Man in His Pomp – Psalm 49

INTRODUCTION

Two days ago on Independence Day, you fired up the grill, threw on some burgers and dogs, and immediately, out of now where came the flies. I think when I get to heaven, if God asks me if there’s anything I’d like him to explain I’m going to ask, “Why flies. Lord? Were you tired? Did you slip up and say, ‘fly,’ and they just appeared?”

As nasty and pesky as they are, at least they don’t live long. The common house fly only lives 15-30 days. Some of you are thinking, “That’s long enough.” But if you think that’s short, the housefly’s cousin is the Mayfly. The Mayfly only lives one day, and sometimes as short as thirty minutes; a thirty minute life span. So you start a TV show, and the Mayfly is born, finished high school, college, got his doctorate, married Miss Mayfly, had kids, and was laid to rest, and his tombstone read, “A Life Well Lived,” all before the credits rolled.

How short! In comparison to the Mayfly, our 75 years on the earth may seem long, but if you think about it, our life is no longer relatively speaking. We think our lives are long. We think that death is far off. But when you consider all of history, the thousands of years before us and the thousands yet to come, you realize that the Apostle James was right when he asked:

“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:16)

RAISE THE NEED, SIGNPOSTS, STATE THE DESTINATION

This morning we open our Bibles to Psalm 49 and hear the words of Jesus Christ, the true wisdom of God, speaking t0 all the earth through the voice of the Psalmist. He reminds us that we all face death. We know this is the case, yet we foolishly run from reality. We do not stop and think about our own death. We ignore it. We distract ourselves from it. And Psalm 49 says to us, “Stop ignoring death. It’s inevitable, so you might as well prepare wisely.”

Psalm 49 teaches us:

1. The Inevitability of Death
2. The Folly of Avoiding It
3. The Price of Resurrection

So, hear now the reading of God’s holy, inspired, and life-giving Word in Psalm 48:

THE TEXT:

¹  Hear this, all peoples!

Give ear, all inhabitants of the world,

²    both low and high,

rich and poor together!

³    My mouth shall speak wisdom;

the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.

⁴    I will incline my ear to a proverb;

I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre.

⁵    Why should I fear in times of trouble…

1. THE INEVITABILITY OF DEATH

Classified as a wisdom Psalm, Psalm 49 sounds much like Ecclesiastes. The Psalmist summons all people to listen to him: both the rich and the poor. Whether you have a lot of a little, there is wisdom in this Psalm for you. And what is that wisdom? Death is inevitable. Look at verses twelve and twenty:

Man in his pomp will not remain;

he is like the beasts that perish.

Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.

There it is, repeated for our benefit: death comes for all. The word “remain” in verse twelve literally means, “cannot lodge the night.” In other words, says the Psalmist, there is a coming night for everyone, from which there will be no next morning.

Why does the Psalmist repeat this warning? It’s because we are prone to forget it. Though we know that death is coming for everyone, we ignore it, we avoid it, we don’t think it’s coming for us. We think that our lives are long. Every night we go to bed, we assume we’ll wake the following morning. But our lives are not long. They’re relatively short.

Imagine a junkyard, full of cars, trucks, vans. Some are scattered through a field; grass growing up through rusted out bodies. A backhoe with a hydraulic claw grabs what was once a shiny convertible, drops it into a compactor. Crunch: the once car is now a metal cube, stacked in rows and columns with a hundred others. The clearcoat has worn off from years of harsh sunlight and heat. Glass windows and windshields are broken out and motors have been ripped out, torn apart, and repurposed in newer vehicles. All that’s left are the empty, rusty remains.

Every one of those cars at one time sat on the dealership showroom floor. Men and women talked with salesmen, negotiated and haggled over price, then sweated over payments each month. But no matter how much money the car cost, or how well it was maintained, or how many times the clearcoat was waxed, every single car ends motionless in a field. They do not last. And the same is true with all of us.

As Christians, you and I should not neglect the subject of death for we understand the nature of death. And, if you are not a Christian, let me give you the 90 second Christian theology of death. Romans 5:12 summarizes the entire Bibles teaching on death:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned

First, Death is an Intruder. Death came into the world, not as a part of God’s original creation. It’s an intruder.

Second, Death is a Consequence. Death came as a result of human sin. It’s a consequence. More specifically, it’s a curse from God. If you go back to Genesis 1 later today you will see that God made a covenant with the first man. We call it the Covenant of Works. God placed the first person, Adam, in a garden, and appointed him as a representative over all his natural offspring. God then commanded Adam to work and keep the garden and forbade Adam from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If Adam obeyed, he would have attained the tree of life and lived forever in a state of blessedness.  If Adam failed to obey, he would die both spiritually and physically.

Sadly, Adam failed to love God and instead disobeyed. And because Adam is our covenantal, head or representative, when Adam sinned, so did we. When a curse of death was pronounced upon Adam, it was pronounced on us as well.

Third, Death is Inevitable. It spread to all men, for all sinned in Adam.

So, here we are, under the curse of death. The moment we are born, we are spiritually dead, meaning that we are unable to do spiritual good that merits God’s favor. And the moment we are born we begin walking the path to physical death. It’s inevitable.

2. THE FOLLY OF AVOIDING DEATH

Remember, this is a wisdom Psalm. Verse 3 says:

My mouth shall speak wisdom;

the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.

Throughout the Psalms and especially the Proverbs, Scripture warns us against thoughts and actions which are foolish. And here, the Psalmist says that many people foolishly try to avoid death. They try to ignore and avoid that which is inevitable. That’s the very definition of folly. Avoiding death is like as foolish as trying to avoid gravity or breathing. And yet people try to avoid death.

Psalm 49 warns us against the folly of trusting in riches as a way of avoiding death.

⁵ Why should I fear in times of trouble,

when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me,

⁶ those who trust in their wealth

and boast of the abundance of their riches?

Notice that the issue isn’t wealth per se, but the trust in wealth. The looking to one’s networth as the supreme security in this life and the next. The problem isn’t the money. The problem is reliance on the dollars instead of reliance on the one who granted you the ability and opportunity to get the money. Why?

⁷ Truly no man can ransom another,

or give to God the price of his life,

⁸ for the ransom of their life is costly

and can never suffice,

⁹ that he should live on forever

and never see the pit.

Wealth is a great blessing, and wealth can help you in many situations. But there is no amount of you can use to purchase your own life. There is no ransom you can pay to save yourself from the grave. Elon Musk could not by paying all his wealth to God escape the grave. Death is the great leveler of fortunes. In the end, the mogul and the pauper have the same amount.

Go to the funeral of a wealthy person and ask, “How much did he leave behind?” The true answer is, “Everything.” In the end it doesn’t matter to the one who has died whether he had $100 or $1,000,000.

We would all do well to remember the words of Job after he lost all his material possessions: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.” (Job 1:21)

Verse twelve says:

¹² Man in his pomp will not remain;

he is like the beasts that perish.

 

A rich banker will rot just as quickly as a dead cow.

¹⁰ For he sees that even the wise die;

the fool and the stupid alike must perish

and leave their wealth to others.

¹¹ Their graves are their homes forever,

their dwelling places to all generations,

though they called lands by their own names.

No matter how many lands you amass, in the end everyone owns a 6’ plot. Your goods are leased. The clown and the sage both die. You can own all the dust of the earth, but in the end, dust is all you will be.

¹³ This is the path of those who have foolish confidence;

yet after them people approve of their boasts. Selah

The rich die, but the folly of trusting in riches lives on. The appeal of power and possessions is so great that their foolishness will find willing followers from age to age.

Friends, we would all do well to remember the word of Jesus Christ:

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The logic is simple: if you set your heart on anything in this world; if riches is where you tap joy, you are setting yourself up for heartache.

You are to receive every material blessing God sends your way with gratitude. You are to enjoy every good thing God gives and be generous. Riches are a creaturely blessing. But the moment they become the object of our trust we’re walking the path of folly which can only end in sorrow and loss.

So, look at your right hand—in matter of time, no one knows how long, that same hand will not longer be clothed in flesh. It will be withered bones and that is all. And on that day, all your stuff—your home, car, watches, savings accounts, and every last book and button will belong to someone else. And they will either be foolish like you or wise like you.

3. THE PRICE OF RESURRECTION

 

What’s the price of resurrection? The Psalmist writes in verse seven:

⁷ Truly no man can ransom another,

or give to God the price of his life,

⁸ for the ransom of their life is costly

and can never suffice,

There’s no financial deal you can cut with God to avoid death. And yet, the Psalmist puts his trust in the Lord:

¹⁵ But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,

for he will receive me. Selah

He believes with full confidence, that though he cannot make a deal with God for his own life, God can and God will. What can this possibly mean?

I believe this is what the Psalmist speaks of in verse 4 when he writes:

⁴ I will incline my ear to a proverb;

I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre.

Here is the riddle of Psalm 49: you can’t make a deal with God for your own life, but God can make a deal with himself for your life.

The Psalmist doesn’t explain how this is possible. He just knows that it’s true. He cannot tell us the terms of this deal, but he knows it can be done. Yes, death is inevitable for both the righteous and the wicked. No death cannot be avoided. The grave awaits the Psalmist himself, but he knows that somehow, the grave will not triumph over him.

What is this ransom that God will one day pay? Friends, this is the passage Jesus Christ is referencing when he said:

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

Here is the answer to the riddle. God doesn’t simply pay the ransom. God himself, in the person of the eternal Son Jesus Christ, is the ransom.

This is why the Apostle Peter says that we “were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18, 19a)

The Scriptures teach that where Adam was disobedient, Jesus Christ obeyed. And though he deserved life, he received death.

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous… ²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Friend, hear me out: though death comes to every child of God, death no longer has victory of over them.

Just as surely as God did not abandon Jesus Christ to the grave, but raised him on the third day, so to will he ransom every one of his children from death’s domain when Christ returns. That right hand, which will one day wither and be buried beneath the earth will one day be made alive again, and clothed in a glorified body which will never age, will never break, and will never die.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

                        “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

                        “O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 5:54-56