Peter Barnes: Our Condition, GOD’S Provision, Psalm 73:26 (Sunday 12 April 2020 Evening Service, 6.00 p.m.)

Psalm 73 is a Psalm of struggle. The Psalmist, Asaph, has been looking at this fallen world with jaundiced eyes, and struggling to fit that with God’s promises. We should be able to relate to it.

1. We are all weak and will die.

– 73:26 a. The Psalmist had been battling his own thoughts – 73:1-3. But he had come to his senses when he came to contemplate the judgment of God and the issues of eternity – 73:17 .

– Ps.90:10 , 12; 103:15-16. Herodotus records that on one occasion, King Xerxes of Persia initiated a rowing match, and he suddenly began weeping. He explained: ‘I was thinking and it came into my mind how pitifully short human life is – for of all these thousands of men not one will be alive in a hundred years’ time.’

2. But God will raise His people.

– 73:26 . On his death bed in March 1788 Charles Wesley dictated his final work, based on this verse:

In age and feebleness extreme,

What shall a sinful worm redeem?

Jesus, my only hope thou art,

Strength of my failing flesh and heart;

O, could I catch a smile from thee,

And drop into eternity!

– Phil.3:8-9, 20-21. What is faith? Negatively, it is not to believe in yourself. Paul says that as a Pharisee, he believed in himself; as a Christian, he believed in Christ.

– 73:16-17, 24.

12 April Sunday Evening