OK, guys, I want to speak to you from my heart right now.
I got married very young. I was 22 years old, and I went
into ministry also very, very early on, and I saw things in
the church. We were going for a difficult
church situation that many young people perhaps wouldn't see.
Things were tough back then, and I didn't have any friends.
I'd moved to a new area. In fact, my best friend was an
older man and I remember going on Facebook and I'd see my other
friends, the friends I went to school with, my non Christian
friends and they were going to wild parties.
They were having so much fun. They were backpacking around the
world, all meeting together in Australia.
And here I was having headaches every week at church and feeling
lonely and sad and just struggling now at the time,
because I was going through all of this thinking, you know, even
looking over my shoulder, thinking I kind of think the
grass looks greener on the other side.
I kind of want to be in the world instead of a Christian.
I confess this to this older brother of mine.
And he said to me, Joe, what you need to do is learn Psalm 73.
So that's exactly what I did. And I'll tell you, this Psalm
has been a total lifeline for me, so much so that I believe
every single young Christian or every Christian in general
should learn this Psalm, memorize it, know it off by
heart because it will teach you some valuable lessons, right?
If you are new to the channel, this is our coffee channel where
we drink coffee every couple of weeks.
We'll sit down, we'll do a Bible study, we'll do a testimony, and
we'll just have a nice chat. So please pause the video
wherever you are. Get yourself a cup of tea, get
yourself a nice cool drink if you're in a hot country of the
world, or get yourself a nice cup of Joe.
And if you have bought one of our mugs, we might put your face
face up here. We're running out of faces to
put up here. But if you do buy one of them,
I'll send you an e-mail and we'll put your face up here on
the screen. We don't actually know who this
Psalm is about. We know a man called Asaph wrote
this Psalm and there's two schools of thought.
Either Asaph himself wrote it looking at his own struggles, or
he wrote it for someone else, IE David.
Personally, I think it was Asaph who wrote this Psalm talking
about himself, and you'll probably get a feel for that as
we go through this. But either way, do you not think
it's absolutely refreshing to have a Psalm where we've got
honesty? You see, the word of God is just
so refreshingly honest. It's blunt about the truth.
It doesn't pretend that, you know, when we become a
Christian, all of our worries are going to go away.
It doesn't pretend that when we believe in the Lord God that
suddenly life's going to get better.
No, it does tell us things like sin does have its pleasures.
It does tell us that when we live in the Lord's hands, we're
not immune from life's troubles. No, to be a Christian is very
costly. And here we find Asaf.
He's got a sort of assault on his faith.
He's got a grievance that's in his heart.
He's got a thought that he just cannot get out of his mind.
He's struggling with it. It's there.
And it's a thought that I do believe that every single one of
us has at some point struggle with.
At least the vast majority of us have all asked this question,
and it's this how can an infinitely powerful God be good,
be righteous, be holy, and yet let the righteous to go
unrewarded, to go through trials and difficulties, and let the
wicked, on the other hand, prosper and be in abundance?
So let's answer the question, Is being a Christian a waste of
time? So you do need Psalm 73 in front
of you. So we're going to start with
Psalm 73 and verse 2. If you look at that with me,
please. But As for me, my feet had
almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped.
So here Asaph shows us a picture.
Here he is. He's on a slippery mountain
slope. This is what he's picturing.
And it's raining, and there's no steadiness there.
And he looks over the Cliff edge.
And as he looks over, seeing right down at the bottom is a
sheer drop. And there, I believe, is the
valley of unbelief. And Asaph is saying, I'm just
one step away from slipping down and falling into unbelief.
But what was the issue that Asaph was struggling with?
Look at verse three, he says, For I was envious of the
boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Here he sees the foolish man, the foolish people, the wicked
people, the people who have no care for God.
Later he talks about the people who are willing to, to mock God,
you know, talking about the most high in, in disrespectful ways.
And yet these people, even though they disrespected God,
they were thriving. They were doing well in life.
It seemed like they were better off.
And it seemed like, OK, if you ignore God, you ignore His
commands, you are going to be successful in this life.
And Asaph, he looked at this and he was jealous.
Then turn to verse 5 With me. They are not in trouble as other
men, nor are they plagued like other men.
You see these wicked people, these unbelievers who mocked
God, they didn't have the same troubles the other men had.
They didn't have the same troubles as the believer.
No, they were in abundance. In verse 7, it then goes on to
say they have more than their hearts could wish.
Could you imagine that? If every desire in your hearts,
evil or good, if all the desires in your hearts were there and
you had more than you could even wish, could you imagine that in
your life? And yet we can probably think of
people right now, maybe famous people or maybe people even that
we know in our street. And it seems like when we look
at them, they have more than their heart could wish.
And yet they have no care, no thoughts for the Most High God.
Let me be a little bit transparent with you.
So I said this when I was younger in my 20s, I had a sort
of what they call 1/4 life crisis where I really did
struggle. And I personally, I don't want
to get into a theological debate, but I personally believe
once saved, always saved. I do believe God holds on to his
people and he takes them through different trials.
But that's that's another conversation for another time
perhaps. But here what is what I want to
say. I did feel that I wanted to walk
away at points. I, I really did look back at the
plow, doing all the wrong things, thinking I want to be in
the world even though I was saved.
So that was in my 20s. But now, you know, a few years
ago, again, I was going through, we were going through a kind of
difficult situation at a church. And I remember driving to the
church and I'd see these dog walkers walking by, dog walkers
the same age as me. This couple particularly in my
mind very similar aged to me and Emma.
And they're just walking along on a Sunday morning, it's sunny,
no cares in the world. And I was going to a church
where I was worried, I was concerned, I didn't know what
was going to happen or, or I was stressed out with ministry.
And you know, at times I'm, I'm rushing to get to different
places and I've got all this ministry and all the troubles of
life. And then you'll drive past on a
Sunday and you'll go outside and you'll see a pub, you know, on a
sunny day and they've all got their bikes and they're all
sitting there with their pints just enjoying life.
Not a care in the world and not a thought for God.
Those things can go through our minds at times, can't they?
But here's the question, did he get, did Asaph get any relief
from his thoughts? No.
Look at verse 14 with me. For all day long I've been
plagued and chastened every morning.
So in other words, he wakes up in the morning and he's got
these troubles in his mind. In the evening he has these
troubles in his mind. He goes to bed, he wakes up the
next day and he's got these troubles in his mind all day.
He's surrounded by these troubles all day long.
My life, he's saying, is just full of trouble.
My life is trouble. And he looks out and he sees the
ungodly, though they're on the winning side.
But I look at my life with all this trouble and it seems like
I'm on the losing side. Now I believe the greatest
tragedy is in verse 13. Just look at that with me out of
all this, I think this is the saddest thing he says.
Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain and wash my hands in
innocence. In other words, Asaf saying here
I am as a a man who trusts in God and I've sought to keep my
hands clean from sin. I've sought to stop letting
unclean things come into my heart.
I've guarded my heart. I've tried to cleanse myself.
I've tried to do it, and yet it seems like I've done it in vain.
I mean, what was the point of having a clean heart?
What was the point in purity? There's no gain in being pure.
There's no advantage in being pure.
There's no reward. In fact, it seems like for me
right now, it's the complete opposite.
It seems like I'm struggling as I'm trying to keep myself pure.
And yet the unrighteous, they're prospering when they don't care
about purity. They dive into sin.
They do everything they want and more.
And he's asking the question here, I think, is it even worth
continuing in the ways of God? Can I ask you, have you ever
thought like that before? Why am I doing this?
There's just no, there's just no end to my trouble.
I've tried to be pure. I've tried to guard what I
watch. I've tried to be a godly person.
And yet, Lord, why is all this flooding on my life?
And yet I know my brothers, my sisters, my unbelieving
neighbors, they don't care about you and they are at ease.
Well, this next part's a little bit important, so you might just
want to catch this. Just look at at verse 15 with
me. If I had said I will speak thus,
behold, I would have been untrue to the generation of your
children. Have you ever heard the phrase
loose lips sink ships? It was quite a popular phase
during the the Second World War. They used to put it on, on
posters, various posters, and you'd see, you know, that
cartoon picture. And then the phrase loose lips
sink ships. And it had two meanings.
The first meaning was, you know, just be careful what information
you give out because there could be spies in the land.
If you say some vital information, it could go to the
enemy and thus loose lips could sink ships.
But then on the flip side, it had a second meaning.
You might remember this, but in the war, it was very, very
important to keep morale up, to keep positivity up.
And it meant, listen, if you're going to go around spreading
negative things, suddenly that's going to lower the morale and
people are all going to feel, you know, if you're saying
things like, when's this war going to end?
Are our men even trying out there?
What's going on? This is it just seems pointless.
People are dying for for no reason.
And if this message slowly went across the UK and then got back
to the Navy, well, the Navy would think what's the point
anymore? Our people don't even believe in
us, They think it's over. What's the point of even
fighting? And thus they would loose lips,
sink ships, they would lose the fight in them, if that makes
sense. But how does this apply to us as
Christians? Well, believe it or not, you and
I, we can have loose lips. And what is the boat that could
sink? It's the church.
But I want you to notice the word there in verse 15.
It says there is a word that would affect a generation of.
Does it say a generation of people?
No. Does it say a generation of men?
No. Does it say a generation of
women? No.
What is the word? It's children.
Now. It's not just talking about
small little children, I think it's talking about spiritual
babies. And here Asaf is realising that
if I speak, all of this confusion, if I utter all of the
thoughts are in my mind. All this painfulness that I've
seen, I've noticed it. I can see it clear as day that
the righteous are struggling and the unrighteous, they're
winning. If I say this out loud, I'm
going to injure these spiritual babies.
I'm going to cause harm. So Asaf does something very
honourable. He decides to keep these
thoughts to himself. He says, OK, I might be going
down, but I'm not going to drag others down with me.
Mature Christians, this is just for you.
Do you have influence? Perhaps in the church, perhaps
in your business, perhaps in in your sphere?
Do you have influence? Do people look up to you?
Younger people, or should we say spiritual babies, new converts,
do they look up to you? If that's the case, be so, so
careful what you say. Let us never be hurriedly to
speak. Let us never speak quickly about
things. Be careful because loose lips
sink ships. I know for many years, even now,
you know, I think I've been a Christian 15 years and I've been
in ministry. But even now, sometimes
preachers can do things. Preachers who I look up to, they
do things and it shakes me to my core.
If I'm being honest with you. And I think I've heard you say
messages about this and you're doing the complete opposite and
it offends us. It hurts us.
I've heard preachers say things that have really, they've cut me
in 2 and not in a good way and in a way that has has really got
into my mind. I'm not going to share it with
you, one of the examples because I'd be contradicting what I'm
saying. But I remember being in a prayer
meeting once and a preacher said something and it filtered into
my mind and it took me years to get that out of my mind because
it planted a seed of doubt. And that preacher, that older
man, he may have been struggling with this, but he shouldn't be
spreading it out to all the people.
He should keep it to himself. There is a time, please don't
mistake me. There is a time where we go and
we chat to people and we say, I am wrestling with this.
I've got this pain in me. I'm struggling with this
thought, this doubt. But you go to wiser, older
Christians, you don't spread it around to the weaker ones,
because they too will fall down with you.
OK, so let's ask the obvious question here.
How do we escape this mindset? How did Asaph get out of this
valley that he was in with all of this trouble in his mind?
Look at verses 16 and 17. Because the answer's so simple.
When I thought about how to understand this, it was too
painful for me until I went into the sanctuary of God.
Then I understood their final end.
So what's the answer? How did he overcome all of this?
He simply just went into the House of God.
He went into the sanctuary of God and then he got clarity.
He got peace. The Earl of Oxford said the
greatest gift a man could ever receive is something called
cubical thinking. Now, when I said that to my wife
Emma, she said, what on earth is cubical thinking?
Cubical thinking is this. Just like a cube has got many
different sides to it, so there are many different sides to a
truth. And here we find Asaf, he's only
been looking at one side of the cube.
He's only been looking at one side of the truth.
And it's the the truth that here we have the, the, the
unrighteous. They're doing well.
They're prospering even though they've got evil intentions.
But the godly man, the godly woman is struggling, is going
through all kinds of difficulties and he's looking at
that. But what happens when Asaph goes
into the sanctuary of God? He sees all the sides of the
cube. He realises the truth.
One of the greatest truths in the Bible is this.
Your life, my life, will one day end.
All of us are going to die, and we're all going to be judged by
a holy God. That is a vital truth that I
think many of us forget. And this is what Asaph has
forgotten. Did you know that this Psalm
actually has a sister? It's called Psalm 37.
And in Psalm 37, the writer talks about I have seen an evil
man, I've seen an unrighteous man, and he's been spreading
himself out like a green Laurel tree.
He's prospering, he's successful, he's abundant.
He's doing so, so well. But then the Psalm says he
passed away and he was no more. Even though I looked for him, I
couldn't find him. In other words, this unrighteous
man, he was, he had his time, but soon the Lord dealt with him
and he was wiped away. I used to work in a, in a high
school ages 11 to 16 and I was a classroom assistant.
I wasn't a teacher, I was a classroom assistant.
And you know what kids are like? They, they often share with you,
they'll tell you things and you know, they'll ask you questions.
And I remember chatting to the kids and I'd ask them things
like, what do you want to do when you grow up?
Do you know what was the most common answer that they all
said? I want to be a YouTube.
Little did I know that was the job I was going to get a few
years later or I want to be a celebrity.
Now. There is a name.
We talked about him in a video not so long ago that I expect
most young men listening to my voice right now will know this
name, and it's the name Andrew Tate.
Now back in 2022-2023 particularly, Andrew Tate was
the most Googled man on earth and all the young men wanted to
be like him. Why?
He was muscly, he had money, he had cars and he had lots and
lots of girls and he was loud. So much so was his influence
that schools in the UK, I don't know what which country you're
watching this from, but schools in the UK had to put on special
assemblies, lessons in the morning all about Andrew Tate.
To say this is not the kind of man we want to look up to.
His influence was that great. And many men would look at that
kind of lifestyle and say I'd love to have a lifestyle like
Andrew Tate. Maybe girls, you might look at
someone like Margot Robbie who's very, very beautiful or Taylor
Swift who's who's got it all, looks, charisma, money, fame,
music, she's got all of that. You might look at these people.
And we can be, can't we? We can be so attracted to the
surface level of these people. We look at the shallow
appearance, we always look at the beginning, but we never seem
to ask how does this lifestyle end?
How does a life away from God and.
Now I'd like to give you 2 examples of two famous
celebrities and some of you, if you are particularly younger,
you won't have heard of them. If you are older, you will
definitely have heard of these two people.
But these are two people, case studies that I think we can
learn a lot from because we look at them at the end of their
life. The first one is Jack Nicholson.
Jack Nicholson was an amazing actor, full of charisma,
charming, rich, famous. He won an Oscar for One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and not only that, he made claims that
he had had 2000 lovers, 2000 women.
That was his claim. Now, many men would look at Jack
Nicholson's life and think, I would give anything to have his
life. I'd love to have that life, all
that money, all the girls, everything.
I'd love to have that, but here's the question, how did
Jack Nicholson end at age 77? In an interview in 2014, Jack
Nicholson said I regret florandering around when I was
younger because now no woman will trust me and I'm terrified
of dying in the house on my own. So in other words, this
lifestyle, in the end, he's regretted it.
OK #2 Elizabeth Taylor, have you heard that name before?
In the 1950s? She was rich, she was famous,
she was beautiful, and she had all of Hollywood doting over.
All the men just thought she was so beautiful.
Elizabeth Taylor, she, she had a great beginning, but the
question needs to be asked, how did she end?
Well when her looks began to fade like happens to us all,
when she began to gain weight, suddenly Hollywood gave a career
over to the younger models, the younger car if you like to Jane
Fonda to to Julie Christie and they became bored of her and
suddenly she didn't get the same roles anymore.
But this is what we all remember about Elizabeth Taylor after
well how many marriages did she have?
Did she have one? Did she have two?
3-4 after 8 marriages. Did Elizabeth Taylor ever find
true love? No.
She spent most of her life on medicated things to to keep her
going. She was sad, she was lonely and
she died completely alone with no husband at 79 years old.
Totally broken. But does the media portray that?
No. If we talk about Instagram
reels, do we see that on on the highlights of Instagram?
Do we see this? No.
Does it show us what a life rebelling against God?
Does it show us how that will end?
No. And it certainly doesn't show us
that death and destruction come to all those who reject the
living God. My dear friends, never forget
what the Bible says. The way of the Sinner is hard.
It's not easy to live a lifestyle of sin.
It might look on the on the shallow appearance on the
surface, it might look enticing, but in the end, it is so much
harder to be a rebellious Sinner against a holy God and never
forget this. The death of the ungodly is a
terrible thing. Imagine all of that unrest, all
of that misery, all of that regret.
And what comfort do these people have when they come to the end
of their life? What hope do they have for the
future? The only comfort they have is
just a handful of memories in their mind, just memories of the
past that they can barely remember.
That's all they have to comfort them.
But then contrast that to the life of the believer.
On the surface, it looks narrow. It looks boring.
The men and women of the world, they laugh at us.
You really believe this storybook.
You go to church every Sunday. You give up all of your holidays
to to do missions and things. What a what a boring way to
live. But the question needs to be
asked, OK, on the surface, you might laugh at us, but how do we
end Oscar Wilde? You've heard of Oscar Wilde
before. That, that that famous writer
Oscar Wilde, if I can say this, was a very evil man, very, very
sinful, very, very prideful. And he mocked Christians and he
encouraged other people to to mock the Bible and to do their
own thing. He was a man who lived in sin.
And yet many people don't realize this.
Oscar Wilde on his deathbed, asked for a minister to come and
visit him to convert him. Balaam, you know that, that
Balaam the the godless prophets. Do you know what Balaam said?
He said let me die the death of the righteous and let my end be
like his. In other words, Balaam could see
that the man of God, the woman of God, they die peacefully.
But he knew that the unbeliever does not die peacefully.
And he said, I want to die the same death as those.
I want to to become a Christian, if you like.
And I do think as as every man's life draws to a close, I really
do think we need to ask the question, who truly does
prosper? Is it the wicked or is it the
godly? What about the words of John
Wesley? John Wesley talking about
Christians that he's watched time and time again step into
eternity. What did he say?
Our people die. Well, so young Christian, I want
to say this to you or older Christian, never forget you are
actually on the winning side. And I do also want to say this
for anyone who's been thinking this all the way through my
message, it is actually a real joy to be a Christian.
There's nothing greater than the living God who made me, who made
the universe speaks to me through the word.
There's no greater joy to to pray when you've got nowhere
else to go, and yet you pray to God and you know he hears you
and he answers prayers. There's no greater joy to know
that my sins have been forgiven. I've got no guilt anymore.
I have no shame because Christ took my shame on the cross, and
there's no greater joy than to have fellowship with other
Christians, to have peace, to have times of mission, and to
share the gospel. It's a great life to be a
Christian. But if you are a Christian, what
about you? What would I say to you?
I'd say these things. You might look good now, but the
question is how will you end? I wonder?
Have you ever thought like this? I'll become a Christian when I'm
older, once I've had some fun, once I've, you know, done what I
want to do, once I've lived my life, then I will give my life
to the Lord God. Old friends, if that's you and
your thinking like that, you do realize that sometimes at the
end of your life, your faculties have gone.
You, you're not with it in a in a hospital.
That's happened many times before.
And not just that right now as a young person, your heart is
tender to God. Believe it or not, you will
never have a more tender heart to God than in your youth
because you haven't had the effects of years and years of
sin wearing down your heart, hardening your heart.
The Bible says it calls it scoliosis.
Do not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
So right now, come to him while you're tender, while you can
hear his voice, while you don't have that spiritual hearing loss
that happens after years and years of, of living in the world
and, and, and having doubts and sin surround you.
Come to him. Come to the one who died on that
cross. For all of our waywardness, for
all of our sin, for all the times we've failed God, he died
in our place so that our sins can be washed away and trust in
him because he's the one who rose from the dead.
Because the the fact is this, the Christian has a glorious
future. Yes, we might start difficult
and it might be difficult in this life, but we end
gloriously. Why?
Because the Son of God, Jesus Christ went into a tomb, rose
from the dead. He's in heaven and he's coming
back. He's coming again for His people
to give them all eternal life in heaven for billions and billions
for all of eternity. When time is no more, we'll be
there enjoying Him with peace with the Lord.
Old friends, I hope you find that today.
Now, if you are a Christian and you regularly watch this
channel, I do need a little bit of honesty from you.
And you probably notice that I have been sort of playing around
with a few different things. I recently bought some
microphones and because they might, I bought 2 of them.
You might have seen them in the videos.
And because they're expensive, I'm thinking I need to use
these. So I've been doing, I've been
kind of a bit like I now paid the money for them.
I have to use them. But I've been making these
testimony videos where I've been interviewing different friends
and I've got a big list of people I want to interview.
But what I am noticing is, and this isn't a negative thing.
I understand you guys are all busy but and folks aren't
watching them as much. And I just want to understand,
is it because it's such a long piece of content, it's too long
to go into or do you just prefer these kind of videos?
Obviously it's not an either or I'll keep doing both, but just
let me know what I'm asking you is let me know what is your
preference. Do you like these videos where
it's me with the Bible or do you like the testimonies and which
do you prefer? So if I was because I don't get
as much time on this channel as I do for the off the curb
channel, where should I focus my main energies?
That's what I'm I'm asking you guys.
Thank you to everyone who does pray for this ministry.
Thank you to those of you support.
I never talk about that publicly, but those of you
support the ministry financially through our website.
I'm very, very grateful for that and it really does help us a lot
to cover the costs of editing and all these different things.
But yeah, please do just keep praying for us as a family with
various things going on because I needed to have a look at this
Psalm again. And just, yeah, stay close,
guys. I want you guys to stay close
and I need to stay close to to you guys because it's just a
blessing having your friendship and having these coffees.
God bless you all and I hope you have a very, very blessed week
wherever you're watching this in the world.