Daily Meditations

Psalm 73:15-17 Now I understand! These verses do not make sense in isolation. As we have seen in verses 13-14, the psalmist is plagued with doubts and reservations about the prosperity and lifestyle of the wicked, when compared with the righteous. As he looked at his own life and experiences, he felt embittered by the contrast, for he suffered afflictions and new punishments, daily. Then Asaph entered the sanctuary of God, the inner courts of the Temple – and everything changed! Self-pity and envy flew out of the doorway to be replaced by understanding. “Thank goodness I didn’t speak out about my feelings,” he says, “What a betrayal that would have been. A public expression of my grievances would have caused a great deal of concern amongst God’s children.” In other words, shut up if you have doubts and fears, especially if you are in a place of leadership or authority over others. Asaph admits that he was deeply troubled by the contrast in fortunes between the wicked and the righteous....

Psalm 73:14 Days of affliction Read in isolation, this verse seems to suggest that Asaph is in some kind of trouble, that he is suffering, perhaps with depression or a physical illness. However, put into the context of the preceding, and subsequent, verses we realise that it is his sense of injustice that hurts so much. And the source of the injustice appears to be the Lord God! Why do the wicked get away with it? Why do the righteous get no rewards? Why does serving and living for Almighty God turn out to be so costly? Surely it should be the other way round – the righteous should be the prosperous ones and the wicked should be suffering? This dilemma bothers Asaph all day long and every morning he finds himself diving deeper into despair, plagued, as he is, by the unfairness of it all.  These questions have bothered many over the centuries. There is no doubt that following the Lord God is costly, that in earthly terms you may lose out. Some have turned away from Christianity simp...

Psalm 73:13 Is it all in vain? There is a clue in this verse as to the occupation of Asaph, the writer of the Psalm. We know he was a Levite, but the verse suggests that he may also have been a priest. Asaph talks about “ washing his hands in innocence.”  The practice of the priests, at the Temple, was to stand before the Bronze Laver and wash themselves thoroughly. This ritual was mandatory before they were allowed to enter the Holy Place. Hands must also be washed before the making of sacrifices and the offering of blessings and prayers to heaven. Perhaps Asaph was a priest who performed this ritual many times and he was now beginning to ask himself, “What’s the point?”  Asaph also talks about keeping his heart pure. He had, over the years, worked tirelessly to keep himself holy to the Lord and where had it got him? While he had been performing ceremonies and rituals, practicing abstinence and piety, valiantly keeping the commandments and ordinances of God, the wicked had be...

Psalm 73:12 The wealth of the wicked I detect more than a little dose of self-pity here, don’t you? “This is what the wicked are like, they never have any problems, everything works out for them. While I’m working my socks off trying to make ends meet, they book another holiday, buy a new car and put a few more thousands into their pension pot.”  Are the wicked always free of care? Quite obviously not, they get sick, they have to deal with family issues and broken relationships, and they have more to look after and to protect than the poor do. Having said that, I guess we can all be a little bit jealous of those who can buy what they want, go where they want, live how they want and do want they want! or can we? Well, I’ve seen it all over the years and I think David got it right when he said,  “I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.  For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favour and honour, no good tin...

Psalm 73:11 How could God know? It is a curious irony that when men claim that there is no God, they are actually seeking to disclaim Someone they say does not exist! How is it possible to denounce Someone who is not! These fools are effectively throwing down a challenge. Inherent within the soul of every man and woman is the awareness that we are not alone, that something or someone exists beyond us. Creation all around sings His praise, life abounds on the planet, laws govern and regulate all activity, it is incomprehensible for anyone to say that there is no God. So, the louder someone says it, the more likely it is that they are fighting their own intuition! There is another large group of people who do not renounce God but rather question His abilities and His character. They diminish Him in their thinking so that they become less accountable. Such people are described in this verse, their wickedness is justified by the idea that God does not know, therefore God will not judge. Th...

Psalm 73:10 They claim to be wise! Picking up on a comment made in the previous verse, this statement makes me angry! We are used, as Christians, to the idea that what we see and know about God in the spiritual realm is what He has revealed. His Word reveals Him in the flesh, in other words in Christ, and in the written truth – the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit it is the inspiration behind this knowledge, and He reveals to each man and women what they are intended to know and what they need to know in the course of their spiritual journey. Teachers of the Word often despair that the hearers are not understanding, but they will only ever understand what is revealed. What we generally do not understand is that the same principles apply in the natural world. Man only understands what God has chosen to reveal! So, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday and co are not so clever after all! They used their considerable skill and intelligence to discover new things, but God was ...

Psalm 73:9 Who do they think  that  are? “The wicked lay claim to heaven with their mouths!”  Wow! What does that mean? Well, it could have a number of meanings.  Firstly, the gods lived in the heavens and so the wicked and the proud are effectively saying that they do not bow down to any god, they are in control, they are not accountable. Included in this rebellion is, of course, the one true God, Elohim, who made the heavens and the earth. Secondly, the wicked boast that they know how the heavens work and how the laws of space and time are under their control. It is so arrogant for men to make such claims when we barely know anything about what lies beyond this world. We just about made it to the moon in 1969 and since then men have boasted as if we own the rights to the whole universe! In truth, every new discovery about the heavens has proved how little we do know and what we do know is only what God has revealed!! Thirdly, men behave as if they have the final sa...