The Eviction Notice and the Inheritance Text: Psalm 37:10-11
Introduction: The Long Defeat of the Wicked
We live in an age of profound eschatological confusion. Many Christians have been taught to think of the future in terms of a slow, managed retreat. The world gets darker, the church gets smaller, and our great hope is to be airlifted out of here before the whole thing burns down. This is what you get when you trade the robust, world-conquering promises of God for a newspaper eschatology that gets its doctrine from the headlines instead of from the Psalms. But the Word of God paints a very different picture. It is a picture of long-term, certain, historical victory for the cause of Christ.
Psalm 37 is a bucket of cold water in the face of all such pessimism. The entire psalm is a sustained argument against fretting over the apparent prosperity of the wicked. David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells the righteous not to be envious, not to be agitated, and not to lose heart. Why? Because the wicked have no future. Their prosperity is a mirage, their power is temporary, and their eviction is guaranteed. They are squatters on God's earth, and the landlord is coming to serve the papers.
This is not wishful thinking. This is not a "pie in the sky when you die" promise. This is a promise about history. It is a promise about the dirt under our feet. The central theme of this psalm, and indeed of the whole Bible, is that the meek, not the arrogant, will inherit the earth. Not just heaven, but the earth. This promise was given to Abraham, reiterated here by David, and then picked up and made central to His kingdom manifesto by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Beatitudes. If we misunderstand this, we will misunderstand the nature of the Great Commission and the goal of history. God is not abandoning this world to the devil; He is reclaiming it for His Son. And our text today gives us the stark contrast between the ultimate destination of the wicked and the glorious inheritance of the saints.
The Text
Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more;
You will look carefully at his place, and he will not be there.
But the lowly will inherit the land
And will delight themselves in abundant peace.
(Psalm 37:10-11 LSB)
The Vanishing Act of the Godless (v. 10)
We begin with the solemn promise of divine judgment in verse 10.
"Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; You will look carefully at his place, and he will not be there." (Psalm 37:10)
The psalmist begins with a temporal marker: "Yet a little while." From our perspective, looking at the entrenched power of secularism, this can feel like a long time. But in the course of redemptive history, it is but a moment. God is patient, but His patience has a purpose, and it has a limit. The wicked mistake His patience for indifference or impotence. This is a fatal error. God's timeline is not ours. The entire history of the world, from the cross to the consummation, is this "little while."
And what happens after this little while? The wicked man will be no more. This is not simply a statement about individual mortality. Of course, individual wicked men die. But the psalmist is talking about their entire enterprise, their legacy, their cultural footprint. The systems built on rebellion against God, the institutions that mock His law, the ideologies that deify man, they all have an expiration date. They will be gone. The text says you will look carefully for his place, and he will not be there. This is a picture of utter removal. It is not just that the wicked man is gone, but his "place," his position of influence, his cultural real estate, will be vacant. Think of the mighty empires that have defied God throughout history. Where is the place of Pharaoh? Where is the place of Nebuchadnezzar? Where is the place of Caesar? Their thrones are museum pieces. Their systems are dust. You can look carefully, you can conduct an archaeological dig, but their power is gone. God has a way of turning the world's most intimidating tyrants into historical footnotes.
This is a promise that God will cleanse His world. The gospel is the bleach of God. As the kingdom of God advances through the faithful preaching of the Word and the discipleship of the nations, the cultural structures of wickedness are dismantled. They are not just defeated; they are replaced. They become so irrelevant that future generations will have to "look carefully" to even remember they were there. The memory of the wicked will rot.
The Great Reversal: Inheritance and Peace (v. 11)
In stark contrast to the disappearing act of the wicked, verse 11 describes the permanent and peaceful possession of the righteous.
"But the lowly will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant peace." (Psalm 37:11 LSB)
Here we have the great reversal. While the wicked are being evicted, the lowly are moving in. The word for "lowly" here is the Hebrew `anawim`. It is often translated as "meek" or "humble." This is the very word Jesus picks up in Matthew 5:5: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Who are these people? Meekness in the Bible is not weakness. It is not being a doormat. Moses was the meekest man on earth, and he was no pushover. Jesus was meek and lowly of heart, and He cleansed the temple with a whip. Biblical meekness is strength under control. It is a humble submission to God's Word and God's providence, refusing to take matters into your own hands through sinful anger or vengeance. The meek are those who trust God's promise here in verse 10. They don't fret. They don't envy. They wait on the Lord.
And what is their reward? They will inherit the land. The Hebrew is `erets`, which can mean a specific parcel of land, the land of Israel, or the entire earth. The promise starts small with Abraham and a plot of ground, but it expands throughout Scripture until it encompasses the globe. This is not a floaty, ethereal, spiritualized inheritance. It is the solid ground. This is a postmillennial promise. It means that as history unfolds, the cause of Christ will triumph. The Great Commission is not a suggestion; it is a command with a promise of victory. Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth, and He is discipling the nations. This means that over time, Christian influence will grow, and the meek will take possession of the cultural, social, and political inheritance of the world. This is God's plan. He is not saving souls out of the world; He is saving the world itself through the saving of souls.
And what will characterize this inheritance? They will "delight themselves in abundant peace." The word for peace is `shalom`. This is not just the absence of conflict. Shalom is holistic flourishing. It is prosperity, health, justice, and righteousness all woven together. When people are rightly related to God through Christ, they become rightly related to one another. When God's law is honored, society flourishes. This abundant peace is the direct fruit of the gospel taking root in a culture. It is the opposite of the strife, envy, and chaos that the wicked produce. The wicked grasp for power and create conflict. The meek trust God, inherit the earth, and enjoy the peace that follows.
Conclusion: Fret Not, Inherit All
So what is the takeaway for us? It is profoundly simple and profoundly difficult. Fret not. When you turn on the news and see the wicked prospering in their way, when you see them boasting, and when you see them persecuting the righteous, do not let your heart be troubled. Their success is a flash in the pan. They are building their house on the sand, and the tide of God's kingdom is rising.
Our task is not to retreat into holy huddles and wait for the end. Our task is to be meek. That is, we are to be strong in the Lord, submitted to His Word, and confident in His promises. We are to get about the business of the Great Commission, preaching the gospel, making disciples, teaching obedience to all that Christ commanded. We are to build faithful families, churches, schools, and businesses. We are to work and pray for the advancement of Christ's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
The wicked are on their way out. You will look for their arrogant institutions and their godless philosophies, and they will be gone. But the meek, those who have trusted in Christ, are the heirs of all things. We are inheriting the earth, one converted heart, one faithful family, one obedient church at a time. And the end of that historical process is a world filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. A world of abundant, glorious peace. This is our future. So take heart. Do not fret. The meek will win.