The Wicked and the Righteous

We live in an evil age.  It’s become more and more obvious the past few years.  Right now, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria are all currently experiencing civil wars, resulting in significant casualties and displacement. In this past month in the Sudan, there were 260 events of political violence resulting in over 1,020 reported fatalities. As many as 354,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured since the start of Ukraine war. As a result of these wars, there are currently 68 million refugees worldwide who and 50% of these are children.  Right now, it is estimated that there are 49 million human trafficking victims worldwide.  A large percentage are boys and girls who are trafficked in the sex industry.  One who was recently rescued is girl named Samantha. Homeless at the age of 12, she was coerced into working as a sex slave for a human trafficker. At first she was only allowed 4 hours of sleep a night, and her trafficker made her addicted to heroin.  These are her words: “When I first started working, I would have breakdowns in the middle of a session. I couldn’t do it. Until finally, I kind of just separated me and who I am when I’m working. Otherwise, I would go crazy. I would lose it. You numb your mind.”  And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to evil in our time. Crime in our inner cities is surging out of control. Murders are on the rise.  Reports of rape are increasing.  We see and hear images of hate and violence almost daily on the TV screen or on our internet feeds.  And one thing is clear: We live in an evil age.

And yet, God would doesn’t just want to guard our hearts from this evil; He wants us to thrive in the midst of this present darkness.  And if you were here last Sunday, we saw from Psalm 37:1-10, how we can keep our perspective and keep our faith in the midst of evil.  But in that same Psalm, David continued to draw a contrast between the wicked and the righteous, to show us how God calls us to make a difference in this evil age in how we live.

In other words, when we see our lives in contrast with the lives of wicked, God’s Word shows us how our lives can be godly examples of an alternative way of living.  After all,   when we see how God’s righteous ones live in contrast to the wicked, we are given a clearer picture of how we are to live in the midst of this present darkness.   So, if you want to know how your life can make a difference in this evil age, then let me encourage you to open your Bible to Psalm 37:10-34 where we’re going to unpack a number David’s proverbial sayings contrasting the wicked with the righteous.  And as we do, it is my hope that God’s Word will help us get a better grip on our calling to make a difference in how we are living today.  So, if you’ve found Psalm 34, let’s begin by unpacking the first contrast David makes in verses 10 and 11.  And that is this:

The wicked will not always prosper, but the meek will have it all     A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity. Psalm 37:10-11 Right now, it seems that the wicked – those who want nothing to do with God, who live in open rebellion to God, seem to be having their way.  But again, David reminds us that their time in the sun is brief.  One day, you will look for them, but they will no longer see them. They’ll no longer prosper.  They’ll no longer be in power. They will be no more.

Instead, it will be the righteous who prosper: the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity.  This is a promise from God’s Word.  One day, God’s righteous ones, those who trust in Christ, will inherit the kingdom of God.  One day Christ will rule in peace.  And in His presence and under His reign, He will usher in an age of well-being, safety, security, and prosperity. We will have it all with Jesus.  We will know the prosperity of God, the shalom of God. Right now, we get to experience this “shalom” partially in our relationship with Jesus.  When you trust in Jesus, God gives you a sense  of well-being, of safety and security in your relationship with God. You experience forgiveness, acceptance and a sense of belonging. But one day, you will have everything God’s ever promised.  You will have peace and prosperity with Jesus right here on earth. You will have it all. This is a promise from God’s Word.

But this is also a reminder of how the righteous are to live in the face of evil.  When David says, “the meek”will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity, he is reminding us of how we are to live today.  We are to be meek. What does this mean? Meekness does not to react to evil with hatred or revenge.  Meekness perseveres with hopeful endurance in the face of evil.  Meekness has the inner strength to hold back anger by holding onto God’s promise.  It’s the silent strength of the righteous in the face of evil. That’s the first way we are to live in contrast to the wicked, with the inner strength that our hope in God provides.

Here’s the next contrast: The wicked have an agenda, but God gets the last laugh    The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for He knows their day is coming. Psalm 37:12-13 The wicked have an agenda. The wicked do not want Christ followers to prosper in this life. They plot against us.  David gives us a unique picture of their contempt toward us here. He says they gnash their teeth at us. This gnashing of teeth pictures their hatred of the righteous. They hate who we represent and the righteous way of life we want to live.  So, they plot, they strategize and conspire against the righteous.  They want to see us fail.  They want to neutralize us.  We’re in the way of their prospering. So, they plot to destroy us. For example, you’ve heard of the case of the Christian baker who was sued by a homosexual couple for refusing to make their wedding cake. Did you know this couple drove 70 miles past something like 90 bakeries, just to go to this one baker? The wicked plot against the righteous.

But the Lord gets the last laugh. David writes, The Lord laughs at the wicked, for He knows their day is coming. Now, this is a striking statement.  We do not often think of God laughing, especially at wickedness. However, this laughter is like that found in Psalm 2, which says that the Lord “scoffs” at those who think they can overthrow Him. God laughs at the wicked, because He knows they have no real power and how it will end for them.

Now, why did David write this proverb? Think about it for a moment.  If God laughs at the wicked, then we shouldn’t let the wicked bother us.  We should see anyone who opposes God or God’s people through God’s eyes.  And if God is not intimidated by the wicked, then neither should we. You see, far too often the wicked use their power and their schemes to trip us up, to cause us to fear or even capitulate to their agenda.  But here, we are reminded once again, that God is not moved in the slightest by their schemes.  And neither should we.  That’s the second proverb David wants us to grasp.                                                                                                              

Here’s a third: The wicked will reap what they sow   The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright. But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken. Psalm 37:14-15 This one’s pretty basic. The principle expressed here is that sin carries the seeds of its destruction in itself. An evil empire can endure for a time by its own brute strength, but if its corrupt, the corruption will weaken it from within and it will eventually fall.  In other words, the wicked may try to destroy the righteous, but their own corrupt plans will eventually cause their own demise. One day they will fall on their own swords. They will reap what they sow.  That’s the third proverb.

Here’s the next. I will simply use David’s own words here: Better the little the righteous have, then the wealth of the wicked  Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked; for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. Psalm 37:16-17 One of the temptations we face when we see the wicked prosper is to compare what little we have with the wealth of the wicked and wonder what gives?  We think: “What good is it to live a righteous life if the wicked are being rewarded when we’re just getting by?” Now, not everyone thinks this, but many do.  And often when they see how the wicked prosper, they walk away from God.

What happens when we think this way, is that we are put too much value on monetary wealth, and not enough value in what we have in God.  Having wealth becomes more important to us, than our relationship with God, and it can cause all sorts of problems.  Listen to how Timothy describes this in his first letter.  He writes: Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:9-10Jesus warned us against this in the Sermon on the Mount by saying: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Matthew 6:24

In going back to Psalm 34:16, the contrast David makes here is this:  When you have God, you have more wealth in Him than all the wicked.  For when you have a God, you have His promise that He will uphold you.  He will sustain you. So, you don’t have to worry. God will take care of you.  In fact, that’s what David writes next: The blameless spend their days under the Lord’s care, and their inheritance will endure forever. In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty. But the wicked will perish: Though the Lord’s enemies are like the beauty of the fields, they will be consumed, they will go up in smoke.Psalm 37:18-20

 Here’s the truth David wants us to grasp: If you’re a child of God through faith in Jesus, you will spend your days under the Lord’s care.  The wicked have no one looking out for them.  You have the creator of heaven and earth looking out for you.  This is precisely what Jesus said right after he spoke about the idolatry of money. “Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:25-26  God cares for the righteous daily.  God promises to sustain you even in famine. The wicked worry about crisis. They store away wealth for such times.  And even if they acquire much wealth, they can never accumulate enough to be fully secure from life’s disasters. As God’s Word says: In times of disaster they will wither.

But look, in just a few verses later, David gives this testimony of how the Lord upholds the righteous.  He writes: I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. Psalm 37:25  So yes, Better the little the righteous have, then all the wealth of the wicked, because we God, who promise to uphold us.   That’s the fourth contrast between the wicked and righteous.

Now, the final contrast we’re going to unpack today: The wicked are always looking out for themselves, but the righteous always look out for others  That’s precisely what David says next. He writes:    The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously; those the Lord blesses will inherit the land but those He curses will be destroyed. Psalm 37:21-22   Pastor James Boice describes the contrast between the wicked and the righteous quite clearly by saying: “The wicked are always out for themselves. They borrow because they want to get ahead quickly and see borrowing as a short road to success.  They are slow to repay because they want to keep their capital as long as possible. Often, they do not repay at all, either because they think they can get away with it or because they overextend themselves and are unable to meet their obligations. With the righteous it is not a question of getting ahead or borrowing or repaying at all. For them money is a gift of God to be used to help others. Therefore, they are essentially generous rather than being essentially covetous. They are for others, rather than being only for themselves.”

This is one the Holy Spirit really spoke to me. We live in a culture that constantly disciples us to be covetous. Every commercial feeds our greed! Take our homes:  We are constantly being told that we need the best and latest appliances.   You need a Professional Plus 36 Inch Freestanding Dual Fuel Range with Natural Gas, 5 Sealed Brass Burners, Double Ovens, with a Griddle, Convection Oven, Continuous Grates, Storage Drawer, True European Convection, and Dual Function Triple Ring Burner.  Or my favorite:  You see the guests in your home laying down on your freshly laid would floor.  You need that floor in your house.  Or you need the new Nissan Rouge. Or you can’t live without the new L’OR Barista System Coffee and Espresso Machine!

All your life you’ve been told to look out for yourself.  You owe it to yourself. You deserve the best. You only live once. This is the air we breathe.  But here, David reminds us that the more we think this way, the more we “can” become like the wicked who only look out for themselves.  But now look at how David contrasts the wicked with the righteous:

He says, But the righteous give generously!  This is a whole different way of living.  Instead of looking for what you can get for yourself, the righteous looks for ways to give to others.  Now, after digging into these verse, I realized that I’ve not been programmed this way.  After reading these verses it struck me that I’ve been programmed to look for deals on Amazon Prime, not to look for ways I might bless others.  Yet, this is how God would have His righteous ones live in our evil age.  He wants us to be more like Him.  He is generous.  And He gives abundantly above what we might ask or imagine.  Think about His generosity toward you. He’s continually pursuing you with His goodness.  He’s constantly giving you His grace.  He’s always giving you His mercy. And He always gives us this day our daily bread.

And all I can say after seeing this contrast is this: I want this to be said of me. But the righteous give generously.  I don’t want to be known as someone who only looks out for himself but is always looking out for the needs of others.  How ‘bout you? The wicked are always looking out for themselves, but the righteous always look out for others.

Are you starting to see the difference between the wicked and the righteous?  Are you beginning to see how God would have us live in stark contrast to the evil of this age? If you are, then David leads us to this response recorded in verses 27and 28.  He writes: Turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever.  For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake His faithful ones. Psalm 37:27-28

At the conclusion of these series of contrasts, David pairs two commands together: Turn from evil and do good.  These commands are somewhat similar to the commands we unpacked last week in Psalm 37:3, where we were commanded to Trust in the Lord and do good.  So, what’s David getting at?  I believe it’s this: If you are trusting in God you will no longer want anything to do with the wickedness that opposes God.  You will want nothing to do with the ways of evil.  You will turn away from the ways of evil and turn to the ways of God.

You will no longer seek to use personal power to your advantage. You’ll no longer play by the rules of the wicked. Instead, you’ll find your strength in your relationship with God.  You will walk the path of meekness as your way of life.  Not retaliating in the face of evil, but enduring evil with patience and grace as you await the promises of God.

You will refuse to be intimidated by the wicked.  You’ll see past their evil schemes and see the emptiness of their threats.  Instead, you will entrust them to Him who judges justly and will not allow them to steal your peace.

You will no longer envy what the wicked have.  Rather, you will be learn to be content with whatever God has given you, knowing that with God, you have more wealth than all the wicked combined. And finally,

You will no longer just look out for yourself.  Instead, you will begin looking for ways to bless others with the goodness and grace of God.  You’ll learn to be a giver, not a taker. In other words, You will turn from evil and do good.

You see, this is the way God wants us to live in this present evil age.  For when we turn away from evil and do what is good, we will begin to reflect the character of God, we will begin to shine the light of Jesus in the darkness and our world will see His meekness, His confidence, His contentment and His grace.

This is how God calls us to live in the midst of this evil age.  And if we can live like this, we will not just show the world a different way to live, we will show them where hope can be found – in Jesus.