Put your Bible, if you would, this morning to Psalm 73. Psalm 73. And we're taking a break from Genesis chapter three. There are several things we need to clean up in Genesis chapter three that we will do in a future week. What I'd like to do today is share one of the great doctrines of God's Word, but I'd like to share it from the standpoint of Psalm 73, where it's illuminated by way of experience. It's highlighted in a very practical way. Normally, when we think of doctrine, we think of you know, great detailed and theological terms and words and explanations, which is all very good. But today, it's going to come from a different spot. It's going to come from an experience. And I think it really is where the rubber meets the road for us. It helps us to love this doctrine. It helps us to see how it comes into play in our day-to-day life. It's just really a blessing. Doctrine, as you know, redounds to the glory of God. Doctrine illuminates for us who God is, his wisdom, his righteousness. It exalts God. When you look at the doctrines of the Bible and you see how they fit together with spiritual symmetry, and you see the wisdom of that, it exalts, it glorifies, God. Doctrine is immensely practical. We don't put it on a shelf like a trophy and admire it. We love it, we admire it, but it's practical. It's helpful. Some in our day have said that doctrine is dead. Doctrine divides. Maybe you've heard that statement. It's lifeless. It's cold. They misinterpret verses like 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 6 that says, the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. And they wrongly conclude that God does not care about doctrine. But in fact, doctrine glorifies God. It is useful. It is practical. Jesus prayed, talking to the disciples and answering them. He said, my doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. And if any man will do his will, he will know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. And then he talks about how the doctrine glorifies God. In the very next verse, he says, he that speaketh of himself seeks his own glory. But he that seeks his glory that sent him The same is true, and there's no unrighteousness in him. He sought to glorify God by speaking of his doctrines. And so we need to rightly understand and love and apply his doctrines. Understand it with our head, love it in our heart, and act upon it in our day-to-day Christian experience. And so today I'd like to look at this psalm, I'm not going to treat it, like I said, as a doctrinal sermon, and it won't be exposition, it will not be topical, it'll be more of an exhortation. We'll look at a large section of scripture in several chunks, and see what doctrine God embedded in there, and why the Holy Spirit chose that doctrine in that context. It's really a blessing. So, in the first place then, let's look at Psalm 73, and I would like to read verse one through verse 14. A psalm of Asaph, and as you know, Asaph wrote, I believe, 12 of the psalms, so Asaph was somebody in God's economy. A psalm of Asaph. Truly, God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasses them about as a chain, Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness, and they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt. They speak wickedly. Concerning the oppressed, they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. Therefore, his people return hither, and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. And they say, how doth God know? And is there any knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence. So here is the psalmist Asaph. And the question is, how bad can it get for a Christian? What sins can ensnare us? What afflictions, what trials can we go through when we truly belong to him, and how low can we sink? Righteous Noah. planted a vineyard and became drunk. Solomon can build that edifice, Solomon's temple, where God's glory came in. And then Solomon can get ensnared with the sin of idolatry. Peter, Peter can deny the Lord three times with cursings. David, We always think of David's sin with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. First degree premeditated murder against Uriah, adultery with his wife. And how about the time that he joined himself to the Philistines to fight against Israel, God's people? 16 months he joined himself to the Philistines and wanted to go to war against God's people. How bad can it get? for the believer. Here Asaph sinks to a very low depth. Verse three, I was envious of the foolish. That is the wicked, the unbeliever. I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Asaph describes this group of people in verses three through verse 12. They're not in trouble. Violence covers them as a garment. They're proud. They don't have any concern about what God thinks or what God sees in my personal life. They're corrupt. They speak against heaven and God doesn't know about that. And oh, I really want to be like them, is what Asaph is saying. I envy them. if I could just eat, drink, and be merry and not have to worry about this Christianity stuff. Asaph, like I said, as a psalmist, penned 12 of the Psalms. Asaph, 1 Chronicles chapter 16, 2 Chronicles chapter 5, Asaph was designated as the worship leader, leading the worship the Psalms, the hymns, the songs, the sounding of the cymbals before the Ark of God, which you know was the presence of God. He was in the ministry at a very high level, and he wanted to be like the heathen. He was envious of them. They have what I want. They have what I want to be. His conclusion in verse 13, He says, I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence. In other words, he is saying it's been vain to follow the Lord. I don't have anything to show for it. These, heathen, they are prospering. They're not in trouble. They do whatever they want without any consequences. I've cleansed my heart, that is the inward seeking of a holy life. The inward seeking through prayer and meditation and studying and thinking about God's word. He's saying, it's vain. I've washed my hands, that is the outward service. The inward and the outward. I've got nothing to show for it. I'm in poverty. Verse 14, all the day long, I've been plagued. and I've been chastened every morning. You're a Christian. You know what it's like to go through the pruning process, to bear up under what God is doing in our life. Sometimes it's difficult. It requires spiritual fruit in us to meet the order of the day. And then if you take the spiritual segment of your life just for a minute and separate it just so we can talk about it, to live in this society, in this culture, with the demands of a job, or if we're a homemaker, the technology that is invading every aspect of our life, the violence that's in the world, and just the lack of common grace. And these two worlds are colliding in our life. Living for God has been useless. It's been unprofitable. He says, I was envious of the foolish. I wanted to be like them. The Apostle Paul said, in one of the epistles, he said, in many things we offend. We offend God, we offend brethren, because we're not quite perfected yet. But here, if we think about the psalmist Asaph, I mean, he seems to be within 10 feet of the gate of hell. from that position as a worship leader, as someone who God used to write 12 hymns, psalms, he knew what it was like to be in the presence of God. He knew who God was. And he got derailed wanting to be like the heathen. He catalogs their high points. And he tries to compare it to what it's like walking with God. And he chooses them, the unbeliever, the foolish. Again, we know what it's like as Asaph, at least the outward things that were coming into his life. We know the difficulties, we know the hard times. Yet I trust we do not fall to that level where Asaph was here. It was so much easier being an unbeliever. I'd rather be at the baseball game today. I don't have to carry a 10-pound Bible around everywhere I go. I don't have to give my money to the church or this gospel endeavor. All of those things, that hymn that we sing, sin and despair like the sea waves, cold. threaten the soul with infinite loss, like those waves that just want to roll over us so very often. Asaph's problem is a sin problem, and sin still beats up the Christian. All of the pain, all of the work, all of the self-sacrifice, all of the service, he says, what do I have to show for it? When I compare my life to the life of these foolish. Please understand, appreciate the gravity and the seriousness of this Asaph at this point in his life. That's the first segment here in the psalm, where the psalmist would rather be somebody else. Next section, verse 15 through verse 20. If I say, I will speak thus, behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end. Surely thou did set them in slippery places. Thou cast them down into destruction. How they are brought into desolation, as in a moment, They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh, so O Lord, when thou awakest, that shall despise their image. And so in the second segment of this psalm, Asaph realizes that they're envied until Asaph realizes that he goes into the sanctuary of God and he is reconnected, he understands their end. To bring this into the New Testament, our time, so he goes to church, and his spiritual compass is recalibrated. His spiritual bearings are reset. The church, which is supposed to be the pillar and the ground of the truth, the church that is the place of worshiping in spirit and in truth, and prayer, and fellowship, and God walking amongst this candlestick, all things spiritual, where we're shut out from the world and we have this revelation of what time and history and people's lives is all about in light of eternity. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, I envied them. And then it's as though he's saying, my spiritual bearings are corrected. restoration begins. I have to think Asaph was startled back into reality. He's reminded of the destiny of those who are not following the Lord, those who are not children of God, the very ones that he was envying. He said that they've been set in slippery places and their foot would slide in due time. In verse two, Asaph said his steps had well nigh slipped, almost gone. He was that close, but here he realizes the wicked are not able to say that, that they had almost slipped. They were almost gone. He says they're cast down into destruction. In the sanctuary of God, restoration, repentance, spiritual understanding, Being able to say things in the light of eternity, God in the midst of the people, he gets that understanding returned. He gets that connection back to God. He realizes the eternal state of man's soul. There's a God with whom everybody has to do. In verse 21 and 22, we have this sense, this spirit of repentance that Asaph manifests. In verse 21, thus my heart was green and I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee. Here he begins this idea of repentance. He begins to understand where he had been, where he needs to be. He looks back and he says, I was like a brute beast. I was like an animal in the field that didn't have an intellect, had no past history with God, had no feelings, no spirit, no soul. I had to have been thinking like an animal to think, I want it to be like the wicked. I want it to be like the foolish. He's tortured over his folly. His heart is greed. This word talks about, the King James word is like the direct center of his soul. God shoots that arrow there and then it ripples out to affect his whole being. God in mercy granting him this repentance. So up to this point, we have these three divisions in the psalm. This Christian, he was definitely a saved Christian. He envies the wicked and he wants to be like them. And then secondly, he goes into the sanctuary and he's reminded of spiritual truth, the destiny of the wicked, the destiny of God's children. He understands between that chapter, section, and the third one, when he sees this awful sin of unbelief and carnality and lukewarmness, where he's like a beast in God's sight, in his own sight, he's like a beast. We have this panorama of him moving from this wicked, envious of the wicked and foolish person, through the beginning of repentance and understanding, and the effect it took upon his heart, And in the midst of that section, where it just seems to be almost an unbelievable story, what doctrine could God possibly have been bringing to light in a situation as terrible as this? Look at verse 23 and 24. I am continually with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Against the terrible backdrop of this sin, his unbelief, his temporary unbelief, his backslidden nature, standing in the sanctuary in the presence of God, realizing he was like a Like a beast, an animal? Wonder of wonders. The Holy Spirit brings in and reminds him of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The perseverance of the saints, Asaph. Let me ask you a question. Forgive me for asking you, but the perseverance of the saints, whose work? is that. It's God's work. It's God's work. It's not divorced from human responsibility, but it's God's work. In the covenant of grace where everything is free, grace is free, that the reward of eternal life in the presence of the glory of God should rest on your work of persevering, then grace is no more grace. If you've been justified, you've been justified unto eternal life. Either that or you're justified on a day-by-day basis until you persevere on your own merits until the end, which is not the case, is it? I love that hymn, How Firm Our Foundation. That soul, and it reflects perfectly spiritual truth, that soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I will never, no never, no never, forsake. A couple years ago, we looked at that passage in Hebrews 13 where God says, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. If you remember that, there were five negatives where God says, no, not never, no, not never will I leave you. In my mind, it is so deeply profound for this individual who realizes he has just sinned. Yeah, he didn't murder anybody. He didn't commit adultery, he didn't rob a bank. He simply had this thought life of wanting to almost cast away his profession and live ungodly. Then this brute beast in his own eyes, by his own admission, that God, the Holy Spirit, reminds him of this tremendous truth. Though the righteous fall, they shall not be utterly cast down. The Lord upholds him by his hands, Psalm 37. Isn't it not deeply profound that God reminds us of the same truth? Often when we are at the lowest, we are at the worst condition. I think if Asaph was on the mountaintop, spiritually speaking, and God reminded him of this truth, maybe Asaph could have added a little bit of his works in there, or a little bit of himself in there. After all, I am on the mountaintop. Yes, God will preserve me. God does the opposite when he's at the worst. to magnify His grace. It's deeply profound. Perseverance of the saints. God's work will ensure that He will deliver you from every evil work and preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 2 Timothy 4. You've been born again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance. An inheritance, it's not taken back, it's been given. That's undefiled, incorruptible, reserved in heaven. Who's it reserved for? For you who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation. Now obviously, I'm gonna add, let me add the obvious. This truth came to him, this amazing truth came to him, not when he was sitting with the high hand, but through this process of repentance, when he had come in to the sanctuary of God, when he had the sorrow for sin, where he had the realization that he was playing the fool. And that's when this came in. Perseverance is God's work. Three simple statements, let me give them to you by way of definition. Number one, They whom God has accepted in the beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but they shall certainly persevere to the end and be eternally saved. Number two, this perseverance of the saints does not depend upon their free will, but upon Then he mentions five things, the immutability of the decree of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father, upon the efficacy of the merit of the intercession of Jesus Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and of the seed of God that has been placed within them, and of the nature of the covenant of grace, from which all arises the certainty and infallibility of their being saved. Thirdly, they might fall into grievous sins for a time and continue in them, and they will suffer the consequences of those, but they shall be saved. This character of God, this character of the covenant of grace, this nature of God, where he holds out such a tremendous, profound promise and truth and hope to those who are his. Again, it's not divorced from human effort. God is working in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. But he will preserve Asaph, he will even keep you. We'll like to look now at these four segments that Asaph mentions in those final two verses and see how those relate to the perseverance of the saints. And these just provide like an overarching principle. But the first one is, nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Verse 23, that first part. Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. How is that? Why is that? What are the mechanics of that? Simply that when we were forgiven of our sins, God forgave you for all of your sins, every single one. He has not dealt with you according to your sins. He does not reward you according to your iniquities. All of your sins were washed away in his blood. Jonathan Edwards says this, quote, that the saints will persevere follows from the forgiveness of sins. We have been justified unto life. Our sins and our iniquities, he remembers, no more. The righteousness of Christ has been given to us, and once the creature has actually performed and finished the righteousness of the law, he is immediately sealed and confirmed unto eternal life. Nothing can keep you from the tree of life if you have been justified because Christ's righteousness has been put to your account, it's evident that you will persevere. What Jonathan Edwards was saying was Romans 8 and verse 30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. That chain with those links that are inseparable. When he forgave you your sins, He forgave all of them. So what happens, what happened when Asaph sinned? What happens when we sin? When you sin, can you say, nevertheless, God is always with me? Can you say, well, God said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. The fact is, if you are a believer, when you are saved, you are no longer guilty in reference to the law. You are no longer guilty from that judicial standpoint. From God's vantage point, the law has nothing against you. That's from God's vantage point. But from our vantage point, we have this inerrant guiltiness in us. We're convicted of sin because the Holy Spirit lives inside of us. We want assurance of forgiveness. We want to do better. We want to repent. We want to have godly sorrow for sin. We want to be quickened. That's our vantage point. We feel the effects of sin. But all the while, through all of those struggles, the spiritual warfare that happens, those feelings of being disconsolate and despairing, or like Asaph, all the while you can say, nevertheless, I am continually with thee, with the Lord. Speaking of the believers, Jesus said, those who love God, true believers, Jesus said, my father will love them, and we will come in unto him and make our abode with him. That word abode, that's a constant dwelling place. So I think there's two choices here. You can believe that you could say, nevertheless, God is with me. Maybe I grieve the Holy Spirit. I have these negative feelings, spiritually speaking, but God hasn't cast me off. Or you can say, well, I have to repent good enough. God leaves me. And then when I repent good enough, however good that is, then he comes back. And then I sin again, then he leaves again. And then he's back and forth. And I undergo this thing until the final day. Kind of like a hotel room where it has to be cleaned every day and new towels. and they wipe out the coffee pot with the soiled linen and all those stories you've heard of back and forth, back and forth. You can say, God said he will never leave nor forsake. Our repentance would never be, our human effort repentance would never be good enough to merit God saying, okay, now I can come back into that heart of that individual. It's interesting that, I think it's five times it's repeated in God's word, where God says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. The first time it's mentioned is in the book of Joshua. And God's people were going to go into Canaan, and there's gonna be this conquest. And one of the first things God said is, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Now you're gonna go in, and there's gonna be battles. You're gonna win most, you're gonna lose some. You're going to have to learn how to throw down the pagan altars. You're going to have to learn to worship and build altars unto me. You're going to have to get rid of the pagan practices slowly. You're going to invade this land. You're going to do all these things. You're going to be ups and downs. You're going to fail. But through it all, God said, but I will never leave you nor forsake you. When David, back to David, when David had sinned, that very grievous sin of murder and adultery, and he prayed in Psalm 51, that prayer of repentance, he said, cast me not away from thy presence. That was his fear. Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me, he didn't say your presence, Restore to me that felt fruit. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, that felt sense that God was with him. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. It's amazing to me that it's in this context. Because the enemy of our soul would like to teach us the very opposite. But it's in this context where God says, I mean, he remembers that we're dust, where God comes in and says, I will not leave you, nor forsake thee. Nevertheless, Asaph said, I am still with thee. Secondly, he says, thou hast folded me by my right hand. This is talking about restraining grace. restraining grace, restraining him from committing more sin, restraining from him from going all the way. Verse two, he said, as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had almost slipped. Why did he slip altogether? How come his steps weren't totally gone, altogether gone? Because God was upholding him by his right hand. The Christian is not someone who never sins. The Christian is not someone who's perfect. He will continue to sin. But at the beginning, I asked you the question, how far can we fall? The second question is, how far can we not fall? In the same way where our Lord reached out for Peter, who was falling in the water when he was walking, and immediately he caught his hand. God restrains His people. And this is why if you're a believer, if you're a true believer, you have not apostatized, you've not forsaken the Lord, you've not gone to live back out in the world, you've not made shipwreck of your soul. It's not been your faith. It's not been your spiritual tenacity. Your past history with the Lord is because He has held you by your right hand. He that began a good work in you, he will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. If he sustains this physical universe that will one day burn up, will he not sustain and hold a soul for which Christ died? Thou hast holded me by my right hand, restraining grace, When I first became a Christian, I remember thinking, why can't God restrain me from all sin and all temptation? He's all powerful. God could go into my brain and turn on a little switch, so I'd never sin again. Wouldn't that be great? Or no temptations. Well, God's gonna do that. But he said, it won't happen till I get a new body, a resurrected body. And I could make application, I'd get really, I'd spend a lot of time, and I don't want to do that, but there's a connection here with Adam and the woman in the garden, and overcoming and redeeming grace, and how God gets so much grace for that. But the bottom line is restraining grace sometimes restrains us from particular sins. Restraining grace always restrains us from making shipwreck of our faith. Sin will not have dominion over you because you're under grace. Simon, Simon, put your name in there. Behold, Satan has desired that he may have you, that he can sift you like wheat. What does Jesus pray? He could have prayed, I pray that that sin or that temptation doesn't come into your life. But he said, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when you're converted, strengthen your brethren. It was for the good of Peter, It was for the glory of God, for him to go through that process of, dare I say it, denying the Lord with cursings, and then to be restored by God's redeeming grace, and then to be that new creation, that new Peter that could strengthen the brethren. It's certainly part of a spiritual mystery. But underneath were the everlasting arms. And Peter was going to be that trophy of grace, restraining grace. Thirdly, thou shalt guide me with thy counsel. God just doesn't save you and then drop you off at one end of the Kalahari Desert and say, OK, now 800 miles across the desert, I'll meet you at the other end on your own. Thou shalt guide me. with thy counsel. It's as though in the Old Testament imagery, as God is behind the person speaking, go this way, go that way. Isaiah 30. And that ear shall hear a word behind thee, saying, this is the way, walk ye in it. And you'll hear this word when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. Counsel, the Holy Spirit. The Word of God, counsel. Jesus Christ, counsel. These three guides, when they're synthesized together, provide this ironclad counsel and wisdom and guidance for us. The Holy Spirit is a guide. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. As many as are led, led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. When the Spirit of truth has come, He will what? He will guide you. into all truth. Jesus is spoken of as a guide. My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they what? They follow me. I give them to eternal life, and they'll never perish. This gets into the perseverance of the saints and him as a guide. They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. The Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, the Word. Our problem is either we can't listen, or we don't want to follow, or we want an eternal beacon. Again, as a young Christian, I thought, I would like to have lived back in the Israelites' day in the wilderness where they had the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by the day. Because then I would know exactly I was following the Lord where he would be. But very purposefully, God does not tell us what the day may bring. In our humanity, I think, for some of us, we would be living in fear. And we would not be exercising faith. And your pillar cloud is probably different than my pillar cloud. It's different than your pillar cloud. God was dealing with Israel back then as one, right? Moving them as one. It's a different economy now. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel. Asaph really got himself into a mess. He wanted to be like an ignorant, he was an ignorant, foolish beast. God then led him out of that state of mind into a blessed state. And unfortunately, this again, this kind of highlights that often We are willing to be led by his counsel when we're at our worst, when we need him. God is willing, God desires, God's plan is that he would lead us by his counsel all the time. And afterward, the fourth one, afterward he will receive me to glory. Again, I keep using this word profound, but Asaph has to have this profound realization Why did God restrain him? Why is God gonna preserve this beast, this animal, Asaph? Because God wants to take him to glory. God wants to deliver him into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Jesus prayed, Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. Was Asaph foolish? Sure was. Was Asaph a spiritual knucklehead? Yeah, he was. Do we offend in many things? Yeah. And yet God wants to take you to glory. That's grace. This is a statement, I think, of faith, of conviction, that God's work will have an endpoint And to get to that end point, whether you look forward by faith or whether by faith you look at the end point and you extrapolate back and realize where God will take me to get me there, he knew what the end result would be. Glory. Not to destruction, although that's what he earned. Not to perish and to be forever lost. but he's gonna be led to glory. I think one of the worst things that Asaph said, you know, we read that litany of his thinking. I think the worst thing that he said was in verse seven. When he's talking about the wicked, talking about the unbeliever, he said this. They have more than heart could wish. they have more than heart could wish. And Asaph lived to see the day, and he died to see the day, that those who fall asleep in Jesus and wake up in heaven, they have more than heart could wish, and nobody else. So foolish was I, yep, quite foolish. They have more than heart could wish, really? The one who dies in Christ, They have more than heart could wish, more than they could imagine, for eternity, not just for time. Of course, these are personal pronouns. Nevertheless, I, I am continuing with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. It's not a corporate thing. I guess on a grander sense, we could say, yeah, it's a corporate thing. But we can't just include ourself by proxy with a group. This was his personal experience. And God's, this doctrine is reflected into it. And he's able to say, yeah, that's me in there. By virtue of grace, by virtue of faith. perseverance of saints, coming in at a time when he needed it the most. We don't have time, but let me just say, this does not lead to licentious living. If we read on, he ransacks heaven and earth to get more of God now at this point. He says, whom do I have in heaven but thee? And there is none upon the earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and heart fails. but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For lo, they that are far from thee, I get it now, he says, they'll perish. Thou hast destroyed all those that go a-whoring from thee, but it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God so that I can declare all of his works. I can declare grace for the likes of myself, who at one time realized I was a brute beast. Perseverance of the saints is a tremendous doctrine. We could have spent a different way to look at this, looking at it doctrinally, look at how the Apostle Paul specifically lays it out. But here in the Old Testament, we see the reality of it in the life of someone who needed to be reminded of it, like us. We're not at our best. but we see the very personification of grace invading his life and getting him to get his eyes on what God is doing strategically over the long haul to take us to glory. Well, may God be pleased to write his word upon our heart. Might he be pleased to remind us of the many, many doctrines of his word that we would find comfort and that we would glorify him. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. We thank you for the tremendous, profound, amazing truth that it is. And to think that it impacts our life in such a way. Thank you for opening up to us thy word on a daily basis, revealing to us who you are, revealing to us your plan for us, Father, we confess oftentimes perhaps we are just like Asaph. Maybe not identically, but certainly there's times where we are discouraged, despondent, we despair. We want to see more progress, but we do ask that we would never envy the wicked. Lord, we thank you for that promise that maybe not in this psalm, but reflected here and repeated elsewhere that You're persevering us to the end when we wake up in heaven. By your grace, we will have more than heart could wish. We will be forever with the Lord. We will know even as we are known. And we thank you for holding out to us that tremendous prospect. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.