IS IT WORTH THE TROUBLE?
Psalm 73
Jerry Vines
8/8/99
Psalm 73 is one of the remarkable psalms in your Bible. It is the account of a
struggle going on in the heart of a child of God. He begins the psalm by making two
tremendous affirmations about God. He begins by says, God is. He affirms the
existence of God. Then the second affirmation is the goodness of God. God is good. So
far, so good. He believes there is a God and he believes that God is a good God. But as
he progresses in this psalm he comes to g rip with some of the circumstances of life and
life as he observes it, in his own experience, and he comes to the point where he is
concerned and troubled about the seeming contradictions of life.
A few years ago a man named Rabbi Cushner wrote a book entitled Why do Bad
Things Happen to Good People? The psalmist gives the flip side of that because he is
raising the question - why do good things happen to bad people? It is the same old
problem of truth on the scaffold and wrong on the throne. Why is it that some people
who do not live for the Lord, in fact they are actually blasphemous in their relationship to
the Lord, seem to get by a little better and have less trouble than some folks that seem to
try to live for the Lord. So, he is perplexed by what he observes in the lives of the
ungodly.
He says in verse 3, for I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. Then he begins to talk about it. They don’t seem to have any difficulty.
When it comes time to die they die without much difficulty it seems. They are not in
trouble in verse 5. They don’t seem to have a lot of trouble.
In verse 7 he says, their eyes stand out with fatness. I like this paraphrase: these
fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for. Does it ever bother you that it
seems like the ungodly get along fine and don’t have a lot of trouble and things seem to
work out fine for them. Their ...
Psalm 73
Jerry Vines
8/8/99
Psalm 73 is one of the remarkable psalms in your Bible. It is the account of a
struggle going on in the heart of a child of God. He begins the psalm by making two
tremendous affirmations about God. He begins by says, God is. He affirms the
existence of God. Then the second affirmation is the goodness of God. God is good. So
far, so good. He believes there is a God and he believes that God is a good God. But as
he progresses in this psalm he comes to g rip with some of the circumstances of life and
life as he observes it, in his own experience, and he comes to the point where he is
concerned and troubled about the seeming contradictions of life.
A few years ago a man named Rabbi Cushner wrote a book entitled Why do Bad
Things Happen to Good People? The psalmist gives the flip side of that because he is
raising the question - why do good things happen to bad people? It is the same old
problem of truth on the scaffold and wrong on the throne. Why is it that some people
who do not live for the Lord, in fact they are actually blasphemous in their relationship to
the Lord, seem to get by a little better and have less trouble than some folks that seem to
try to live for the Lord. So, he is perplexed by what he observes in the lives of the
ungodly.
He says in verse 3, for I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of
the wicked. Then he begins to talk about it. They don’t seem to have any difficulty.
When it comes time to die they die without much difficulty it seems. They are not in
trouble in verse 5. They don’t seem to have a lot of trouble.
In verse 7 he says, their eyes stand out with fatness. I like this paraphrase: these
fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for. Does it ever bother you that it
seems like the ungodly get along fine and don’t have a lot of trouble and things seem to
work out fine for them. Their ...
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