Psalm 49. For the choir director, a psalm of the Sons of Korah. Hear this, O peoples, give ear all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth will speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart will be understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will express my riddle on the harp. Why should I fear in the days of adversity when the iniquity of my foes surrounds me, even those who trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their riches? No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever, that he should live on eternally, that he should not undergo decay. For he sees that even wise men die. The stupid and the senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses are forever and their dwelling places to all generations. They have called their lands after their own names. But man in his pomp will not endure. He is like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish and of those after them who approve their words, Selah. As sheep, they are appointed for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd and the upright shall rule over them in the morning. And their form shall be for Sheol to consume so that they have no habitation. But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me, Selah. Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dies, he will carry nothing away. His glory will not descend after him. Though while he lives, he congratulates himself. And though men praise you when you do well for yourself, he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They will never see the light. Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, is like the beasts that perish. Well, I have a riddle for this morning. I'm gonna start off with a riddle, and the riddle is this. Some try to hide, some try to cheat, but time will show we always meet. Try as you might to guess my name, but I'm sure you'll know when it's you I claim. Who am I? Well, the answer to that riddle is death. And sorry to be morbid this morning, but this riddle highlights an important truth, and that is, we will all die. Hopefully for all of us, not after a long and fruitful life, but in the end, we will all die. It's the one fact that we all try to ignore for as long as possible, but it is the one fate that we must all face. In fact, the Apostle Paul said it so clearly when he wrote in Romans 5 verse 12, therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. As the saying goes, there are only two things in life that are certain, death and taxes. Now, as we come to Psalm 49, this is the last of the Psalms of the Sons of Korah, at least in this section of the Psalter. And this final psalm is in the form of what they call a wisdom psalm, a proverbial psalm. It has a lot of similarities to what one would see in the book of Proverbs. And in fact, look how this psalm begins in verses one through four, where the psalmist here says, hear this all peoples, give ear all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth will speak wisdom and the meditation of my heart will be understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will express my riddle on the harp. This opens in a lot of ways like what you would read in the Proverbs. And here the psalmist now is calling all people to gather around him as he's about to instruct them with some wisdom. He's about to impart some teaching to them. And he's gonna do so by way of a song or by way of a poem. So as we contemplate the lessons of Psalm 49 this morning, we're really gonna see two basic things this morning. In verses five through 12, we're gonna see first that wealth cannot redeem. that wealth cannot redeem. And then in verses 13 through 20, where wealth cannot redeem, we're gonna see that God can redeem. And the big idea this morning is that we need to trust in the Lord because you cannot trust in earthly riches. Well, the psalmist begins this wisdom psalm by asking a question in verses five and six, as we look at our first point. And the question is this. The question he poses is, why should I fear? And he gives two reasons why we might fear in this world. First, we might fear when the iniquity of my foes surrounds me. And we might also fear when the wealthy boast in the abundance of their riches. Now, this question gets to the heart of a serious concern we so often see with God's people, and that is this. Why do bad things happen to God's people? Why does it seem like the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer? And here, the psalmist acknowledges times when his foes, his adversaries, have surrounded him, or when the wicked who trust in their riches seem to get richer at our expense. Now, it's frustrating for the people of God in any time and in any place to see wickedness go unchecked and to see the righteous mistreated for no apparent reason. Now, as a side note, not to get too political or to assign moral values to our political parties, but it does seem, as we look at the world around us, as we look at the news, as whatever, it does seem that evil is in the ascendancy. Now, maybe people have said this all throughout, every generation sees, you know, the current time is worse than the time when they grew up, but it does really seem as though evil is in the ascendancy. The church, Christian values, our most cherished beliefs are more and more belittled, they're more and more degraded, they're more and more ridiculed, and they're more and more pushed off to the margins of society. Christians here and in other countries are facing criminal prosecution for not violating their religious beliefs. and more and more in our culture, we see or continue to see what the prophet Isaiah himself said so many centuries ago, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. So all the more confusing then when the psalmist asked this question, why should I fear? Again, you look around, you see evil in the ascendancy, but why should I fear? But when evil is in the ascendancy, to whom then can the righteous turn? Where is our hope when we see the wicked surrounding us, when we see the wealthy getting richer at our expense? Well, the answer is to turn to the Lord. We should not fear because the Lord is with us. Psalm 23.4, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Or even better yet, Psalm 27.1, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is my defense of my life. Why should I dread? The dark valleys of life are no match for the one who has the Lord as his shepherd. And if the Lord is your light and your salvation, can you truly fear anything? Well, here in verses seven and nine, we see why we should not fear. And the reason we should not fear is because wealth cannot redeem. All the money in the world, all the money in the world cannot and will not redeem us because no one can give to God a ransom for his soul. As we said in the beginning, regardless of your state in this life, death comes to all men. Doesn't matter if you're low or high, doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, death awaits all men. And that's what the psalmist says in these verses. And he says, moreover, wealth cannot redeem, because he says, no man by any means can redeem his brother. The redemption of his soul is costly. And here we see the folly or the foolishness of trusting in riches to save the day. Because Jesus says in Matthew 16, 26, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? I mean, the question there is, how much is your soul worth? What price tag would you put on your immortal life And quite clearly, there is no price you can put on your soul. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, none of them will be able to redeem their souls for all of the billions and billions of dollars that they have in their bank accounts. They will not be able to redeem their souls because the redemption of their souls is costly. And in case you need a reminder, death awaits us all. That's what the writer of Hebrews says in chapter nine, verse 27. Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and then face judgment. So because the redemption of our soul is costly, the psalmist advises us to cease trying forever. Money, power, influence can open many doors in this life, but it cannot keep you from the grave. An eternal life cannot be purchased with earthly riches. Now, whether they admit it or not, this is the thought that keeps the wicked up at night, their impending death. The foes of God's people see that death comes to all men and it frightens them because as the Psalms say, they see the wise die. They see the stupid and the senseless alike perish. And all the wealth they've accumulated then goes and gets left to others. And in verse 11, we even see that all their feeble attempts to leave a legacy behind. They think their houses are forever. They put their name on everything to no avail. I mean, think about it. How much money do you see people, the rich, give to put their names on the sides of libraries or the names on the sides of buildings or the names on street signs and everything? Or consider some of the elaborate tombs and mausoleums that the wealthy are buried in. But to what avail? As John Calvin said, their desire should be to have their names written in the book of life and to be blessed before God and his holy angels. But their ambition is of another kind, to be renowned and extolled upon the earth. But the sad reality for mankind is that, like the beasts, we all perish. For all of his might, for all of his wealth, for all of his ingenuity, mankind has this much in common with the beasts of the field. We all die. Now the point of this exercise is not to frighten, is not to get morbid, but is to calm the fears of the righteous. Because again, the psalmist begins, why should I fear? Why should I fear in days of adversity? Those who persecute me, those who pursue me, those who treat me unfairly will all meet the same ultimate fate, and that is death. Their great wealth will not redeem them. Their legacy will crumble to dust. Their bodies will undergo decay. And we may be facing all kinds of hardships in this life, insults and ridicules for our faith, persecution for our beliefs, closed doors of financial opportunity for our moral stances. But through it all, we can stand strong and we can not fear. And the reason for our bold stance will become clear as we consider the psalm, other verses in the psalm. But before moving on, I want to make one distinction here that the Bible makes, and that many have made the mistake of seeing the Bible's stance on wealth, and have taken that to mean that simply being wealthy is somehow wrong or evil. And Richard Phillips, who commented on this verse, makes this important distinction. He says, folly consists not in having wealth, but in trusting wealth. and boasting in riches. It's an important distinction. It's not having wealth, it is putting all of your trust in your wealth to save you. Another commentator, James Montgomery Boyce, also weighed in saying, since we are eternal creatures, we ought to focus on how we might prepare for eternity rather than on how we might accumulate increasing wealth here and then perish with it. In fact, the Bible shows this, very many wealthy men. Job was incredibly wealthy. Abraham was incredibly wealthy, and then he passed that wealth on to Isaac, who grew it and became even more wealthy. And then he passed it on to Jacob, who grew that and became even more wealthy. But as always, the issue is not wealth, but where does your heart lie? Where is your heart focused? Again, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal. In the key verse, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So the idea is not having wealth, but trusting it, and that's the folly that this psalmist is trying to get. He says these people trust in their wealth to redeem them, and they find out, they'll find out in the end that their wealth cannot and will not redeem them. Well, the truth of the matter is this. While earthly riches cannot redeem, God can redeem, as we look now at verses 13 through 20. Now notice the differences in this section, in these eight verses, between the they-them language and the me-my language. And the psalmist here is clearly setting up a contrast in this portion of Psalm 49. And that contrast is this, namely, while death awaits all men, their destinations will differ. They-them will go one place, me-my will go to another place. The wicked, The foes of God's people, those who boast in their wealth, are appointed for Sheol. Now, another side note, a few words about Sheol. At its basic level, Sheol is just another word for the grave, where bodies go when they die. But then over time, the thought developed that Sheol, sort of like Hades in the Greek, was the abode of the dead. It was sort of like the underworld, if you will. And in Shales or Haiti, we see the wicked are tormented while the righteous are rewarded. Now back to Psalm 49.14, the wicked here are described as sheep appointed for Shale or the grave. Now when you think of sheep, when you see sheep, what do you think of? When you think of these kind of dumb farm animals that are just, they can't survive without a shepherd, right? Sheep are helpless, they cannot fend for themselves, and that sheep here are being used as an image of the rich and the powerful would be insulting to say the least. These people who thought they were so rich and so powerful in this world who gathered so much wealth and were abusing people here are being described now as sheep being led to the grave. The powerful are now the powerless. And the imagery of sheep speaks of a helpless flock being led to a slaughter of which they are stupidly unaware. And moreover, we see here that death will be their shepherd. That idea there of death kind of leading them on the way to the grave. It's a gruesome image, to say the least. But the psalmist says, this is the way of those who are foolish, in verse 13. See, the fool isn't someone who is dumb or stupid. The fool is someone who is unwise. The fool is someone who despises God. The fool is one who says in his heart, there is no God. And while Sheol awaits the wicked, for the righteous though, there is a different destination in mind. As we look at the last half of verse 14, where he says, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning, and their form shall be for Sheol to consume so that they have no habitation. I love that phrase, the upright shall rule over them in the morning. So whereas in this life, the righteous, the upright, are in the position of the oppressed, the people who are being surrounded by their foes, the people who are being oppressed by the rich and the wealthy and the powerful, here, in the morning, they will rule over them. That is, in the next life, the tables will be turned. We see this prophesied in the Old Testament in Daniel chapter seven and verse 18. Daniel says, but the saints of the highest one, Believers will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever for all ages to come. And then in Malachi, the last prophet of the Old Testament, you, the righteous will tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing, says the Lord of hosts. So the kingdom of God will feature the rule of the saints over all things. The weak, the foolish, the lowly will be the ones ruling and reigning with Christ in the kingdom. The righteous will tread down the wicked in the day of the Lord. And the wicked, who have called their lands by their own names, the wicked who put their names on everything, will in the end have no habitation. They will be homeless in Sheol. And then furthermore, that image in the morning, it's a beautiful metaphor. Again, John Calvin says about this, that in the morning, believers will behold Christ, the son of righteousness, face to face, and the full effulgence of life which resides in him. Now, this turning of the tables we talked about, what does that suggest? Well, first, it suggests that God will repay the wicked for their wickedness. There is no escaping the justice of Almighty God. Their wealth and power, the wealth and power of the wicked will not save them in the day of judgment. God is not gonna be impressed on judgment day if Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates with all their billions comes up and appears before the throne of God and says, look at me, look what I did in this life. God is not gonna be impressed by their bank account. He will not be tempted to pervert judgment. You cannot bribe God, particularly with wealth and the riches of this world. But secondly, the righteous will be vindicated. So the wicked will be repaid for their wickedness, but the righteous will be vindicated. So whatever happens in this life will be made right, and so much more in the age to come. and God is not slack concerning his promises to his people. Now, as we get to Psalm 49.15, we have here what I believe to be sort of the key verse of this entire psalm, where it says, you know, even though death awaits all men, we see that God will redeem the soul of the upright from the power of Sheol. Verse 15, but God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. So in this verse, we see the fate of those who trust not in their riches, but those who trust in the Lord. And no amount of riches, no amount of wealth can redeem the soul from shale, because only God can. That word redeem here speaks of a ransom, or a rescue, or redemption. And in a sense, we're talking about this is something only God can do. Now we need to take a little closer look at what's going on here. Think for a moment of all the religions in this world, all the other faiths in this world. And if they all have one common denominator, it is this. that we somehow, through our own efforts, through our own ingenuity, through our own strength, through our own wisdom, whatever you want to call it, through our own efforts, we somehow redeem ourselves. We somehow ascend the mountain. We somehow earn our way into paradise. But it is Christianity, which is the only faith that simply says mankind plays no part in their own redemption. So in other words, you could put it this way, all the other religions say, what do I need to do? Christianity says, it's already been done. You just need to believe and accept it by faith. God must take the initiative, and the good news is that he does take the initiative. and we see that God will receive me. In fact, that word receive is interesting because you also see it in Genesis 5.24 when it talks about Enoch, Enoch who was righteous and he walked with the Lord and God said to Enoch, I'm gonna take you and be with myself. That verb there, that word to receive is also can be said to be took. God took Enoch and said, I want you with me right now because you're such a righteous man. We also see it in Psalm 73, 24, when God will receive the righteous into glory. God redeems the righteous, and that redemption is accomplished through Jesus Christ. Peter, writing in his first epistle, says, knowing that you were not redeemed by perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way, of life inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb unblemished and spotless. Again, you cannot buy redemption with the riches of this world. Gold, silver, whatever, it doesn't matter. You cannot buy redemption that way. You cannot redeem your own soul that way, but only with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. So then the psalmist then concludes his thoughts in verses 16 through 20. And again, he reiterates that question or that command. Do not be afraid. Do not fear when the wicked prosper in this life. Do not fear or despair when it seems like the unrighteous get ahead. God's justice is not thwarted by death. You cannot escape God's justice. And note also that the wicked will carry nothing away. His glory will not descend after him. I mean, think about it. The thing about accumulating wealth in this life is that the wealthy are so desperate to not lose it, right? I mean, they do everything they can to make sure that their bank accounts, I mean, it's like Scrooge McDuck. You got the big pile of gold and all you do is sit there and you worry about who's got my gold and everything like that. It's not like that. I mean, the pharaohs of old built these elaborate tombs in the pyramids, and they were buried with their riches because somehow they thought they could take it with them into the next life. And in our day and age, look at the great extents to which the wealthy go to protect their wealth. But the psalmist here tells us, he says, what? We will all die, and you cannot take anything with you. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever seen a trailer hitch on the back of a hearse? No, because you can't take anything with you when you go into the grave. But in this life, the rich and the wealthy, they all praise one another on our great accomplishments, but as verse 19 says, the wealthy or the wicked, they shall go to the generation of his fathers, and they will never see the light. All of the praise, all of the accolades of this life mean nothing if you do not have a trust in the Lord. And history is replete with literally thousands of rich and powerful people who go to the generations of their fathers. And the light of this world then turns into darkness for them. And then Psalm 4920, as we end the Psalm, essentially repeats the refrain of verse 12, for all his might, for all his accomplishments, man is without understanding. Unbelieving man refuses to acknowledge God and refuses to acknowledge his fate, yet he is like the beasts that perish. Well, the truth of the matter is that we all die, right? Unless the Lord returns, everyone in this building is going to taste death. And the sons of Korah want to impart to us a wisdom in the form of this psalm here, that though the wicked may surround us, though the wealthy may get richer at our expense, wisdom rests in knowing that death awaits all men. And wisdom also comes in realizing that our hope isn't for a carefree life in this world or obtaining worldly riches. In fact, for the Christian, our hope doesn't rest in this world or the things of this world at all, right? Our hope is in the fact that God can redeem my soul from the power of Sheol. And that's what the psalmist has been trying to teach us. And as we said at the beginning, this is the last psalm of the sons of Korah in this section of the Psalter. And think about how these psalms have sort of progressed, right? We started with Psalm 42, 43, and 44, which talk about the inner turmoil and tormented soul of the person who is sort of depressed and is undergoing some kind of internal oppression. And then we also see how in Psalm 44, he's also seeing oppression from outside. And despite all of the myriad ways in which the people of God can be assailed within and without, the answer is always the same. Put not your trust in earthly riches, but trust in the Lord. And here in Psalm 49, what the psalmist finally comforts us with is that no matter what happens in this life, no matter what happens in the world around you, no matter what happens and how the wicked prosper while the righteous go hungry, that God will finally redeem his people. God will redeem his people. That is the comforting truth. And while Psalm 49 is a wisdom psalm for Christians, true wisdom comes and is found in Jesus Christ. Paul says in Colossians 2.3 that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Christ is the personification of wisdom. And it was Christ himself who told us where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So where is your heart focused? Is it focused on wealth? Is it focused on power? Is it focused on prestige? Is it focused on the things of this world? Or is it focused on Christ in whom are all the riches of knowledge and wisdom? Jim Elliott, who was a missionary to Ecuador and died in service to the Lord, once said, and listen to this, he is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Let me repeat that. He is no fool to give what he cannot keep, earthy riches, you can't take it with you, you're no fool if you give that up, in order to gain what he cannot lose. Eternal life, salvation in Jesus Christ, that is yours. No one can take that from you. And you're no fool to give up the riches of this world to keep what you cannot lose. Or this is just another way of saying what the Apostle Paul said 2,000 years ago, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain, right? In this life, when we die, we pass away, we go to be in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that is pure gain, that's what Paul says. The question to you then, is do you believe this? And does this have an effect on your life? Let's pray.