Kootenai Church Morning Worship

We are back in Psalm 37 today, starting today the sixth section of the psalm, which is verses 35–40. We've gone through five of the main sections of the psalm, and I've kind of divided it up in a convenient outline that I gave you several weeks ago. This psalm addresses the age-old problem that we read about in Psalm 73 earlier in the service, the prosperity of the wicked. And this psalm, Psalm 37, answers the same issue, but from a bit of a different perspective by reminding the righteous of all of the future blessings that are promised to them, not so much wrestling over what God does or doesn't do to the wicked but really setting our eyes forward to behold the glories of what is to come for the righteous.
So just to review, and we won't read the entire psalm, but just to go back and remind you of sort of the main idea of every section of the psalm as we've covered it so far, we saw in verses 1–8 the peace of the righteous—that is, that God gives the righteous a peace in this world. And we saw that the righteous can be at peace in the midst of a wicked world. You remember the exhortations there in those first eight verses? Don't fret because of evildoers, don't be envious because of wrongdoers, trust in the Lord, wait upon the Lord. Those were the exhortations there.
Then in verses 9–11, we looked at the promise that God gives to the righteous, that the righteous will receive an eternal prosperity in a renewed land that is blessed by God and purged of the wicked. The wicked will be cut off and the righteous will inherit the land. That is the repeated promise all the way through this psalm.
Then in verses 12–15, we saw the protection that God gives to the righteous, that Yahweh's judgment on the wicked brings their evil back upon their own heads. They draw the bow and the arrow pierces their own heart. They draw the sword and that ends up coming back upon themselves. God, in a stroke of poetic justice, turns the evil that the wicked intend back upon themselves.
Then in verses 16–26, we looked at the provision that God promises for the righteous, that Yahweh makes the little of the righteous to be more or better than the much of many wicked.
And then finally, last time that we were together, we finished up the fifth section, which is the preservation of the righteous in verses 27–34, where we saw that Yahweh preserves His people through this life to their eternal dwelling.
So the peace, the promise, the protection, the provision, the preservation of the righteous, and it wouldn't be right if I didn't end the final one with also a word that starts with a p, so that's what I'm doing. And this last section, the sixth and final one, verses 35–40, is the posterity of the righteous. Not prosperity, but posterity. You see it mentioned, if you have the NASB, in verses 37–38. But let's read together verses 35–40, and you'll notice reference to the posterity of the righteous. Verse 35:
35 I have seen a wicked, violent man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil.
36 Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found.
37 Mark the blameless man, and behold the upright; for the man of peace will have a posterity.
38 But transgressors will be altogether destroyed; the posterity of the wicked will be cut off.
39 But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in time of trouble.
40 The Lord helps them and delivers them; He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in Him. (NASB)
This is the final section of the psalm, and in this section, David brings a number of themes that he's kind of been developing through all of the other sections of the psalm. He sort of brings them all together. He sort of draws them all together. And there is here this one final contrast between the righteous and the wicked. That contrast is at the center of this section of verses. There are six of them there, 35–40. The contrast is highlighted in the middle two verses. Look at verses 37 and 38: “Mark the blameless man, and behold the upright; for the man of peace will have a posterity. But transgressors will be altogether destroyed; the posterity of the wicked will be cut off.”
Now, there's a bit of a translation issue there that we'll get to here in a moment. If you're reading another translation other than the NASB, you'll notice that it says something like “the righteous man will have peace in the end,” or it talks about “he will have a future.” So the word posterity there is translated as “future” or “end,” and we'll kind of deal with that here in a little bit.
There is a contrast here in verses 37–38 that highlights the difference between the posterity or the future, the blessing, of the righteous and the posterity of the wicked that is cut off and perishes forever, a contrast with judgment and blessing. The present of the wicked is contrasted with the present of the righteous, and the future of the wicked is contrasted with the future of the righteous. And David kind of ends this psalm by reminding us that ultimately the prosperity of the righteous is a future prosperity in the land when the wicked are cut off and the righteous inherit abundant prosperity and enjoy abundant shalom in the land that God has promised. And David continually through the psalm is making us look forward to that eventual time when all of this will be ironed out, everything will be settled, and God will settle all of His accounts.
The structure of this section is kind of interesting and I want you to notice before we get into the verses themselves one more observation about the structure of this. Notice verses 35–36 describe the wicked, and notice verses 39–40 focus on the righteous. Look at verses 35–36. The focus or the description there is of the wicked. That's the top two verses. The bottom two verses focus on and describe the righteous. And then in those middle two verses, it's like those subjects are kind of drawn together and they overlap. In those middle two verses, the righteous and the wicked are contrasted. So verse 38 describes the wicked and verse 37 describes the righteous. So two topics, two people, two destinies, two things that happen to them, and this one final contrast here in these last six verses.
So what we're going to do is we're going to divide this into two sermons. Today we're going to look at the–I guess this means that there's only two sermons left in Psalm 37. So that's either good news for you or bad news. It's good news if you're like, “You know, I've had enough of Psalm 37. I would almost go back to Ecclesiastes after this.” But it's bad news if you've kind of been enjoying Psalm 37. So don't tell me whether this is good news or bad news to you, but there's two sermons left. We're going to focus on the characteristics of the wicked today in verses 35–36 and verse 38. And then next week we will look at those things which characterize the righteous in verses 37, 39, and 40. So I know we're kind of taking it out of order, but we're dealing with it kind of by subject because that's really the contrast.
So today, the wicked. We're going to notice today that the wicked go from flourishing to forgotten. I want you to look at verse 35, the wicked flourishing. In verse 36, the wicked fade. And then in verse 38, the wicked are forgotten. They flourish, they fade, and then they are forgotten. Now that obviously is contrasted with what we're going to see with the righteous, namely that they may not flourish in this life, but they will endure, and ultimately the posterity of the righteous will endure forever.
So let's look at the wicked flourishing. Verse 35: “I have seen a wicked, violent man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil.” It's worth taking a few moments to consider the imagery that David is using here to describe a wicked man. He uses the term wicked, which is the term that he has used throughout this psalm. It is the same word that is translated “wicked” in all of the other locations that it's used. The word for “wicked” occurs twelve times in this psalm. I don't know if you've counted them or not. Verses 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 28, 32, 34, 38, and 40. So obviously that is the predominant subject matter of the psalm as David is contrasting the righteous and the wicked.
But this word that is translated “violent” is only used here in the psalm, though the violence of the wicked is described elsewhere in the psalm. Do you remember verse 14? “The wicked have drawn the sword and bent their bow to cast down the afflicted and the needy, to slay those who are upright in conduct.” That describes the violence of the wicked. And then also remember—look at verse 32: “The wicked spies upon the righteous and seeks to kill him.” So this word for “violence” doesn't occur elsewhere in the psalm, though the violence of the wicked is described in the psalm. The word that is translated here as “violent,” describing the wicked, is used only twenty times in the Old Testament. And interestingly, it is translated “tyrant” five times. It's translated “ruthless” ten times. So you can see that what David is describing is somebody who has a position of power and prominence, somebody who has a place of advantage over the righteous, and then uses that power and his position to his own advantage, possibly to enrich himself. What we don't know is if David had a particular wicked person in mind or just several wicked people that he could think of that would have been described by this, but it is describing somebody with a position of power from which they oppress, an exalted position.
The phrase at the end of verse 35, or I should say the second half of verse 35, is interesting. He sees this man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. The word spreading there, the root of that word means—catch this—to be naked or bare. To be naked or bare. You didn't see that coming, did you? Spreading himself or making himself naked, as it were, or baring himself like a luxuriant tree. That's the imagery that he uses. Like one, for instance, would display themselves without any shame, so the wicked themselves display themselves or spread themselves out for all to see.
In other words, the imagery is he sets himself on display and shows off everything that he has as if he has no shame. He's not ashamed of his wickedness or the fact that he has profited from his wickedness but instead boasts or flaunts himself like a naked person would in the public square. And all of the things that would cause a normal person with a working conscience to feel shame or remorse or a searing or a twinge of conscience at all, it’s not even present in the wicked man. He just makes himself naked in front of everybody, unashamed of his wickedness. See the vividness of that picture? Flaunting himself, spreading himself. The things that ought to embarrass the wicked, they expose without any twinge of conscience, exposing themselves and their luxuries and all of their wickedness for all to see.
It sounds like pride month is what he's describing. But it's not just pride month. It's all of the wicked who simply expose themselves without any conscience. They don't care how wicked they are. They don't care who knows how wicked they are, and they do not care how much they prosper off their wickedness. They don't care if everybody sees it. And so without any shame, they just expose themselves in public.
And it appears as if they are like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. That's an interesting analogy, a luxuriant tree in its native soil. In other words, the imagery of this tree is one that sort of springs up out of the ground naturally. It is there and it is in its native soil. In other words, this tree that he's picturing here is like a tree that just looks like it belongs there. It doesn't look like it is planted. It doesn't look like it's pruned. It doesn't look like it was intentional. It just comes up, and the ground in which it grows, the ground in which it is rooted, is its native soil. That's natural for them.
And I think that is a good description or a good image for the wicked. This world and this world system is the native soil for the wicked people. This is their home. This is all they have. This is what they love. They are rooted in worldliness. This world and the kingdoms of it, the riches of it, the people of it, the pleasures of it, it's all they have. And so they root themselves and spring up and display themselves in this world and in this world system. This is what the wicked strive for. This is what they love. This world is their home. It's their native soil.
But for you, believer, this is not your native soil, is it? You don't even feel like this is your native soil. At least you shouldn't feel at home in this world. Instead, believers understand that we have a citizenship in Heaven and this world is not our home. And we feel as out of place in this world as the wicked would feel in the world that is to come. Complete opposite.
He springs up like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. I want you to notice the language of observation that David is using in verses 35–36. And in fact, it continues all the way down through verse 37. It starts in verse 34. I just want you to notice how he describes what he is observing, what he sees. Verse 34:
34 Wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.
35 I have seen a wicked, violent man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil.
36 Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him [that's the language of sight], but he could not be found. (Ps. 37:34–36 NASB)
In other words, I tried to see him, but then I couldn't see him. When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. I saw the wicked man, but then I tried to see the wicked man and couldn't see the wicked man. And then look at verse 37: “Mark [that is, observe or take notice of, see] the blameless man, and behold [look upon] the upright; for the man of peace will have a posterity.”
Now, notice what David is doing. What we see in this world regarding the place and the position and the power and the prosperity of the wicked, it is real stuff that we see. It is real prosperity that the wicked are given. That's a true thing. And we observe it. And the fact that we observe it and what we observe is what causes us sometimes to have the angst in our souls over what the wicked enjoy in this world. Really what we wrestle with is what we see. But, David is saying, there will come a time when you will try to see them and you won't see them. And really, what you should be seeing is not the wicked in their prosperity but the righteous and their posterity. In other words, it is a change of focus that the psalmist, David, is trying to get us to have. You see the wicked, yes, it's genuine prosperity, but mark or behold or look upon the righteous. What they have is a lasting posterity.
Asaph does the same thing in Psalm 73 when he says, “I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (v. 3). That's what we read earlier, but now I want you to read and consider a little bit more slowly what Asaph describes that he saw. “There are no pains in their death, and their body is fat” (v. 4). In other words, they enjoy all of the blessings in this world and then they seem to die at peace. They don't suffer, they don't go out of this world in pain, no anguish, they just die peacefully in their sleep.
5 They are not in trouble as other men [like the righteous], nor are they plagued like mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace; the garment of violence covers them.
7 Their eye bulges from fatness [in other words, they see everything that they want to see; they get to enjoy everything that they want to enjoy]; the imaginations of their heart run riot.
8 They mock and wickedly speak of oppression; they speak from on high [an exalted position].
9 They have set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue parades through the earth. (Ps. 73:5–9 NASB)
Their tongue just marches through the earth, saying what they want, spewing out their wicked words. The way that David would describe this is they're like a luxuriant tree in its native soil, spreading themselves. They wear pride like a necklace. You see the same language, the same imagery? They wear pride like a necklace; the garment of violence covers them. Their tongue parades through the earth. They're unashamed, with no conscience. They bear themselves and make themselves naked before everybody. Their wickedness, their violence, their pride, their evil, and their prosperity is all on perfect display. It's no wonder that the righteous in every age have wrestled with this question, because we mistakenly think that that is the evidence of God's blessing when it is not.
Like a tree—the imagery here is a profound one, and it's going to cause you possibly to remember back in Psalm 1 where we looked at the same imagery but of the righteous man. This is not the first time in this psalm, Psalm 37, that agricultural imagery has been invoked. Back in verse 2—this is speaking of the wicked—“They will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb.” That's verse 2. It probably calls to your mind a similar analogy from Psalm 1 earlier in our series on the Psalms. Remember Psalm 1 says, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night” (vv. 1–2). He will be like a what? “A tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers” (v. 3).
So in Psalm 1, the righteous are compared to a lush tree. In Psalm 37, the wicked are compared to a lush tree. So what's going on there? Is it the righteous or the wicked that are like a lush tree? Yes, but it is the differences that matter. It's like saying Jesus is compared to a lion—He's the lion of the tribe of Judah—and Satan is compared to a lion, a roaring lion that seeks to devour. The point is not that Jesus and Satan are the same, not at all. The point is what is it about a lion that describes Jesus, and what is it about a lion that describes Satan?
So the same analogy is used for both the righteous and the wicked, but here are the key differences. First, the difference between Psalm 1 and Psalm 37 is in Psalm 1 it is a spiritual flourishing that is being described, not a material flourishing. It's a spiritual flourishing, not a material flourishing, that's being described. Psalm 1 speaks of the psalmist or the righteous man, the blessed man, receiving spiritual nourishment and thus spiritually prospering in all that he does. Remember, he is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He delights in that law and meditates in it day and night. That's spiritual nourishment. And so the man of Psalm 1 is like a tree in a spiritual sense. The man of Psalm 37, the wicked, is like a tree in another sense. What is being described is not a spiritual prospering but a material prospering. Two entirely different kinds of flourishing.
A second difference is that the man of Psalm 1, the tree of Psalm 1, is a tree firmly planted. The tree of Psalm 37 is a tree that springs up in its native soil. Those are two different kinds of trees. The tree firmly planted in Psalm 1—you remember we looked at that—it describes one whose location is chosen, the tree is chosen, the tree is planted there, the tree is planted intentionally there so that it can be taken care of and pruned and nourished and fed and delighted in. It is a tree intentionally planted. The tree of Psalm 37, the wicked man, he springs up in his native soil. Nobody chooses him. Nobody plants him there. Nobody puts him there. He's just there. He just grows in this world like the rest of the wicked grow.
If I were to take you to my house and you were to stand in my front yard, you would be able to tell that every tree in my yard was intentionally planted in its place. They're evenly spaced. They're all in a line. It's not helter-skelter. It's not random. You would look at every tree in my yard and say—apple trees, cherry trees, the peach tree, the maple tree—all of them, you'd be able to say, were planted there. They were pruned. It was intentional. Those did not spring up on their own. But then you can look across the street at a whole bunch of bigger, more beautiful, larger, older trees, and you would say of those trees that nobody planted them, nobody chose them, nobody put them there. They sprung up, apparently, randomly, coincidentally, in their own native soil.
That's the difference between Psalm 1 and Psalm 37. The wicked just grow up. They're all around us. Big, luxuriant trees, enjoying their native soil, spreading themselves out before everybody. But the blessed man is the one whom the Lord chooses and plants near the streams of water, and He feeds it in order to nourish it. Psalm 1 describes the flourishing of the righteous. It is an intentional flourishing, a blessedness, because he does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Instead, God blesses him and prospers him, and He does so spiritually. And the prospering of the man in Psalm 1 is a spiritual prospering. It is intentional by God, and it is a blessing.
But the luxuriance of the tree in Psalm 37, it is not God's blessing. It is God's curse. And we always have to remember this about the prosperity of the wicked. It is not God's blessing upon them. And if we are ever tempted to think that this is God blessing them, we have missed the point, the plot, entirely. It is not a blessing. It is a precursor to judgment. Because the riches of the wicked blind their eyes, harden their hearts, and keep them recalcitrant and in their sin.
A fourth difference between these two trees is that in Psalm 1, it describes one who flourishes in times of drought and difficulty, and yet he produces his fruit that lasts and endures. That's the picture. In Psalm 37, we have instead something that in time of drought or difficulty or God's judgment withers and fades and dies off. They are cut off and removed. Two different psalms.
So in what way is the wicked like a luxuriant tree? It springs up in its native soil. He prospers for a period of time. Difficulties come, the judgment of God comes, and he perishes. He's cut off. He's taken out of the way. And the flourishing is in no way God's blessing. But the man who flourishes in Psalm 1, he is like a tree in that in difficult times he still spiritually prospers because he delights in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night.
So the real question between the righteous and the wicked is what is the end of each tree, right? In Psalm 1, what is the end of that tree? It's eternal glory. What is the end of the tree in Psalm 37? It is its destruction and removal. It is cut off. It's the difference that matters, and what David is doing is reminding us to look to the future at what is to come and not what is because what is will fade. And that's verse 36: “Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found.”
So the wicked flourish in verse 35. Then the wicked fade or they pass away. This is probably the most gentle language that the psalmist uses to describe the cutting off or the perishing of the wicked in the whole psalm. They pass away. Now we use the term pass away to describe somebody dying, right? Today they passed away. It's kind of a euphemism for death. It doesn't say anything about whether they go to Heaven or to Hell or how they died, just the fact that they died. They may have died instantly. They may have died from a protracted illness in suffering. They just passed away. They went from this life to the next. That's a sort of a gentle, euphemistic way of describing death.
When David talks about passing away, he's using something like the language of verse 20 when he says, “The wicked will perish; and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastures, they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.” David is not trying to suggest that the passing of the wicked is necessarily gentle and peaceful. He is suggesting and saying that the passing away of the wicked is total and complete like smoke that vanishes and is gone. Eventually there is no trace or remnant of it whatsoever. And the same it is with the wicked. They will eventually vanish just like the green herb that withers or the grass that dries up in verse 2 or the tree that is cut down in verse 35. It will perish and it will disappear.
This is the last statement regarding the judgment on the wicked in this psalm. So what I want to do now is, before we sort of recap what is happening to the wicked, let's go back to the beginning and just remind ourselves of everything that David has said about the perishing and the destruction and the judgment on the wicked. Look at verse 2. We'll just skip over—I'm not going to read the whole thing, but just skip over all these verses and just catalog in your mind all of these statements.
Verse 2: “They will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb.”
Verse 9: “Evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.”
Verse 10: “Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; and you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.”
Verse 13: “The Lord laughs at him, for He sees his day is coming.”
Verse 15: “Their sword will enter their own heart, and their bows will be broken.”
Verse 17: “The arms of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord sustains the righteous.”
Verse 20: “But the wicked will perish; and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of the pastures, they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.”
Verse 22: “Those blessed by Him will inherit the land, but those cursed by Him will be cut off.”
Verse 28: “For the Lord loves justice and does not forsake His godly ones; they are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.”
Verse 34: “Wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.”
Verse 36: “Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found.”
Verse 38: “Transgressors will be altogether destroyed; the posterity of the wicked will be cut off.”
It's quite a list, isn't it? Cut off, perish, vanish, be no more, cut down, fade away. These words are promises to the wicked. Don't just see them as descriptions of the wicked or promises to you, the righteous, but these are promises to the wicked that if you continue in your sin and rebellion, you will ultimately lose everything and will be altogether destroyed. God's judgment will be final, it will be full, it will be forever, and it will be irreversible. That is a promise to the wicked. So if you are toying with the pleasures of this life, understand that you are bartering for those pleasures with your eternal soul. And God's warning to you is that transgressors will be altogether destroyed and the posterity, the memory, of the wicked will be cut off.
But there is salvation from God in the Person of Christ. That's verse 39: “The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; He is their strength in time of trouble.” God the Son came into this world and lived a perfect life and died a death on the cross to pay the price for sinners so that they could be forgiven and given righteousness. So Psalm 37 is a warning to the wicked that if you do not repent and trust Christ, you will perish everlastingly. And it is a promise to the righteous that because of our trust and our faith in Yahweh, namely in Jesus Christ, His Son, that we have righteousness and we are forgiven.
God delights in saving sinners. He loves sinners. He delights in it. He takes joy in it. And He wants sinners to repent. But the terms of peace with God are very simple. You have to turn from your sin and trust in the Savior for His forgiveness and for His righteousness.
And Psalm 37 reminds us that if you will not have God's mercy, you will have God's judgment. You get one or the other. If you won't take His mercy, then you will receive His judgment. And the judgment is what we just read in this psalm.
The wicked flourish, the wicked fade, and finally, verse 38, the wicked are forgotten. Verse 38: “Transgressors will be altogether destroyed; the posterity of the wicked will be cut off.” “Altogether destroyed” describes a total and complete and utter destruction, ruin, and loss. Now it's hard to imagine that the tree that's described in verse 35 that is flourishing, it is green, it's luxuriant, it's spreading itself like a big, healthy tree that everybody sees, it's hard to imagine how it can just suddenly be gone. Right, if you were standing in my front yard for instance and you looked across the street at one of those trees that sprung up in its native soil yesterday and then you showed up this afternoon and you noticed that there was a tree gone, what would you think? You would think that somebody came in and did what? Cut it down and removed it because they don't just fade overnight, they don't just fade quickly like that. If a tree is there one day and gone the next, you know that something cataclysmic has happened, and that's what the psalmist is describing. They will be cut off. That's the language of verse 38.
Now, there is something of a translation issue here, because I said if you have the NASB—just out of curiosity, let me pause for just a second. How many of you read something here that's not the NASB on a Sunday morning? Will you raise your hand? OK, how many of you read the LSB here on a Sunday morning? Just a few, OK. Since we're talking about translations, I'm going to just drop something here and I'll return to this another time, but I thought this was a good time to talk about it. I'm kicking around in my head the possibility of switching my preaching from the NASB to the LSB. OK, so if that requires you to buy another Bible, you have several months probably to budget that in or just use your phone. You can get them free, by the way. So I'm thinking about going to the LSB. By the way, that really surprises me how many people here do something other than the NASB because I've been preaching all of this time, assuming that everybody has an NASB that you bring here so that you could follow along. But since you're not interested in following along and you have other Bibles, I might as well just switch translations entirely. It's not going to affect you at all. So that's probably what I'll do, maybe sooner rather than later.
So if you have the NIV or the ESV or the New King James, you'll notice that it reads as such: “All sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked” (NIV). It doesn't translate it “posterity,” but “future.” The King James uses the word end. The King James says this: “But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.” So the end of the wicked, the future of the wicked, the posterity of the wicked. And the LSB, the Legacy Standard, follows the NASB translation at that point. So a little bit of a translation difference. In fact, your translation may say, regarding verse 37, that the righteous man will have peace in the end. So it translates what is sometimes translated as “posterity” as “end” or “future.”
Why is that? Why is that significant? The Hebrew word that's used there usually does not refer to descendants. It can refer to descendants or those who come after, your posterity. When we think of posterity, we think of people following after us, right? Our children, our grandchildren, that is our posterity. That's how we use that language. The word that's translated “posterity” there is not a word that is typically used of descendants or your lineage that comes from your loins as it were, not necessarily describing that. Instead it describes that which comes after the end or that which remains. In fact, it's sometimes translated as a survivor or that which comes after something else. So it can refer to a descendant. It can also refer to the end or the outcome or simply what happens later.
Now, it's important to understand what a Jew would be thinking of and how Jewish wisdom literature in the Psalms would understand the idea of what came after your legacy or your posterity. That's significant. Now, before I describe that, I think that the reason the NASB chose posterity rather than future or end is because the psalmist has already contrasted the descendants of the righteous with the descendants of the wicked. The descendants of the righteous, verse 25, they don't beg for bread. God provides for them, right? Verse 28: “The descendants of the wicked will be cut off.” So there's already been a contrast between descendants or the lineage of each, the righteous and the wicked. So likely the NASB translators here chose posterity simply to kind of continue that comparison between those two.
In the Jewish mind, a posterity or the future or what came after would refer not just to your legacy, not just to those who would come after and carry your name or your reputation, but it would be their possessions, their renown, their memory, and their future. In other words, in ancient culture, particularly Jewish culture, they didn't think of the future just in terms of their children and their grandchildren but in terms of their name, their legacy, the memory of what got left behind for them, so that the descendants of David and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they could look back in time to their lineage, their predecessors, and remark on their faith and notice their faith and remember their faith, their legacy, their character, what God did. It was the memory of that that would continue. That is what is the posterity. It's not just the person who comes after you that is cut off, the descendants, but your memory, your legacy, your renown, your reputation.
So the idea behind the psalm is not just that the posterity, the persons that come from the wicked, will be cut off, provided that they follow in that wicked way, but that the memory of the wicked will perish from the earth. See, that's what we are promised. The memory of the wicked will perish from the earth. When all sin is dealt with, when it is all put away, when death is finally defeated, when the wicked are cut off, when the righteous inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant shalom, when the King returns and establishes His kingdom and all things are brought into subjection under His feet, and when He crushes the nations and rules them with a rod of iron, at that time the future, the end, the posterity, the name, renown, power, influence, the place, and the position of the wicked will be cut off. And you will look from one end of Heaven to another, and you will not see the wicked. And in fact, you will not even see evidence that the wicked ever existed. That is how thoroughly God is going to deal with evil in this world. That is how complete and utter and total His judgment upon evil will be someday.
James Hamilton says this: “However things may seem in the distribution of powerful posts, elite positions, and in the broader opinion of the public, Psalm 37 tells the righteous what the outcome will be.” You see, the fool lives for the now, but the righteous, the wise, they live for what is to come, what God has promised in the life that is to come.
Before we wrap this up, one final observation from the psalm. I want you to notice if you have not already the progression of these verses. In verse 35, the wicked are present. In fact, in verse 35, the wicked are almost ever-present. They're native soil, they're here, they're everywhere. Sometimes the righteous standing among the wicked feel like we are standing in the middle of a forest full of luxuriant trees, does it not? The wicked are not only present, they are everywhere. They catch our eye, they are obvious and visible and unavoidable. They spread themselves, like making themselves naked and visible in front of everybody, showing themselves off. In fact, one of the things that plagues the righteous is that the wicked seem intent on making it their business to make their business your business. So they're always everywhere and you can't avoid them. You want to, you wish you didn't have to see them, you wish you didn't have to hear them on the news at night or read of them or see them come up in your Facebook timeline. You wish they weren't present at all, but they're everywhere all around us. That's verse 35.
Then in verse 36, they fade, they pass away, they're taken out of the way. And then in verse 38, they are forgotten, their posterity is cut off. They flourish, then they fade, and ultimately they are forgotten forever. This is what God has promised regarding the wicked. They're impossible to avoid now, but they will be impossible to find in the end. They are omnipresent in this world and they will be absent in the next. So the wicked go from being unavoidable to being unobservable. You can't avoid them. In the future, you won't even be able to observe them. Not only will they be gone, but everything they have touched, everything they have polluted, all of their pollution, all of their sin, their place, their position, their power, it will all be cut off. This is God's promise.
They flourish, they fade, and then they are forgotten. And so we do well to heed the exhortation of verse 1: “Do not fret because of evildoers, be not envious toward wrongdoers.” Why? Because though they flourish now, they will fade, and eventually they will be forgotten. But the story for the righteous is much, much different. And we will look at that promise next week.