Ron Dunn Podcast - When the Upright Get Uptight - Part 1 - Bellevue

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Ron Dunn preaches at a conference in 1991 out of the book of psalms in part 1 of this 3 part series.

Thank you very much. I love the music here. At this conference last year, it was, well, just about the highlight of it all. And I look forward to the music this year also. I love music, and I realize how important it is in our worship. And I appreciate good music. I have to tell you that some places I go, the music I have to listen to, I feel like I ought to get combat pay listening to it. But unfortunately that doesn't happen too often, but so I really appreciate looking forward to the music that this church and others are going to present in these days. I want you to open your Bibles today to the book of Psalms, Psalm 37. And in these three sessions that I have with you today, tomorrow, and Saturday,

I want to speak to you from this 37th Psalm. I'll begin reading with verse 1, and we will read through verse 7. Psalm 37, beginning with verse 1, and reading through verse 7. Threat not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Fret not thyself because of Him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass. When I saw it, I wasn't surprised. I had been looking for it for a long time. I knew that sooner or later they would have to do something like this, and sure enough now they had done it. I'm referring to an article in the newspaper, it's a while back, and this article was telling about a new pamphlet that the government and the Institute of Health had just printed entitled,

Not Everything Causes Cancer. And the article went on to say that in the past few years there had been so much about cancer being linked to this and linked to that and linked to this that it was to the point that people were almost afraid that everything caused it, and they thought it was time to come out and say not everything causes cancer, just about, but not everything causes cancer, to try to ease the fears of this cancer paranoia that is sweeping the country. Of course, I was glad to see that article myself. I was beginning to have a little bit of concern, developing a little paranoia of my own, because I had read just a week before in one

of the newspapers, the headline down at the bottom of the page said that tests link shampoo with cancer. And that is a disturbing thing if you want to use shampoo occasionally. But I went ahead and read the article and it said that they had fed shampoo to these rats for six months, and they got cancer. Well, I feel like anybody who drank shampoo for six months deserves whatever they get, whatever it is. But that took a load off my mind, I guarantee you, and off of my hair, too. It took a big load off of that.

We live, though, in a panic-prone world. We live in the midst of crisis. That's one reason that the words of the psalmist appeal to me when he opens these words by saying fret not thyself. If there was ever a day in which you and I were fretting, it is today. The odd thing about it is that we live in a day when we ought not to be fretting because in one way and in some ways we have more than we've ever had before. We're better off than we've ever been before. We're living longer in modern history. Man lives longer today than he's

ever lived before, and we're worrying about it that much more. Back during the days of the height of the Roman Empire, the average lifespan of a man was 24 years of age. I mean, excuse me, 50 years of age. No, excuse me, 24 years of age. Only 4 out of 100 ever lived to be 50. Well, Rome, to maintain its population, each woman had to bear four children just to maintain. And today we have so much to live with.

And yet, as Lewis Thomas says, we have become a nation of hypochondriacs. We just go around with our fingers on our pulse all the time and wondering what have we got next and everything. We're just scared. We're just absolutely scared. When we ought to be celebrating our good shape, we're worrying about what bad shape we may be in. You know, everybody's on a dieting. People who tell such things tell us that one out of every three Americans is presently on a diet and that five out of every eight are doing some kind of aerobics class. And we've become obsessed with this. I mean, we've become downright fanatics with this, you know.

I mentioned at a party not long ago, I didn't know what my cholesterol level was. And I thought they were going to crucify me. You don't know what your cholesterol... Well, no, I don't. I can't remember the last time I sat down to eat and somebody didn't inform me of the sodium content of everything on my plate. Boy, you can catch a lot of dirty looks by drinking classic Cokes and things like that. When I was a little boy, I used to sneak out behind the garage and smoke cigarettes.

Now I sneak out there to eat at Mr. Goodbar. We are a fretful people, and I guess there's a lot to fret about. That's not quite as funny as that. We'd all be surprised this morning to know what the fellow sitting next to us really is fretting about. And some of us have some real deep fears and anxieties. I know that there is a way of preaching and teaching today that says that if you trust God and feel the Spirit and walk in faith, that you'll be able to

rise above all of these fretful things of life, and it'll be all honey, no bees, no work all these, and we'll sail into heaven on calm seas. Now we don't have to put up with anything. We can rebuke the devil and plead the blood and bind Satan and we can walk by faith and we can be healthy and wealthy all the days of our life and we can rise above all of these things. You don't have to put up with this junk, folks. You don't have to put up with these bothersome things if you just know how to deal with these that you don't have to put up with that a lot of teaching like that's going around only thing wrong with that is it's wrong you have to deny the Bible and turn a blind

eye to your own experience there is a lot to fret about. It really is. We are human beings and we are still subject to the frailties of human beings. Subject to the fears, to the emotions, to the sicknesses, to the death. We are all part of the human race and we always will be and we'll always be in this flesh until the Lord sees fit to chain us change us and put us into a new body there are a lot of things to fret about I think if it were not so the psalmist would never have had need to say these words I've been impressed as you go through the Old Testament and in the New Testament so much. I've been amazed at how much is said about this idea of taking it easy. Don't get up

tight. Don't worry. Be careful for nothing. Don't be anxious about anything. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, he said, don't act like the Gentiles. The Gentiles are always worrying about what they're going to eat and drink and make. They're always worrying about their livelihood. But don't you be like the Gentiles. Don't you worry about these things. The Father feeds the birds of the air. The Father clothes the lilies of the field.

You're much more valuable. Don't worry about all that stuff. Paul says that worry about nothing, pray about everything all the way through. Now, this means two things to me. Number one, it means that there is hope for us, but number two, it does mean that even though saved, we are subject to these things. But there are some things that we can do about it. So in these three sessions, I want to talk to you on this subject,

when the upright get uptight. And we're going to look today at what are some of the causes that the psalmist reveals for us. He opens this psalm, and I think this psalm is like a number of the psalms in which the opening words form a title or kind of give a table of contents. In other words, it strikes the theme of the entire psalm. And it opens with these words, Fret not thyself. Fret not thyself.

The Hebrew language is a very picturesque language, and it has a lot of images in it. And this word fret, the root meaning of it, has the idea of burning. Don't get burned up. It has the idea of being consumed, like something is consumed with fire. And we might say, don't get all hot and bothered about it, or don't get hot under the collar, or don't let this thing consume you and burn you up. Fret not about this thing. There is in this word a tinge of anger. That this person who is fretting, there's something going on that's just burning him up. There's a tense of anger in it.

But also it is a religious kind of anger. There is something in a person's faith, there is something within the environment of his religion that's going on that is filling him with anxiety and fear and a kind of angry fretfulness over some situations. What is it? There are three things I think the psalmist makes very clear that causes us as believers to burn with anger, to fret. The first one I'll simply call the injustices of life, the inequities of life. I said a moment ago that these are peculiar to believers. You know there are

some things that bother believers that don't bother anybody else. There are times when your faith can literally become a burden and create problems. And the psalmist here is fretting over the injustices and the inequities of life. Notice what he says in that first verse, fret not thyself because of evildoers. Why are you fretting? Well, it's these evildoers. Neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. Do you mean to tell me that a Christian sometimes might get jealous and envious of a lost person? Well, evidently that's what he says. He comes on over to verse 7 and says, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Fret not thyself because of Him who prospers in His way,

because of a man who brings wicked devices to pass. What's wrong here? Why is this person fretting? And why is he fretting with this sense of anger? I'll tell you why. Because here he is living for God, doing his best for Jesus, and everything seems to be falling apart in his life. And yet the fellow across the street who could care less about God or Christ, everything he touches turns to gold. His son's the captain of the football team, and his daughter's the head cheerleader, and he has a bumper sticker on his

car that says, my children are on the president's honor roll. I hate those bumper stickers. I think I'll be outlawed. But you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is an age-old question. And I'll be honest with you, sometimes they're a little bit kind of discouraged talking about it because we've been talking about it for 5,000 years, no nearer the solution.

But every generation has to learn it for itself. Every person has to discover it all over for himself. You see, there are some things that won't bother people that will bother Christians. Sometimes faith in God gets to be a burden. It really does. It causes us problems. For instance, if I'm an atheist, I'm sitting in front of my television and I'm watching all those Kurds leaving their country starving. I can turn my television on to Ethiopia and I see all those innocent children

dying of starvation. I'm an atheist. And I shake my head and I say, boy, isn't that too bad. Boy, that's too bad. Well, that's just the way life is. You know, that's the way the cookie crumbles. That's the way the wheel spins.

I mean, I was born here. They were born. That's just the way it is. Boy, that's too bad, but that's way the cookie crumbles. That's the way the wheel spins. I mean, I was born here. They were born. That's just the way it is. Oh, that's too bad, but that's just the way it is. But if I'm a Christian, I say, God, how can you let this happen? I can't just say, well, that's the way things are. Is that too bad? No, it poses a greater

problem with me. You see, whether we like to admit it or not, the atheists have a real good argument. They really do. They have a great argument. They say, if there is a God as you claim there is, He is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then how in the world do you explain this? And I can't explain it. I cannot explain it. I have a burden. Faith gives to me a problem. It puzzles me. And not just watching those starving people on television, but I'm talking about in my own life, things run contrary to what I feel like they ought to be. Several years ago, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book called, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It's a pretty good little book.

Of course, the rabbi is not a Christian and he doesn't come to Christian conclusion. I saw him interviewed on television. They asked him what made him write that book. That book was a bestseller in 13 nations. And they asked him, what caused you to write this book? And the rabbi said, well, I've been a rabbi for all these years. He said, I've seen many a person die. I've stood beside

the bed of a lot of people as they've gone out to meet God, and never one time did it bother my faith. But he said, when I saw my 14-year-old boy dying of that horrible aging disease, all of a sudden I had a question. You know, folks, it's a lot easier to philosophize about suffering when you're not doing any. C.S. Lewis wrote, I guess, just about the best book ever been written on the problem of pain, 1940. Twenty years later, when his own wife was dying of cancer. Nothing he wrote in that book comforted him. The rabbi said, I've got to do something. I've got to somehow understand how my son can die and at the same time cling to my faith in God. And you know what he did? He changed God to fit the situation. He concluded that God can't do everything. As a matter of fact, in one of his books, a chapter is called,

God Can't Do Everything, But He Can Do Some Important Things. And basically, the rabbi concluded that the three things God can do nothing about, death, disease, and the devil. Well what in the world else is there but that? I mean that's about it, you know. But you see, it allowed the rabbi to keep his faith and accept the death of his son. I want to tell you something, and you and I struggle with the same issue. Don't deny it. You and I struggle with the same issue.

How in the world, how in the world can I go ahead in believing and trusting in a God that I believe is all powerful when at the same time I know He has let terrible things happen in my life. My prayers have gone unanswered. My faith has gone unrewarded. And there is a conflict and that causes us to fret. things happen in my life, my prayers have gone unanswered, my faith has gone unrewarded,

and there is a conflict and that causes us to fret when bad things happen to good people. I can accept that. I'll tell you what bugs me is when good things happen to bad people. Habakkuk had a complaint to the Lord Habakkuk was raising up the Chaldeans and they were swooping down on God's people and Habakkuk says, Lord, how can you do that? How can you let people devour those who are more righteous than they. I mean, if I'm more righteous, then I ought to be devouring them, right?

No, but it's those people, the evil people, they are devouring us, and we're the ones that are most righteous. Oh, it hurts to see some crook get ahead, doesn't it? It galls to see some preacher that we know he's not really what he ought to be, but he goes to the big places and it galls us. He's the one that's successful. Church growing, exploding and it galls us and we say, Lord, I'm better than

he is. It always has bugged me when God blessed people I didn't approve of. But you see, we have a problem. What is it? The injustices I think I deserve better. It would seem to me that if I were a child of God and serving Him and trying my best to live for Him, that, you know, He might take that into consideration when He starts passing out all the catastrophes in life.

I never will forget when our son, 18-year-old son, died back in 1975, we received a lot of cards and letters of sympathy and condolence. I never will forget one letter that I received, though, from a couple whose church I'd been in just a few weeks before. And the first paragraph of that letter was the ordinary expressions of sympathy. But it was the second paragraph that caught my attention. It went something like this. They said, Brother Dunn, we know that you are a man of God and that you've given your life to serve Him.

And we know that you are a faithful preacher of the gospel. We do not understand how something like this could happen to you. Well, I couldn't either. You know what they were really thinking, though? They were saying, my soul, if something can happen like that to you, I mean, you're a man of God. Heaven only knows what could happen to us. But let me tell you something, folks.

There ought to be a few perks in this business. Ought to be a few little fringe benefits. I mean, the Lord, you ought to take into account that I'm your child and I'm your servant and I'm trying to preach the Word. I think that deserves a little special treatment, a little preferential consideration, don't you think so? Of course we do. But one of the great mysteries of life is the impartiality of providence. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Well, if I were God, I wouldn't let it rain on the unjust. Sun shines on the good and the bad, but if I were God, I wouldn't let my sun shine on the bad.

But God does that. And so it causes us to fret because life just isn't fair. You can trust God and still get hurt. And sometimes it makes you mad. But there's a second thing. Not only the injustices of life, but the inactivity of God. The fact that God isn't doing anything. For this runs throughout the psalmist.

He says in verse 2, for they shall soon be cut down. That's what the psalmist is saying. That's what God is saying. They shall soon be cut down. Over in verse 10, for yet a little while and the wicked shall not be. And you know you've run all over that all through the Bible. Soon they'll be cut down, yet in a little while they will not be. Well, I want to tell you something, folks.

God's definition of a little while is not like my definition of a little while. I mean, He said this a lot of few years ago, and it's a little while. What I want to know is, when is God going to get busy? When is He going to want to know is, when is God going to get busy? When is He going to get to work? And when is God going to do something? Oh, this upsets me. This causes me to fret. Because God's not doing anything. I'm praying

and praying and praying, and God isn't doing anything. Inactivity of God. Well, of course, that's not true. God is doing something. Every once in a while, somebody will say, Oh, Brother Dunn, God has really started to work in our church. I said, No. He's always been at work in your church. What you mean is, now God's finally started behaving like you want Him to.

But the truth of the matter is, folks, He's always at work. He's always at work. It's just that He's not always working like we think He ought to work or like we want Him to work. God's always at work. God is always at work. He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. God is always at work. Habakkuk, I go back to Habakkuk again.

Habakkuk didn't think God was working. He opens that prophecy with these words, How long, O Lord, shall I cry out unto you violence, robbery, and you don't do anything? You don't do anything. That's his complaint. You're not doing anything, God. We've got the Chaldeans swooping down on us,

and we've got this internal corruption, and you're just not doing anything. And here come the Chaldeans. And in verse 5, God says, behold, I will show you a work that you will not believe in your days, even though it be told you. You won't like what I'm about to tell you, Habakkuk, and it'll be hard for you to believe it. Well, I want to know what is it. What are you doing? You don't look to me like you're doing anything. What are you doing? Got the Chaldeans out here about to run us over. If you're doing something, I sure would like to know what it is. And God said, oh, I'm very work that God was working at.

Of course, we're a lot like Gideon, too. Gideon's theology was, a of the day keeps the devil away. And you know over in Judges chapter 6 when he was out there by the wine press, hiding that food, dark out there at night, you know old Gideon had to be kind of uptight a little bit because if the Midianites caught him, no telling what they would do. And the Bible says an angel comes and sits down and leans up against a tree and watches him. I've always thought that kind of humorous myself. Angel just sitting there against that old tree watching Gideon.

And then he gets up and he comes over to Gideon and says, boo. He says, hail thou thy mighty men of valor. The Lord be with you. And Gideon said, oh my Lord, if God be with us, then why have all these things befallen us? And where are all His miracles? And that's it. That speaks for all of us. If God be with us, then where are all His miracles? Why have these things befallen us? If God's doing something, then how in the world do you explain what's going on? The very fact, you see, that you and I have this problem. We believe that we can always evaluate accurately everything that happens to us.

I mean, you know, I know a curse when I see one, folks. And I know a blessing when I see one. You don't try to kid me. I know this is a curse. The truth of the matter is, though, that sometimes blessings come wrapped as curses and kings as beggars and princes as paupers, and we do entertain angels unaware. God is always at work.

God is always at work. What right do I have to say He's not working now? We talk about, oh, you remember back in the days when God was really working. Have you ever said that? Remember back in those days when God was really working. Have you ever said that? Remember back in those days when God was really working? Kay and I, sitting out on the front porch a year or so ago, thinking about four or five couples, friends of ours, our age, who were going through horrible, horrible trials

with physical health, economic problems, children problems. And we were thinking about 20 years before, back in 1970 and 71, when God was just breathing through our place and everybody, I mean mean if there was a problem you just said a prayer and it's gone your children were doing right technique and all that me everything was just everything was just going great and

and these these couples now their hearts were breaking and I found myself saying the cake oh I wish remember how God used to work and we talk about those days when God used to work what right do I have to assume that God is not working just as much in the problem as he was in the blessing how arrogant can a person be to say I know when God's

working and when he isn't working I miss Manly Beasley What can a person be to say, I know when God's working and when He isn't working? I miss Manly Beasley. I don't know of any other man that I love more and had such a kindred spirit to. I remember after, I think it was in the 89, 87 convention, when I was in San Antonio, the man who was in the hospital intensive care for months, they thought he was going to die.

I was in Georgia, and I heard he got out of the hospital, so I called him one night. He picked up the phone. We talked. And I said, Natalie, tell me, how is it? And how was it? And he began to say the things that God had given him and the things that God had said to him. And I could feel the move of the Spirit of God through those telephone wires into my own heart.

And by the time we hung up, I was crying. The presence of God was so great. I walked into the next room and I said to Kay, Boy, I'm sure glad God's never put me through anything like Manly's been through. And then all of a sudden, it hit me. And I said, well, I guess I could just as well say, I'm glad I don't know God as well as Manly does. Do I have any right to say God isn't working here and God is working?

Of course not. But you see, to my eye, He's not working. To my eye, He's not working. But the truth of the matter is, God is always at work. God is always working. Whether you and I can discern it or not, God is always at work. There's a third thing that we'll mention. I simply call it our ignorance of God's ways, our ignorance of the ways of God and that's one of the things that the psalmist is trying to teach us here he's trying to say be patient God works in a different way than you think he works

God works on a different plane than you think he works God's just as good today as he was yesterday I'll tell you I love that statement of Malachi when he says I am the Lord, I change not. God does not change, folks. If God was good last year, he's good today. If God was good 10 years ago, he's still good. If God loved you yesterday, God loves you today.

If he was there last month, he's still there today. He does not change. Sometimes the manifestation of his presence changes and fools us. Our ignorance of the ways of God. I'm convinced that if I understood, if somehow I could just grasp and understand how God works, I'd never fret.

I wouldn't worry. I wouldn't get uptight. And you'd think that after all of these years, you'd sort of know how he works. Well, I know a little bit of how he works, but about the time I've got it all figured out, he does something else. About the time I catch up to him, he moves ahead. Basically, God works in two different ways from us. First of all, he works on a different time schedule. I've already made reference to this business of soon the Lord will cut them away, yet in a little while. The Bible says that one day is with the Lord's of a thousand years. Well, I've had those days too. But he also says a thousand years is his one day.

My ways are not your ways. My times are not your times. God works on a different time schedule. Now you see, you and I are creatures of time and space. I keep looking at my watch and you may be doing the same. I'm getting older, and whatever I do, I need to get it done.

I mean, folks, you don't have forever, you know. And we're all conscious of that. We're all conscious of it. And the farther you go, the more you're conscious of that. We're all conscious of it. And the farther you go, the more you're conscious of it. I'm more conscious today of, I've got less now than I had, you know, when I was young. Sort of like eating a big can of peanuts. When they're right up at the top, you just don't care. I mean, you just dig in and chew them up. But when they get down to where you can see the bottom, you start picking them out, eating one at a time. And I'm to the place now, I can sort of see the bottom of that thing.

And so I want to be better. God works on a different time schedule. I'll always like to say at least one profound thing in every message, and sometimes I'll tell you, or else you won't recognize it as profound. But this is the profound statement for today. With God, timing is more important than time. I catch myself at times and I say, oh, if I'd only known this 20 years ago. Oh, Lord, I'm so sorry.

And God seems to say, not to worry, son, we're worry, son. We're right on schedule. Works on a different time schedule. Also, he works with a different value system. And this is really where the problem comes. He works with a different value system. The same things that are important to us are not necessarily important to God.

When the Bible says God is good to those that walk upright with Him, and all things work together for good, I'm going to tell you what I think about when I hear the word good. I think about good. I mean, boys, we're going to have a great time. I'm talking about comfort and convenience and all the nice things. That's what I'm talking about. And that's how I evaluate God's blessings. That's how we evaluate whether or not God is blessing us. But I've got news for you. God is a lot more concerned with your character than He is with your comfort.

And He's a lot more concerned with your holiness than He is your happiness. God wants you to be so like Him that He's willing to use whatever measure is necessary. God has a different value system. I am wearing this morning the gold ring that my wife gave me a few years ago, anniversary. I have a gold watch that she gave me a few years ago, a birthday gift. I don't know where she's getting all the money to buy this gold. But I have it insured because it means a lot to me. Well, first place gold is worth something. I mean, you know, it's for self. But in addition, the sentimental value, you know, means a lot to me. So we have it insured. We had to renew that insurance every once in a while. The insurance goes up. But I'm willing to pay any insurance because this is valuable stuff. If I lose it, I want my money. Of course, you realize that in heaven, they use gold

for asphalt. I mean, the streets are paved with it up there. I have an idea that if I were to somehow make it to the pearly gates with my gold watch and my gold ring and I said, hey boys, I brought it with me, the angel of maintenance would come up and say, I'm glad you did. We've got a few potholes we need to fill in. And I have a sneaking suspicion that when the Revelation talks about the streets of glory pay with gold, He's doing more than telling us how beautiful heaven must be. He's telling us how stupid we are. What we wear down here, we'll walk on up there. And so if God could just somehow work into our lives a different standard of values,

that would be important. I'm going to end there. Tomorrow and the next day we'll deal with the solution hate to leave you just with fretting today but you fretted so long one more day won't make any difference we'll do it again tomorrow Lord bless you