Thursday, October 3, 2019

How Remembering Final Destinies Keeps us from Stumbling (Wisdom from Asaph found in Psalm 73)




God inspired Asaph to write twelve of the Psalms. Asaph had a deep faith in God. But even a person with deep faith can struggle with doubts and hard questions. Asaph faced his hard questions head on. Thankfully, while meditating in God’s presence, God reminded Asaph of a comforting certainty that strengthened the heart of Asaph and should strengthen ours. That comforting certainty is that the final destiny of the righteous and the unrighteous is far different from the painful reality we often face in this world. Those who trust in God will, in the end, be given eternal life in glory. Those who don’t trust God will be destroyed. They will perish.

Let’s examine the 28 inspired and encouraging verses of Psalm 73. Here is the Psalm:

ESV Psalm 73:1 A Psalm of Asaph. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
 2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.
 3 For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
 4 For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.
 5 They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
 7 Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
 8 They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
 9 They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.
 10 Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.
 11 And they say, "How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
 12 Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
 13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
 14 For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
 15 If I had said, "I will speak thus," I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
 16 But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
 17 until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
 18 Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.
 19 How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!
 20 Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
 21 When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,
 22 I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
 23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
 27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
 28 But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.


A Vital Truth

In verse 1 Asaph proclaims the foundational truth that God is good to His people. If we don’t believe this, we will not be able to live a life pleasing to God:

ESV Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.


The Truth Attacked by Harsh Realities

In verses 2 to 14, Asaph lays out very plainly the harsh realities which caused him to almost stumble and nearly slip. The basic problem is that evil people often die fat and happy. At the same time, those who trust in the Lord often suffer oppression and severe injustice at the hands of these prosperous evil people.

Many Christians face the same harsh reality today. There are relatively mild versions of this in nations like the US. Those who compromise, who “go along to get along,” and who keep quiet about unpopular parts of God’s truth, often get bigger salaries and better positions than those who are most faithful to God. Integrity sometimes brings suffering rather than reward. There is a much more severe form of this problem. Christians in places like North Korea, China, and many Muslim majority nations suffer severe persecution, imprisonment, and sometimes death while the rich, godless leaders of those nations live in luxury and have power. God’s people have faced this reality and struggled with it throughout the ages.

How Asaph Responds

Faced with these harsh realities, Asaph almost stumbles. He apparently started to become bitter (vs 21). His heart was wounded. In his bitterness and hurt, he privately lashed out at God (vs 22).

Thankfully, Asaph did not publicly rail at God or speak in a way as to spread Asaph’s own struggle with doubt to others. A couple of translations capture this a bit more clearly than the ESV:


NET Psalm 73:15 If I had publicized these thoughts, I would have betrayed your loyal followers.

NLT Psalm 73:15 If I had really spoken this way to others, I would have been a traitor to your people.

CSB17 Psalm 73:15 If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed your people.

Asaph did not go around openly airing his doubts and bitterness. This stands in stark contrast to some who were once leaders in Christian ministry and who “deconstructed” (in Asaph’s language, they stumbled, they slipped). Some of these people have very publicly spread their doubts and bitterness and have thus betrayed God’s people by influencing others to also stumble (I discuss a recent example here.) When we have doubts, it is entirely right to ask questions. Hard questions. Privately going to mature Christians whom we trust and asking for help with our hardest questions is not the same thing as publicly encouraging others to share our bitterness or embrace our doubts. While God does not give us detailed, specific answers to every hard question we might have, there are in fact good answers and very helpful truths that can strengthen our faith when it is under attack and faltering. Asaph found some truth that strengthened his faith.

During times of doubt and struggle, we need to run into God’s presence, not run away from Him. It is when Asaph went into the sanctuary of God that God reminded him of the truth Asaph needed to hold on to in order stand firm and not fall away. As God’s children, we are always welcomed into His presence, even if we come initially with anger, doubts, and bitterness. Especially at these low points we need to run to our God.


Eternal Perspective and Final Destinies

God helps Asaph by reminding him of the final destinies of the righteous and the unrighteous. The painful situation where God’s faithful people suffer oppression from wicked people proves to be temporary.

Asaph is reminded that in this life God will guide him with His counsel (vs 24). The outcome of trusting God in this life will be that Asaph, and we who share Asaph’s faith in God, will be welcomed into glory (also vs 24). God will be near us and sustain us in this life, and then He Himself will be our great, eternal reward (vss 25-28).

What about those evil people who were oppressing Asaph and similar evil people who pridefully reject God, oppose God’s truth, and persecute His people today? When Asaph comes into God’s presence, he discerns “their end” (vs. 17).  The NIV translated “their end” as “their final destiny.” While the Hebrew is not that specific, in this context I believe that the translators of the NIV capture Asaph’s intention most clearly. Both the context before verse 17 and after verse 17 supports the interpretation that Asaph sees the final destiny of the wicked and not merely their end here on earth. I say that because in the earlier portion of this Psalm the whole problem is that in this world the wicked sometimes appear to live happy lives. Asaph already knew that the wicked eventually die in this world (vs 4). The problem is that they die fat and happy. Since the righteous also die in this world, remembering that the wicked eventually die would not seem to help resolve the main problem Asaph has been wrestling with. After vs 17, Asaph certainly seems to be thinking of his own eternal destiny when he looks forward to God being his portion forever. So, it makes sense that Asaph is contrasting the final destiny of those who trust God with the final destiny of those who do not.

The final destiny of those who do not trust God is grim. God reveals to Asaph (and to us!) that the unrighteous will fall into ruin, be destroyed in a moment, be swept away, vanish like a bad dream,  perish, and be put to an end.

When God reveals the final destinies of the righteous and unrighteous to Asaph, his faith is strengthened so that he does not fall away.


The Doctrine of Conditional Immortality Helps Us

What God reveals to Asaph we sometimes call the doctrine of conditional immortality. This doctrine states that only those who receive the gift of eternal life by God’s grace through faith will live forever. Those who do not trust God will not live forever. Their bodies and souls will be destroyed by God (Matthew 10:28). They will perish (John 3:16). They will be burned to ashes (2 Peter 2:6).

Psalm 73 shows us how the doctrine of conditional immortality, which is a doctrine about final destinies, can strengthen our faith in a world where evil people prosper, evade justice, and oppress the righteous. On the one hand, when we trust in God despite all the opposition and evil we face, we can know that an eternity of joy in His presence awaits us. On the other hand, we know that justice will be carried out on  evil oppressors of God’s people. Some of them, like the Apostle Paul who persecuted God’s people before his conversion, will repent, turn to faith in Christ, and be saved. But those who do not will face judgment where they will be destroyed and perish.

One problem with the wrong doctrine of eternal torment is that it understandably hinders Christians from finding comfort in God’s final judgment of unrepentant people who persecute and oppress Christians. We would not wish even our worst enemy to be tortured for two hundred years, yet such a fate would be very mild compared to eternal torment. But it is not wrong to be glad that God will destroy the unrepentant so that they will not ruin the new earth the way they did this one. God does not tell us that pay back and vengeance are ultimately wrong. He tells us it is wrong for us to seek these things ourselves, but that is because He Himself will avenge and pay back evildoers. It’s not our job, it’s His.


Conclusion and Application

When we see evil prevailing in this world we may find ourselves in danger of stumbling and becoming bitter. At times like this we need to go to God. God may not explain the details of why He allows each specific instance of evil to continue for a time, but through His Word and through other Christians He does remind us of the final destinies of both those who trust Him and those who do not. Remembering this will strengthen our faith.




Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .



Further Reading

Psalm 73 and this blog post touch on a number of really big topics. Here are some related blog posts and a related article.

#1 This blog post discusses the importance of maintaining an eternal perspective:





#2 The doctrine of conditional immortality is explained in this blog post:




#3 The issue of God promising to pay back those who persecute Christians is discussed in this blog post:




#4 Psalm 73 raises questions about the nature of hell and final punishment. I’ve collected blog posts, articles, and videos on this topic here:




#5 Psalm 37 deals with the same problem as Psalm 73. Like Psalm 73, the solution to the problem lies in remembering the final destinies of people. Also, like Psalm 73, Psalm 37 teaches annihilationism. William Tanksley Jr. helped me write a fairly in depth article about Psalm 37 which is posted on the Rethinking Hell website:


#6 My life and faith has been deeply impacted by the opportunity I had to minister together with Christians in a Muslim majority nation for fourteen years. This experienced caused me to think a lot about persecution. Several blog posts related to Christian persecution are listed below:







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