Michael Youssef - Encouraging Words in Discouraging Times - Part 2
Have you ever experienced, or witnessed somebody else experience, something that you immediately stopped and said, "This is totally and truly unfair. This is pure injustice. This is a blatant lie". What compounds the problem is that sometimes you perceive the person who perpetrated this injustice appears to, appears is the word here, appears to have gotten away with it. Now the natural thing when you see the righteous suffers and the unrighteous and the immoral appear to succeed, the natural thing is to experience anger, right?
And so when sanctimonious person comes up to you and says, "Oh, you shouldn't be angry," we point them to Ephesians chapter 4, where the Word of God says that when we experience righteous anger, now that's not selfish anger that comes as a result of our pride being injured. I'm talking about righteous anger. The Word of God said, it is okay as long as it doesn't lead you to sin. Hear me right, please. When righteous anger is channeled in a godly direction, it will accomplish amazing things for God.
Let me tell you why it is absolutely necessary that we must channel our righteous anger to doing something about it for the glory of God. Why do I say this? Because if righteous anger is not channeled positively for God, it will lead you to resentment. And if resentment allowed to flourish and take root and take hold it will soon turn into hatred and I don't have to tell you that hatred has ugly consequences for the person who does the hating, not the object of hate. We just began a short series of messages from the Psalms, "Encouraging Words in Discouraging Times".
And so I want you to turn with me today, please, to Psalm 37. Psalm 37. Most biblical historians have agreed that this Psalm of David was written toward the end of his life. And if so, and I have no reason to doubt that whatsoever, because you can see from the context, and I'm gonna explain to you in a minute, that this probably one of the last, if not the last, Psalm that David had written. No doubt as he was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this last of his last or one of the last Psalms, he was reflecting back on the years that he was a fugitive running from King Saul, running all over the country, all over the place.
And during those years, no doubt, he asked himself many times and then later, many times later, "How come I knew that Prophet Samuel came to my father's house as a young boy and he anointed me to be king of Israel. Why did I do this? How come that I have been so faithful to Saul and yet he wanted to kill me? How come Saul was living in the palace of the king and while I was sweating it out in the caves and in the desert"? And as David reflects back in his life, he realizes that things do not turn out the way they appear on the surface. Are you with me?
Things do not turn out as they appear on the surface. And so he gives us an encouraging words in the middle of our discouraging times that comes from hindsight. And so my beloved friends, when you see so many discouraging signs, when you feel discouraged or whatever circumstances you're personally going through or nationally you're going through, stay calm and cool. Do not sweat the temporary things that evil and wicked people are exhibiting now. Do not turn your righteous anger into hatred that will only hurt you. Do not waste your time fuming and steaming over the appearances, for that's all they are, appearances. What we see, just appearances.
Four things in those 20 verses that I want to share with you as I delved into the Word of God, allowed it to teach me and speak to me, and so that I am able to speak to you. The first thing I want to tell you is this: be encouraged because of what you cannot see, verses 1 to 3. Secondly, be encouraged because of what you already have, verses 4 to 7. Thirdly, be encouraged because of what is coming to you, verses 8 to 11. Fourthly, be encouraged because of the coming judgment of the wicked. It's verses 12 to the end, 12 to 20. Stay encouraged because of what you cannot see.
Look, listen to me. If you can only see the wicked prosper, that's all you can see, that the wicked is prospering and the righteous is suffering. If that's all you can see, you would be like a blind person who thinks that the whole world is dark. If you're living in a well and all your world is going to look like a little blue circle, because that's all you see, that's your world. But what you need to do is get yourself a pair of spiritual glasses, get yourself a pair of spiritual binoculars, start seeing with spiritual eyes.
Then soon you'll discover how miserable and unhappy the wicked are. Soon you'll discover that those who might give the appearance to be happy and prideful and successful, deep down they are angry and they are guilt-ridden. Deep down, their conscious is burning and is on fire. Deep down, their bluster, it just mere appearances. Deep down, they feel a volcano of guilt inside of them, below the surface. Why? Because they've been created in God's own image and no matter what they say on the surface, no matter what the bluster they come up with, deep down they have to be eaten up on the inside. Listen to me.
And that is why they will never be satisfied by any measure of acceptance of their evil and wickedness. They will never be satisfied. If you accepted them, that will not be enough. If you approve of what they do, that will not be enough. If you praise what they do, their evil and their wicked ways, that will never be enough.
Even if you place them on a pedestal, that will not be enough. It will never be enough. And that is why the Psalmist uses the word, "do not fret" three times. Three times. Don't fret, don't fret, don't fret. No doubt David was thinking in the benefit of hindsight, he's probably thinking, why did I waste my time fretting over the wickedness and their design against me? Why did I ever waste my time fretting over what Saul was trying to do? Why did I ever fret over the fact Absalom's design against the palace and the kingdom? So be encouraged because of what you cannot see.
Secondly, be encouraged because of what you have. Look at verses 4 to 7. If you have ever analyzed a fretting situation, you will discover that fretting does not stay as fretting. It will become an intense irritation, and that intense irritation, if it's not dealt with, it will lead to full-blown anger. And if anger festers it will produce hatred and you don't want to do that. You don't want that. As I said earlier, hatred has severe consequences. You say, "Well, Michael, how can I stop this process dead in its track"? Well, I'm glad you asked me because you come to the right, I'm the expert on that. "Delight yourself in the Lord".
Can you say that with me? "Delight yourself in the Lord, and then He's going to give you the desire of your heart". Oh, my goodness, I don't know how many preachers I hear preach on the second half of the verse. He'll give you the desire of your heart. All you need to do is just you name it and you claim it, and you blab it and you grab it. Just say it. He'll give you the desire of your... they leave, conveniently, they leave out the first half of the verse, the most important part of the verse. Delight yourself in what? Your net worth? Delight yourself in what? In your achievements? Delight yourself in your accomplishments? Delight yourself in what you really want? No. "Delight yourself in the Lord".
How do you delight yourself in the Lord? Another great question. When you see the Lord as all you need, you begin to learn how to delight yourself in the Lord. This is just the beginning. Beloved, when you delight yourself in the Lord, you want to do what he wants to do. You want to go where he wants to go. You want to please him above everybody and everything else. Think about this with me, please. If my desire is his desire, and if my will is to do his will, if my delight is his delight, if my joy is his joy, if my fulfillment is his fulfillment, in other words, he's everything to me. When that happens, when that happens, he will give me the desire of my heart. More of him! More of him. More of himself.
Listen to me, please. That delighting of yourself in the Lord is impossible. Listen to me, it is impossible to comprehend by those people who only come to the Lord when they want something from him. You cannot comprehend that. Look at verses 5 and 6: "Commit all your ways to the Lord. Trust him and he will act. He will bring forth your vindication in the open, so much so". Here's a Youssef translation that is going to be as clear as the noonday sun in July in the Middle East.
Now if you have never been there, I'm sure most of you haven't. I have, I'm telling you, it's blinding. Even with sunglasses, your eyes can't squint. It is so bright. You can't comprehend this until you've stood there in noontime in the middle of summer in the desert. Some of you might be feeling that you are fretting because you have not had a fair shake, you're not getting your just reward, or you may have been passed over for a promotion that belongs to you, and you got a raw deal, and you are the object of gossip, or you are the object of false accusations, and you're carrying that burden.
Remember this, the judge of the universe is watching. The judge of the universe will not be silent forever. He's not silent, he's working. But for you and for me sometimes we think he's silent but he will not be silent even to us forever. The judge of the universe will publicly vindicate you and exonerate you. The judge of the universe will publicly honor you, whether it is in this life or the next. He will lavishly bless you, whether it's in this life or the next, because that's who he is. He's a God of justice. You're not gonna just inherit a little piece of... you're gonna reign and rule with Christ in the whole universe. You will inherit what Christ inherits. You will receive what the Father gives to Jesus.
And so to those who cause you to experience righteous anger, they will go up in a puff of smoke. While you are thoroughly blessed, they will be like soot. But God's Word spoken through David is telling us that everything you've longed for is yours, but not yet. All of the justice and the righteousness that you ever wanted and longed for is yours, but not yet. All of the success that you envied the wicked for is really yours, but not yet. All the righteousness and the justice that you wished for, they're all yours, but not yet.
Question, who are these meek, the meek person that he's talking about here? You know, for years, and it continues for some strange reason, it just persists, a lot of people because of the word, I guess, rhyming, they think meek means weak. And when they see somebody weak, they say, "Oh, he's meek". No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, just because they rhyme, doesn't mean the same thing.
If you got this, say "Amen". Moses was called the meekest man and yet he was far from weak. He looked in the eye of the most powerful man on the face of the earth at the time and he looked at him and he said, "Let my people go". So listen, meekness does not mean weakness. Meekness means power under control. Say that with me, "Power under control". When you have it in you to hurt somebody and you don't do it. When you have it in you to take revenge, but you don't do it because you're meek, because you have power under control of the Holy Spirit.
And so, fourthly, be encouraged because of, look at verses 12 to 20. Here, David is telling us that if you just could see what God sees, that's really what he's saying, if you could see what God sees, you would not waste a nanosecond fretting. If you know what God knows about the future, you would not waste a nanosecond in envy and jealousy of the appearance of success of the wicked. If you see what God sees, you too would laugh like God.
Now the word "laugh" here is the same word that's used in Psalm 2. He who sits on high, laughs. In fact, the old translation said, he who sits on high, laugheth. We're going to do some laughething right now. Because that word really does not mean a pleasant laughter. You know, as we hear something funny and we laugh and it's a pleasant laughter, it's joy. The Bible talks about it in Proverbs, it's great to laugh. But this word here means the laughter of derision. It's the laughter of derision. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Huh, let's do it. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
That's what, you just did what the Bible said. You too, if you see what God sees and know what God knows, you too, like God, you would laugh at the foolishness of the wicked. You too would laugh at the cruel joke that Satan is playing on the wicked. I know and you know that we live in times when we have confused reality with fiction, we really have. So many people are so confused. What we think is reality and permanent, God scoffs at. Why? Because he knows what we see is neither real nor permanent. Is neither real nor permanent. God sees and knows of the end of the wicked, and that is why he could laugh at their foolishness. And so be encouraged.