Psalm 50: Rite and Ritual

Introduction

We come now to a very potent expression of the biblical take on blind wealth in the face of inexorable death. As we treat the subject of our riches, let us take care, first, to remember the whole counsel of God on this subject, and let us take even greater care to not allow the whole counsel of God to dilute the force of the text before us.

The Text
“Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: Both low and high, rich and poor, together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding . . .” (Psalm 49:1-20).

Summary of the Text

An invitation to the entire world is extended—give ear to this (v. 1). The teaching applies to all, whether high or low, rich or poor (v. 2). The words to follow are words of wisdom and understanding—the understanding that is lacking in v. 20. The psalmist will hear a parable, and will open up a dark saying as he sings (v. 4). Why should the godly fear when a supplanter is right behind him, right on his heels (v. 5)? There are those who trust in wealth and in the multitude of their riches (v. 6). Not one of these guys can redeem or ransom any of the rest of them (v. 7). The price of immortality is way more than they have (vv. 8-9). Anybody can see that everybody dies, and that everybody leaves their possessions behind (v. 10). But their inward thought is otherwise; they are vain all the way down. They think they can secure a posterity for themselves (v. 11). Nevertheless, rich men still die, just like dogs do (v. 12). But even though this keeps happening, the next generation doesn’t learn a single blessed thing from it (v. 13). Think about this. Death gathers them; death is their shepherd, and the upright will replace them (v. 14). The godly are not claimed by death in a final way at all (v. 15). This also is worthy of meditation. When some fool grows wealthy, and the glory of his house increases—don’t worry about it (v. 16). He is not going to be taking all that with him when he goes, and he will go (v. 17). While he was alive he got a lot of praise, which is to be expected (v. 18). Everybody flatters the rich guy. Nevertheless, he will still descend to join his fathers in darkness (v. 19). An honorable and wealthy man, one who does not understand the wisdom of this psalm (vv. 1, 20), is like the beasts that perish.

A Dark Saying

The third verse here is striking for several reasons. “I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.” It is very similar to Psalm 78:2, which Jesus quotes in Matthew 13:35. This is important for several reasons. Jesus tells dark parables—His teaching was not accessible to the educated, the wealthy, the secure, and the well-established. Psalm 78 is about their failure to understand the meaning of their history, and their failure pass a true understanding on to subsequent generations. This psalm addresses one of the principal reasons for men forgetting their God that way. And Jesus applies it both ways. He is teaching Israel on their threshold of their great judgment, at the climax of their history, and He was doing so while reminding them of the deceitfulness of riches (Matt. 13:22). The Pharisees loved their covenant position, which they misunderstood, and they loved their money, which they also misunderstood. Jesus once told them that they could not serve both God and mammon. “And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him” (Luke 16:14; cf. 12:19). Money is one of the great hermeneutical blinders of men.

The Final and Funniest Folly

In his Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defines a mausoleum as the “the final and funniest folly of the rich.” The sentiment expressed lines up nicely with the theme of this psalm. You have heard it expressed many ways, many times. You can’t take it with you. There are no hitches for the U-Haul behind a hearse.

But being able to rattle off a proverb like this is not the same thing as understanding it. As one Puritan put it, “speaking bad words of worldly riches doth not exempt us from trusting them.” Saying it and getting it are quite different.

This psalm makes the point bluntly enough. A rich banker will rot just as quickly as a dead cow (vv. 12, 17, 20). There is no mutual insurance company that will accept premiums to enable you to forestall death (v. 7). All your goods are simply leased, and death ends the tenure (v. 17). The clown and the sage both die, and they both leave their stuff behind (v. 10). The idolatrously wealthy follow the way of folly, and that is why their posterity build them monuments, and put their sayings in brass (v. 13). The more gold you have, the faster you will sink into the darkness (v. 19). And so we must always remember that all of us must swim the river of death naked. Look at your right hand—in a matter of time, no one knows how long, that same hand will no longer be clothed in flesh. It will be whited bones, and that is all. On that day, all your other stuff—house, car, china, silver, savings accounts, furniture and more—will be in the possession of others. Those others will either be foolish like you, or wise like you. Those are the only two options.

Groundlings

In verse eleven, they call their manicured grounds after their own names. But verse twelve can be rendered, “But the groundlings, in the midst of splendor, do not endure.” Worldlings are of the world. Groundlings are of the ground, and return to it. When someone is a groundling, their thoughts are vain clean through (v. 11). Their inward thoughts make no sense. Like the rich fool in the parable, they talk this way to themselves (Luke 12:19).

High and Low Alike

This psalm is directed to all of us (vv. 1-2). Everyone that breathes needs to hear it. You don’t need to have money to be centered on it, or absorbed by it. Even the wealthy idolater is more absorbed by the money he doesn’t have than the money he does. Rockefeller was once asked how much money he needed, and he said, “Just a little bit more.” If the wealthy can be distracted by money they don’t have, how much more can the poor be? After all, they “don’t have” a lot more.

The God Who Goes Poof

As providence would have it, this message on Psalm 49 is being preached a week or so after a trillion or so dollars in the U.S. economy went poof. Some god. But we do not say these things out of some kind of christoplatonic disparagement of material things. Not in the slightest. The issue here is understanding (v. 20). As for the meek, who will inherit the earth, this is promised us. “The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning” (v. 14). The grave awaits the believer also, but the grave does not triumph over us (v. 15). This is because we have been redeemed, not with silver and gold, but with the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:18).

If your heart is wrong on money, on economics, on wealth and poverty—you cannot be right with God. If your eye is dark, your whole body will be full of darkness. If your eye is light . . .

Introduction

This jubilant psalm is not credited to any particular writer, but the tone and content make it likely that it was written in the aftermath of the great victory over Ammon, Moab, and Edom in the reign of Jehoshaphat—the time he sent the choir out in front of the army.

The Text
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation . . .” (Psalm 48:1-14).

Summary of the Text

First, here are just a few reasons for placing this psalm in Jehoshaphat’s time.
“And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites, stood up to praise the LORD God of Israel with a loud voice on high . . . For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another . . . And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much . . . And he joined himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish: and they made the ships in Eziongeber” (2 Chron. 20:19, 23, 25, 36).

God is great, and is to be praised on the mountain of His holiness (v. 1). The city of Jerusalem is beautiful, and is the joy of the whole earth (v. 2). Her rulers, those who dwell in palaces, know that God is a refuge (v. 3). Confederate kings gathered, and were thwarted (v. 4). The reason they were defeated is because they panicked (vv. 5-6). God broke up the ships of Tarshish (v. 7). As we have heard of God’s faithfulness, so we have seen (v. 8). God has been remembered in His temple (v. 9). God is praised according to His worth; His right hand is filled with righteousness (v. 10). Let the city sing, let her daughters rejoice—because of God’s judgments (v. 11). Walk around Zion and look at it (v. 12). Reflect on the glory, so that you might tell the next generation all about it (v. 13). For this God is our God—the one who will lead us beyond death (v. 14).

In the Mountains of His Holiness

God is certainly great, and we ascribe this to Him by definition. How could He be God and not be great? But if we leave it at the level of theological definition, we will wither as a people. We also must take care to rejoice in the fact that God’s greatness is manifested in His deliverances of His people. He is praised in the city of our God (v. 1). Notice also that He is praised on the mountain of holiness. The city from which He is praised is the joy of the whole earth, and is the beautiful city of the great king (v. 2).

Known in Her Palaces

Notice that this was a time when Israel’s rulers feared God. And not a generic deity either—the palaces of Jerusalem were a place where God was known as a refuge. “And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah” (2 Chron. 20:3). Jehoshaphat was the king, and he humbled himself. He lived in a palace, and he humbled himself. Compare this to our situation—rubes and cornpones in the red states may believe in Jesus, but what about our great urban centers, what about our leaders, what about our sophisticates?

The Glory of Panic

One of the things that God promises us, as one of the terms of the covenant, is that when we are out-gunned, out- maneuvered, out-generaled, and out-classed—and we turn to Him in faith—He will give the gift of panic to our adversaries. This is what happened in 2 Chron. 20:23. These great armies came marching against Zion, and though they came and saw, unlike Caesar, they did not conquer. They assembled, but when they saw the city of God, they were troubled, they fled, and a fearful panic took hold of them—like a woman in travail (vv. 5-6).

God delivered Jehoshaphat this way, and this is referred to in Psalm 48. God delivers us in this way. “This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee” (Dt. 2:25). “And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword” (Lev. 26:8).

But this is not just an “old covenant” thing. “And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them” (Acts 5:12-13).

Walk About Zion

Scriptures are full of the covenant duty that we have to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Walk around Zion—and study her turrets. Examine her palaces, and her walls and bulwarks. And why? So that you can tell it to the next generation. We are to bring up our children in such a way that they have a knowledgeable pride in, and loyalty to, the city of their God. They are not to be shipped off to a boarding school in Babylon so that they can study their turrets.

This God is Our God

Although the first Zion, the earthly Zion, no longer occupies the place it once did, the God of Israel has not changed. All His promises are yea and amen, and they are fulfilled in Christ, the Lord of the New Jerusalem, the new Zion. And this means that all these promises are still in our hearts and mouths, and then some. If the old Zion was to be holy, how much more the heavenly Zion? If her rulers and leaders took refuge in God alone, how much more should this be the case for the ministers and rulers of the new Zion? If God delivered His people in the old covenant by means of sending panics in among their adversaries, why would He stop doing that? And if they were to teach the next generation faithfully, how much more should we be doing so? This is because “this God is our God for ever and ever.”