Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Goodness of God in the School of Affliction (Psalm 119:65–72) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Goodness of God in the School of Affliction (Psalm 119:65–72) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there
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is this expectation of, well, absolute precision.
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Oh, absolutely like engineering. Right, Very much like
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engineering. You fall off a ladder, you break
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your arm, and you go to the hospital.
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The technician takes an X-ray and that image shows a jagged,
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glowing white line straight through the bone.
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Yeah, there is no ambiguity there.
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None at all. The doctor points to the
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eliminated screen and says there it is.
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There is the fracture, and you look at the image yourself and
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the reality of the situation is undeniable.
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It is a clean, visible, indisputable fact.
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We really have an inherent appreciation for things that can
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be categorized like that. We do.
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We want to know what is broken, why it hurts, and what the
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precise remedy will be. But then you step into the
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spiritual realm, particularly when assessing the circumstances
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of our lives, and suddenly that trusty X-ray machine is entirely
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useless. It really is.
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We look at our trials, our pains, our financial collapses,
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our relational fractures, all the seemingly random, chaotic
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events of our days, and we try to read them like a diagnostic
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chart. We squint at our suffering to
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figure out if God is treating us well or poorly.
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We try to guess if he is punishing us or blessing us.
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Right. And I mean that human attempt at
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diagnosis almost always leads to theological despair.
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Oh, for sure, Because our fleshly diagnostic criteria are
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fundamentally flawed. We equate comfort with God's
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approval, and we equate pain with God's abandonment.
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We operate under this this transactional almost pay in
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mindset. Yeah, assuming that if the sun
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is shining on our plans, the Almighty is pleased.
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Precisely. But if the storm clouds gather,
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we must have triggered some divine retribution.
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We want the binary simplicity of the X-ray, but the Providence of
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God operates on a totally different plane, achieving ends
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that our natural eyes simply cannot perceive.
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That desire for simplicity is precisely what makes our text
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for today so incredibly arresting.
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So welcome to reformed thinking. We're so glad you could join us
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today. Yes, I am so glad to have you,
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the listener, sitting right here in the room with us for this
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deep dive today, we are setting aside the inadequate diagnostic
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charts of human reasoning. We are taking up Charles
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Spurgeon's massive work, The Treasury of David.
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Specifically, we are focusing our attention on Psalm 119,
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verses 65 through 72. In the structure of the Psalm.
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This is the section corresponding to the Hebrew
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letter teth. And our mission today is pretty
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specific. It is our goal today is to
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uncover the biblical view of affliction, the supreme value of
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Scripture, and the mechanics of how God's sovereign Providence
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operates for the good of His people.
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It is a weighty topics for sure. Definitely.
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And before we begin, I want to establish a ground rule for the
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conversation you are about to hear.
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My colleague and I have a firm agreement that we will not
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interrupt one another today. We want to make sure every
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thought is fully developed. Right.
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We are dealing with heavy theological concepts drawn from
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our Protestant heritage and the Westminster Confession,
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alongside some pretty striking historical analogies.
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So we want to afford each thought, each argument, and each
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metaphor the complete, unhurried articulation it requires.
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OK, let's unpack this text. Let's do it.
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Verse 65 reads, Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord,
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according unto thy word. The psalmist looks at the
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entirety of his life, the triumphs, the betrayals, the
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heights of the throne, the caves of exile, and he renders A
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definitive verdict. He cannot remain silent.
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No, he is compelled to speak his gratitude.
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He says God has done all things well.
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There are no exceptions to the rule, but I have to push back on
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how this lands on the modern year.
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I can see why. When I look at the believers in
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my own community and when I study the historical realities
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of the Christian faith, I see lives marked by excruciating
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sorrow, chronic physical pain, and devastating, unexplainable
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loss. Yeah, the suffering is immense.
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So the idea of standing in the smoking wreckage of your earthly
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life and declaring Lord you have dealt well with me borders on
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the offensive to our modern sensibilities.
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It demands a total redefinition of the word good.
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It really does. It seems that under the Reformed
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understanding of Providence, the conviction that God ordains
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whatsoever comes to pass, we are forced to strip the word good of
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all its comfortable earthly connotations.
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How does a person do that well? What's fascinating here is that
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the believer's definition of good must indeed be entirely
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untethered from human comfort SP securely fastened to the eternal
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decrees of God. Right.
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When the psalmist looks at his circumstances and says God has
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dealt well with him, he is not making the absurd claim that
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every situation felt pleasant to his physical flesh or, you know,
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his emotional state. That would be totally
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unrealistic. Absolutely.
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He is affirming a much weightier truth.
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The Book of Providence tallies perfectly with the Book of
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Promise. Our Reformed theology, codified
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so beautifully in the Westminster Confession, teaches
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the gods. Providence extends to the very
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hairs on our heads. Chapter 5 of the confession is
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pretty explicit about that. Spot on.
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He upholds, directs, disposes and governs all creatures,
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actions and things from the greatest to the least.
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He is the first 'cause. However, He also orchestrates
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all these events using secondary causes to about His ordained
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ends. Therefore, God deals well with
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us by sending the specific, precise trials we require for
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our sanctification, not by delivering us from all hardship.
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So the trial itself is the mechanism of his care.
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Yes, faith recognizes that the Lord's dealings, no matter how
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severe those secondary causes might be, are meticulously
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designed to draw us closer to Him.
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And accusing conscience shrinks back from God in the midst of
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suffering, terrified of punishment.
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Because we assume he is just angry with us.
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Exactly. Precisely.
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But genuine faith asks for more grace, resting in the conviction
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that whatever the sovereign Lord ordains is right.
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The good we receive from God frequently arise in the form of
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bitter medicine, and medicine designed to cure a fatal disease
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is rarely sweet to the tongue. That is a tough pill to swallow,
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literally. It is to illustrate the reality
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of this conviction, Spurgeon includes an incredible
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historical anecdote regarding the Scottish Reverend J Brown of
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Haddington. Oh, I read about him.
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His life was intensely difficult.
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Yes, Reverend Brown was a man intensely acquainted with grief.
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He was orphaned very early in his youth, losing both his
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father and his mother. Just a heartbreaking start to
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life. Truly, he faced poverty,
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hardship and the rigorous demands of a difficult ministry.
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Yet near the end of his days, he stated that if he could live his
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entire life over again, he would wish not a single circumstance
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changed. Wait, really?
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Not a single one. Not one, except he said, to have
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less sin in his own heart. He even noted that it could be
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carved into his coffin that he was one of the cares of
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Providence. Wow, one of the cares of
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Providence, yeah. He testified that he never truly
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missed his parents because the sovereign, meticulous care of
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God so completely enveloped him from his youth.
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This is not stoicism. This is the posture of a
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regenerated soul that has learned to interpret its
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circumstances to the lens of God's absolute sovereignty.
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He understood his trials were the very instruments God
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employed to deal well with him. That phrase, one of the cares of
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Providence, demands serious contemplation.
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It really reframes everything. It suggests that being cared for
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by God does not mean being shielded from the biting wind.
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Rather, it means being actively shaped by the wind, according to
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the Grand Architect's design. Yes, shaped by it, not hidden
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from it. To look at a life defined by
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orphan hood and poverty and say I would change nothing but my
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own sin requires completely different kind of mental
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palette. We naturally recoil from pain
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and gravitate toward ease. Of course we do.
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We want the soft bed, the full table and the quiet life.
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If we are honest, our natural appetite craves comfort far more
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than it creates holiness. That is the human condition in a
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nutshell. And this brings an enormous
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tension to the surface, which the psalmist addresses in the
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very next breath. Verse 66 highlights this
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desperate need for a new way of tasting reality.
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Right, the plea for a new taste. The verse says, Teach me good
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judgement and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments.
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David realizes his previous failures in judging God's
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chastening hand. He misdiagnosed his
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circumstances in the past. Got the diagnosis wrong.
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Yes, and so he asks for good judgement, which I found
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incredibly compelling when I looked into the original Hebrew.
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The word used there is TA AM, which literally translates to
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taste or discernment. He is asking for a brand new
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spiritual palette. He really is, and to understand
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what this means biologically and spiritually, I want to bring in
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a fascinating observation made by the 19th century biologist
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Sir John Lubbock. Oh, the studies on the bees and
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the flies. Yes, he conducted extensive,
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meticulous studies on the fertilization of flowers by
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insects, and he noted A striking categorical distinction between
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the preferences of bees and the preferences of flies.
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It is a brilliant illustration. Bees are creatures of fine,
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sensitive, agreeable tastes. They are naturally drawn to
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sweet, brightly colored, fragrant flowers like Moss,
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roses, lavender, or Clover. They seek out what is pleasant
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and wholesome, gathering nectar to produce honey.
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While the flies do the exact opposite.
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Right Flies act as what Lubbock called insectoid vultures.
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They completely bypass the fragrant roses.
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Instead, they swarm toward livid yellow or dingy red plants that
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emit foul putrid odors. Like rotting meat.
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Precisely. For instance, if you place a
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handful of beautiful blooming Moss roses on a lawn right next
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to a stinkhorn fungus, a plant that literally smells like
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rotting meat, the flies will entirely ignore the roses.
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They won't even land on them. No, they will cover the foul
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smelling fungus feasting on it. It is their very nature to feast
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on corruption. It seems to me that when we talk
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about asking God for good judgement or a new taste, we are
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confronting the reality that human beings in our natural
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state are much more like the fly than the bee.
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We are drawn to the moral equivalent of the stinkhorn
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fungus. That biological illustration
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captures the essence of the Reformed doctrine of total
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depravity with startling, uncomfortable clarity.
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It makes you wince a little bit. It does.
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When we speak of total depravity as outlined in the confession,
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we are not suggesting that every human being is as evil as they
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could possibly be in their outward actions.
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Right, we're not all committing the worst crimes imaginable.
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No, rather, we are affirming that the corruption of the fall
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has extended to every faculty of our being.
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It has corrupted our mind, our will, our affections, and,
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crucially, our spiritual palate. Our very sense of taste is
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broken. Yes, in our natural unregenerate
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state we possess a family like appetite.
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We have a taste for the fleeting, the corrupt, the vain
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and the worldly. We have absolutely no natural
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appetite for the holy, frequent things of God.
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Because it just doesn't register as sweet to us.
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The things of the Spirit are foolishness to the natural man,
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precisely because his palate is tuned to the frequency of sin.
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He cannot savor the holiness of God any more than a family can
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savor the nectar of a Moss rose. So he needs a completely new
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nature. Exactly.
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Absolutely. So when the psalmist praise,
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teach me good judgement or give me a new taste, he's asking for
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a sovereign divine intervention. He's asking for regeneration.
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He is asking God to alter his fundamental nature.
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He is pleading with God to replace his fly like appetite
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with a bee like spiritual discernment.
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Through God's irresistible grace, the renewed St. is
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granted this new pallet. Suddenly the law of God, which
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once seemed restrictive, burdensome, and bitter, becomes
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sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.
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And he specifically mentions the commandments in that verse.
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Yes. Notice the justification the
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psalmist gives in the latter half of verse 66.
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For I have believed thy commandments.
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True faith goes far beyond simply believing the promises of
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God. It involves A wholehearted
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belief in the commandments. It is easy to believe in
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promises of reward. Of course, but true faith means
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looking at the moral law of God, the restrictions, the
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boundaries, the demands for holiness, and saying this is
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right, this is just, and the lawmaker is sovereign.
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The natural man hates those boundaries.
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The unregenerate man might desire the promises of heaven to
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escape the torments of hell, but he vehemently despises the
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commandments because they curb his fly like appetites.
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He wants the crown without the cross.
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The regenerate man, having been granted a new taste, believes
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the commandments are fundamentally good.
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Therefore, he pleads with God for the discernment to apply
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those commandments to his daily life.
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He wants his new spiritual taste to dictate his choices, enabling
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him to fly from one holy pursuit to another.
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Gathering the nectar of divine truth.
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Here's where it gets really interesting.
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You brought up the fact that our natural disposition vehemently
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hates the restrictions of the commandments.
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We have a carnal love of ease. We constantly seek the path of
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least resistance. We desire the wide, smooth Rd.,
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not the narrow, rocky path that requires exertion, and this
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reality forces us to confront verse 67, which offers a brutal
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but entirely necessary assessment of human nature.
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It is a very humbling. Verse The psalmist confesses,
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Before I was afflicted I went to stray, but now have I kept thy
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word. Spurgeon provides A vivid
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pastoral image for this. The image of the sheep.
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Yes, he notes that prosperity acts as a gap in the hedge where
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sheep casually wander out into the dangerous wilderness.
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Affliction, conversely, acts as the sharp, impenetrable thorn
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hedge, keeping them safely within the boundaries of the
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pasture. They need those thorns.
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We naturally long for peace, wealth, and unbroken health.
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We pray for these things constantly.
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Yet biblical history and our own personal experiences demonstrate
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that a little peace very quickly creates spiritual disease within
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us. It breeds complacency so fast.
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We are creatures who rust. When we rest, when our stomachs
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are full, when our bank accounts are padded, and when our bodies
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are healthy, our prayers become incredibly shallow, almost
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perfunctory. We just go through the motions.
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We treat the sovereign Lord of the universe like a distant
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relative. We only call when we need a
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financial bailout. It makes me wonder about the
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psychological mechanics of prosperity.
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Why does a little bit of wealth create such a massive amnesia
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regarding our dependence on God? It is a strange phenomenon.
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And consequently, we must deduce that the rod of affliction is
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not primarily A punitive measure, but a desperately
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needed corrective mercy designed to cure our wandering.
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It is the sheepdog biting our heels to keep us out of the jaws
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of the wolf. The amnesia caused by prosperity
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is a direct result of our remaining corruption, that
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residual sin that clings to the believer even after
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regeneration. Prosperity lulls the flesh into
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a false sense of autonomy. We start thinking we are in
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charge. When we are not pressed by
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immediate physical need, we begin to entertain the quiet,
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arrogant illusion that we are the captains of our own souls.
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We believe we have secured our own future.
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Ezekiel Hopkins has a great analogy for this.
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Doesn't. It he does, Ezekiel Hopkins, a
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brilliant Puritan thinker, offers an analogy for this
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dynamic that clarifies the theology of affliction
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perfectly. He compares man to a wild,
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debauched son who rebels against a loving and wealthy father.
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Similar to the Prodigal son. Very similar.
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This prodigal son forsakes his father's house, gathers his
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inheritance, and goes out into the wide world to revel and riot
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among the creatures. He desires the gifts without any
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submission to the giver. He wants the wealth, not the
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relationship. Now the Father in this analogy
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represents God. The Father resolves to recover
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his wandering Son, but he does not accomplish this by sending
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more money to subsidize the rebellion.
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That would just enable him. Right.
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He does not pad the son's life with further comfort.
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Instead, the Father, possessing absolute authority over the
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entire realm, commands the creatures of the world to treat
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his son roughly. He.
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Commands them. Yes, he commands the fire to
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burn his estate. He commenced The Tempest to toss
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his ships and ruin his cargo. He commands his wealth to fail.
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He commands his worldly, rebellious friends to betray and
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abandoned him. So the elements themselves are
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acting on the Father's orders. All of these elements, the fire
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of the storm, the failing economy, the treacherous
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friends, are acting as God's deputized servants, fulfilling
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His sovereign decree. They are commanded to strip the
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prodigal of His false securities, so that, finding
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himself destitute, hungry, and despised, he will be driven back
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to the safety and submission of his father's house.
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Affliction is the rough hand of grace pulling us back.
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Yes, as the minister John Mason famously observed, affliction
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separates the sin God hates from the soul God loves.
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It burns away the dross in the furnace of suffering.
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That brings to mind the poet Thomas Washbourne.
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Yes, his poem on this is brilliant.
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Washbourne captured the psychological reality
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beautifully when he wrote that man wanders out into the fields
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when the sunshine is warm, but when the rain and stormy weather
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arrive, he hastens home again. It is human nature.
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We are prone to wander when the sun of prosperity is shining,
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but the terrifying Thunder of affliction sends us sprinting
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back to the only true shelter, which is the sovereign care of
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God. That analogy of the elements
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acting as God's rough servants completely upends our standard
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view of suffering. It changes the entire paradigm.
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It forces us to look at The Tempest in our own lives, the
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financial ruins, the physical illnesses, not as random acts of
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a chaotic universe, nor as victories of the devil, but as
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disciplined, obedient servants of a sovereign Father who is
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meticulously orchestrating our return.
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And that is entirely counterintuitive to the flesh.
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It really is the rough treatment from the world.
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World actually reveals the pristine, loving nature of the
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Father. The severity of the storm proves
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the steadfastness of His love. This theological shift in
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perspective brings us directly to verse 68.
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Which is a profound, I mean a staggering verse.
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Yes, it declares, Thou art good and doest good.
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Teach me thy statutes. Here we have a definitive,
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unyielding statement about the unchanging essence of divine
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goodness. God has an absolute monopoly on
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goodness. Every act he performs flows
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entirely from his nature. There is no darkness in him.
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But this raises a massive intellectual and emotional
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hurdle. It feels contradictory to the
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human mind to look at the Father commanding the storms and the
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fire and still call him good. I hear that objection all the
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time. If I caused my own earthly child
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physical pain, or if I deliberately orchestrated a
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scenario where my child lost their house and their friends,
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the secular world would rightfully call me abusive.
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Yet God strikes us with illness, strips us of wealth, and
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bereaves us of loved ones. And the psalmist demands that we
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look at this sovereign and declare Thou art good.
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It requires a massive shift in our understanding.
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I have to deduce that our definition of goodness is
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incredibly shallow. We define goodness as the
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absence of pain. God defines goodness as the
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presence of holiness, but how do we bridge that gap?
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How does the Reformed perspective differentiate
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between our flawed, contingent human concepts of goodness and
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the absolute perfection of God's goodness?
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To bridge that gap, we must recognize the categorical
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ontological difference between human goodness and divine
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goodness. The ancient philosopher Philo
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correctly identified that God is the first good.
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Meaning everything else is secondary.
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All other goodness in the universe is derivative.
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In human beings, goodness is a super added quality.
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Think of it like a vessel made of common clay or iron that has
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been heavily plated with gold. OK, gold plating.
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The gold plating is beautiful. It shines in the light and it
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adds value to the vessel. But it is in addition to the
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underlying base material. Because human goodness is a
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plating, it can be scratched off.
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It can tarnish. It fluctuates wildly based on
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our mood or circumstances. Right.
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Our blood sugar levels, our exposure to temptation.
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We are good when things are going our way.
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God's goodness, however, is not a plating, it is His very
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essence. He is a vessel made of solid
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gold. Solid gold all the way through.
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You can strike him, you can test him, you can hurl accusations at
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him, but you will only ever find pure gold all the way through to
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the core. Because God is immutable,
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meaning he is entirely incapable of change.
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His goodness cannot increase or decrease.
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So even his rough actions are pure gold.
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Therefore, every single action he takes, including the
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deployment of affliction, is an expression of that pure,
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unadulterated goodness. When we experience the painful,
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striking rod of affliction, our physical flesh screams that this
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cannot possibly be good. Because it hurts.
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But as the Scottish minister John Willison pointed out, we do
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not thank God for affliction as affliction.
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We do not praise God for pain itself.
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Because pain, disease and death are results of the fall.
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They are unnatural to the original creation.
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So what are we praising him for? We praise Him because the trial
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is the chosen, ordained mechanism for our
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sanctification. We praise Him for the surgical
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precision with which He cuts away our spiritual tumors.
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That surgeon analogy is powerful.
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If a skilled surgeon cuts you open with a scalpel, it causes
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immense pain, bleeding, and trauma to the physical body.
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But you do not call the surgeon evil or abusive.
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You call him good because his intention and the end result of
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his action is the preservation of your life.
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He wounds you to heal you. God is the great infallible
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physician of our souls. He acts in perfect goodness even
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when His methods involve the severe discipline required to
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conform us to the image of His Son.
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The idea of praising the surgeon for the mechanism of the scalpel
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is a really tough pill for our pride to swallow.
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It requires us to admit that we have spiritual tumors that need
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exercising. We don't like admitting we are
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sick. Not at all.
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And Speaking of pride, the next verse introduces the antagonists
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in the psalmist life, the individuals who frequently act
21:49
as the secondary causes, the very scalpels of his suffering.
21:53
The ones forging the lies. Verse 69 says the proud have
21:56
forged a lie against me, but I will keep thy precepts with my
21:59
whole heart. The proud resort to falsehood
22:02
because they cannot find any genuine glaring faults in the
22:05
believers conduct. I'm fascinated by the specific
22:09
word forge here. It employs a lot of effort.
22:11
It really implies A blacksmith's anvil.
22:14
It suggests premeditation, extreme heat, and heavy
22:16
striking. These enemies are not just
22:19
tossing out careless rumors, they are intentionally hammering
22:22
out a weapon of deception on the Anvil of Malice.
22:25
They're. Crafting a weapon.
22:26
Or, as some translator suggests, they are patching up a disguise
22:29
to smear over the truth. They're taking tiny scraps of
22:32
reality, taking things out of context, and sewing them
22:35
together with malicious intent to create a highly convincing
22:38
lie. Which is incredibly damaging.
22:40
I can deduce from my own life that when someone attacks my
22:43
character, my immediate impulse is retaliation.
22:47
If someone takes a hammer to an anvil to forge a lie against me,
22:51
I want to grab my own hammer. We all want to defend ourselves.
22:54
I want to rush to the court of public opinion, dismantle their
22:58
lie, and forge a counterattack that completely destroys their
23:01
reputation. But look at the psalmist's
23:04
reaction. He completely abandons the
23:07
anvil. He walks away from the forge.
23:09
He says, I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.
23:13
He responds to character assassination with wholehearted
23:16
obedience to the law. He leaves the battlefield of
23:19
public relations entirely. Why does he do this?
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It seems like weakness to the world.
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I assume it is because taking up the hammer of retaliation means
23:27
stepping out of the bounds of God's jurisdiction and relying
23:29
on the arm of the flesh. Your deduction is completely
23:32
correct. The psalmist's response reveals
23:35
an intricate understanding of spiritual warfare and the
23:38
absolute sovereignty of God over human reputations.
23:41
William Calper wrote about this right?
23:43
He did. The writer William Calper
23:45
astutely noted that Satan fights the godly with two distinct
23:48
arms, violence and lies. Violence and lies.
23:53
When Satan's reach is restrained by God's Providence, so that he
23:55
cannot use physical violence or martyrdom against the believer,
23:59
he inevitably resorts to his second arm, which is the forging
24:03
of lies. He is, after all, the father of
24:05
lies. So these proud individuals are
24:07
just his instruments. The proud individuals attacking
24:10
the psalmist are the very instruments Satan is using.
24:13
They trim up their lies with the shadow of truth, making their
24:16
calumnies sound plausible and convincing to the public ear.
24:20
This is an incredibly painful, isolating trial for any person
24:24
to endure. It feels like everyone is
24:25
turning against you. Our natural fleshly instinct is
24:28
exactly as you described, to retaliate, to defend our
24:31
reputation fiercely, and to expose the liars.
24:34
But the foamest recognizes a critical theological danger.
24:37
If he engages on their level. If he steps onto the battlefield
24:41
of Slam, if he allows his mind to be consumed without arguing
24:45
his opponents and crafting a better narrative, he risks
24:48
stepping entirely out of the bounds of God's precepts.
24:51
He risks employing the very same carnal, fleshly weapons his
24:55
enemies are using. He becomes a blacksmith of
24:56
malice himself. Therefore, his strategy is
24:59
radical, counterintuitive obedience.
25:02
A wholly consistent life becomes the unanswerable reputation to
25:06
the forged lie. When the proud smear A
25:08
believer's reputation, the believer responds by doubling
25:11
down on his devotion to God's law.
25:13
He leaves the vindication to God.
25:15
He leaves his vindication entirely to the Providence of
25:17
God. This requires immense,
25:20
staggering faith. It means trusting that the
25:22
Sovereign Lord, who sees all things and knows all hearts,
25:25
will eventually bring the truth to light and justify His servant
25:28
in his own perfect timing. By keeping the precepts, he
25:31
neutralizes the iMac. By keeping the precepts with his
25:34
whole heart, the believer effectively neuters the enemy's
25:37
attack, turning a malicious slander into a catalyst for
25:40
greater personal holiness. The fire meant to destroy his
25:43
reputation is used by God to refine his character.
25:46
So what does this all mean for the internal state of those
25:50
enemies wielding the hammer? The psalmist contrasts his own
25:54
reaction of obedience with the spiritual condition of his
25:56
attackers in the very next breath.
25:58
Verse 70 is quite graphic. Verse 70 says their heart is as
26:02
fat as grease. But I delight in my law.
26:05
That imagery is visceral, almost nauseating.
26:08
The proud men who forge lies, who live in carnal luxury and
26:12
seemingly get away with their deception, have developed a
26:15
coarse, groveling insensibility. Their hearts are fat as grease.
26:20
It is a terrifying spiritual condition.
26:22
To understand the mechanics of this metaphor, I looked into a
26:25
medical condition described by the 19th century physician Sir
26:28
James Risdon Bennett. He wrote extensively about a
26:31
literal physical disease called fatty degeneration of the heart.
26:34
The physical parallel is striking here.
26:36
In a healthy human heart, you have lean, strong, robust muscle
26:40
fibers that contract vigorously to pump life giving blood
26:44
throughout the entire body. But in this disease, those
26:46
healthy muscle fibers are actually converted into fatty,
26:49
oily globules. The structure of the organ
26:52
literally changes. The very structure changes.
26:54
The heart becomes literally greasy as this physiological
26:58
change occurs. The heart's action becomes
27:01
sluggish, feeble and irregular. It cannot handle any exertion
27:06
and the condition very frequently leads to sudden
27:08
catastrophic death. And it's often caused by
27:11
lifestyle, right? Yes, this physical disease is
27:14
often brought on by an indolent, luxurious, sedentary mode of
27:18
living. It seems the psalmist is using
27:20
this exact biological mechanism to describe the spiritual state
27:24
of the wicked. They are gorging on the luxuries
27:27
of the world and it is actively destroying the muscle of their
27:29
conscience. That medical description of
27:32
fatty degeneration provides a terrifyingly accurate picture of
27:36
the spiritual reality of the unregenerate prosperous person.
27:40
Worldly prosperity, when not mitigated by the sovereign grace
27:43
of God, literally suffocates the soul.
27:46
It chokes out any spiritual life.
27:48
When a person lives in constant indulgence, catering to every
27:50
whim of the flesh, avoiding all hardship and relying on their
27:53
own wealth, their spiritual heart undergoes A catastrophic
27:56
fatty degeneration. They become like overfed,
27:59
sluggish animal. Unfitted for anything noble.
28:01
Completely unfitted for any noble or holy impulses.
28:05
The fatness of their pride, their wealth and their luxury
28:08
insulates them from reality. If you try to prick them with
28:12
the sharp warnings of the divine Word, if you preach the law to
28:15
them, they feel absolutely nothing.
28:17
The blade just sinks into the grease.
28:19
The sharp blade of the law just sinks into the grease of their
28:22
complacency without ever reaching a nerve ending.
28:25
They possess A horrifying complete insensibility to their
28:28
own eternal danger. They're essentially
28:31
sleepwalking. They are spiritually sluggish,
28:33
short of breath, and they are sleepwalking towards sudden
28:36
eternal death, all while believing they are at the
28:39
pinnacle of success. In stark contrast, the believer
28:42
says, But I delight in thy law. The believer's diet is totally
28:46
different. The believer finds his festival,
28:48
his banquet, and his deepest satisfaction, not in the rich,
28:51
fatty foods of the world's indulgences, but in the pure,
28:54
nourishing milk and solid meat of God's Word.
28:58
This delight in the law acts as a rigorous daily spiritual
29:01
exercise. It keeps the soul lean.
29:03
It keeps the soul lean, hungry and agile.
29:06
The believer is not weighed down by the gross luxuries of sin.
29:10
Instead, his spiritual muscles are toned and ready for action.
29:14
He can run in the way of God's commandments without growing
29:17
weary. So it is a contrast of vitality
29:20
versus lethargy. The contrast here is between the
29:23
heavy, death bound lethargy of the wicked, whose prosperity is
29:27
actually a curse, and the vibrant, responsive vitality of
29:30
the soul that feeds exclusively on the decrees of the Almighty.
29:33
That vitality, ironically, is almost always achieved by
29:36
stripping away the comforts that cause the fatty degeneration in
29:39
the first place. The medicine for the fatty heart
29:41
is the treadmill of affliction. It is forced to exercise.
29:44
We have deduced that the rod is necessary, but verse 71 brings
29:48
us to the famous shocking declaration of the psalmist.
29:50
Accepting this reality. It is good for me that I have
29:53
been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.
29:56
He embraces the trial. The solemist looks back at the
29:58
fire, the storm, the failing wealth and the slander, and he
30:01
says this was the absolute best thing that could have happened
30:05
to me. Our worst days functioning under
30:08
God's meticulous Providence are infinitely better for us than
30:11
the sinners. Best days?
30:12
There is no paved road to learning these statutes.
30:15
No Royal Rd. at all. They are best read with eyes wet
30:19
with tears. To illustrate this absolute
30:22
necessity of harsh conditions for spiritual growth, I want to
30:25
share a brilliant anecdote from Archbishop Wheatley regarding
30:28
the cultivation of the large tree.
30:30
Oh, this is a fantastic story. When the large tree was first
30:33
introduced to England from the warmer climates of the South of
30:36
Europe, the local gardeners made a logical but nearly fatal
30:39
assumption. Hearing it came from the South,
30:42
they assumed it required warmth, shelter and delicate care.
30:46
They thought it was fragile. So they placed the young plants
30:48
in a heated, heavily controlled hothouse.
30:51
They monitored the temperature, kept out the wind and provided
30:54
constant warmth. And day by day, despite their
30:57
careful attention, the trees withered, their needles dropped,
31:00
and they began to die. The environment was killing
31:03
them. The head gardener, completely
31:05
frustrated and disgusted with his failure, took the withered,
31:08
dying plants and threw them outside onto a cold, exposed
31:12
dung heap in the middle of a harsh winter.
31:15
He abandoned them to the freezing frost in the biting
31:17
wind. He essentially gave up on them.
31:19
He gave up. But an amazing biological
31:22
miracle happened out there on the dunheap.
31:25
In the freezing cold, the large trees began to revive.
31:29
They began to bud, to root deeply, and to thrive.
31:32
They grew into magnificent towering trees.
31:35
It was the cold that saved them. It turned out they were actually
31:38
mountain trees that grew near the snow line.
31:41
The artificial warmth of the hothouse was suffocating them
31:44
and they desperately needed the severe cold to survive and grow.
31:48
When I hear this, I cannot help but apply it to the hothouse of
31:50
modern Christianity. We love building hothouses.
31:53
We constantly try to build hothouses for ourselves and our
31:56
families. We want the climate controlled
31:58
environment of financial security, physical health and
32:00
social approval, assuming our faith will blossom there.
32:04
But God knows our biology better than we do.
32:06
If we connect this to the bigger picture of God's redemptive
32:09
work, we see that God is the great omniscient husbandman.
32:13
He knows precisely what environment his individual
32:15
plants require to thrive and bear fruit.
32:17
He does not guess like the English gardeners did.
32:19
No, He knows our frame. You're entirely right.
32:22
We constantly pray for the High house.
32:24
We pray for comfort, for an absence of conflict, for easy
32:27
relationships, and for smooth sailing, assuming that in those
32:30
warm, comfortable conditions, our faith will naturally
32:33
blossom. But the warmth actually breeds
32:35
lethargy. God knows that the hothouse of
32:37
uninterrupted prosperity will cause our spiritual vitality to
32:41
wither. We will develop that fatty to
32:43
degeneration of the heart. The warmth will breathe
32:45
spiritual lethargy. So in his severe calculating
32:49
mercy, He saves us by throwing us out into the cold.
32:52
Out onto the dung heap, he. Exposes us to the nipping frosts
32:56
of trial, the freezing winds of disappointment, the harsh
32:59
elements of physical suffering, and the biting slander of
33:01
enemies. And it is precisely under such
33:04
rigorous, uncontrolled discipline that new thoughts,
33:07
new dependencies and new affections begin to bud within
33:10
us. The deadness is stripped away.
33:11
The deadness of the world is stripped away and true spiritual
33:14
life emerges. We root deeper into the soil of
33:17
His grace because the wind threatens to blow us over.
33:21
To layer another botanical analogy onto this concept, the
33:25
naturalist Hugh McMillan observed the growth patterns of
33:28
lichens. OK, lichens on mountainsides.
33:31
He noted that the brightest, most vivid golden lichens are
33:34
never found in the sheltered, pleasant, windless valleys.
33:37
Instead, you have to climb to the most bleak storm, scalloped
33:40
mountain peaks where the rock is exposed to the fiercest Tempest,
33:44
the heaviest snows and the most violent winds of the sky to find
33:48
them. The harsh environment produces
33:50
the color. The lichens that grow down in
33:52
the sheltered valleys are dim, rusty and scurvy and texture.
33:56
They are unremarkable, but the ones battered by the extreme
33:59
weather exhibit A glorious, striking and vibrant color.
34:02
Affliction functions exactly like that mountain weather.
34:05
It beats upon our character. It clears away the obscurity of
34:08
worldly influence, It beats upon our character vigorously,
34:13
removing the rust of selfishness, the scirf of pride
34:15
in the dullness of our carnal desires, and it perfects the
34:19
outline of our disposition. It.
34:20
Makes our piety vivid. It makes our piety vivid and
34:23
bright. The affliction is the classroom
34:25
where the statutes of God move from being theoretical academic
34:28
concepts in our heads to being heavily engraved, braved,
34:31
experiential realities in our hearts.
34:33
The image of the bright golden lichen clinging to the storm
34:37
scalloped peak is just breathtaking.
34:39
It is a visual biological representation of a faith that
34:42
has been severely tested and proven genuine, and that proven
34:46
faith, having survived the frost and The Tempest, recognizes what
34:50
is truly valuable. It gains true discernment.
34:52
In verse 72, the final verse of our section, the psalmist makes
34:56
a definitive value judgement based on everything he has just
34:59
experienced, the lies, the affliction, the new spiritual
35:01
taste. He says, The law of thy mouth is
35:04
better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.
35:06
That is a staggering claim to make.
35:08
Let's notice the phrasing. The law of thy mouth.
35:12
He does not view Scripture as a dead text, an ancient historical
35:16
document, or a collection of moral suggestions.
35:19
It is alive with dew and freshness upon it because it is
35:22
spoken continuously from the mouth of the Sovereign God.
35:25
The spoken decree of the King. Wealth is easily lost, the
35:29
hothouse can shatter, but the word remains.
35:32
Now I want to play devil's advocate for a moment to test
35:35
the strength of this claim. When we read a verse like this
35:38
in the modern era, it is very easy for a cynic to dismiss it
35:41
as a coping mechanism. People assume it is just sour
35:44
grapes. Exactly.
35:46
Completely. A cynic might read this and say,
35:48
well of course a poor person says they prefer the Bible over
35:50
money, they don't have any money anyway.
35:52
It is incredibly easy to claim you value spiritual things when
35:56
you are utterly destitute of material things.
35:58
How do we counter that cynical reading?
36:00
And what historical evidence do we have of the genuine supremacy
36:03
of the word over massive earthly treasure?
36:07
Argument falls apart entirely when you examine the authorship
36:10
and historical context of the Psalm.
36:12
David was not a destitute peasant trying to console
36:15
himself in his poverty. He was the king of Israel.
36:17
He was the reigning king. He literally possessed thousands
36:21
in gold and silver. He had access to every luxury,
36:24
every comfort, every exotic food, and every sensual pleasure
36:28
the ancient world could possibly offer.
36:30
He lived in the ultimate gold plated hothouse.
36:33
He did, Yet having tasted the absolute zenith of worldly
36:37
prosperity, having commanded armies, and having tasted the
36:40
severe mercy of God's affliction and discipline, he makes a
36:44
calculated experiential judgement.
36:46
The law of God's mouth is infinitely better.
36:49
So it is an authoritative verdict.
36:50
This is not the sour grapes of a poor man.
36:52
This is the authoritative heart. One verdict of a man who held
36:55
the world in one hand and the word in the other, weighed them
36:58
both and recognized that the world was nothing but dust and
37:00
ashes. And this echoes through history.
37:03
And this verdict echoes consistently throughout Church
37:06
history among men who faced extreme circumstances and
37:10
possess massive intellects. Consider Thomas Cranmer, the
37:14
Archbishop of Canterbury. Oh, his story is incredible.
37:17
Cranmer deliberately learned the entire New Testament by heart on
37:21
a journey to Rome, knowing that his life depended on the truth
37:24
contained within those pages, eventually choosing to be burned
37:27
at the stake rather than deny its authority.
37:29
He valued the word over his own life.
37:32
Consider Thomas, a Kempis who stated that he found rest
37:36
nowhere in the entire world, not in wealth, not in status, not in
37:40
comfort, except in a quiet corner with a book, the Bible,
37:43
in his hand. That quiet corner was his true
37:46
wealth. Or consider the great reformer
37:48
Martin Luther, who boldly declared that he would not want
37:51
to live in paradise if he did not have the word of God, but he
37:53
could live contendedly in hell itself as long as he had the
37:56
word with him. The ultimate expression of Sola
37:58
scriptura. These historical giants
38:00
understood the core Reformed principle of sola scriptura.
38:05
The written word is the absolute standard of truth.
38:08
It is the supreme rule of faith and practice.
38:11
Gold and silver can be stolen by thieves.
38:13
They could lose their value overnight in an economic
38:16
collapse, and they're absolutely useless to a man drawing his
38:19
final breath on a deathbed. Gold cannot comfort a dying man.
38:23
But the Word of God is the eternal decree of the Almighty.
38:26
It regenerates the dead soul, it comforts the afflicted mind, it
38:30
guides the lost through the darkest valleys, and it stands
38:33
forever. When a believer values the
38:36
Scripture above all earthly wealth, it is a sure undeniable
38:40
sign that the Holy Spirit has given them that new bee like
38:43
spiritual taste we discussed earlier.
38:45
We have covered immense theological ground today,
38:48
tracing the brilliant logic of the psalmist through the lens of
38:51
our reformed heritage. It's.
38:52
Just been a weighty discussion. To synthesize our discussion,
38:55
the biblical view of Providence completely dismantles our
38:57
natural, fleshly methods for evaluating our lives.
39:01
God does not deal well with us by granting us uninterrupted
39:03
ease, wealth and comfort. Because that leads to fatty
39:06
degeneration. Right, That would just lead to a
39:09
fatal fatty degeneration of our spiritual hearts.
39:12
Instead, acting as the perfect omniscient surgeon and the wise
39:16
husbandmen, he commands the elements.
39:19
He uses the cold storms of affliction, the rough hands of
39:22
worldly loss, and even the malicious anvil forged slander
39:26
of proud enemies to cure our wandering.
39:28
He shatters the hothouse. He shatters the comfortable
39:31
hothouse and throws us out onto the freezing dung heap so that
39:34
we might actually root deeply and thrive.
39:36
He strips us of our arrogant illusions of autonomy so that we
39:40
can learn his statutes not just as academic theories but as
39:44
vital survival mechanisms. We.
39:46
Learned them in the fire. And through this entire process
39:49
of sovereignly ordained hardship, He grants us a new
39:52
pallet, teaching us that the living Word from His mouth is
39:54
our only genuine, eternal treasure, far surpassing
39:57
thousands of gold and silver. It is a severe mercy, but it is
40:01
a perfect, flawless mercy. Is the care of Providence?
40:04
I want to leave you, our listener, with a final
40:06
consideration based on everything we have unpacked
40:08
today. Look at the landscape of your
40:11
own life. What if the one area where you
40:13
feel the most persistent, painful lack, the financial
40:17
struggle, the chronic illness, the relational fracture, is
40:20
precisely the cold, storm, scalloped mountain peak God
40:24
specifically designed to make your faith vibrantly visible?
40:27
That is a heavy thought. What has the hardship you are
40:29
actively, desperately praying to avoid is the only classroom
40:33
where you can learn the specific statutes you need the most.
40:36
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.