Consider the Way of the Wicked
22 February 2006
Pastor Matt Black
Midweek Service
Psalm 73:3, 17-28
Discipleship: Let’s review our discipleship
questions… (For our purposes you do not need to memorize the references.)
Q. What is the first commandment
of God’s moral Law?
A. Thou shalt have no other
gods before me (Exodus 20:3).
Q. What is the second commandment?
A. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image (Exodus 20:4).
Q. What is the third commandment?
A. Thou shalt not take the name of
the LORD thy God in vain (Exodus 20:7).
Q. What is the fourth commandment?
A. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy
(Exodus 20:8).
Q. What is the fifth commandment?
A. Honor thy father and thy mother (Exodus
20:12).
Q. What is the sixth commandment?
A. Thou shatl not
kill (Exodus 20:13).
And now
this week’s question…
Q. What is the seventh
commandment?
A. Thou shalt not commit adultery (Exodus
20:14).
Introduction: Open your Bibles tonight to Psalm 73. Tonight we are going to look at the horribly dangerous position lost people are in at every moment. The title of our study is “The Sudden Destruction of the ”
Let’s begin in verse 17. David is thinking about how unbelievers seem to prosper, and begins to envy them. Then he realizes how foolish it is to envy those who though they be very prosperous on earth, their lives will end in sudden destruction. So he envied them until he entered into God’s presence…
[Read Psalm 73:3, 17-19]
Many times we look upon this world with envy. But why should we envy anything in this world?
I. The Life of the Saint is a Warfare. vs. 3, 17
A. We must stop envying the Prosperity of the world.
3 I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…
1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
B. We must enter the Presence of the Lord.
17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God;
Isaiah 6:5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
C. We must observe the understand the Peril of the Lost.
then understood I their end.
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
II. The Way of the Wicked is Worthless. vs. 18-19
A. It is a Slippery destruction.
18 Surely thou didst set them in slippery places:
--Unexpected
As the dead fig tree bore no fruit the vinedresser said
Luke 13:7 cut it down; why cumbereth [waste space] it the ground?
--Their own weight will bring them down
--It is God who sets them i
B. It is a Sovereign destruction.
thou castedst them down into destruction.
God prepared hell. It is God’s hell—it is not the devil’s hell. God meets out justice!
Proverbs 16:4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
God knew that men would be evil when he created them. He created them knowing they would do wickedly, and allowed them to sin. Men commit sin in and of themselves without any provocation from God.
James 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
C. It is a Sudden destruction.
19 How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment!
James 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
D. It is a Shocking destruction.
they are utterly consumed with terrors.
Matthew 8:12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jude 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Conclusion: Have you really assessed the world as God sees it? What is your perspective? Do you realize that God is going to destroy this world and all those who do not follow Him? What are you living for?
Closing Hymn: 363 At