A PSALM OF ASAPH.
1 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.
— Psalm 73:1-28, ESV

A Sunday School teacher told her kids the story of the rich man and Lazarus.  Then she asked them which person they would like to be.  One clever little girl responded by saying she’d like to be the rich man in this life, and Lazarus in the next!  

If we make the right decision to devote our lives to God, we could end up like Lazarus, with very little material wealth to enjoy and leave to our heirs.  We start to notice that those who pay no attention to God pay themselves handsomely, often accumulating great wealth and ease of life.  Given the right circumstance, a spark of envy can lead to fire of doubt, and we wonder if it is really worth it to trust and serve the Lord.

We have the keys to the kingdom, yet somebody else is living in the mansion.  We have “greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt,” but sometimes it is like trying to spend Confederate money.  False prophets tell us we can serve God and money, but over time having One without the other loses its allure.   

The adversity of doing without can make one doubt, even the strongest believer in God.  Faith can come at a high cost, and sometimes we get tired of paying.  We think of giving up on Sundays, cancelling that church membership, and getting back into the world to claim our fair share.  

How do we overcome doubt before doubt overcomes us?  I’d like to show you what one man did.  His name is Asaph, and the diary of his experience is recorded in Psalm 73.  

Asaph was exasperated because he had adversity while the ungodly were prospering.  Many were making money by taking advantage of innocent people.  They were ignoring God in the process.  And worst of all, it seemed as if God was letting them get away with it!

Asaph’s problem was a common problem.

Feelings of doubt, insecurity, and injustice can strike any believer at any time, regardless of their rung on the spiritual ladder.  In Asaph’s case, the doubts had hit at a high position, for he was the preeminent sacred music scholar and choral director in all of Israel.  He was the Tom Bolton of his day! 

I am a peon in the church world myself, but I have served God faithfully and passionately since I was converted at the age of twenty.  Yet I have experienced at least three strong seasons of doubt.  The first, when I was still a new believer and a college student, when I was terribly betrayed by people who claimed to be Christian.  The second, as a seminary student suffering from physical, mental, and spiritual exhaustion.  The third, at midlife, when the life and ministry I was living just did not measure up to what I had expected when the journey began.  

What about you?  Has the debilitating disease of doubt ever plagued you?  1 Corinthians 10:13 is the word of the Lord, this is true, but sometimes God allows the load to get so heavy you can hardly take another step.  It seems better to turn around and walk downhill to find whatever pleasure you can in this present world.  

You are not alone.  Most Christians have either battled with doubt in the past, are struggling right now, or sailing in to some future crises that will test your faith to its core.  It is a common problem.

Asaph’s problem was a crippling problem.

The fact that it was common did not make it any easier to handle.  While Asaph did wrestle with doubt, consider what he did not do.  He did not worship, praise, work, or witness for the Lord.  Surely the most effective implement in the devil’s tool chest is the wretched wrench of doubt.  It can turn us down, even turn us off, in the service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

While he was hindered on the outside, and hurting on the inside, Asaph had to struggle not to cry out in pain.  Give him credit for that.  It is better to be silent that to spread the contagion of doubt.  It’s like stubbing your toe in the middle of the night, you want to scream but if you do you’ll wake up everyone else in the house.  

So Asaph kept it to himself.  Until he unburdened himself to God.  The psalm says he found relief and remedy when “I went into the sanctuary of God.”

Perhaps this is a metaphor for God’s presence.  Maybe it was a place of literal worship in progress.  Given his stature I believe it was a combination of both, Asaph sitting alone in the sanctuary of God, waiting for the worshippers to join him.  I find myself doing this almost every Sunday.

In this sacred moment, something dramatic happened known only to God and Asaph, until Asaph wrote it down in God’s word.  Asaph didn’t quit.  Doubt was defeated.  Faith was renewed.  

Asaph regained his sight.

He could now see things from God’s perspective, an eternal perspective.  He was not the one who was slipping, the ungodly were the ones rolling downhill forever.  Believers are not the ones who lack for riches, unbelievers are the ones who truly have nothing of lasting value.

When we put our eyes on others, we can be blinded by envy.  When we put our eyes on ourselves, we can be blinded by self pity.  But when we put our eyes on the Lord, we rejoice in His present reality and future promises. 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, 
look full in His wonderful face, 
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, 
in the light of His glory and grace.
— Helen Howarth Lemmel

Asaph confessed his shortcomings.

The bigger God gets, the smaller you and your problems become.  Asaph had failed to figure this out for a while, admitting he had been “brutish and arrogant.”  Doubting God, at the end of the day, is just not a smart thing to do, though smart people do it.  

Asaph’s problem was that he tried to figure out a complex human equation without factoring in God.  Why do the godly suffer and with wicket prosper?  It is like trying to solve a complex mathematical problem without a calculator.  

In another psalm it says, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God” (ref. Psalm 14:1).  But believers are not fools, we just sometimes forget to use the tools God gave us to figure out life.  Regardless of what it happening in your life, never give up on worship, prayer, word, sacrament, faith, hope, and love. 

Asaph received God’s strength.

Asaph, weary and worried, entered into a time of worship with the Lord and fell into the arms of God.  This is what worship, private and public, should be.  Don’t give up on it!  It serves to drive away our doubt before out doubts drive us away.

In the last verse, Asaph says something, someone’s name, for the first time in the psalm.  “GOD,” in all capitals in the ESV, is the personal name for God, in the original language, YHWH, I AM.  Through worship and fellowship, God became personal and valuable to Asaph again.  He will do the same for you.  

Go to God with your doubts.  Do not run away from Him, run to Him, His house, His word.  He will tell you, I AM for you, I AM with you, I AM the One who has justified you, I AM sanctifying you (often with adversity), and I will glorify you one day.  And on that day, the doubts will be gone, forever.