sliding, in serious danger, and they had come to the place where as they raised their hands toward God on the final stanza with tears dripping down their faces at the loss of their dear friend Emily, they suddenly saw life with a long-range view.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're about to celebrate your table, that moment when you look down and your tears dripped as your son hung on the cross because of us for our sins in our place.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: As we celebrate this morning, we break the bread as we share the cup.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Give us a sense of the great place of suffering and agony and loss in your greater story that ends with eternal joy.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.