Psalm 73 is a shift in attitude.
Asaph, David's chief musician, speaks of the situations he finds himself in and where he finds remedy as a contour of an attitude shift which takes place within his heart.
These situations trace from Asaph perceiving the success, health, wealth, prosperity, and happiness of the wicked which he says causes him to envy them.
Asaph then enters the sanctuary and finds remedy in the presence of God which reveals to him that God will do justice in the end which is judgment to the wicked and comfort to the righteous.
This is where people misunderstand and misappropriate.
I had a friend who gave a devotion on not envying the wicked. Upon reaching the climax of his message, he blatantly showed us that he took comfort in the fact that "they are going to get theirs". Was this Asaph's attitude? Did he go from envying the wicked to taking joy in their doom? I do not think that is the case.
Although God's wrath burns against those who are not in Christ, He still loves them and takes no joy in judgment. I don't think Asaph was taking selfish consolation in the downfall of the wicked as a satisfaction of his selfish envy.
The answer of course lies in verse 21 when he says he is grieved and vexed. He realizes the folly of envying someone who is doomed when he has the Sovereign God on his side. He realizes he was wrong to envy them.
When we know people will go to hell, we shouldn't rejoice and take consolation in that as if to say, "They'll get theirs!" We should grieve over them and seek to share God's offer of love and forgiveness with them.
When a person misappropriates this passage to take consolation in the unsaved person's final destination, I have to wonder, do they really know God?
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