Psalms 73:15 - Meaning and Application

We have already seen how strongly the psalmist was tempted to envy the success of ungodly people. Now we learn how he kept his balance and won the victory. He first held on to his respect for God’s people, and that kept him from speaking the wrong thoughts he had been forming (Psalm 73:15).

He was winning this battle little by little, and this was the first step. He was ready to say, “I have kept my heart pure for nothing,” and he felt there was some reason for that thought. Still, he kept his mouth shut with this thought in mind: “If I speak like that, I will be turning away from God and giving deep offense to the people who belong to him.” He would not let his wrong thinking become open speech.

This teaches us that it is bad to think wrongly, but even worse to speak those thoughts. Speaking gives the bad thought approval, as if we have agreed with it and passed it along to others. It is a good sign of repentance when a person keeps such evil ideas to himself. If you have been foolish enough to think evil, be wise enough to hold your tongue and let it go no farther (Proverbs 30:32).

He also shows caution because some things should be thought over again before they are spoken. A second look may correct the first mistake. He did not spread his bitter conclusion to others, even though his troubled heart had drawn it from the prosperity of the wicked.

He also feared offending those whom God calls his children. There is a people in the world who truly belong to God, the generation of his children. They hear him and love him as their Father. We must be very careful not to say or do anything that would rightly offend even one of these little ones (Matthew 18:6), much less the whole family of God. Nothing would offend them more than saying, “I have kept my heart clean for nothing,” or, “It is useless to serve God.” That cuts against all their experience and faith. Anyone who wishes for the life of the wicked is, in effect, leaving the tents of God’s children.

Next, the psalmist thought about the ruin that comes to wicked people. This also helped break the temptation’s power. Since he did not dare speak his first thought, he began to ask whether it was true at all. He tried to understand this hard part of providence, but it was too painful for him. Human reason alone could not solve it.

The matter becomes clear only when he goes into God’s sanctuary, that is, into worship, Scripture, and prayer (Psalm 73:16-17). There he meditates on God’s character and on what has been revealed for our good. He consults the Scriptures and the priests who serve in the sanctuary. He prays that God will make the matter plain. At last he understands the miserable end of wicked people. Even in their highest success, they are not truly enviable. They are only ripening for ruin.

There are many important things that we will not learn unless we go into God’s sanctuary by the Word and prayer. A tempted soul must make that place its refuge. We must also judge people and events by the light of God’s revelation, and then we will judge rightly. In particular, we must judge by the end. Everything is well that ends well, and ends well forever. But nothing is well that ends badly, and ends badly forever. The righteous may suffer now, but their suffering ends in peace. The wicked may enjoy prosperity now, but it ends in destruction.

The prosperity of the wicked is brief and uncertain. The high places where providence sets them are slippery places (Psalm 73:18). They cannot stay there long. When they try to climb higher, that very effort may become the reason they slip and fall. Their success has no solid base. It is not built on God’s favor or on his promise.

Their destruction, however, is sure, sudden, and terrible. This cannot mean only some temporary ruin, because the psalm speaks of them spending their days in wealth, and even death seems to come to them without pain. “In a moment they go down to the grave” sounds so sudden that it hardly seems like the full story. So the meaning must reach beyond death to eternal destruction, to hell and final ruin. They flourish for a time, but they are lost forever.

Their ruin is certain and unavoidable. The psalm speaks of it as already done: they are cast down. It is as sure as if it had already happened. It is also God’s own doing: “You cast them down.” If God brings someone down, no one can hold them up. This is destruction from the Almighty (Joel 1:15), and it comes from his powerful judgment (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

Their ruin is also swift. Their doom does not sleep. They are brought into desolation in a moment (Psalm 73:19). It happens easily from God’s hand, and it will shock them and everyone around them. Their fall will come as a sudden surprise.

Their ruin is severe and dreadful. It is total and final. They are completely consumed with terrors. This is the misery of the damned, the lost, because the terrors of the Almighty, whom they made their enemy, seize their guilty consciences. They cannot shield themselves from those terrors or endure them. So it is not their existence that is consumed, but their happiness. No comfort or hope remains. The higher they were lifted up in prosperity, the harder their fall when they are cast into destruction, the word being plural, and brought quickly into ruin.

For that reason, their prosperity is not something to envy. It is something to despise, which is the point the psalmist proves (Psalm 73:20). Like a dream when a person wakes up, so, Lord, when you wake up, or when they wake up, you will despise their image, their shadow, and make it disappear. On the day of the great judgment, when they rise from their graves, God will despise their likeness in his wrath, because they will rise to shame and everlasting contempt.

See here, first, what their present prosperity really is. It is only an image, a false show, a passing shape of this world. It is not real, but only imagined, and a corrupt mind is what makes it seem like happiness. It has no solid worth. It is only a shadow. It is not what it appears to be, and it will not give us what we expect from it. It is like a dream. A dream may please us for a moment while we sleep, yet even then it can disturb our rest. However pleasant it feels, it is still a cheat. It is false, and when we wake up, we find that out. A hungry person may dream of eating, but when he wakes, his stomach is still empty (Isaiah 29:8). A man is no richer or more honored for dreaming that he is so. So who would envy someone for the pleasure of a dream?

Second, consider what will come of it. God will wake up to judgment, that is, he will rise to defend his own cause and the wrongs done to his people. Those people will be roused from their sleep of careless security, and then God will despise their image. He will show the whole world how worthless it really is. Then the righteous will laugh at them (Psalm 52:6, Psalm 52:7). How clearly God despised the rich man’s false image when he said, “You fool, this night your soul will be required of you” (Luke 12:19, Luke 12:20). We ought to think as God thinks, because his judgment is true. We should not admire or envy what he despises and will continue to despise. In time, he will bring the whole world to agree with his view.