It now falls to you, young man, to be worthy—as worthy as any man can be—to receive from his hand what he counts more precious than jewels, more valuable than his own heart, of greater worth than his own name and even his own life. It falls to you, young man, to honor his diligence in so faithfully interceding for his daughter. 

Somewhere out there in the great, wide world, someone is praying for you. He probably doesn’t know you and you probably don’t know him. You may not meet one another for many more years. But he’s praying for you nonetheless and has been for a very long time.
He is the father of a daughter. He is the proud father of a daughter who is very precious to him—more precious than anything he owns, more precious than anything he has ever done, ever made, ever accomplished, more precious than his very life. She is so precious that if he gained all the riches of this world but lost her heart along the way, he’d consider himself an abject failure.
This father knows that a time is coming when a young man will approach him and ask for permission to marry his daughter. He knows that a time is coming when a young man will insist that it is in his daughter’s best interests if she leaves her father and mother—leaves behind the ones who brought her into this world and who gave her such privileges and who raised her so well—and is joined to him instead (for such is the endearing conceit of young men). And, though it may be hard for this father to admit, he knows that this young man may just be right—that his daughter’s best life will be outside of his care and in another man’s, outside of his home and in one this new couple will build together.
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The coming Messiah is repeatedly identified as the almighty God and eternal father, the wisdom of God, righteous, highly exalted, yet to be born of a lowly virgin. These prophetic verses can only be speaking of one person, Israel’s coming Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who is the God of Abraham (cf. John 8:58).

Like Jews and Muslims, Christians are monotheists. But unlike Jews and Muslims, Christians are also Trinitarians. We believe that the one God is triune, and is revealed as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When it comes to the Son (Jesus Christ), the Bible everywhere affirms that Jesus is true and eternal God, uncreated, without beginning or end.
Given Jesus’s central place in Christian theology and his importance in the history of Western Civilization, non-Christian religions often attempt to co-opt Jesus and make him one of their own. But this is not easy to do since the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ differentiates Christianity from all other religions. If Jesus is true and eternal God as taught in Scripture, then the Christian doctrine of God is unique among world religions. The irony is that while virtually all religions honor Jesus as a prophet or teacher, nevertheless they all reject (implicitly or explicitly) the key points the New Testament makes about Jesus–that he is the second person of the Trinity, and that he is the eternal Son, and he possesses the same divine attributes as the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is God in human flesh, something Jesus personally believed and proclaimed about himself (and a matter to which we will return in a subsequent essay in this series when we discuss Christ’s incarnation).
That the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ is not the invention of the early church as often claimed, can be seen by merely scanning the pages of Holy Scripture, with its substantial teaching regarding the deity of Jesus in both testaments. One of the most powerful lines of evidence for the deity of Jesus are those texts in the Old Testament, such as the well-known messianic prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth. “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” The Messiah will be miraculously conceived, and given the title “God with us.”
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The light and momentary success of the wicked is working for them an eternal weight of affliction that will far outweigh earthly prosperity. And when we discern this end, we are strengthened to resist the pressure of our age. Rather than conforming ourselves to the pattern of this world, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Rather than seeking to placate false gods or false men, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God alone (Romans 12:1–2). 

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. (Psalm 16:4)
So far in Psalm 16, David has sought refuge in God, asking for God to preserve and keep him. He has confessed that Yahweh is not only the Lord, but that he is David’s Lord — the all-sufficient and all-satisfying Good, from whom every good gift comes. And under that greatest Good, one of the chief earthly goods that David has received is the saints in the land, God’s people. They are holy and majestic, delighting David with their grandeur. Because he loves to be near God, David likewise loves to be near his people.
As he continues to pray, David next considers another group of people, those who run after other gods. Perhaps he has in mind the nations around Israel, who seek refuge not in Yahweh, but in Baal, Dagon, and Ashtoreth. Israel is married to Yahweh, covenantally bound to him as her Lord and Husband. The nations, on the other hand, have married false gods, demonic powers. They have run after them and acquired them in marriage.
And what has happened as a result? When David considers the saints and their marriage to Yahweh, he thinks of the majesty of mountains with great delight and pleasure. When he considers idolaters around them, he sees a very different picture — sorrows, pains, injuries, hardships, and wounds. And not just static sorrows, but multiplying, growing, and abounding sorrows.
Having run after other gods and acquired them, the ungodly have brought down on themselves pain, strife, and hurt.
Prosperity of the Wicked?
Such sorrows are not always immediately evident to us. In Psalm 73, Asaph expresses his dismay at the prosperity of the wicked, and his confusion at their success. The wicked have no pangs until death; they are well-fed and insulated from trouble. They don’t have the struggles and hardships that most men do (verses 4–5). Despite their pride, violence, folly, malice, and oppression, they prosper and succeed in all that they do (verses 6–9). They are always at ease as they increase in their riches, brazenly mocking God for not seeing and not knowing of their evil (verses 10–12).
Such a picture stands in stark contrast to David’s observation in Psalm 16. So how can these two pictures be reconciled? Do the sorrows of idolaters multiply, or are the wicked always at ease? Does their idolatry injure them and cause harm, or does it redound to their prosperity and success?
Asaph shows us the way. His vexation gives way to clarity, but only after he worships Yahweh in the sanctuary. Only after he seeks refuge in God as his highest good is he able to discern the end of the wicked (Psalm 73:17). And when he does, he draws the same conclusion as David.
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