SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I've found, trust many of you have as well, that a single phrase or a quick expression can become the sort of thing that reorients your whole life.
SPEAKER_02: You remember it forever.
unknown: Why does that happen?
SPEAKER_02: I think most of us have sayings like that.
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like my grandpa used to say things will either get better, get worse, or stay the same.
SPEAKER_02: Anybody heard that one before?
SPEAKER_02: A phrase that profoundly shaped my life came from a philosophy professor who told me a good man can say no to a bad thing, but it is a wise man who can say no to a good thing.
SPEAKER_02: Phrases like that.
SPEAKER_02: Many of us, for many of us, scripture holds a place like that in our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: Phrases, expressions, ideas, turns of phrase that just change the way we look at the world.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus was especially famous for this.
SPEAKER_02: He said, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Our text this morning takes up a similar goal of shifting our whole perspective, of being a thing of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: And one more saying of Jesus, I think, sets the tone just right.
SPEAKER_02: And in Mark chapter 8, Simon Peter has just confessed that Jesus Christ, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and then Jesus rebukes Peter for for, and then Peter rebukes Jesus, excuse me, for foretelling his death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_02: And then Peter gets rebuked and told to get behind me, and he gets called Satan.
SPEAKER_02: And then right after that, Jesus calling his disciples together says that all who would come after him must take up their cross.
SPEAKER_02: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but forever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.
SPEAKER_02: And then he says, For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
SPEAKER_02: That's the question of our psalm for this morning.
SPEAKER_02: And this psalm is a wisdom psalm that takes up a particular riddle, a particular answer, a complication to leave us with a solution.
SPEAKER_02: Look with me.
SPEAKER_02: That's Psalm number 49 and verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: We'll begin with wisdom's riddle.
SPEAKER_02: Hear this, all peoples.
SPEAKER_02: Give ear all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor, together.
SPEAKER_02: The psalmist begins by declaring that this hymn is for the whole earth to hear.
SPEAKER_02: All peoples, all inhabitants, high and low.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody.
SPEAKER_02: If you think of yourselves as too mid or moderate or average for verse two, it's too late.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 1 already caught you.
SPEAKER_02: All peoples.
SPEAKER_02: The command is to hear.
SPEAKER_02: But the force is really that of obedience.
SPEAKER_02: To listen.
SPEAKER_02: Heed this, the psalmist says.
SPEAKER_02: He wants everybody to think about what he says and obey its teaching, just like we tell our children to listen, right?
SPEAKER_02: We don't just want them to like process what we said and then ignore it when we say that.
SPEAKER_02: He wants them to hear and understand and do.
SPEAKER_02: And so from the ramparts of Zion, if you look at the end of the previous psalm, the psalmist cries out to all peoples everywhere, declaring wisdom, understanding, a proverb and a riddle.
SPEAKER_02: Sounds just like the beginning of the book of Proverbs, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Of Solomon's Proverbs, to know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.
SPEAKER_02: And so this psalm is, if not in very early part of Israel's wisdom tradition.
SPEAKER_02: Definitely part of the wisdom literature.
SPEAKER_02: And we have to read it that way.
SPEAKER_02: It's a song, but it's also a proverb.
SPEAKER_02: And like many songs, we're reading the meditation of a heart, but it still speaks wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Notice quickly how the psalmist summons his whole person, his mouth, his heart, his ear, even his lyre.
SPEAKER_02: All of these things to speak and think and listen and solve riddles.
SPEAKER_02: That's why you should all learn how to play guitar.
SPEAKER_02: So here then is wisdom's riddle.
SPEAKER_02: Why should I fear in times of trouble when the iniquity of those who cheats me surrounds me, those who trust in the wealth and their wealth, and boast of the abundance of riches.
SPEAKER_02: Remember, Israel is a somewhat modest nation in terms of size and might, and it's speaking to the nations around her in this psalm.
SPEAKER_02: And so if Syria prospered, Israel was in a little bit of danger, maybe.
SPEAKER_02: Harassed on every side by those who trust in wealth and abundant riches.
SPEAKER_02: The second line there for the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me is just three words in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_02: A tighter translation might be sinful heels surround me.
SPEAKER_02: Heels is where we get those who cheat me.
SPEAKER_02: It's used to describe a couple of things in your Bibles that will stick out to you.
SPEAKER_02: It's the negative interpretation of the name Jacob that Esau used against him to call him a cheater and an overreacher and a swindler.
SPEAKER_02: Some commentators see a reference in these heels to the heel in Genesis 3, where the serpent will bruise the Messiah's heel.
SPEAKER_02: But it's also used to describe an army's rear guard.
SPEAKER_02: It describes the extreme back of a person, their rearmost part.
SPEAKER_02: So we're talking about backstabbers, ambushers, assassins and weight, betrayers, swindlers, cheats.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus described Judas using this language.
SPEAKER_02: He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.
SPEAKER_02: That's a quote from Psalm 41.
SPEAKER_02: So the question is, why should I fear when all around me are wealthy swindlers?
SPEAKER_02: What a slap in the face that is if you're the king of Tyre, huh?
SPEAKER_02: All around me, everywhere about me, is a wealthy swindler.
SPEAKER_02: But it is, I think if we're honest, a scary thing, a little bit, when you're not so friendly neighbors prosper.
SPEAKER_02: Now I know that our neighbors are friendly, eh?
SPEAKER_02: But would it make you just a little bit nervous if Canada started amassing a land force just south of Winnipeg there?
SPEAKER_02: I mean, as the whole, maybe the United States wouldn't feel too nervous, but we might.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: We might.
SPEAKER_02: To bring it home a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02: Think about the guy who's always disagreeing with you at work when he gets a promotion.
SPEAKER_02: Or a classmate who's always tossing you those mean glances and competing for the attention of others who always has enough money for a new car or new clothes or the new iPhone or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_02: Or you graduates, maybe there's somebody who's always been a dork and a fool.
SPEAKER_02: When you did everything right, and they get into a better school.
SPEAKER_02: Find a spouse faster than you do, start having kids faster than you do, buy a big house before you can even buy a car.
SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
SPEAKER_02: I picked this psalm because I think its riddle cuts right to the heart of that problem.
SPEAKER_02: Why should we fear when the unrighteous prosper around us?
SPEAKER_02: What can you do when you start to worry and feel like you're not keeping up?
SPEAKER_02: Students, if you ask any old person here, I think we've all felt that.
SPEAKER_02: And yes, for this illustration, I count as an old person.
SPEAKER_02: I think we've all felt that.
SPEAKER_02: I would guess that sometimes we still feel it, don't we?
SPEAKER_02: So that's the riddle.
SPEAKER_02: What can you do when you feel like you're not keeping up?
SPEAKER_02: Or worse, what do you do when it feels like people are using their success against you on purpose to harm you?
SPEAKER_02: As though Tyre and Sidon or Syria were marshalling their wealth to oppress by economic or military force.
SPEAKER_02: That's the picture.
SPEAKER_02: Why do the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer?
SPEAKER_02: Why isn't life fair?
SPEAKER_02: It's wisdom's greatest riddle.
SPEAKER_02: So let's look at wisdom's answer.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_02: Truly, no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice that he should live on forever and never see the pit.
SPEAKER_02: Just warn you not to rush ahead of the psalm too quickly yet, friends.
SPEAKER_02: Don't think of Christ just yet.
SPEAKER_02: Don't do it yet.
SPEAKER_02: For the fact of the matter really is that a man can ransom another.
SPEAKER_02: It happens all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Even today.
SPEAKER_02: In the last year, there are reports of kidnapping and hostage negotiations and ransom payments abroad.
SPEAKER_02: And frankly, even here in the United States, it happens.
SPEAKER_02: The wealthy can afford such a payment for their loved ones, or we get the phrase a king's ransom from.
SPEAKER_02: But the psalmist says the ransom price of a man's life before God.
SPEAKER_02: Before God is costly or exorbitant.
SPEAKER_02: So much that no man can pay enough to satisfy, to suffice, such that he could live on forever and ever and never see the pit.
SPEAKER_02: Now, truly, the wages of sin is death, but this text, I think, says something even more cutting, even more insightful.
SPEAKER_02: It is the price of his life, the ransom of their life.
SPEAKER_02: It's the life that is so costly.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see how precious life is in God's sight?
SPEAKER_02: A life is so valuable to the giver of life that no man can ever pay its redemption price.
SPEAKER_02: Here's another one of those perspective shifting phrases we're all familiar with.
SPEAKER_02: I learned that as a little kid, walking around a store with my parents, goes like this if you break it, you buy it.
SPEAKER_02: Ah, you know that one.
SPEAKER_02: If you break it, you buy it.
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord who made the heavens and the earth knelt to form Adam from the dust and breathed life into his nostrils to make him a living, breathing soul.
SPEAKER_02: A soul, a life is so incredibly valuable in God's economy that once ruined, no one can pay him back.
SPEAKER_02: Right after Jesus asks, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
SPEAKER_02: He says, For what can a man give in return for his soul?
SPEAKER_02: You've broken it by sin.
SPEAKER_02: And you cannot afford to buy it.
SPEAKER_02: Though you work the rest of your days, the rest of your life to pay the debt, it won't suffice.
SPEAKER_02: Or rather, it will not cease unto the age.
SPEAKER_02: Might be a better translation of suffice.
SPEAKER_02: To all eternity.
SPEAKER_02: It will remain costly.
SPEAKER_02: Therein lies the uncomfortable doctrine of hell's eternality.
SPEAKER_02: The condemnation and eternal conscious punishment.
SPEAKER_02: That's the key doctrine of your Bibles.
SPEAKER_02: Hell doesn't end and you're awake for it.
SPEAKER_02: It makes you shiver, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: This text teaches, I think, that hell lasts forever, not because God is cruel, but because the gift of life is so expensive, so dear, so precious, that you can never pay it back.
SPEAKER_02: Forever and ever.
SPEAKER_02: No one can pay the debt they owe.
SPEAKER_02: Truly.
SPEAKER_02: Even the wise die.
SPEAKER_02: The fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave all that wealth to others.
SPEAKER_02: Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they called lands by their own names, all that wealth, all that success, all those big houses, degrees, careers, families, all those lands, lake fronts, sprawling acres, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_02: You can't take it with you when you go.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of that simple.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody has to die.
SPEAKER_02: And Benjamin Franklin's poor Richard Almanac, he once wrote, Death takes no bribes.
SPEAKER_02: Death takes no bribes.
SPEAKER_02: And that's wisdom's answer.
SPEAKER_02: That's wisdom's answer.
SPEAKER_02: In the most basic sense to the riddles question, why do the wicked prosper?
SPEAKER_02: Why isn't life fair?
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom replies, they don't really prosper.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't really go anywhere.
SPEAKER_02: All that prosperity, all those possessions, all that success, all that learning, whatever it might be, it cannot survive God's justice.
SPEAKER_02: So don't lay up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy.
SPEAKER_02: The preacher of Ecclesiastes, another wisdom book, mourns and says, For of the wise as of the fool, there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.
SPEAKER_02: How the wise dies just like the fool.
SPEAKER_02: So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
SPEAKER_02: Kind of makes it all seem pointless, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Striving for a good life is almost as wild a goose chase as trying to catch the wind with your bare hands.
SPEAKER_02: One day it all fades, slips right through your fingers.
SPEAKER_02: Though they thought their homes would last forever, naming their lands after themselves.
SPEAKER_02: I think the New American has the better translation of verse 11 there.
SPEAKER_02: The New American reads, their inner thought is that their houses are forever.
SPEAKER_01: Lying to themselves, right?
SPEAKER_02: A legacy, a name, a family, a clan, even a memorial.
SPEAKER_02: They may last for generations, hundreds of years, even, and that's that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: Those are good things.
SPEAKER_02: We do well to remember and give thanks, but not even those things last forever.
SPEAKER_02: Other than the Lord, only the grave is everlasting.
SPEAKER_02: And man and his pomp will not remain.
SPEAKER_02: He is like the beasts that perish.
SPEAKER_02: There's a little play on words there.
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to see in most translations, for the word you see for pomp in verse 12 is the same as the word for costly back in verse 8 in the English Standard Version.
SPEAKER_02: James Hamilton, biblical scholars, supplies the word exorbitant as an English word you can fit in both places.
SPEAKER_02: He says the ransom price of their life is exorbitant.
SPEAKER_02: It's costly, it's exorbitant.
SPEAKER_02: And man in his exorbitance will not remain.
SPEAKER_02: The pun amounts to this subtle dig at the wealthy, right?
SPEAKER_02: That though they love expensive things, their exorbitant luxury is simply not luxurious enough to save their souls.
SPEAKER_02: They may as well be as broke and penniless as sheep, as the beasts.
SPEAKER_02: I know a man whose testimony turned on this little phrase when he described his conversion.
SPEAKER_02: He said, I realized I was morally bankrupt before God.
unknown: Wow.
SPEAKER_02: What an answer to the riddle, right?
SPEAKER_02: The psalmist defies any moderation here in his reply to the question of why should we fear the wealth of our enemies?
SPEAKER_02: And he throws any claim anybody has to viability and God's economy out the window.
SPEAKER_02: It's like as if a man were complaining about the relative meagerness of his own home compared to his neighbor's, so the psalmist burns them both to the ground to prove a point.
SPEAKER_02: That such things really are of little spiritual value.
SPEAKER_02: Remember wisdom's answer, though.
SPEAKER_02: Burn it all to the ground in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: Remember wisdom's answer.
SPEAKER_02: Next time you feel like you're not keeping up.
SPEAKER_02: For these things, whatever they might be, they don't last forever.
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever heard somebody say, though, that the solution is worse than the problem?
SPEAKER_02: Because that's where we are right now.
SPEAKER_02: That's what happens here.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom's answer to wisdom's riddle causes a new problem.
SPEAKER_02: I've called it wisdom's complication.
SPEAKER_02: In verse 13, this is the path of those who have foolish confidence.
SPEAKER_02: Yet after them people approve of their boasts.
SPEAKER_02: Like sheep, they are appointed for Sheol, and death shall be their shepherd.
SPEAKER_02: Derek Kidner writes that this phrase, death shall be their shepherd, ranks for sinister effect among texts like Jeremiah 9.21, where death climbs into the windows to carry off the living.
SPEAKER_02: But he writes now in this text, Death is no intruder.
SPEAKER_02: He is on his home pastures.
SPEAKER_02: The grave will be their home.
SPEAKER_02: No matter how large their mansions.
SPEAKER_02: Death will be their shepherd, no matter how large their flocks.
SPEAKER_02: Sheol, their only companion, no matter how many followers they acquire.
SPEAKER_02: Job's friend Bildad, great name.
SPEAKER_02: Job's friend Bildad says, indeed, the light of the wicked is put out.
SPEAKER_02: He is torn from the tent in which he trusted, and is brought to the king of terrors.
SPEAKER_02: Spooky stuff.
SPEAKER_02: So here's the complication.
SPEAKER_02: I'm reading ahead just a little bit to make it plain for you.
SPEAKER_02: The complication is this.
SPEAKER_02: What about me?
SPEAKER_02: What about you?
SPEAKER_02: What do we do?
SPEAKER_02: If wisdom's answer to wisdom's riddle is that everybody dies, these things start to get a little complicated, don't they?
SPEAKER_02: No one anywhere can escape the grave, and we're left looking for another solution to this complication.
SPEAKER_02: And then verse 14 strikes a brighter note.
SPEAKER_02: The upright shall rule over them in the morning.
SPEAKER_02: The morning, this dawn that he speaks of, seems to be a reference to the new day that arises after death, and death's night and death's darkness.
SPEAKER_02: That is, the resurrection of the dead.
SPEAKER_02: That's what many believe he's writing about here, the resurrection of the dead, when the judgment of God sets the upright to rule over the unjust.
SPEAKER_02: Even as the unrighteous are consumed in Sheol with no place to dwell, unable to pay the ransom for their lives, destitute in their graves.
SPEAKER_02: A psalmist has a solution, and his solution is God.
SPEAKER_02: God.
SPEAKER_02: God can pay the ransom.
SPEAKER_02: It's the only way.
SPEAKER_02: He's the only one with enough capital to pay the debt you owe.
SPEAKER_02: Like little kids.
SPEAKER_02: We've broken it, and our only hope is that dad is gracious enough to buy.
SPEAKER_02: It for us.
SPEAKER_02: I have been threatened with washing dishes in the restaurant until I'm 17 before.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Your only hope is that Dad is gracious enough to pay your debts.
SPEAKER_02: He says, but God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol.
SPEAKER_02: And I scratched my head all week at how in the world he knows that.
SPEAKER_02: How does he know that?
SPEAKER_02: He hasn't said anything yet, and not much to come to tell me why he thinks that.
SPEAKER_02: My first thought was to look at the understanding at the end of verse 20.
SPEAKER_02: There's something there, and we'll get there in a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: But that didn't satisfy me because verse 10 says, even the wise die.
SPEAKER_02: And that Ecclesiastes verse I showed you earlier said that wisdom and understanding also are but chasing after the wind.
SPEAKER_02: So being wise and insightful and understanding isn't enough to ransom one's soul from Sheol.
SPEAKER_02: Then I wondered if the answer was in the other Psalms of the sons of Korah.
SPEAKER_02: This is the last one in a cycle that begins in chapter 42, or Psalm 42 rather.
SPEAKER_02: And in those seven, eight Psalms, you see God's steadfast love.
SPEAKER_02: You see his sovereign free choice and election of Israel, the covenantal relationship that flows out of that choice that's all there.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 44 cries out to God in prayer: Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.
SPEAKER_02: There's something there.
SPEAKER_02: By this point, the reader ought to be confident of God's love for his own people.
SPEAKER_02: But the best solution, I think, is right there in the text.
SPEAKER_02: That's why there's a Selah there.
SPEAKER_02: For he will receive me.
SPEAKER_02: God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol.
SPEAKER_02: For, so then there's the reason.
SPEAKER_02: For he will receive me.
SPEAKER_02: Selah.
SPEAKER_02: Stop and think about it.
SPEAKER_02: Read it again.
SPEAKER_02: He will receive me.
SPEAKER_02: It's supposed to explode on your minds.
SPEAKER_02: We're not reading it in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_02: It's supposed to explode with wisdom's great eureka of understanding, this aha moment, this light bulb that gives all of life meaning.
SPEAKER_02: Alec Modier writes, there is a death without hope, and there is a death full of hope.
SPEAKER_02: And that word receive is the difference.
SPEAKER_02: He will receive me, the psalmist sings, because he's done it before.
SPEAKER_02: Because he's done it before.
SPEAKER_02: That little word for receive is an ancient word in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_02: You've read it before.
SPEAKER_02: Flip back to Genesis with me.
SPEAKER_02: Back in Genesis chapter 2, the Lord God took the man, received him, took the man, and put him in the garden.
SPEAKER_02: In Genesis chapter 2 and verse 21, he took one of Adam's ribs.
SPEAKER_02: He received one of Adam's ribs.
SPEAKER_02: Chapter 3, verse 19.
SPEAKER_02: God says to Adam, by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken?
SPEAKER_02: Out of it you were received.
SPEAKER_02: For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 23, the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
SPEAKER_02: How does man come out of the dust of the earth after he's returned to it?
SPEAKER_02: He is taken.
SPEAKER_02: It's our word for received back in Psalm 49.
SPEAKER_02: So God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will take me.
SPEAKER_02: Look to Genesis chapter 5.
SPEAKER_02: And look at verse 24.
SPEAKER_02: Enoch walked with God.
SPEAKER_02: And he was not.
SPEAKER_02: For God received him.
SPEAKER_02: And so wisdom's solution is just a logical deduction.
SPEAKER_02: All of humanity owes God an eternal debt for the life they've ruined, but Enoch didn't have to pay.
SPEAKER_02: And Enoch never could have paid.
SPEAKER_02: So how can that be?
SPEAKER_02: Somehow God received him.
SPEAKER_02: God will receive the upright too.
SPEAKER_02: Somehow it has to be possible.
SPEAKER_02: It's our only hope.
SPEAKER_02: We've broken it and cannot buy it.
SPEAKER_02: But the psalmist knows that at least once before, actually twice.
SPEAKER_02: But I don't know if Elijah is before or after this psalm, so we can't use it.
SPEAKER_02: Once before, God bought a redemption, paid a debt, and ransomed someone from the grave.
SPEAKER_02: That is the resurrection hope of the morning light that Daniel will later say so plainly in Daniel chapter 12.
SPEAKER_02: Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.
SPEAKER_02: Some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
SPEAKER_02: Sleeping in the night, awaking in the morning, rising to everlasting life.
SPEAKER_02: God has promised, God has done it before, and he will surely do it again.
SPEAKER_02: That is wisdom's solution to wisdom's complication, to wisdom's answer, of wisdom's answer, to wisdom's riddle.
SPEAKER_02: You with me?
SPEAKER_02: And so don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_02: Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases, for when he dies, he will carry nothing away.
SPEAKER_02: His glory will not go down after him.
SPEAKER_02: For though while he lives, he counts himself blessed, and though you get praise when you do well for yourself, his soul will go to the generation of his fathers who will never again see light.
SPEAKER_02: Dawn, morning.
SPEAKER_02: Will never again see light.
SPEAKER_02: So don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_02: Don't worry about it when somebody else gets rich.
SPEAKER_02: When their house increases in glory.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think any of you are, but if you're an ancient king of Israel, don't fear it when the Prince of Sidon has four sons, almighty warriors.
SPEAKER_02: But if you're about to leave home, start school, start working, be not afraid when somebody is smarter, faster, more successful than you.
SPEAKER_02: All that stuff that makes people caption their social media posts with so blessed, though he counts himself blessed.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let it get in your head.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm underselling it a little bit, if that's my only application.
SPEAKER_02: Underselling it a little bit just to make the point.
SPEAKER_02: But the psalmist does not write, don't envy them.
SPEAKER_02: No, he writes, be not afraid.
SPEAKER_02: Because the wealthy people he has in mind here are those who are ruthless and cruel, even violent.
SPEAKER_02: They're backstabbers and they're treacherous like Judas.
SPEAKER_02: All the wealth they amass in the Psalm is used to oppress you, to persecute you, to do you harm.
SPEAKER_02: And they can't take any of that with them when they go anyway.
SPEAKER_02: It's all just striving after the wind.
SPEAKER_02: So it's even stronger.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Even if you speak of Christ and they reject you, be not afraid.
SPEAKER_02: Be not afraid.
SPEAKER_02: No, you, my friends, set your hope on something that lasts forever.
SPEAKER_02: Store up your treasures in heaven and be rich toward God.
SPEAKER_02: For what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?
SPEAKER_02: What use is the good life if it all gets destroyed anyway?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: You who would be disciples of Jesus Christ, take up your cross daily.
SPEAKER_02: Follow in the footsteps of your Redeemer, preach the good news, engage in good works, await the return of the good shepherd, because that's the good life.
SPEAKER_02: That's what it really means to be blessed.
SPEAKER_02: That is the understanding of verse 20.
SPEAKER_02: The Psalm sets forth a wisdom to live on so that your heart's meditation shall be understanding.
SPEAKER_02: It's the difference between the godly and the ungodly, regardless of wealth.
SPEAKER_02: But especially when it comes to wealth.
SPEAKER_02: Do you ever fear, like I do, that our relative prosperity in the world is just embarrassing?
SPEAKER_02: Does that guilt creep in?
SPEAKER_02: Like we've got more stuff than we really know what to do with.
SPEAKER_02: That pang of conscience is a good sign.
SPEAKER_02: It's one of those early steps on the path of wisdom that understands this: that no material wealth, no earthly success can make us right before God, who could take it all away in a moment.
SPEAKER_02: Remember Job?
SPEAKER_02: Understanding, understanding our position, our mortality, our humanity, that's what makes sense of wealth, of possessions, of houses and cars, grandkids.
SPEAKER_02: That's what makes sense of all of those things.
SPEAKER_02: The wisdom literature, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, they all agree on this point.
SPEAKER_02: What else was the lesson of Job except that the Lord is the blessed one who gives and takes away?
SPEAKER_02: At the end of the book, Job answers the Lord and says, I know that you can do all things that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
SPEAKER_02: I uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
SPEAKER_02: I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you, therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
SPEAKER_02: And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job.
SPEAKER_02: And Job died an old man and full of days.
SPEAKER_02: Surely Job died in great pomp with abundant riches.
SPEAKER_02: He saw four generations of his children.
SPEAKER_02: There has not been another man of understanding like Job who knew his place.
SPEAKER_02: Because knowing our place before a holy God is the wisdom that makes you immune to fear and anxiety when your enemies prosper.
SPEAKER_02: Ecclesiastes concludes this way.
SPEAKER_02: All has been heard.
SPEAKER_02: Enough talk.
SPEAKER_02: Fear God.
SPEAKER_02: Not that other stuff.
SPEAKER_02: I keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
SPEAKER_02: Look down at your Bibles quickly back in Psalm 49 and see that Psalm 50 is written by Asaph.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 51 then begins a new cycle of Davidic Psalms.
SPEAKER_02: Many commentators see Psalm 50 as the conclusion to these nine Psalms, beginning at Psalm 42, this collection of the Psalms of the sons of Korah.
SPEAKER_02: And after the psalmist speaks wisdom in Psalm 49, God Himself steps to the stage in Psalm 50.
SPEAKER_02: He speaks to summon the earth.
SPEAKER_02: Our God comes and he does not keep silence, it says in verse 3.
SPEAKER_02: And I think the last two verses of Psalm 50 give a lot of clarity to the understanding we're seeking from our Psalm this morning.
SPEAKER_02: It says this in verse 22.
SPEAKER_02: Mark this then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart and there be none to deliver.
SPEAKER_02: That's the scary part, right?
SPEAKER_02: But the one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.
SPEAKER_02: To one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God.
SPEAKER_02: I will show the salvation of God.
SPEAKER_02: And then David's repentance in Psalm 51 is put forward as an example of that posture.
SPEAKER_02: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_02: You could get lost in these pages.
SPEAKER_02: And so while our psalmists don't yet know, they haven't yet been shown the full salvation of God.
SPEAKER_02: You have.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Let's conclude there with three observations about how a Christian ought to adopt this psalm.
SPEAKER_02: How a Christian ought to engage this psalm as his own first.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus Christ did these things perfectly, did he not?
SPEAKER_02: The iniquity of those who betrayed him was all about him, all around on every side, even Peter.
SPEAKER_02: And yet he did not fear.
SPEAKER_02: But he understood the will of the Lord to deliver him.
SPEAKER_02: And so in this psalm, Christ Jesus, the wisdom of God is your example of a life of perfect wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: And he leaves behind a wisdom for you to live on.
SPEAKER_02: And so look to his example and do likewise.
SPEAKER_02: Second, we who have beheld the salvation of God and the gospel know that not only is Jesus our example of a perfect life, but Jesus, Jesus is the ransom.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is the payment.
SPEAKER_02: He's your only hope.
SPEAKER_02: It's your only hope.
SPEAKER_02: It's the only way you can pay back the debt you owe.
SPEAKER_02: He deserves your thanks.
SPEAKER_02: If you've been purchased by his blood, redeemed at a price, then you no longer belong to yourself, but your whole life belongs to him in life and in death.
SPEAKER_02: Charles Spurgeon wrote of this psalm: no redemption could man find in riches, but God has found it in the blood of his dear son.
SPEAKER_02: Our elder brother has given to God a ransom, and we are the redeemed of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: So live for him, not for yourself.
SPEAKER_02: Third, and finally, don't be haughty.
SPEAKER_02: Haughty.
SPEAKER_02: Don't be boastful.
SPEAKER_02: Don't trust in your riches.
SPEAKER_02: Don't set your hope on the uncertainty of those things, but rather set your hope on God, who, as Paul wrote, richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
SPEAKER_02: Augustine said of this Psalm's wisdom: God does not want you to lose your wealth.
SPEAKER_02: He simply advises you to change the place where you keep it.
SPEAKER_02: So let goods and kindred go.
SPEAKER_02: This mortal life also, the body they may kill.
SPEAKER_02: But God's truth abideth still.
SPEAKER_02: Wisdom solution is really pretty simple.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_02: Trust in God's Redeemer.
SPEAKER_02: Store up your treasures in heaven where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_02: Because that's wisdom you can live on.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we ask for your mercy and grace that we could continue before you in your service.
SPEAKER_02: Help us not to grow wise in our own eyes, but to depend upon you to remember that our lives are but a mist and a vapor that passes.
SPEAKER_02: And rather to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that or the other.
SPEAKER_02: Teach us to give you thanks.
SPEAKER_02: Teach us to trust in you and you alone.
SPEAKER_02: For you are our solid rock.
SPEAKER_02: You are the redeemer.
SPEAKER_02: You've paid our ransom.
SPEAKER_02: And we surely ought to trust in you.
SPEAKER_02: So be our wisdom, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Go before us, guide us, speak to us according to your scriptures, and help us to set our minds fully on you and to glorify you by imitating you now and forevermore.
SPEAKER_02: For you are our life, and you are hidden in God.
SPEAKER_02: We give you praise and we give you thanks this day.
SPEAKER_02: In your name and for your glory.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.