Day 106

Psalm 49: Read here – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2049&version=NASB

—What money can’t buy.

The teaching of this song is simple and sublime, present, and perpetual. There are 4 kinds of people in the world: poor rich people, poor poor people, rich rich people, and poor rich people. To know God and His salvation is to be rich. Those who do not are poor. Some people know God but are poor in this world’s wealth, but they are rich! Many a person on their death beat will find that gold makes a very hard pillow. They are the poor rich people. This psalm touches the high-water mark of OT faith in a future life. It sets the present prosperity of those who don’t know God in an eternal perspective. 

In the opening stanza (an unusually long introduction; v1-4) the psalmist addresses everyone. He hoped to impress the listeners with the importance of the discussion and guide those who were troubled about the wealth of the wicked and show its folly. If there are 4 kinds of people in the world, there are also four kinds of riches. There are riches in what you have, riches in what you do, riches in what you know, and riches in what you are – riches of character. To begin with, the psalmist spoke of those who are only rich in the first way – the least important kind of wealth. The doctrine of life eternal, and the judgment to come, are here more clearly delivered than almost anywhere else in the OT. Notice v7; Wealth can’t purchase redemption! Notice the contrast (‘he/them’ vs ‘I ’v5-7). Trusting in wealth has an eternal consequence just like trusting in God does. 

Though the Bible presents several godly rich men to us (e.g.Abraham and King David, who by modern measures were probably billionaires), they were men who still trusted in the LORD and made their boast in Him. They did not trust in their wealth or boast in their riches. They were rich, rich people. Wealth deceives us into self-reliance, when in fact it is less reliant than even life. It only takes a pandemic to remind humanity – and Australians in particular – that life is fleeting.