"When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
(Psalm 73:21-26 ESV)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones comments on this Psalm...
"There is only one way in which we can be quite sure that we have dealt with temptation in the right way, and that is that we arrive at the right ultimate conclusion. I started with that and I end with it. The great message of this Psalm is, that if you and I know what to do with temptation we can turn it into a great source of victory. We can end, when we have been through a process like this, in a stronger position than we were in at the beginning. We may have been in a situation where our ‘steps had well nigh slipped’. That does not matter so long as, at the end, we arrive on that great high plateau where we stand face to face with God with an assurance we have not had before. We can make use of the devil and all his assaults: but we have to learn how to handle him. We can turn all this into a great spiritual victory, so that we can say, ‘Well, having been through it all, I have now been given to see that God is always good. I was tempted to think there were times when He was not; I see now that that was wrong. God is always good in all circumstances, in all ways, at all times – no matter what may happen to me, or to anybody else.’ ‘I have arrived,’ says the Psalmist, ‘at the conclusion that “God is always good to Israel”.’
(Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Faith on Trial: Psalm 73)
I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
(Psalm 73:21-26 ESV)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones comments on this Psalm...
"There is only one way in which we can be quite sure that we have dealt with temptation in the right way, and that is that we arrive at the right ultimate conclusion. I started with that and I end with it. The great message of this Psalm is, that if you and I know what to do with temptation we can turn it into a great source of victory. We can end, when we have been through a process like this, in a stronger position than we were in at the beginning. We may have been in a situation where our ‘steps had well nigh slipped’. That does not matter so long as, at the end, we arrive on that great high plateau where we stand face to face with God with an assurance we have not had before. We can make use of the devil and all his assaults: but we have to learn how to handle him. We can turn all this into a great spiritual victory, so that we can say, ‘Well, having been through it all, I have now been given to see that God is always good. I was tempted to think there were times when He was not; I see now that that was wrong. God is always good in all circumstances, in all ways, at all times – no matter what may happen to me, or to anybody else.’ ‘I have arrived,’ says the Psalmist, ‘at the conclusion that “God is always good to Israel”.’
(Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Faith on Trial: Psalm 73)
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