The Wisdom Psalms

Gracious Father, we come again into your presence as your students to learn. And Lord, we pray that Your Word may speak richly, deeply to us. We pray, Lord, that we may learn a life of rest in You to know You better. And also we pray, Father, that as a result of this course, we may not only learn that You are dependable, but we may learn also what You are doing, what Your purpose on earth is, and that we may relate to it. We pray, Lord, that we may be able to see more clearly the errors of our choice which are apart from Your heart and Your mind, the errors of our prayers which tend to be self centered and self seeking, and that we may align ourselves more clearly in the name of Jesus Christ. May we represent Him better. May we be more effective because we are more on target and more dependent upon You, the author, and the finisher of our faith. We commit our hour of learning together to You in Christ's name we pray, amen. This will be the next to the last lesson on the Psalms, and next week we will conclude the study of the Psalms, and we will consider the royal Psalms in particular, and specifically I would like to consider Psalm 101 and Psalm 110, so you may want to be reading those during the week. Tonight I have chosen as the topic of our lecture the Wisdom Psalms, and I would like to begin with the verse in Jeremiah chapter 18, and verse 18, I must confess in a bad way, I left my marked up Bible for this lecture on my desk evidently at school, and I picked this beautiful Bible, if anybody knows and Michael Martin off the rack out there, you never fall lost the Bibles out there, so if you find the faltering and hesitantly, you know what my trouble is, but let's turn to Jeremiah 18 and verse 18. And the opposition to Jeremiah says then said they come, and let us devise plots against Jeremiah, for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet, come and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words. Now indirectly we learned here what we would know elsewhere from Scripture, that God used three basic instruments for revealing his mind, his word to his people. The first one we read of here is the priest, he was one instrument that communicated the word of God. The second one was the wise man, the wise, it simply says, we call him the sage or the wise, and the third is the prophet, and we're also told the exact nature of their revelatory ministry, the kind of word they gave to the people. The priest taught the people the law, that is Moses had given the law, but according to the Torah it was the responsibility of the Levites to teach the law to the people. The wise person gave counsel, were told, nor counsel from the wise, and the prophet gave the word of God, that is he gave new revelation and interpreted their historical situation in which they found themselves. So these are the three principal instruments in the midst of God's people, now all of them by the time of Jeremiah had become corrupt, and so they would be destroyed, but this is the left over from what was the institution of God, the priest who gave law, the wise man who gave counsel, and the prophet who gave the word. Actually all three are concerned about the future, for the future is ethically conditioned by keeping Torah from the heart, it God had promised prosperity, the wise man gave counsel who would show you how to walk as well for the future, and the word of God also pertained to the future interpreting the present situation and how it would turn out. But tonight we want to look at some psalms, some hymns composed by the wise men of Israel, who from a stance of faith looked at life almost like a sociologist or like a psychologist like a behavioral scientist, he looked at life, but with the vantage point of faith and gave counsel to the people of God. Now there are several psalms that are recognized as coming from the wise men of Israel, and I took this at a Bernhard-Andeson's book, these are so-called wisdom psalms, psalms 36, Psalm 37, 49, 73, 78, 112, 127, 128, and 133. And if you read some of these psalms, especially Psalm 37, it will sound very much like the book of Proverbs, and then you can read these on your own. And tonight I want to center our attention first of all on Psalm 49, so if you have the Bible, will you turn with me to Psalm 49, which appears to be from a wisdom approach, though by the sons of Korah. Now we have said, as a very fundamental point in these lectures on the psalms to understand them, that the unifying element is the concept of the establishment of the kingdom of the rule of God. And next week we want to look at psalms that sing of the hymn, who rules over the kingdom of God, who is ruling his people. What we saw last week, for example, the enthronement psalms, envisioning the day, when God would come and carnit as king and rule upon the earth. And all the way through the course, we've been focusing the psalms around that basic concept of the establishment, the breaking in of God's kingdom, of God's rule. And one of the problems that immediately confronts us is that as we look around us, we do not see the rule of God, that instead of seeing God's rule, to a large extent we see evil exalted in high places, and we don't seem to see very frequently righteousness and justice, and even the godly man, instead of experiencing barricade, instead of experiencing blessing, he seems to experience discipline, reversals, misfortune, sometimes it seems almost as though he's under a curse. This problem of the presence of evil, and the answer to it is known in theology as theodicy, comes from two Greek words, dickey-all, which means to judge or to vindicate and fathos God, meaning to vindicate God, but the wise men are very concerned with the problem of the apparent inequities of life that the righteous people apparently suffer. For example, if you turn to Job, one of the wisdom books, obviously, Job gives the classic expression to this dilemma, to his perplexity, that he who is a righteous man has experienced terrible affliction, disappointments, reversals, both in his home, his wife has spiritually divorced to self from him, he's experienced economic reversals, he's lost everything he owned, and he experienced reversal of health, he lost his sound body, social reversals, he's no longer respected in the community, and he, above all writers of the Old Testament, articulates the problem which we all feel deep within us, that it seems as though sometimes the godly instead of prospering, the godly are the ones who suffer misfortune and reversals. And he comes to the climax of his speech and lame, bear this problem in his last of three cycles of speeches in Job, chapter 30 and 31. And if we were to look at chapter 30 and about, verse 16, having well, in verses 1 through 15 of chapter 30 of the book of Job, he tells us of the prominence, the stature he once had in the community, and now in verses 15 through 31, he laments the reversal, and he says in verse 16 of chapter 30, and now my soul is poured out upon me, the days of affliction have taken hold upon me, my bones appear to me in the night season, and my sinews take no rest, by the great force of my diseases, my garment changed, it bindeth me about like the collar of my coat, he had cast me into the mire and I had become like dust and ashes, and we could read through the rest of the passage. And in chapter 31, he protested this, he protested that this is all undeserved sufferings. And one series of speeches after another, he tells us, first of all, that he was morally pure, morally clean, in his sexual life, verse 1 of chapter 31, I made a covenant with my eyes, why then should I think upon a maid? Then he says again in verse 5, if I have walked with vanity, or if my foot had hastened to deceit, let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity. Verse 9, if my heart had been deceived by a woman, or if I have laid weight at my neighbor's door, then may poetic justice be rendered to me. He says in verse 13, if I did despise the cause of my man's servant, or of my maid's servant, then they contended with me, what then shall I do when God rises up, and when he visited what shall I do, answer him. Verse 16, if I have withheld the poor from their desire, that is, I have not met the needs of the poor, I have not been socially involved, or socially concerned, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fathers have not eaten of it. And so forth, he protested that he was involved in social causes, he was an upright man of integrity, and yet he experiences tremendous reversals in his life. At the end of his speech, he lays down the gauntlet almost to the effect, I dare God to answer me. And of course, the problem with Job is not what he's done outwardly, but what is now laid bare in Job is his who breathes, his pride, his arrogance. He has set himself up as his own little tin god, defying God. He is intellectually right, but he is spiritually wrong, because later on Job says, everything that Job spoke is the truth, that's the way life is, but his spirit is wrong. And that's a difficult distinction to make in our own living. It is one thing to see things critically and see they're wrong. It's another thing to keep your spirit from becoming bitter, negative as Job's spirit did. Well the wise men are concerned with this apparent problem, and we have all asked the question, why did God allow this to happen to me and why the evil and so forth? Now Psalm 49 addresses itself to something of this problem, that addresses itself to the apparent problem of the prosperity of the wicked. And sometimes, though the Psalmist says no lament, he's just as aware that he's surrounded by evil people who want to take advantage of him, who want to take the advantage over him. One can see this in verses five and six, and he says in the Psalm 49, wherefore should I fear in the days of evil? When the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about. As you know, if you're reading the NASB, I think it says when the iniquity of my foes is it there, but it means it's from the Word Jacob, Jacob is the Hebrew here. It means when the iniquity of those who would supplant me, of those who would treat me unethically, would take advantage of me. How shall I respond in the midst of wicked unethical men who are apparently prospering? Now that's a very real problem, I'm sure, to all of us, as we look at life around us and we believe there is a moral God in this universe, yet in reality, as you look about you, it seems as though wicked people prosper materially on every hand. You see it in business, you see it in school, the kids who are willing to cheat on the examinations, sometimes we'll get the scholarships, we'll get the advancements, the men who are willing to engage in, we'll say a contractor who is willing to put in inferior goods will get the job and make the profits. This is a very real problem on how to compete in an unethical society and it looms all around us. So this question of the apparent prosperity of the wicked that the Psalmist addresses himself and he gives us an answer as to how to look at life in this moral dilemma and this problem in which we live. Now the Psalm falls into two basic parts. We have an introduction to his message in verses one through four and then we have his basic message, his basic counsel, his basic teaching based on the observance of life in verses five through twenty. Let us look first of all then at the introduction to the Psalm we read, here this all ye peoples give ear all ye inhabitants of the world both low and high, rich and poor together. Now in these two verses we're told something about the address ease to whom the Psalm is addressed and two points should be made here. The counsel this wise priest has to give the counsel is for all peoples. It pertains to everybody he makes that very clear here this all ye peoples give ear all ye inhabitants of the world both low and high, rich and poor together. And as we shall see the low shall be comforted and the high shall be warned the rich shall be sobered and the poor shall be consoled as a result of his message. But in this tension of life there is a message for both those who are rich and for those who are poor. We might also notice not only that it's for all peoples but he's urgent that his message be heard. Let's write out here this give ear pay attention to what I'm about to say and I'm reminded of Proverbs 120 wisdom cryeth without she uttereth of voice in the streets in the chief places of concoct she makes her voice heard true wisdom wants to be heard and the trouble is that in this cosmos in the world system this wisdom is suppressed that the wisdom of God which we will hear here will not be seen on television it will not be read in the newspapers it will not be seen in our magazines it's here and it's true wisdom is crying to be heard. Now in verses three and four we're told something of the author of this Psalm in verses one and two of the introduction the addresses and then in three and four the author two points about the author let us read the verses my mouth shall speak of wisdom the I would translate hey good here in Hebrew and the utterance of my heart shall result in understanding I will incline mine ear to a parable I will open my darks saying upon the heart here we learn first of all that this is indeed a wise man notice the words he uses to describe his message first of all he says my mouth shall speak of wisdom you may recall some of you when I spoke on Proverbs one time I developed this beautiful Hebrew word wisdom it's the Hebrew word is Hakhma it's felt like this Hakhma and it basically means to have a skill is it's basic meaning for example I like to illustrate it from Exodus 28 and the Seamster the Taylor who made Aaron's finally wrote Garmin the kind of man that could take the flags and spin it into linen he could weave it into the broad cloth with the warp and the wolf he could put it in the dies of the blue and the purple and the skull that he could fit it to Aaron's body he was a tailor and the Bible says he was filled with the spirit of wisdom Hakhma he had a skill a towel it's used of a highly of in Exodus 36 who could build the tabernacle exactly according to the pattern that was shown him he could cut down the trees he could he could debark them he could cut plain them he could cut them he could fit it all together he was filled with the spirit of wisdom and as it comes over into the wisdom literature into the later literature of the Bible it means to have the skill of living life so that as you live your life there is a beauty about it and when we have completed life we when we have finished life we will have done something worthwhile we would have produced something profitable the wisdom then is the skill of living life well and he's basically concerned that the hero will live his life with skill in the midst of an unethical age in which the unethical rich are prospering and yet within that context so you do not say when you're in Rome you have to do is the Romans do or you have to fight fire with fire and our philosophy would become well if they do evil then I must also do evil in order to communicate and therefore you would live your life like a senseless beast he doesn't want us to fall into that trap so he's going to give us a philosophy of life that will lead to the skill of living not only will he speak of wisdom but he tells us secondly and the meditation of my heart shall result in to note it shall result in insight understanding when he's finished you will have a new insight and a new understanding about life itself especially in the problem of the theatrical problem of the presence of moral evil in a righteous under righteous God this comes through again in another wisdom Psalm which is very much on the same point and I'll simply read through it where this Psalmist also gives us insight in the similar situation you may wish to turn with me to Psalm 73 and we'll just read through the Psalm a Psalm they said he begins by saying a confession of faith truly God is good to Israel even to such as our of a clean heart and that's a affirmation of faith and the right theology but as for me my feet were almost God my steps had almost slipped that is I had almost lost the way of faith of trusting in God and believing in a moral world I'd almost lost the whole thing for I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked for there are no pangs in their death but their strength is firm they are not in trouble as other men neither are they plagued like other men and of course he uses a hyperbole here and this is the way some people seem to go through life totally defying God disregarding God and they live to old age and perfect health and prosperity therefore pride compasses them about like a chain violence cover them like a garment their eyes stand out with fatness they have more than heart could wish but they are corrupt and they speak wickedly they openly speak of oppression they speak loftily that is they set their mouth against the heavens and their tongue walketh through the earth therefore his people God's people return here that is to the temple and waters of a full cup are wrung out of them that is God's people are like fountains of tears like a Jeremiah as they often are the oppressed and they come to God with their lament and the wicked say in verse 11 how does God know is their knowledge in the most high that is their like deus God created the world and he walked away from it but the thing God is actively involved about moral wrongs and injustices just isn't true to experience behold verse 12 these are the ungodly who prosper in the world they increase in riches verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence for all the day long have I been plagued chasing every morning if I should say I will speak about this behold I should offend against the generation of thy children I can't articulate reality let's other people's feet might slip with mine when I thought to understand this it was too painful from me until I went into the sanctuary of God then understood I their end that is in the sanctuary of God he saw the eternal moral logiver who there he received the insight the understanding the realization that our moral God transcends all time and when time is finished ultimately moral justice will be realized upon the earth that is it's sort of like the law of gravity you can throw a ball up and for a while it is defying the law of gravity but eventually it must come down and it's only when you see the whole thing that you see the law of gravity in effect there is for a moment apparently no law of gravity and as you look at the wicked for a while they are defying God's moral law in this universe but that moral reality is just as sure as the law of gravity it is inherent within the nature of God and his universe and it's only when you see the whole that life takes on it's true perspective and it's there in the sanctuary where God is revealed the God who transcends time and his the moral logiver that he receives a full comprehension verse 18 as he sees it completed at its final doom surely doubted set them in slippery places thou castest them down into destruction as he looks at kingdoms and histories they've common they've God and ultimately it leads us to the end time when God will write or wrongs how are they brought into desolation as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors as a dream when one awakened it's so old God when thou awakened the shalt despise their image thus my soul was grieved and I was pricked in my heart so foolish was I and ignorant I was like a beast before thee with my rantings about almost my foot slipped when I took my eyes off you nevertheless even though I made a big mistake and I was thinking wrong for the moment nevertheless I am continually with thee God would hold him he could not slip eternally thou has held me by my right hand thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory some people say there isn't resurrection in the Psalms I really don't know what this means if it doesn't mean that afterward thou shalt receive me into glory whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee my flesh and my heart fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever for low they that are far from thee shall perish thou hast destroyed all those who play the holiday parting from thee but it is good for me to draw near to God I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all thy words and so he has an insight and understanding when he sees it in its total perspective this psalmist also is going to give us understanding in the light of the apparent phenomenon of the prosperity of the unethical rich the fourth or third word he uses for his message in verse three he said my mouth shall speak of wisdom I will give the skill of living life well I will give you an insight into the reality of life and now the third message third word in verse four and for 49 is I will incline my ear to a parable that is a mashal he's going to give us a an analogous thought an illustration that will expose a fundamental reality about living life sort of like Ben Franklin gave us many mashals for example a stitch in time say it's nine a little illustration from sewing that gives you a skill for living life that if something is wrong repair it immediately because if you procrastinate it will only get worse sort of an idea and a stitch in time saves nine is a mashal and he's going to give us a mashal a simple illustration the fourth word he uses I will open my darksane upon the harp the fourth word then is a darksane which means a riddle it will be a riddle and we're going to have to think upon his simple little illustration so far then we've learned that he is a wise man he's going to give us wisdom insight it's going to be by a parable and yet something of a riddle we also learn here that this is an inspired man notice how he puts it in verse 4 I will incline my ear to a parable this will be divine revelation because true wisdom is not in the heart of rebellious cowardly man we just don't have it at this point I'd like to drop back since I'm dealing something with wisdom literature I'd like to drop back to one of the most beautiful hymns to wisdom which again is found in the book of Job Job chapter 28 so if you'll turn with me there to Job 28 which is just before Job's last speech he gets one of the most beautiful poems about wisdom and well I think in all of the literature in the first 12 first 11 verses he shows how man has knowledge how man has technical skills in order to bring the earth under his dominion that his man is brilliant scientifically but he is utterly stupid theologically is the point and to depict how man can be so brilliant in technology and in science he describes what must have been the latest achievement in his day of technical engineering instead of sending a spacecraft to the moon the latest technology evidently was learning how to mine out the mountains where there is no light damning up the floods and an engineer of mining so he says in verse 1 surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for the gold where they refined it iron is taken out of the earth and bronze is smelted out of the stone speaking of man's gifts in metallurgy man sets an end to the darkness that is as he digs down into the minds of the mountains he sets an end to the darkness he searches out all perfection the stones of darkness and the deep glue the flood break it out from the inhabitant even the water is forgotten by the foot they are dried up they are gone away from men as for the earth out of it come with bread and under it is turned up as it were fire the stones of it are the place of sapphires and it has the dust of gold there is a path down there which no foul knoweth in which the falcons eye had not seen the lions welps have not trotted it nor the fierce lion passed by it but man put it forth his hand upon the rock he overturneth the mountains by their roots he cut it out rivers among the rocks and his eyes see it every precious thing he bindeth the floods from overflowing and the thing that is hidden bringeth he forth to light that's man's technology he can get gold and silver and iron and bronze and mineral wealth but when it comes to wisdom the skill of living life burst well but where shall wisdom be found it's so true to man with all of our technology with our jet propulsion with all of our gadgets were on the point of annihilating ourselves that's man left to himself he doesn't know how to live his life but where shall wisdom be found burst well where is the place of understanding man knoweth not its price neither is it found in the land of the living the depth sayeth it is not in me and the sea sayeth it is not with me and this wisdom it cannot be gotten for all the gold that's mined out of the mountains with money it cannot be gotten for gold neither shall silver be weighed for the price of it it cannot be valued with the gold of offer with the precious onyx or the sapphire the gold and the crystal cannot equal the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold no mention shall be made of coral or of pearls for the price of wisdom it's above rubies the topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it neither shall it be valued with pure gold once then comeeth wisdom and where is this place of understanding seen it is hidden from the eyes of all living and kept close from the fowls of the air destruction and avidon sayeth we have heard its fame with our ears god understandeth its way and he knoweth the place of it for he looked at to the ends of the earth and he seeeth unto the whole heavens to make a weight for the wind and he weigheth the waters by measure when god made a decree for the rain in a way for the lightning of the thunder then did he see it and declare it he prepared it yeah he searched it out man could search out gold but not wisdom but god knows wisdom he searched it out and on to man he said behold the fear of the Lord that is skillful living and depart from evil is insight into what life is all about but the point is it is not native to the heart of man it needs a revelation all right let's turn back then to Psalm 49 having seen the introduction yes the fear of the Lord yes I think if you don't mind here at adenoi it has a certain let me give you basic nuances to it it means first of all a recognition that god is all powerful it's an awareness of his greatness it's an awareness that he is creator god omnipotent moral righteous and all powerful and it refers to not only that objective reality of seeing god for who he is but our subjective response in which we submit to him that is in recognition of the reality of who god is you have several options one option would be to just defy god which is others insanity that's not fear of god that's the opposite of the fear god that's with the high hand against god but the fear god you have one of two options there when you see god and his greatness and his awfulness one option you have is to just run away from him and just get out of this presence but that isn't what this means the other option is to entirely submit your life to him in trust and dependence upon him it has actually the other reversal psychological thought to it that you throw yourself independence upon god that is you you recognize how great he is who you are a sinful man and you throw yourself on him for mercy and to depend upon him and submit your life to him these are the basic ideas in the fear of god is that helped to clarify it is really fear but it ends up really as trust that grows out of it that I have no place to turn who I by heaven who do I have in heaven but you and I throw myself on god and that's the fear of the Lord

any other questions before we move on all right so we've had the introduction then it's for all peoples and we've had a word about this psalmist he's a wise man in verses three and four and he is an inspired man now you'll notice as the psalm progresses we now are left with 16 lines of poetry verses five through twenty and the psalm falls into two equal parts eight lines in the first half eight lines in the second half the key to the psalm is we're looking for a proverb an analogy an illustration and you'll notice it's found in both the middle of the psalm at the end of the psalm notice verse 12 nevertheless man being in honor does not endure he is like the beasts that perish he says it again in verse 20 man that is an honor and understand it not is like the beasts that perish now the key to this is this word he is like the beasts that perish and that is repeated twice both after eight lines if you count it five to twelve you get eight lines you could underscore there's your proverb your parable he is like the beast that perish and again at verse 20 is like the beast that perish that is the word translated he is like I said the critical word here is parable is masal which looks like this and it means parable the word translated he is like in Hebrew is nim shal this makes it passive he is like it's a same word masal he is like and that's the key to the song he is like this unethical rich man is like the beasts that perish in fact between line 12 and line 20 there's only one word difference notice nevertheless man being in honor abide if not notice verse 20 man you could translate instead of those italics that is you could say man being in honor and understand it not the difference is the difference of one letter in the Hebrew text the word translated man being in honor abide it not the Hebrew word abide it not is yalim like this this is the word translated abide it not I hope you able to follow me in the n a s b all right are you with me in the n a s b abide it not and then in verse 20 man that is an honor and understand it not the Hebrew word for understand it not is yadim equals understand it not you can see here I'm to get the at the gist of our song I have to go into this a little bit is the difference of one letter and it's very deliberate it's very carefully embroidered effect that is this is no tirade against wealth it's against a man who is wealthy in an unethical way who doesn't understand while life is put together it's the man who's gotten confused about material possessions it is one thing to make material possessions the purpose of living it's another thing to see material possessions as the result of serving God if we make material possessions are objective then that becomes idolatry it destroys us spiritually but if we make God our object of living seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness then all these things shall be added to you that's living life with understanding it's all the difference in the world between purpose and result and that's what the psalm is talking about it's talking about a man who doesn't have understanding who's making money material things regardless of ethical practice that's his aim that's the man without understanding and it's to that that psalm addresses itself now in the first half of the psalm is there any question about what I've said there just then is that clear to us I think it should be pretty much fundamental truth now in the first section of the psalm he shows that this man's glory which he has accumulated his wealth is very very temporary that is he's using a very simple illustration familiar to all of us I'm sure we've all driven down the highway we've watched the steer or the bowl or the cow out in the field and it eats and eats and eats it's just an animal and it's gratifying every appetite he has so also is a man who lives his life just gratifying every appetite he has like an animal of the field until he's just surfated with wealth he's indulged himself in every way he's just like the animal of the field but is there anybody who envies that steer out in the field none of us envy him because we know he's going to the shambles we know he's going to the butcher shop and he's going to be slaughtered and I wouldn't exchange places with that steer who's going to get on a railroad car or on a truck and go to the butcher shop I wouldn't change places with him for all the world even though he seems to have a life of complete carefulness and just indulging himself totally so also is the unethical man who's just indulging himself but he's without understanding he doesn't realize he's going to a butcher shop because he is living his life defying or even ignoring a moral righteous God in this universe you cannot defy the moral law give it and get away with it it's inevitable and therefore he says his glory his his enjoyment it is all very very temporary and he develops this in verses five and six and he says in verse five wherefore should I fear in the days of evil when the iniquity of those who would compete on ethically with me are all around me they that trust in their wealth boast themselves in the multitude of their riches none of them come by any means redeem his brother nor to give God or ransom for him and really we should jump down to verse nine that he should continue to live forever and not seek corruption and he says verse a parenthetically for the redemption of this soul is precious it's it's he should cease trying forever verse 10 he see it that wise men die likewise the fool in the stupid person perish and lead their wealth to others just looking at life he just passes it he just dies and passes it on to somebody else and yet he thinks inwardly they're in with thought verse 11 is that their houses shall continue forever they're dwelling places to all generations they call their lands after their own name somehow or another seeking an immortality that is fleeting and impossible why to name buildings after yourselves or to name streets after yourself or to try to have a piece of land bearing your name or even having a boy to carry on your name or something to achieve that kind of immortality you might just as well write your name on water it is inevitably doomed it just does not continue and carry on I like to illustrate this from the story that Dr. Walward told me and even though he's the president of our seminary and I greatly respect him because he's a very truthful man I don't don't think the story is true but you judge it for your own for your own judgment anyway the story is told about a man to whom an angel appeared and it's not in the apostolic age as you'll see anyway the angel appeared to him and sort of like with Solomon the angel said to this man I'll give you anything you wish and as the man thought about it he said what I want I want the newspaper one year from today his request was granted he was given the newspaper one year from that day and he immediately turned to the stock market page and he studied the stock market page he knew the glamour stocks the blue chips the standards he knew them all he knew he had them all memorized all thousand whatever there are he knew which way everything was going and in his mathematical mind he was just calculating what a killing he was going to make by his investments thinking how rich he would become when his eye happened to glance over on the opposite page and there he saw his picture in the obituary column and he lost all interest in the stock market page now that is what the song is teaching that it is our pictures of all of us are in an obituary column in tomorrow's newspaper and when you get that perspective you'll live life differently you'll begin living it with skill and you'll see that the unethical rich man is glory is very very temporary and then the second half the song he says and his doom by contrast to the righteous who stay themselves upon the god of israel who has revealed himself in isic abraham isic and jacob the god who has revealed himself through the prophets and incarnate in jesus christ that they will rise in the morning of a new day when the moral of god is finally realized in you see the totality so he says in verse 13 this their way is their following yet their posterity approved their sayings that is everybody sees this it's an obvious fact of life and yet each new generation comes along and follows their exact same course all over again which is absolute folly verse 14 like sheep they are laid in sheol death shall shepherd them but the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning and their beauty shall consume in sheol far from their dwellings but god will redeem my soul from the power of the grave of sheol for he shall fetch me salah now i don't obviously this resurrection in the Old Testament here god is going to fetch me out of sheol when the righteous in new day of god's reign and god's glory they that sleep in the dust then you'll chapter 12 and verse 2 shall rise out of the dust when the king is enthroned and moral judgment is exercised upon the earth we are here learning that the righteous who have submitted themselves to god will be there with him in his glory Abraham Isaac and Jacob will be there Matthew chapter 8 in verse 18 and we will reign with him forever and forever when the grand community when righteousness is finally established upon the earth so everything we've been reading about the reign of god the enthronement of god the righteous who have submitted themselves to the rule of the gospel they will rise and rejoice in him verse 16 be not thou afraid when one is made rich when the glory of his house is increased for when he died he shall carry nothing away his glory shall not descend after him for while he lived he blessed his soul and men will praise you when you do well to yourself he shall go to the generations of his fathers they shall never see the light man that is in honor and understandeth not he has liked the beast that perish all right well that's Psalm 49 one of the great wisdom Psalms do you have any we have just two minutes left I was hoping maybe I could do another Psalm if there isn't any time do you have any questions about this or any comments all right let's conclude then with the word of prayer gracious father we thank you for your moral law and thank you lord that though we're vile sinners and all of us apart from your grace are without understanding we have no wisdom we wander in darkness we grow like blind men we have lived for cutie dolls on a midway fair we have lived for the tinsel on a Christmas tree we have lived for littleness of life all of us have like sheep go astray every one of us and apart from your grace who could stand but lord we thank you that your light had shined in our hearts and you brought us to the revelation of Jesus Christ we have believed in our hearts that you have raised him from the dead we have identified and believed in you and trusted you and your promises are sure and verity we thank you lord that we no longer walk in the way of darkness but in the way of light in conformity with your own heart and will thank you for your great grace to us wayward helpless sinful men in Jesus name amen