In The Sanctuary

Psalm 73:15-24

15If I had really spoken this way,

I would have been a traitor to your people.

16So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper.

But what a difficult task it is!

17Then one day I went into your sanctuary, O God,

and I thought about the destiny of the wicked.

18Truly, you put them on a slippery path

and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction.

19In an instant they are destroyed,

swept away by terrors.

20Their present life is only a dream

that is gone when they awake.

When you arise, O Lord,

you will make them vanish from this life.

21Then I realized how bitter I had become,

how pained I had been by all I had seen.

22I was so foolish and ignorant—

I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.

23Yet I still belong to you;

you are holding my right hand.

24You will keep on guiding me with your counsel,

leading me to a glorious destiny.

As history records momentous conversions, often the site of the decision is considered important. Martin Luther was praying his way up a staircase in Rome when he realized that “the just shall live by faith.” John Wesley found his heart “strangely warmed” at a chapel service.

For Asaph, it all began to make sense once he went into the sanctuary of God. For sixteen verses he had been puzzling over the success of the wicked. “Why bother to be good?” he was asking (verse 13). But then in the sanctuary he finally saw the big picture. The wicked were on a slippery path to destruction. Their present riches were just a dream; the solid reality would come later.

Then Asaph confessed how “foolish and ignorant” he had been in doubting God’s goodness, and he thanked God for holding his hand through it all. Scripture never shrinks from the hard questions or compromises with easy answers. We see Job, Elijah, and Jeremiah questioning God, and here Asaph does, too. The questioning itself isn’t the problem, just the bitterness. When Asaph took his focus off God and started stewing in his envy, that’s when he got into trouble.

You will have questions from time to time, perhaps even some doubts. But keep holding onto God’s hand, and keep coming back to his sanctuary.

Come, tell me all that ye have said and done,

Your victories and failures, hopes and fears.

I know how hardly souls are wooed and won;

My choicest wreaths always wet with tears.

EDWARD H. BICKERSTETH

A Word on Words

The word for “sanctuary” in verse 17 is plural, possibly referring to more than just the visible Temple. It may refer to any place where God resides, such as our own heart.

Notable Quotable

“Walking in Hyde Park one day, I saw a piece of paper on the grass. I picked it up; it was a part of a letter; the beginning was wanting, the end was not there. . . . Such is providence. You cannot see beginning or end, only a part. When you can see the whole, then the mystery will be unveiled.”

THOMAS JONES