I begin a new study this week.  We venture out into Psalm 37.  We have only the assurance of its author being David.  As we meditate on this Psalm we find there is a contrast between the wicked and righteous.  It seems David is debating the age old question in his heart of ‘Why?’ do the wicked prosper, while the righteous are tried.

Have a Bible in hand as we look at verses 1-11 where I will teach on this thought, “Their Ends Compared”.  I use the word ‘their’ to describe the wicked and righteous.

In verses 1-2 we find ‘A Tragic End’.  David encourages us to “Fret not…because of evildoers,” The word ‘fret’ means to worry, fume, to become vexed and the heart burning with jealousy.  Oh how our nature is prone to fret when the lawbreakers are riding high and we are walking low.  Their moments of fame will be short verse 1 tells us.  They will be “…cut down like the grass,” My grass when cut will lay upon the top, brown, and finally return to the soil.  Let us not fret or be envious of the high riding wicked.  They will soon be no more in this world. 

In verses 3-5 we find ‘A Triumphant End’.  There are key words in verses 3-5 and they are ‘trust’, ‘delight’, and ‘commit’. They are paramount in answering the question of why the wicked prosper and the righteous is tried.  These three words represent the progression through which all of God’s children will triumph through the twist and turns of life.

The word ‘trust’ is closely akin to the word faith.  It has to do with a total reliance of all the thoughts, feelings, and doings, upon the Lord.  Faith will cure all fretting.  “Very much of our outward depends upon our inward; when there is heaven in the heart there will be heaven in the home.” (Spurgeon) The word ‘delight’ has the idea of making Him the focus of all our joy and rejoicing.  There is a great promise given to those who delight in Him.  They are given a ‘carte blanche’ card and the desires of their heart are granted.  The last word in the progression is ‘commit’.  The word involves rolling the whole burden of life upon the Lord.  He says ‘His yoke is easy, His burden is light’.  This is not a two yoke hitch where I pull 50% and He pulls 50%.  It is a one-hitch yoke where you and I commit our ways to Him and He will carry it all.

In verses 6-8 we find ‘A Tranquil End’.  When we have trusted, delighted, and committed, verse 6 tells us that He will bring us into the light of righteousness and judgment as bright as the noonday sun.  We will enter into ‘rest’ in verse 7 like no other.  It will cause us to wait patiently with no fretting over the wicked that prospers.  In verse 8 we will accept the working of providence.  We will find our God permits nothing but He ordains all things.  We need not fret, fume, or fight.  He works all things after the counsel of His own will.

In verses 9-10 we are confronted with ‘A True End’.   In verse 9 we are told that God’s enemies, which should also be our enemies will be cut off.  When our Lord stands against them He will make a sure clean end of them all.  In verse 10 He will make such a sure end of them that you will look for their ‘place’ and there will be no evidence they ever existed.  There is a promise given to those that wait upon the Lord.  We are told our end will be to “…inherit the earth;” This phrase is mentioned too many times in the Bible not to give some credence to a literal 1,000 year millennial reign on the earth. 

In verse 11 we see ‘A Timeless End’.  Here we have the grounds of one of our Lord’s beatitudes.  I cannot over emphasize these continual references in the Bible to the meek inheriting the earth as an abundance of peace.  This cannot be a continual symbolism.  There must be some grounds for a time of literal interpretation of an earthly 1,000 years reign of Christ.  I will not argue with my dearest friends who believe otherwise, but do not pinch me as I imagine riding on white horses and ruling and reigning on this earth.  If it is but a symbolic pipe dream you must admit it is not a bad dream and for sure not a nightmare!