A Study in Psalms - Psalm 37, Part 1

Let's read Psalm 37 verses 1 to 11 tonight. Psalm 37 verse 1, it's a psalm of David. Fret not yourself because of evildoers, be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself, it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while the wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will no longer be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, we love you and just another chance to open up the perfect Word of God. May you teach us from the Psalms tonight in this crazy, wicked, sinful world that seems to be getting worse each and every day. Help us not to be fretful, but help us to trust you. Help us to wait for you. Help us to believe in you. In Jesus' name, amen. There's a pastor called Joseph Cizzo, and I don't know the circumstances, but one day he got to hold the Bible that President Abraham Lincoln grew up with.

I think that Bible is in the Lincoln's Museum in Illinois. But this pastor was so honored to hold Lincoln's Bible in his hand. This was the Bible that Lincoln's mother gave him as a child. She taught him to commit many verses to memory, and it was a Bible that Lincoln carried it around in many places and times. So as this pastor took the Bible in his hand, he wondered where it would fall open. And he noticed there were some ridges, and it looked like the thumb mark that there was a very well-worn section in the Bible.

And so it naturally opened, and it opened to the 37th Psalm. And there it said, fret not yourself because of evildoers. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. You think you have problems or we had problems? I think the greatest American there ever was was President Lincoln. Read quite a few biographies to think how he had to keep those two, the North and the South, together and all the problems he had. He was one that probably could get away with fretting. You know, the Bible tells us do not fret.

You just read it three times, right, in eight verses actually. But I know when I go to Costco, now the price of gas has come down a little bit, right? But when I go to Costco and it's $90 to fill up my tank, and you start calculating that you're spending about $100 more a month in gas, that can make you fret, right? Then you go into Costco and the avocado oil that my wife likes that was $11 a couple years ago is now $20. You can fret. So you can fret about inflation. And just driving your cars these days will make you fret, right?

And then when you drive around and you see the homeless situation, you see the mental patients, you see the crime in your street and you hear about it every day, that'll make you fret. If you turn the TV on and listen to the latest gaffe by our president or try to understand what our vice president is saying, that'll make you fret. Just fretting about the direction our country where it's going. Then you open your mail and you get another medical bill for your daughter or worry about your, for some of you, your college kid's education, you can fret.

And then when you get down to business and you look at, anybody looked at your retirement fund lately?

That'll make you fret. But the Bible tells, and then what about the number one thing people have been fretting about for the last two years, COVID.

There's a myriad of things about COVID that would make you fret, right? But the Bible tells us we're not to fret because it leads to anxiousness, it leads to not trusting God, it leads to anger, envy, bitterness, complaining, coveting, cheating, stealing, and many, many, many more sins, including violent ones. This psalm is not just about do not fret, but it's about the righteous man and the wicked man. If we read the 40 verses, you would see that the word righteous is mentioned nine times. And the word wicked is mentioned 13 times.

It's really about the righteous man not fretting and the wicked man who is always going to fret that leads to evil. The righteous man learns to trust the Lord, to wait upon the Lord, while the wicked man is always strutting about fretting, and he increases and multiplies his sin. Psalm 37 is much like Psalm 1. It's a wisdom psalm, and Psalm 1 is a wisdom psalm, the first psalm.

And if you remember Psalm 1, we taught about it probably four or five years ago, there's two paths in Psalm 1, right? The way of the wicked and the way of the righteous, just like Psalm 31. Ultimately, there are only two choices, heaven or hell, and the two paths that lead there, the broad road or the narrow road. When you read Psalms 37, you might want to read Psalm 35, Psalm 36, and Psalm 37 together. I know they're long, especially 37. I call them triplets, the psalm triplets, because all three deal with the divine judgment of the wicked.

Multiple verses in all three psalms about how God is going to deal with the wicked of the world. For example, Psalms 35, verse 8 contains a prayer that the wicked would fall into destruction. Psalms 36, 12 declares that the doers of iniquity have fallen, and we just read in Psalm 37, 2, that evildoers will wither like the grass out there. All three psalms indicate that the prayer of the righteous will be answered someday, and God is going to execute his justice. Therefore, the godly need not fret over the wicked.

Psalms 40, at 40 verses, it's the eighth longest psalm of the 150, and as we said, it has a superscription, says, of David. And what's interesting is verse 25, we didn't read it tonight, but verse 25 says, I have been young and now have been old. So apparently this is written in David's old age. So it's kind of a mishmash of David's wisdom that he's learned throughout his life, mistakes he's made, and he had a lot of wicked children, he had a lot of wicked people in his cabinet or his, you know, kingship.

So a lot about David's giving us his wisdom here. The type of psalm, it's a wisdom psalm. Some authors would say it's a lament psalm, because there is some lamenting going on about the wicked, but I think it's more of a wisdom psalm. There's a lot of parallels between Psalm 37 and the book of Proverbs. Let me give you one example.

There's actually 16 examples I could give you, but I don't want to bore you tonight. But Psalms 37, verse 5, we read, says, commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. Proverbs 16, verse 3, says, commit your work to the Lord and all your plans will be established. So that's one example where there's 16 verses in Psalms 35 that have parallel verses in Proverbs, and that's indicative of the wisdom literature of the Bible. The main idea of this psalm is the godly should trust the Lord to deliver them from evil, because the wicked will ultimately be destroyed, even though they currently appear to prosper.

David wrote this psalm in his old age. He deals with the problem that has puzzled people for many ages of the past. How is it that the ungodly prosper, while the godly face great hardship? This is a very difficult psalm to outline. I've gone back and forth it, and I'm only going to try to conquer the first 11 verses tonight, and those deal with about fretting.

So, point one tonight is the pursuits of the righteous, and when we get next week, it'll be the pursuits of the ungodly. There's a lot of verses about the ungodly, starting in verses 12 to 40. The first 11 verses we'll look at tonight, look at things from the righteous man's perspective.

Each of these verses are impact with imperatives. What is an imperative? An imperative is a command. There's a bunch of do this, and there's a bunch of don't do this. Trust in the Lord. Don't fret. Don't be envy. Wait on the Lord. Those are commands by the Lord, and there are 14 of them in the first eight verses.

These verses are powerful. They're impacting. Every verse here has like one sub-point, two sub-points, three sub-points, and I'll give them to you when we get to them. So, these imperatives are indicative of the wisdom literature of the poetry books of the Bible. So, tonight, we can get through it. We're going to look at eight things that the righteous man needs to pursue or the pursuits of the righteous that will help us not to fret.

So, let's begin with the righteous man's don'ts. Point A, the righteous man's don'ts. There are three of them. So, we're going to give you the negative imperatives first, the negatives first.

First off, it says right off the bat, fret not yourself because of evildoers. The first word is fret.

So, the first negative imperative is do not fret. As believers, as the righteous, we're not to fret. Verse 1 says fret not yourself because of evildoers. Verse 7 says fret not yourselves over the one who prospers, the man who's evil. And Verse 8 says fret not yourself, it only leads to evil. Maybe many of you have the NESB translation here. That says do not get upset. And I think they translate it because that word fret is not a common word I think we use in the modern English vocabulary. Most other translations though, like the ESV and others say do not fret.

The word fret means to burn with anger. It means to chafe. It means to be irritated, to cause emotional strain. It means it's someone who is constantly worried or anxious. Someone who is in a state of anxiety or worry. The word fret comes from an old English word, freton, F-R-E-T-O-N, which means to devour like an animal. That ought to give you something to think about. Something that causes you to be consumed or devoured by something. So, when you're fretting, something is devouring you. Something is causing you to be really anxious or angry.

It's not a common word in the Bible. There's only five occurrences of this in the Bible. And three of them are in Psalms 37. The other two are in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 24.19 says the exact same thing as Psalms 37.1 says. Proverbs 24.19 says, fret not yourself because of evil doers and be not envious of the wicked. Almost exactly like Psalms 37.1. And then the other time it's used, it's used in Proverbs 21.19. And you men are going to love this one. It says, it is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.

Maybe there's some women here tonight who can say a thing about fretful men. But only Proverbs said that. Some example in the Old Testament, the old King James would be, you know, Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and, is it, Peniah. And you know that Peniah had children, right? So she would provoke Hannah who had no children. So in the Old King James in 1st Samuel 1, it says, and her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her or to fret her because the Lord had closed her womb. In the New Testament, I think one of the classic examples, and maybe not fret that's sinful, but we all know that example in Luke 10 when Martha was fretting about the little things, right?

While Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him teach. And Jesus said in Luke 10.41, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. So I think that's a case of fretting in the New Testament. You notice that all three occurrences of the word fret here in Psalms 37 coincide with the word evil or evil man or evil devices.

Fretting always leads to sin. The ungodly fret and that fretting always leads to sin and more sin. The righteous are not to fret. The righteous are not to get upset. You know, today we say things, don't get all worked up, chill out, you hear things like that. The British have a saying that came from World War II, keep calm and carry on. Christians need to have that same attitude. It was John MacArthur who said, we consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterdays. Isn't that so true? As Christians, we're not to fret.

It's the wicked that are to be the ones all about fretting. Jesus said in John 14.27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. So number one, do not fret.

Number two, do not be envious. Why do we fret? Too often we get our eyes off of God and we start focusing on the evil doers. Psalm 37 is like Psalm 73. We looked at Psalm 73 last year and you remember that's the classic Psalm. Why and how do the ungodly prosper? You remember that Psalm? And it wasn't until the middle of the Psalm that the Psalmist went into the house of God and that he understood that they're temporary, they're transitionary. But why do we get upset? We get upset because of the ungodly.

Three times our text says don't fret and each time it's referring to fretting about or being envious of the wicked. Envy is discontent over the prosperity of others who are more successful than you and I are. How is it that the wicked so often prosper while the godly seem to suffer so much? Why is it that God's people suffer more than the ungodly? We looked at Psalm 73. We've talked a lot about the same, the book of Job and we'll look at that in just about seven, eight weeks.

But the wicked are prospering and I mentioned it says in Psalm 73 verse 3 he says, I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. The Psalmist who worked in the temple in Psalm 73, that's where his job was, got his eyes on the rich, on the arrogant, on the powerful, on the famous and he got envious and that led to sin. Envy is called one of the seven deadly sins. Envy means it's a sad or resentful covetousness toward the traits or possessions of someone else. It's the ninth commandment in Exodus 20, right?

You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey or anything else that is your neighbor's. We have some classic and great examples in the Bible. Lot, and we have a, Lance did a long study on the book of Lot and you remember he said Lot coveted the best land, right? And it cost him everything. Achan, the son of Carmi, you remember him? One soldier out of hundreds of thousands in the Israelite army disobeyed God and Joshua told him give God the glory and explain and Achan said when I saw the spoil of beautiful cloak from Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and I took them.

See they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath. And you know that story of Achan, right? In the battle of Ai, it cost 36 Israeli soldiers, children of Israel, their lives. So coveting led to violence, led to sin there. Another example is Gehazi, Elisha's scribe. Remember him? Naaman comes from Syria, Naaman is miraculously cured of leprosy and Naaman wants to give Elisha all this gold and these clothes and silver and Elisha says no, now is not the time to be accepting gifts from the Lord.

So Naaman leaves and Gehazi chases him down and lies and gets a couple bars of silver and some bars of clothing and he goes back and lies to Elisha and he gets leprosy for the rest of his life. So number one, don't be arrogant.

I'm sorry, don't be prideful. Two, don't be envious. And number three, don't keep looking or don't look at the wicked.

I think today you turn on the TV, we see the powerful, we see the rich, we see the famous, we follow them in movies and books and everywhere. But the Bible is so clear about their destiny, isn't it? And here you have a classic verse in verse 2, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Haven't you heard that verse many times? Psalm 37 verse 2 here is one of the most common illustrations in the Bible of the temporary existence of life on earth. Moses said in Psalms 90 that, you know, the years of our life are 70 or 80 if we have strength, Lord willing we can live that long.

But Isaiah 40 verse 6 to 8 says, all flesh is like grass and its beauty like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are like grass, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. James 1 11 takes on that, says for the sun rises with his scorching heat and withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beauty perishes, so also will the rich man fade in the midst of his pursuits. Psalm 90 verse 5 to 6 says, you sweep them away as with the flood, they're like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning.

In the morning it flourishes and it's renewed, in the evening it fades and withers. And Psalms 102 verse 11 says, my days are like an evening shadow, I wither away like grass. Lots of verses. Another one, Psalm 129 verse 6 says, let them be like the grass on the house stops, which withers before it grows up. So the wicked are constantly compared to the grass, but the righteous are illustrated as a big strong tree, and that's in Psalms 1. We talked about that, right? Psalms 1 verse 3 says, he, the righteous man, is planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season.

It's a tree that does not wither, it's a tree that prospers. It's a giant big tree, like the big one you see in Glendora, the Glendora tree over there. But the wicked are temporary, they're transitionary. We're not to even look upon them or envy them, because while they're storing up riches on earth, we're to be about storing up treasures in heaven. Those are three negatives. Now let's look at the positives.

The righteous man's dues in verse 3. So all these verses here have multiple multiple sub points, so I'll have to give them to you. I couldn't list them all out or you'd have a three-page outline. But verse 3 says, trust in the Lord, do good, dwell in the land, and befriend faithfulness. There's like four sub points in here. You could preach a sermon on almost each one of these verses 3 to 6 here. The great name Yahweh, or as Lance said Saturday, Yahweh, is mentioned here for the first time.

If we read the 40 verses, it'll be mentioned 15 times. So you see David has got his attention on, his eye on Yahweh. So it says, trust in the Lord, 15 times in the 40 verses. While the wicked are strutting about fretting, the righteous are to trust in the Lord. And you know the classic verse, Proverbs 3, 5 to 6. I trust that you all have this memorized. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.

It's easy to trust the Lord 80%. It's easy to trust the Lord 90%. But when the job loss comes, or where the cancer diagnosis comes, we're told to trust him 100%, aren't we? That's where, you know, the foot hits the pedal. Instead of allowing your mind to be troubled and fretful by what wicked men are doing, we're to calmly trust in the Lord. We're to leave it in God's hands. We're to remember that God rules, and what he permits is wisely permitted. Sometimes we sit around like Job saying, what is going on, Lord?

Why? Why? But when we trust in the Lord, our confidence in God gives us peace. And that's the opposite of fretting. So number one, trust in the Lord.

Number two, we do good. We kind of talked about this when we finished Psalms 88 last week. No matter what your trial is, you need to continue to serve, and the body of Christ needs to continue to serve. So here it says, do good. While the ungodly are doing evil, we should be doing the opposite, doing good. The best way to keep your minds from murmuring, complaining, and fretting is to always be engaged in doing good, having our minds occupied with godly things. Let me ask the question, are you serving at CCC?

If you're not, you might be fretting. Said last week, if you're, you know, if you're looking at, he said, don't stop serving in Psalm 88. You have a spiritual gift. You need to open that gift and use that gift, develop that gift, and be employed in doing good. He then says, dwell in the land. What does that mean? Well, that means live for the Lord. Live for the Lord. You know, God has a purpose and a plan for the righteous. God has a reason for you today. You are not an accident. We said that last week.

We need to live calmly and gratefully in the land that God has given us. You know, it's so easy to start fretting about the problems of California. I came home three years ago from Myanmar, and when we found out that we were not going back on a permanent basis, it was so easy to start fretting about the price of houses, the price of everything, the taxes. You know, I bought a condo, and one month after getting the condo, I got the property tax bill. That was fretful, you know. Just California, we can fret about everything, you know, except the weather.

We have the best weather in the world, and I'm told that in countries like England or back east, the number one complaint is the weather, but nobody can complain about the weather here.

But you know, I was thinking, if any more Christians leave California, if any more of you leave California, all the remaining Christians will have to call themselves missionaries to stay in California, because this is becoming a pagan state with all the Christians leaving. But okay, so dwell in the land. God has a purpose for you here. Number four, he says, befriend faithfulness. That just means pursue the faithfulness of the Lord. The NIV says, enjoy safe pasture. The NASB says, cultivate faithfulness.

I think that's probably a better translation. We all can't wait for that great day when Christ says, well done, good and faithful servant.

Until that great day, we need to cultivate, we need to pursue faithfulness by growing in knowledge of God. So this verse three, we could talk about it for so much time. It gives us many things to remember that keep our minds from fretting. It gives us confidence in God when you trust in him. When we're employed in doing good, it keeps our minds off the troubles and problems we have. When we abide calmly and gratefully in the Lord, you know, where God has given us, the job he's given us, the place he's given us, and when we pursue faithfulness, we're seeking truth.

We're seeking the knowledge of God, trying to understand the character of God. Let's move on to point C, the righteous man's delights. Here we have another wonderful verse. He says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. It literally means to take exquisite delight or in the righteous delights in Yahweh. On Sunday, we again reviewed one of the points that Lance had made. Do you adore God? If so, the Lord gives you the desires of your heart. This does not mean he gives you the selfish desires of your heart.

No. This means that as we pray, as we delight in the Lord, God changes us and his desires become our desires as our hearts are conformed to his will. And I was thinking, you know, when you delight in God himself, like Moses delighted in God, Jacob I mentioned last week in Genesis 32 delighted in God, and he would not let go of God. He'd hang on to him. When you delight in God, there's a burning desire to know more about God. You know, there's 85 to 100 people here tonight. I don't know why there's not 200 or 300.

The study in Daniel was incredible and I can't wait for the study in Job. Yet, why don't more people come out on Wednesday nights? You know, when you delight yourself in the Lord, when you want to learn, I see you taking notes. I always come to take notes in the bulletin when Lance teaches because you learn more about God. And then when you learn about God, you delight in God. And then when you delight in God, you delight in God's word. I think maybe some people don't delight in God himself because they don't delight in God's word.

You know, the second verse in the Psalms, Psalms 1 verse 2 says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.

And on his law, he meditates day and night. If you delight in God, you delight in God's word. I saw a picture or a meme this week. It said that a pastor came over to a couple in his church and he had dinner. And after dinner, he left and the wife said, I'm missing one spoon and I think the pastor stole that spoon. So she was aggravated about this for a whole year until she finally had the pastor and his wife over for dinner again.

Unable to resist it, the wife said to the pastor, did you steal our spoon last year? And the pastor replied, no, I put it inside your Bible over there. That's somebody that does not delight in God's word and probably doesn't delight in God. I know nobody hears like that. But when you delight in God and when you delight in God's word, you also delight in God's people. And I spent a lot of time talking about this last week, the people that are serving, the people that are helping, even people that are struggling, people who are in the desert.

We talked about Moses desert. They don't stop serving. They serve more because they've been through the trials, they've been through the tribulations. So if you love God, you're going to love God's word, you're going to love God's people. Let's move on to point D, the righteous man's dependence. This verse five here is another great verse. And it's a summary for the lives of all of us believers. Number one, it says, commit, commit your way to the Lord.

It literally means to roll upon the Lord. You know, you and I made a decision to follow Jesus Christ by joining the body of Christ. We joined the local church then and then we serve, we tithe, we worship, we work in that local church. The way here means the whole course of life, all that affects life, all of our plans, all of our conduct, everything in regards to the manner in which we live. Are we committed to the Lord? You know, in India, the first time I went to a baptism, they said there were going to be twenty people to be baptized by the river.

It was raining cats and dogs. So I don't know how you really need to be. You're already wet. But they said there would be twenty people. Ten people showed up. And I learned then that raising your hand to Jesus or saying a prayer to Jesus was meaningless in India. But when they told the village elders, when they told their family, I'm getting baptized on Saturday, that was when the threats came. That was when the violence came. They didn't care about what you said about Jesus. But to get baptized in India means I am one hundred percent committed to follow Jesus Christ.

I am done with Hinduism. And that's why ten didn't show up because they were threatened. They were scared while ten committed their way to the Lord for their whole life. Then it says trust in him. This is the second time in a couple of verses it says trust in the Lord.

Davis tells us to trust in the Lord. We talked about that. So if you commit to the Lord, it's a life of trusting in the Lord. And then number three, notice it says and he will act.

N.E.S.P. says he will do it. I like what the New Living Translation says. It says he will help you because even though it sounds like God is going to act, it's God acting through you as you work. It's Ephesians 2.10, which we talked about last week again. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in him. When we commit to the Lord, when we trust in the Lord, God is going to use you in a mighty way. He's acting, but you are the vessel that he uses to do those acts.

Let's move on to verse six. The righteous man's defense says he will bring forth your righteousness as a light and your justice as a noonday. We see wickedness increasing in our country. We see it increasing in the world. But God's promise is that the righteous will triumph in the end. We don't need to fret. We don't need to get angry. But what we need to do is let the righteousness of Jesus Christ shine in our lives. We need to be salt and light in the dark world. You know, the world today will call you a bigot if you tell them there's only two genders.

They will attack you if you say that baby in the womb is being knitted together by God. Don't abort it. You know, the world will throw people in jail like Pastor James Coates in Canada for continuing to worship when the Canadian government told him to close the church. You know, but if your character is slandered like James Coates was, if your reputation is at stake, we, the righteous, we Christians, ultimately know that God's not going to allow us to be wrong. When we commit our case to the Lord, it's like Jesus Christ is our defense counselor.

I don't have to answer to those who would attack. I was watching a video of a... It was, you know, with the Supreme Court and the Rovers Wade and there was a street preacher trying to preach, and they were cursing him. They were saying as filthy of things as you could imagine to him. You know, we don't need to spend our days defending our reputation, someone has said, but we just need to trust the Lord. Like the sun is at its brightest at noon, God will make your character clear and bright. No clouds will remain on it.

Jesus Christ is our defense counselor, and he's going to rectify the wrongs and make everything right someday. Let's move on to verse seven, the righteous man's discipline. There's a discipline that we have to have to keep us from not fretting. And it says right there, a very common phrase that we all know, and you probably have it on a banner or a poem somewhere in your house. Be still before the Lord. First off, it says, be still before the Lord.

It's the same thing it says in Psalms 4610, be still and know that I'm God. I will be exalted among the nations. I'll be exalted in the earth. This is where I'll talk about it in the application in just a few minutes where we learn not to fret. When we take time to be still before the Lord, we get up in the morning and we have a quiet time. We have a time of Bible study, a time of praise, a time of prayer, and a time of meditation. One Jewish philosopher said silence may be the best praise to offer God since there is no end to that praise.

Do you ever just sit there and you really don't say a lot to God, but you read a verse or you heard a hymn and you're just sitting there amazed at God and you're not doing a lot of talking, meditating upon God. That's when you're being still before the Lord. I mentioned Psalms 12 already. It says that the godly man has his delight in the Lord and in his law, and he meditates day and night. And I'll talk more about that in a little minute. Then it says in verse seven, wait patiently before him. Common theme in the Bible.

Psalm 62 says, surely my soul waits in silence for God. Proverbs 20, 22 says, do not say I will repay evil. Wait for the Lord and he will deliver you. And Psalms 18, Psalms, not Romans eight. Last week we talked about it. Creation is eagerly waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. Creation is eagerly waiting for the return of God. And if you can skip down a couple more verses, Romans eight, 23 says not only creation, but we ourselves who have the first roots of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoptions of sons, the redemption of our bodies.

So to wait for the Lord literally means wait for the Lord. And it might be years and years. Last week we looked at Psalm 88 where the psalmist cried out day and night and he never got healed as far as we know, but he waited upon the Lord. He never stopped praying upon the Lord. Are you willing to sit still and let God do his work? Do you have that unshakable calm in the midst of turmoil or trouble? You know, we live in a, I want it now culture and waiting is not really acceptable, is it? But as Christians, we have to wait upon the Lord.

Let's move on to point G, the righteous man's deliverance. And we have two points here, the righteous man's deliverance. And then we'll talk a little bit about the wicked man's destiny, the righteous man's deliverance. It says in verse eight, refrain from anger, forsake wrath. And for the third time, it says, fret not yourself.

It leads only to evil. Three times we mentioned we're told not to fret three times. We're told why? Because it leads to evil. It leads to sin. We're not to be occupied at all with them. We're not to be occupied with the occupations of the wicked or the things that they think about, because then we start thinking about them. We start thinking like them, don't we? You know, when you look at Galatians five, it gives 15 sins.

I think it says in Galatians five, 19. Now the works of flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy. And what's the next one? Fits of anger. Fits of anger. And it goes on to mention a few more. James 119 says, notice, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger for the anger of man.

What does not produce the righteousness of God? That's exactly James 119 encapsules the entire 40 verses of Psalms 37. John MacArthur said, if you're angry at the past, you're going to have a hard time trusting God for the future. So if there's something there in your past, you have to forgive. You have to move forward and you have to stop fretting. You know, I mentioned time and time again, the Psalmist did not have the New Testament like we do, which tells us that each day we're to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Each day we're to begin our spiritual walk in the morning with a quiet time with God in prayer, praise and Bible study. We're to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And when we're filled with the Holy Spirit, it doesn't mean we won't fret, it doesn't mean we won't sin, but it means we're going to fret less. Colossians 1.10 says, we're to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 2.12 says that we're to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory. Walking is just a metaphor for our daily living and three aspects of life.

It's to, you know, we walk in a manner, our character, our conversation and our conduct. We're to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And that means we refrain from anger, we forsake wrath and we don't fret. Let's talk about the wicked man's destiny. And this is kind of in verse nine and verse 10. And you'll see next week in the other verses where it's just wicked, wicked, wicked. Verse nine says the evildoers will be cut off. Look at Psalms 37 for me real quick.

Psalms 37 verse nine. For the evildoers will be cut off. I'll stop there. Look at verse 22. For those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. Verse 28. For the Lord loves justice. He will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked will be cut off. Look at verse 34.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way and he will exalt you to inherit the land. But you will look on. You will look on when he when the wicked are cut off. One more verse 38. But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed. The future of the wicked shall be cut off. When I read that, I just keep thinking the throat slashing sign, you know, they're going to be cut off. They're literally gone. They will prosper for a time, you know, but eventually there's going to be an abrupt into their wickedness and they will ultimately perish.

Their power that they have now in the world, their fame that they have, their fortune, their accomplishments are all going to be cut off and declared worthless in the eyes of God. And then the wicked will come face to face with God when he tells him those horrible words. I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So the righteous man has a deliverance. The wicked man has a destiny. He's going to be cut off. Charles Spurgeon said something. He says, Who envies the fat bullock? It's a cow or a bull when they put the ribbons and garlands on it and decorate him as he's led to the slaughter.

You know, a lot of religions, they'll decorate the bull before the sacrifice and nobody's going to envy that bull with all those ribbons. And so he compares that to the wicked in our world. They have fame, they have fortune, they have power, they have money, they have all the things you and I may not, but they're literally walking to their slaughter. Not only does David describe the wicked as being cut off, he also describes the transitory nature of their life at least four times in his psalm. Verse two, we read, for they will soon fade like grass and like the green with their herb.

Verse 10 says, in just a little while, the wicked will be no more. You'll look for them carefully at his place, but he will not be there. Verse 20 says, but the wicked will perish. The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of pastors. They vanish like smoke. They vanish away. And then verse 35 and 36 is like a proverb says, I have seen a wicked, ruthless man spreading himself like a green laurel tree, but he passed away and behold, he was no more. Though I sought him, he could not be found. I think we need to think about that.

You know, we we uplift all these famous, rich, powerful people, but their destiny is they're going to be cut off. They're going to perish. The Bible says they're worthless.

They're going to vanish. Let's look at the last point. And it kind of goes with verse 10. But number eight, the righteous man's destiny. Here we have a second time we're told.

And actually, it's it's three or four times in a song to wait for the Lord. The last part of nine pieces wait for the Lord. And you notice the words, it says they shall inherit the land five times in the Psalms 40.

It says inherit the land. It says it in verse nine that the righteous are going to inherit the land. Verse 11, verse 22, verse twenty nine and verse thirty four. So think about it. Five times the wicked are going to be cut off. Five times the righteous are going to inherit the land. So let's talk a little bit about that. The wicked may have possession of the land now, but the righteous are going to be the ones to inherit the land. The godly man is not only inherit earth, he's going to inherit heaven.

And you notice verse eleven, but the meek shall inherit the land. You all know who loves the Psalms, right? Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ in Matthew five five is quoting Psalms thirty seven, verse eleven. And Jesus said in Matthew five five, blessed are them gentle or meek, depending on your translation, for they shall inherit the earth. Who are the meek? They are the meek. The meek are the ones who don't fret. Why don't they fret? Because they're the righteous ones. They have an inheritance waiting for them that surpasses all the riches, all the fortune, all the fame that earth could possibly give.

But, you know, David's not talking about real estate here. David wrote this Psalm four hundred years after the children of Israel had inherited their promised land. David's thinking of a better land, an inheritance in heaven. You know, in our study of Hebrews, we constantly read that verse in Hebrews eleven, verse thirteen to sixteen. We've been in the hall of faith and it says these all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, having acknowledged that they were strangers in exiles on earth for people who speak thus, make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

If they had been thinking of that land from which they'd gone out, they would have had the opportunity to return. And Hebrews eleven or sixteen says, but as it is, they desire a better country. That is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed. We call their God for he has prepared them a city. So what do we learn from the first eleven verses in Psalms thirty seven eleven?

Well, why do we still fret? Why do we Christians still fret? You know, I'm going to give you two things tonight. You probably give you ten. But one I think is we don't believe or we don't trust the sovereignty of God. God's in charge, right? He's infinite. I'm sorry. He's he's we're finite. He's infinite. We're the creature. He's the creator. But I think a lot of people don't trust him because they don't know him. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones has said that history is under God's control. And it is. History follows a divine plan.

History follows a divine timetable. And we don't like that timetable sometimes, don't we? And history is always bound up in the divine kingdom. We're always thinking about our kingdom, our elections, our country, or what's going on in our country. But history is not about America, which is not even in the Bible or prophecy as we can tell. It's about the divine kingdom that we just studied in Daniel 9. You know, the righteous man is to be still before the Lord while the wicked man struts. Lance mentioned it again last week in our message about the desert is a silent place, isn't it?

Well, I think that's number two. Number one, we don't understand the sovereignty of God. We don't trust him. So we we talk politics. We get riled. We go crazy about the latest gaffe of the president or where the direction of the country is going. But God is in complete control. The second thing I think and I want to talk a little bit about this tonight is we we don't we fret because we don't take time to meditate upon God's word.

Last year, I recommend you to take one verse a day. You know, maybe you read a whole chapter, but take that one verse that jumps out. And I actually had this already written out before Lance mentioned this verse. He mentioned it again on Sunday for the six thousand seven or eightieth time. And you know what verse I'm talking about, right? Proverbs twelve twenty five. Right. You all know it. You don't know it. Proverbs twelve twenty five says what? Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down. Does that talk about fretting?

And it says, but a good word makes him glad. So you write down a verse like Proverbs twelve twenty five. Why? Because it jumps out because you're anxious or you're having problems at work. You're having problems in your marriage, your family, your kids, our country, and you're starting to fret. You're starting to get angry. You're starting to get envious of the neighbor who who cheats on his taxes and cheats and gets away with things. Well, you can't. You need to take a time out and go to God's word.

Now, maybe the problem is addiction, pornography. You need to take a verse like, you know, first Corinthians thirteen ten thirteen talks about no temptation.

Whatever your issue is, you take a verse, you write it down in the morning and you keep that verse maybe in your steering wheel. You take that verse into work. You open it when you read the lunch. You review it constantly throughout the day and before you go to bed and you meditate upon that verse. So let's just take this example. Proverbs twelve twenty five. So what's the first word?

Anxiety. OK. Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down. Isn't that true? It destroys your pleasure. This destroys your day when you're fretting. It leads to sin. It leads to envy and many other sins. So when I think about anxiety, I think, what does the Bible say about anxiety? And immediately, what do I think of? Sermon on the Mount, Matthew six, right? Probably the greatest passage about anxiety. Matt and Jesus spoke extensively on this. So then I might open my Bible. What did Jesus say about anxiety?

I know it's in the Sermon on the Mount and in Matthew six, twenty five, Jesus says, therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.

That's number one. Then he says in Matthew six, twenty seven. And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to your life? Then he says in Matthew six, twenty eight. And why are you anxious about clothing and housing and food? Then he says in Matthew six, thirty one. Therefore, do not be anxious about anything. What chili? What should we drink? Which where? That's the second time he says, do not be anxious.

And then you go to Matthew six, thirty four. He says, therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow. Three times, Jesus says, do not be anxious.

So then you get the impact. Jesus is speaking, not just the verse in Proverbs. And then Paul would say in First Corinthians seven thirty two, I want you to be free from anxieties.

And then, of course, Philippians four six, which Lance mentioned on Sunday, do not be anxious about anything. But when you pray, what's the next verse say? The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guards your hearts in minds with Christ Jesus. So you think about anxieties, you think about the verses and you're just meditating upon maybe people in the Bible who were coveting or anxious people who overcame that. And you see how it weighs your heart down. But the more I meditate upon what Jesus said in the Sermon on my problems, dissipate my problems.

They're still there. The problems haven't gone away, but I'm not anxious about it because I'm going to give that problem to Jesus. I'm going to go to him in prayer and say, God, I don't I can't handle this problem. You know, it's driving me crazy and I don't want to sin. It's your problem, Lord. Give me that peace that surpasses all understanding. And you notice the second part of our verse.

It says, first off, it says, anxiety in a man heart weighs him down. And it says what? But a good word makes him glad. Where do we get the good word from the word of God? So if you're not in the word of God, you're going to fret, you're going to be anxious and that's going to lead to multiple sins beyond that. So when I think of that, but a good word makes him glad. I think of this is just a verse that popped out in my mind and maybe, you know, you'd have another one. But I was thinking about being anxious.

I was thinking about here. Be still before the Lord. Be still before the Lord. Where does it say that in the Bible? And my mind immediately went to Lamentations chapter three, verses twenty five and twenty six, which says twice. It says the Lord is good to those who wait for him to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. That verse is a good word. That verse makes me glad. I've got problems. I've got trials. They're not going away. God has the answer.

But the word of God alleviates that problem. It takes it away. It makes me glad. It makes me get through the day. So why do a lot of Christians fret when we shouldn't be fretting? I think one, the sovereignty of God. There's a lack of understanding about that. And number two, I don't think they're meditating on God.

You know, I mentioned in our Psalms ninety one message that there's a lot of Christians who had their ticket to heaven, right? So they've got their ticket to heaven and they're just waiting to go to heaven. So they come on Sunday. Not unlike you guys. You come on Sunday and Wednesday. But most Christians just come and they hear the word of God, right? And by lunchtime, they've forgotten most of the word of God. So they can't just hear the word of God. You've got to hear the word of God. Number two, you've got to read the word of God.

You've got to be in the Bible reading it. Not just one message, two messages a week. You've got to have a quiet time in the Bible where the Holy Spirit speaks to you. Then you've got to study that. You know, don't speed read the Bible. Some of you have that one year Bible reading, you know, and you read it. You don't really get a lot out of it. Take just a few verses. Take the reason you have paragraphs in your Bible is because that paragraph has one meaning that the Holy Spirit has given it. So number three, we study number four memorization and we have a lost art of memorization here in our society.

Now the women's Tuesday morning, you women, they're memorizing the entire first chapter of the book of James right now.

Right. But we need to you can't fight the battles. You can't win the wars if you don't have scripture versus memorize. I don't care what the battle is, pornography or lust or financial problems. You've got to have some scriptures memorized. So, you know, for example, like anxiety and problems we talked about last week, Romans eight, the greatest chapter in the New Testament, and it ends with nothing. She'll separate from the love of Christ. Second Corinthians twelve nine and ten is my favorite because it tells me all these trials and tribulations I have.

God gave them to me to make me strong when I'm weak. Psalms twenty three. I trust you all know Psalms twenty three. That is a great song to say repetitively because surely good and mercy in just every verse is powerful. Psalms one twenty one. I say that song every day. You know, I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord and Psalms thirty seven. I memorize I think the first six verses of Psalm thirty seven many years ago because, you know, they're just it's a beautiful verse.

But if you'll trust in the sovereignty of the Lord and understand that history is under God's control, that history is on a divine plan, it's on God's divine timetable, and it's all bound up in a divine kingdom. And if you will meditate upon the Psalms, you know, I try to get you to read one Psalm a day and many are doing that. But I want you to meditate. Learn the art of meditation. The old Christians did this because they didn't have the noise that we have your phones going off your TV, the constant beeps, the constant noise.

They had quiet places in quiet times. They didn't have all the gadgets and all the books and all the things. They just had the word of God and a piece of paper and a pen and they would meditate. But trust me, if you will take a verse with maybe a problem in an area of your life, you're struggling with. When I was a single man trying to be pure and holy and hard, I had ten verses I memorized about first Corinthians six and first Corinthians ten verses that would help me.

And I just say to him again and again and the Holy Spirit will help you battle. So trust the sovereignty of God and start meditating upon one verse. You know, maybe it's just the next. Tomorrow you go to the next chapter. You're reading the next paragraph. You're reading. Look for that verse that jumps out that verse that grabs you. Maybe it's a problem in your life or a trial you're going through. Write it down on a sticky note or a cue card, and maybe it takes a couple of days of meditation. I can go on my phone and I can type in anxiety and it gives me every verse in the Bible about anxiety.

And I think you all have smartphones. So it's really easy to study the Bible these days and find multiple verses about whatever problem you're suffering. So trust the sovereignty of God and meditate upon the word of God and you'll fret less. I promise you. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we want to be like the righteous. We have Jesus Christ in our heart. I trust everyone here tonight does. If there's anyone that doesn't, maybe tonight that they would come and seek your face and trust you. But Father, walking in a manner worthy of our calling, walking daily is not easy when you see the things that are going on in our world, when the things that are going on in our family, when the things that are going on in our country, in our politics, it is so easy to start fretting.

Yet Father, that's not what the righteous man is to do or the righteous woman is to do. So Father, help us as we hear things, as we see things, to put our trust in you, the sovereign God of the universe. You made this universe, Father. You appointed this time for us to be used of you, to serve you, to obey you at this time. You didn't have us born a hundred years ago. You had us born in this time when this world seems to be getting more wicked and wicked every day. But Father, help us to trust you.

Help us to open up the word of God each and every day and find verses that we can meditate upon your holiness, your character, your sovereignty, the end times, heaven and hell, all the things in the Bible. And may that help us not fret. Father, may we leave here tonight trusting you, loving you, obeying you. In Jesus' name, amen.