The Slippery Goodness of God Text: Psalm 73:1-3
Introduction: The Crisis of the Visible
We live in a world that is governed entirely by the visible. What you see is what you get, and what we see, quite often, is a world that appears to be upside down. We see wicked men prospering, arrogant men succeeding, and godless men laughing all the way to the bank. And if we are not careful, if our faith is not anchored in the unseen realities, this visible parade of prosperous villainy can become a profound spiritual crisis. It can make the path of obedience look like a fool's errand. It can make you question the fundamental grammar of the universe.
This is precisely the crisis that Asaph, the psalmist, confronts in Psalm 73. This is not an abstract theological treatise; it is a raw, honest, and deeply personal testimony of a man whose faith was brought to the very brink of collapse. He looked out at the world, and the spreadsheet did not seem to add up. The wicked were winning, and he, in his pursuit of purity, felt like he was losing. His feet were sliding out from under him, and he was about to go down.
This psalm is therefore a tremendous encouragement to us, because it shows us that such struggles are not unique to our faithless age. Saints of old have walked this slippery path before us. But more than that, it shows us the way out. It shows us that the solution to the problem of what we see is not to look harder at the world, but to look differently, to look through the world and into the sanctuary of God. The problem of evil and the prosperity of the wicked is a question that carnal reason cannot answer. It is too painful, as Asaph says. The answer is not found in philosophical debate, but in worship. It is in the sanctuary that our spiritual astigmatism is corrected, and we see the world as it truly is, from the perspective of eternity.
In these first three verses, Asaph gives us his conclusion first, like an anchor thrown out in a storm. Then he begins to tell us just how violent that storm was, and how close he came to shipwreck. It is a pattern we must learn: state the truth, and then confess the temptation to doubt it.
The Text
Surely God is good to Israel,
To those who are pure in heart!
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
My steps had almost slipped.
For I was envious of the boastful,
I saw the peace of the wicked.
(Psalm 73:1-3 LSB)
The Unshakeable Anchor (v. 1)
Asaph begins with the conclusion. He starts where he ended up after his trial, not where he was in the middle of it.
"Surely God is good to Israel, To those who are pure in heart!" (Psalm 73:1)
This word "Surely," or "Truly," is an affirmation of settled conviction. It is the flag planted on the hill after the battle is won. After all the turmoil, after all the doubt, after the near-catastrophe of his faith, this is the bedrock truth that remains. God is good. This is the foundational axiom of the Christian life. If you abandon this, you abandon everything. The entire satanic project, from the Garden onward, has been to get mankind to question this one, simple truth. "Has God indeed said...? Is He really good? Is He holding out on you?"
But notice the qualification. God is good to Israel, which he then defines as "those who are pure in heart." This is not an ethnic or nationalistic boast. This is a description of the true Israel, the Israel of God. Who are the pure in heart? This is not a reference to those who have achieved a state of sinless perfection. In biblical language, the heart is the center of the personality, it includes the mind, the will, and the emotions. A pure heart, then, is an undivided heart. It is a heart that is singly devoted to God. As James says, "purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8). The pure in heart are those who have been cleansed by the gospel and who, as a result, are no longer trying to serve two masters. They have one ultimate loyalty.
To be pure in heart means to see God as good, and to know Him as good, even when the circumstances scream otherwise. This is the anchor. Asaph is telling us up front that despite the story he is about to tell, a story of profound spiritual vertigo, this truth did not fail. He almost let go of it, but it never let go of him.
The Slippery Path (v. 2)
Having stated his firm conclusion, Asaph now pulls back the curtain to show us the terrifying struggle that brought him there.
"But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, My steps had almost slipped." (Psalm 73:2 LSB)
This is the language of near-total failure. He was on the edge of a precipice. The path of faith had become like a sheet of ice, and his footing was gone. What does this mean? It means his confidence in God's justice and goodness was failing. When your heart begins to doubt the righteousness of God, your own righteousness is on the brink. Your feet are connected to your heart. If the heart gives way, the feet will follow.
This is an immense pastoral comfort. It tells us that even godly men, men like Asaph, a leader of worship in Israel, can be brought to this point of crisis. Faith is not a placid lake; it is often a raging sea. The Bible is not a collection of stories about plastic saints who never had a doubt. It is a book full of real men and women who wrestled, struggled, and sometimes nearly fell. The difference between a man who falls and a man who "almost" falls is not the strength of his own grip, but the fact that God was holding him by the right hand, as Asaph will later confess.
This honesty is crucial. We live in a church culture that often encourages a kind of pious dishonesty. We pretend we are not struggling. We put on our Sunday best and our Sunday smiles and act as though we never have moments where our feet are slipping. Asaph will have none of it. He is going to tell the truth about his temptation, so that the truth of God's deliverance might be magnified all the more. He is showing us that the man who almost slipped was, in fact, a man who could never slip, because God was holding him fast.
The Poison of Envy (v. 3)
In verse three, Asaph identifies the specific sin that greased the path under his feet. He tells us the cause of his near-fall.
"For I was envious of the boastful, I saw the peace of the wicked." (Psalm 73:3 LSB)
The root of his spiritual crisis was envy. Envy is a particularly nasty and corrosive sin. Covetousness wants what the other man has. Envy is more malicious; it resents the other man for having it and often wishes he had it not. Asaph looked at the arrogant, the "boastful," and saw their prosperity, their "peace" (the Hebrew word is shalom, suggesting wholeness, well-being, prosperity), and it began to eat away at him.
He saw their lives, and they seemed seamless. No troubles, no struggles, no consequences. They were arrogant, and God did not strike them down. They were wicked, and yet they had peace. This is the crisis of the visible. He was judging by sight and not by faith. He was looking at their earthly circumstances and concluding that they had gotten the better deal. "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain," he says later in the psalm. What's the use of being good if the bad guys have it so good?
This is a temptation that is particularly potent in our day. We are bombarded with images of the wicked prospering. We see them on social media, in Hollywood, in Washington D.C., living lives of opulent ease, mocking God and getting away with it. And the temptation for the righteous is to become envious. To feel that we are being foolish for holding the line. To think that our obedience is for nothing.
But envy is a rottenness in the bones (Prov. 14:30). It is a poison that blinds you to the goodness of God and to the true state of the wicked. Asaph saw their "peace," but it was a false peace. He saw their prosperity, but it was a temporary prosperity. He was looking at the first act of the play and assuming there was no final act. He had forgotten that God is the author and He always writes the final scene. The Bible warns us repeatedly, "Let not thine heart envy sinners" (Prov. 23:17). Why? "For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off."
Asaph's envy was causing him to misread the whole story. He was looking at the wicked through the wrong end of the telescope, making them look big and blessed, and making God look small and unjust. This is what envy does. It distorts reality. It is a sin of the heart that leads directly to a slipping of the feet. His problem was not intellectual; it was moral. His theology was not failing because his intellect was weak, but because his heart was sick with envy.
Conclusion: The Only Antidote
So what is the takeaway for us? We see the same things Asaph saw. We see the boastful prospering. We see the wicked enjoying what appears to be peace. And we feel our feet begin to slide on that same icy path of envy and doubt.
The first step is to do what Asaph did: be honest about it. Confess the sin of envy. Confess the struggle. Do not pretend that you are above it. Drag it out into the light. Confession is the first step toward sanity.
The second step is to plant your feet firmly on the truth, even when your feelings are screaming that it is a lie. Start with the conclusion: "Surely God is good." Preach it to your own soul. Make it the unshakeable axiom of your life, the thing you believe against all evidence to the contrary. Your senses will deceive you. The headlines will deceive you. Your envious heart will certainly deceive you. But the Word of God stands forever.
And finally, the ultimate solution, which the rest of the psalm unfolds, is to get yourself into the sanctuary. The answer to the prosperity of the wicked is not found by staring at the wicked. It is found by staring at God. It is in worship, in the presence of God among His people, that we see their end. We see that they are set in slippery places. We see that their peace is an illusion and their prosperity is a trap, set to spring on them in the final judgment.
When we are tempted to envy the wicked, we must remember that we are envying men on death row who are being given an extra dessert with their last meal. Their path is short and leads to destruction. Our path, though it may be difficult and slippery at times, is held fast by the hand of a good God, and it leads to glory. That is the reality. And the only place to have that reality burned into your heart, to have your spiritual vision corrected, is in the house of God. That is where our feet find traction again.