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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

Finding Answers In The Sanctuary

Father in heaven, Lord, we're thankful that you are our God.

We're thankful for the Sabbath and for the rest that we can experience on this day.

And Lord, I pray that we would use this time wisely in the Sabbath hours to draw closer to you, to be a better Christian, to grow in faith and understanding, and even, Lord, to be of service to you where we can be on these blessed hours.

Lord, I pray that even as we open the Bible now, that you would guide us with your Spirit.

Lead us into all truth we pray, in Jesus' name.

You know, many people seem to think that the book of Psalms was all written by David, but it was quite the contrary.

Actually, this is not even close to the truth.

He did write quite a number of them, about nearly half of them, but there are actually 8 other people that are mentioned as authors and being contributors to different chapters in Psalms and it's actually believed that Ezra or Nehemiah or some other scribe was responsible for putting together all these psalms.

It wasn't King David that actually wrote the book and compiled it.

And you know about a third of the book we actually don't know its authorship.

It's been conjectured that possibly other authors such as Ezra, Isaiah, even Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Haggai were the ones that would have contributed to these different Psalms that we find in these 150 chapters.

Definitely the longest book of the Bible and it also contains the longest chapter, Psalms 119.

In Psalms 73 though, we'll be studying this Psalm today and you will see that Asaph is the 1 that is responsible for writing this Psalm.

Well, he was a Levite and he was 1 of the singers, the choir leaders for King David.

You will find that in 1 Chronicles 6 and verse 39 the Bible says, and his brother Asaph who stood on his right hand, even Asaph the son of Berechiah, the son of Shimeah.

In its context, if you go back to that chapter, you will see that it's talking about the Levites and also the singers.

He was also a prophet in 2nd Chronicles 29 and verse 30 the Bible says.

Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer, and they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshipped." So hence his authority for writing this psalm today that we're going to be studying.

It's because as I was reading and I was doing my devotion, it was something that really touched my heart.

And I believe it really resonates probably with many of us today.

And so with that, let's turn our Bibles to Psalms 73.

The text will be on the slides there, but you can see the whole chapter maybe if you want to read through it as we're going through it.

But in Psalm 73 and verse 1, the Bible says this, Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart." Here in this first verse, I'm so used to saying King David to be the author of the Psalms, but here Asaph, he makes this conclusion and he says, truly, God is good to those that are of a clean heart.

And I think that we can all agree with that.

I think that we can believe that to a certain extent.

And yes, I say to a certain extent, and you'll see why in a minute.

We say things like, God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.

But how much more even to those who have a clean and a perfect heart before God.

But as for me, here is the contrast friends, but as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped.

Here is what Asaph is really thinking that seems to echo what we think today.

We want to believe what we said in verse 1.

God is good to those that are of a clean and a pure heart, but but what?

What's going on here that causes Asaph to say such words?

Verse 3, for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

You know, as much as we want to believe that God is good to us and that he loves us and He wants to bless us, what actually happens, friends?

We look at the wicked and we see how they are prospered.

We see how rich they are, their big houses and their fancy cars.

We begin to get jealous of what they own.

And you know, doesn't that describe how many of us feel today as well?

With the desire to be rich, the desire to be prosperous, the desire to live a better life.

We know God is good, especially to those that have a clean heart, but yet we have this conflict within our hearts because at the same time we desire and we're jealous of those that are in the world that are wicked.

Verse 4, for there are no bands in their death but their strength is firm.

It's as if even they are prospering, not just financially and having all these possessions, but they're prospering even in health.

It seems like even when they die, it seems like there's no pain to it.

And it says there that their strength is firm.

It seems like they're more healthy than us.

Asaph, he's echoing the secret thoughts of our hearts, you see.

The wicked seem to be more prosperous than those who follow God.

And many of us, many of us that are faithful to God, we're tempted to leave God and we don't want to say it.

But that's the thoughts of our hearts, you see.

And he continues, verse 5, they, speaking of those wicked people that are prospering, they are not in trouble as other men, neither are they played like other men.

And who are those other men is obvious referring to us those that are seeming followers of God you see they just seem more and more blessed so that thought just echoes and re-echoes in our heart what's the use of following God right?

They're not in trouble like others, they're not played like others.

Verse 6, therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain, violence covereth them as a garment.

Because they are all in prosperity, because they are all blessed, what happens?

They increase in pride and not only that, they become more bold to become violent.

Verse 7, their eyes stand out with fatness.

They have everything they could ever wish for, not just their needs, but every desire and want is fulfilled.

Oh how we wish that we could just be like that 1 day, isn't it, friends?

It says their eyes stand out with fatness.

It's not that they desire to be fat, but their eyes are bulging out because they have everything that they could ever want and more and beyond.

Retire early, travel the world, not a single care in the world.

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Finding Answers In The Sanctuary

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