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Bible preaching from the pulpit of Choice Hills Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina
Alright, Psalm 49 tonight, we are going to,
let's just read the Psalm to begin.
Interesting Psalm, different.
It's so interesting when you read through the Psalms
methodically like we've been doing,
what you find is there's a lot of things that repeat.
But then you also come across some Psalms
like we see tonight that are nothing
like the rest of the Psalms.
They kind of stand alone.
The Psalm tonight, Psalm 49, is more,
if I were to just read it, you would think it's refer,
you would think this Psalm would be found
in the book of Ecclesiastes.
Because it's nothing like the other Psalms
in its content.
And it is a Psalm, verse four mentions
that the Psalm is a dark saying upon the harp.
So this was written to music originally.
But anyhow, it's more like the book of Ecclesiastes.
So Psalm 49, verse number one, the subtitle says,
To the chief musician, a Psalm for the sons of Korah.
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.
I will incline mine ear to a parable.
I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil
when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves
in the multitude of their riches,
none of them can by any means redeem his brother,
nor give to God a ransom for him.
For the redemption of their soul is precious
and it ceases forever.
That he should still live forever and not see corruption.
For he seeth that wise men die.
Likewise, the fool and the brutish person perish
and leave their wealth to others.
Their inward thought is that their houses
shall continue forever
and their dwelling places to all generations.
They call their lands after their own names.
Nevertheless, man being in honor, abideth not.
He is like the beasts that perish.
This their way is their folly.
Yet their posterity approve their sayings.
Like sheep they are laid in the grave.
Death shall feed on them.
And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning.
And their beauty shall consume in the grave
from their dwelling.
But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave.
For he shall receive me.
Be not thou afraid when one is made rich,
when the glory of his house is increased.
For when he dyeth, he shall carry nothing away.
His glory shall not descend after him.
Though while he lived, he blessed his soul
and men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.
He shall go to the generation of his fathers.
They shall never see light.
Man that is in honor and understandeth not,
he is like the beasts that perish.
Let's pray.
Lord as we come to your word again, thank you first of all
for your word and the truths that are herein
that set us aright, that give us a right perspective,
a right worldview, a right understanding of this life,
this temporal life.
Thank you for this song.
Lord let us profit from it tonight by your help,
by your spirit, by your instruction,
because we look to you Lord in Jesus' name, amen.
So as I said, this psalm is as I've read it,
you probably noticed it sounds more like Ecclesiastes
than it does the Psalms, right?
And notice it is a psalm that unlike many of the psalms
that have a very Jewish, very Hebrew flavor,
you know, a lot of covenant language
regarding the Jewish people, this is not that way.
In fact, it is directly addressed to everyone.
It says, hear this all ye people,
give ear all ye inhabitants of the world,
both low and high, rich and poor together.
Now that's gonna be important,
especially the rich and poor, low and high,
because of what's in the psalm.
So this is a psalm that is universal.
In other words, the truths in it are universal
for every person.
The struggle that you see in this psalm,
the warning is true of us,
is true of every person living.
The cautions that the Lord gives us are universal.
So we come down to verse number five,
which is where the real meat of the psalm begins.
Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil
when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
Now one of the things that drives
a lot of what you see in this psalm,
one of the themes in the psalm is repeated
over and over and over.
I've been studying in preparation
for the first Bible Institute class,
which is going to be how to study the Bible.
And as I've been studying,
one of the things I've noticed
is one of the principles of studying the Bible
is to look for things that repeat.
And one thing that repeats in this
is the mention of wealth,
the mention of money.
And it's over and over, four or five times in the psalm.
In fact, this is the theme of the psalm,
really it's the primary theme of the psalm.
And one of the reasons that people
concentrate so much on wealth
and on how much money they have
and where it's going and how they spend it
and what they're gonna do with it,
one of the reasons they concentrate so much on it,
especially as they get older,
is the fear of evil.
In other words, the unknown, what might happen, right?
As you get older, that becomes more
of a significant question, because you know that,
especially when you go into the age of retirement,
you know that that's a fixed amount,
unless you're maybe really, really well invested,
but even that's not really sure at all.
But when you see that amount dwindling year by year,
that can cause a little bit of anxiety, can it not,
when you don't know what kind of evil
might be around the corner.
And people really are bothered by this.
They really are, people are really bothered by this.
Younger people don't think about that,
because we have, those of us who still have the ability
to work and things like that, we work and we think,
well, we'll just get a job and we'll just work it off,
but when you get to a certain stage,
that's not as easy as it used to be.
It's a real concern.
What are we gonna do when fear strikes
in the days of evil?
Look at verse six.
They that trust in their wealth
and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.
Now here's the problem with money.
The problem with money and wealth,
now let me say this to start with,
and we'll see a scripture verse that'll prove my point.
Having money and having wealth
and having material possessions is not a sin.
The Bible does not describe it as a sin.
Now you can go to a few verses,
which we've already covered in Matthew,
and you can see verses where there's a lot of warnings
attached to it and for good reason.
There's warnings attached to it for good reason.
And sometimes people have taken those warnings
and have kind of taken them a bit further
than the scripture allows and have pushed for,
and I'm talking about over the years now,
over the centuries, have pushed for a kind
of Christian asceticism, a kind of Christian poverty
that the Lord enjoins.
He tells us to be that way.
And a lot of times when we look at the Lord Jesus
and we see, well Jesus did not,
he didn't have a place to lay his head, right?
The foxes have holes and that kind of thing.
And we take that, but the Lord did not command that of us.
He did that as an example to us, right?
And really it was more of an example
of his debasing of himself,
leaving the glory that we talked about on Sunday
and coming down to earth where he had all things
in his possession to where he has nothing, right?
That's indicative of his humility, right?
But the Lord never says, he never tells us
in proper context to live in poverty.
He doesn't, now there are verses that say,
sell all thou hast and give to the poor
and take up your cross and follow me,
but in the proper context he's speaking to a rich man.
So, but those are the kinds of verses people take
and they kind of extrapolate out as a general command
when that's not what the Lord does at all.
But there, that nevertheless, there is a real warning
the Lord gives repeatedly in scripture
about the danger of amassing wealth,
even if having wealth is not in and of itself a sin.
And the danger primarily is the danger of trust.
Like in verse number six, they that trust in their wealth
and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.
Now, let me just say something off the bat.
And this is, you gotta be careful
of what's called ethnocentricity.
Ethnocentricity, how many of you have heard
of that 10 cent word?
Ethnocentricity, ethno meaning ethnic,
centricity means center.
And the problem, what that means is,
when you read the Bible, well one of the meanings,
is when you read the Bible, you read it only thinking
about your own culture, as if that's what existed
in the Bible, and there's a danger in that.
Here's what I mean.
Verse number six, we see the word wealth.
Verse number six, we see the word riches.
And in our American world, what do we think of
when we think of that?
If I were to say, name a rich person, name one.
Somebody just give me one, give me one.
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, right?
Mark Zuckerberg, you know what you're doing?
You know what you're doing?
I do it too.
We pick the most wealthy person in the world,
and we think that's wealth.
This is our American mindset.
Or you might say, well the people who live
in the fancy houses at Thornblade,
they're the wealth, or the people who live
on top of the mountain, Paris Mountain right here.
They're rich.
You see people when you come down Old Buncombe,
you see, especially when the leaves are gone,
you see those huge houses that are perched
on the edge of the mountain.
You think those are the wealthy people.
Or maybe the people at the cliffs at Glassy.
Those are the wealthy people, right?
But you know what that is?
That's an American-centric view.
Because it's relative to our own wealth.
Is it not?
The truth is though, that compared to these people
at this period, a thousand years before Christ,
the period of David, every person in this room
is rolling in money.
To these people, most of whom, not all,
certainly not David himself,
although David is not named in the Psalm,
David was a king, right?
So he had all that he wanted and plenty to spare.
But for most people in this society,
and truly most people in society,
all the way up until modern times,
the middle class is kind of a new thing, right?
Where you can live comfortably, you're not really wealthy,
you think about money, but you're not a subsistence worker.
But in the time of scripture,
most people were subsistence laborers.
That's what their job was.
Unless they owned land,
or had some sort of, they were a merchant of some kind,
or maybe they were in a wealthy family.
But when you're talking about an average laborer,
the thing we think of as a good thing,
Sam's a plumber, he works every day,
but in scripture times, the plumber, if they had one,
the plumber would not have been a wealthy person.
Here's what I want you to see.
When you read verse number six,
you can't think of only the people who live
at the cliffs at Glassy, only the people who,
the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Jeff Bezos of the world.
When you read verse six, you need to see yourself.
Because really in scripture, that's where we are.
What do I mean by that?
From a scriptural perspective,
all of us, myself included, are wealthy.
All of us are wealthy.
Now I don't know the bank accounts
of anybody in here except my own.
I don't know the bank account, well, I know hers,
and I know hers and hers, because we share accounts.
But I don't know Joshua's anymore, or Anna's,
except the one she keeps $5 in
that used to be the one I knew.
What's that?
Yeah, I'm at Rainy Day Fun, yeah.
Most of us, most of us are wealthy by biblical standards.
So when we read something about wealth,
we should be careful not to pass over it
and think it's only talking about
Jeff Bezos of the world.
We should think it's talking about us.
So why do I say that?
Here's why I say that.
Because when the Lord gives us a caution
or a warning about trusting in our wealth,
He's talking to us.
Not to Elon Musk, but to me and to you.
You can't leap over that thinking, well, I'm not rich.
Because if you leap over it and think,
well, that's talking about somebody else,
you might find yourself relying and trusting
in uncertain riches when the Lord is warning you not to.
The Lord is warning you not to.
Basically, it applies to you if you have anything.
Now notice, notice the mention of in verse number two,
both high and low, rich and poor.
So this command, these things we read in this psalm
are for everybody, but the question is,
here's the question I have for you.
The, is it only the rich people,
those who have abundance of possessions,
and that's us, remember, that's us.
Is it only they who are in danger of trusting in riches?
No.
No, the people who, obviously the caution to the rich
is not to trust in the riches and depend upon the wealth.
That's what verse six says.
But to the poor who constantly is pining after that,
the rich trust in the wealth that he currently has,
but the poor, someone, and by poor,
we're not talking about, again,
I'm trying to make it in our world,
the poor could be those of us who struggle.
You might could use that, I mean,
scripturally poor means you can't eat,
just to be plain, you don't have food and rain.
But if we kind of apply it to people
who are struggling financially,
there's the same danger in those people to trust in riches.
They don't trust in what they have,
but they imagine that if they had more,
things would be better.
And they see that as the ultimate solution
to their problems, you know what that is?
That's trusting in riches the same.
Is it not?
What I noticed about being a missionary in Cambodia
is Cambodia has a large poverty-stricken population,
not everyone, they have a growing middle class,
but a lot of people, especially out in the countryside,
are very poor, poor, and I mean that by our standards.
But what I saw is there were many, many Cambodians
who even though they did not have a lot,
yet they still trusted in riches.
They saw it as the ultimate solution.
This Psalm is meant to challenge that assumption,
whether you have it or whether you want to have it.
That's why the whole Psalm exists.
You with me?
So that's why it's addressed in verse two,
to the rich and poor, not just to the rich.
So we can't miss that, miss that truth.
Now look if you would at verse number seven.
I'm sorry, before we go there,
look at 1 Timothy chapter six,
1 Timothy chapter six,
because I just want to note this passage
because it overlaps a lot with Psalm 49,
1 Timothy six, verse number 17.
1 Timothy six, verse 17.
Charge them that are rich in this world,
again, who's that talking about?
That's talking about me.
That's talking about you.
Charge them that are rich in this world,
that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches,
but in the living God who giveth us richly
all things to enjoy.
That they do good, that they be rich in good works,
ready to distribute, willing to communicate,
laying up in store for themselves a good foundation
against the time to come
that they may lay hold on eternal life.
You see he's playing,
Paul here is playing off of the tendency
for the rich to kind of pad their life
to keep them from the day of evil, right?
To hedge against the bad times.
And what he's saying is,
what you really need to be hedging against
is the time to come, the eternal life.
That's what you really need to be thinking about,
which is exactly what Psalm 49 is talking about, right?
But notice verse 17,
charge them that are rich in this world,
that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches.
So is it possible to be rich in this world
and not trust in uncertain riches?
Well of course, that's why the command is given.
Because that's, he's telling us,
you have money, you have possessions,
you have wealth, don't trust it.
It's not assumed that you do because you have it.
So it tells us that it's not a sin,
it's not wrong to have those things.
But there is a danger that we trust in it.
And in our world, now think about this,
in our world, we don't think of ourselves.
Nobody in this room thinks of, we don't think of ourselves.
I don't know, maybe there's a hidden gazillionaire
in our midst who just lives a simple life.
I have no idea.
I don't think that's true.
If that's true, raise your hand.
Exactly.
I don't think that's true.
But in our world, in our society,
how do we often trust in uncertain riches?
How do we trust and put our, like it says in verse six,
trust in our wealth?
You know, just think about it now.
Again, I'm not saying that these things
are evil in and of themselves, but there is a danger.
We do it in the form of IRAs and investments,
risk-proof forms of investment.
And again, that's not bad.
There's scriptural principles about investing wisely.
There are.
But that can become a form of our trust,
where our reliance is on those things, right?
Or insurance is another.
You know, I don't have traditional insurance.
I have a sharing program.
Some of you know that.
Some of you have insurance.
Insurance isn't a sin, okay?
So I'm not saying, the preacher's not saying
insurance is a sin, okay?
But trusting in insurance, which is something we pay for
through our wealth.
See, these are the American, the modern American versions
of trusting in one's wealth.
Well, I've covered every base.
Nothing can happen.
There we go.
That was kind of scary.
Listen, I've covered every base.
Nothing can happen that'll disrupt the future.
You know what that is?
That's trusting in riches.
It looks a little bit different
than having a huge amount in the bank,
but it's the same thing.
It's the same thing.
That's the American version of trusting in uncertain riches.
Because if you're trusting in that,
you're not trusting in God, right?
Again, just because you have that,
and the same principle is true of possessions.
Just because you have them doesn't mean trust them.
Just because you have insurance,
or you have well, a stock portfolio
or whatever this invested well,
that doesn't mean you gotta trust it.
There's a difference.
Look at verse seven.
Verse six says, they that trust in their wealth
and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches,
none of them, so this is a guy who has some possessions.
None of them can by any means redeem his brother,
nor give to God a ransom for him.
Verse nine, that he should still live forever
and not see corruption.
There are some things money can't do.
You see that?
There are some things money can't do.
Of all that money can do, there are things it cannot do.
The ransom of the soul in this context
is a reference to keeping you alive.
That's what it's talking.
What do I mean by that?
I know we read the word ransom and redeem,
and we think this is talking about eternal life and things.
There's an aspect that is,
but in the immediate context it says this,
none of them can by any means redeem his brother,
nor give God a ransom for him, skip the parentheses,
that he should still live forever and not see corruption.
This is talking about death.
So your money can do a lot of things,
but it can't keep you alive forever.
There are limitations to what money can do.
And the things that it can't do,
the things that money cannot do, listen now,
are the most important things of our existence.
Our life, by extension, our soul.
Money can't touch that.
It can't help.
It can't benefit us at all in that way
regarding eternal things.
The things that money can help us with
are only temporal things,
but what the psalmist is trying to do
is put our attention on the eternal things.
Look at verse number eight, it says,
for the redemption of their soul is precious
and it ceaseth forever,
which is to say, forget about it.
It ceases forever.
In other words, if you were to try to redeem something,
I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit,
but the idea is if you're trying to redeem using money,
you're trying to keep someone from dying.
There's not enough money in the world.
It's a lost cause.
It ceaseth forever, which is to say it's a lost cause.
Now, look at verse 10.
We'll come back up to these verses in just a second.
For he seeth that wise men die.
Likewise, the fool and the brutish person perish
and leave their wealth to another.
So we see wealth is temporary.
We leave it behind.
And if wealth is temporary,
and it is incapable of benefiting us
on the most important things of our existence,
it is then also a poor thing to live for.
It's a poor thing to trust in.
It's a poor, listen, money and wealth and possessions
is a very poor thing to determine your priorities.
Now, here's a danger that a lot of Christians have.
Hear me now.
And this is where the rubber meets the road
when it comes to, I mentioned insurance
and stock portfolios and stuff,
that's kind of the American version.
It can be the American version of trusting in riches.
Here's one more.
When we trust in riches, we trust in the world.
When we trust in riches, let me get back to my notes
so I don't forget what I was trying to say here.
One way we trust in riches as wealthy Americans
is we let money and possessions
be the primary determiner of our decisions.
Nothing supersedes that.
It drives all of our decisions.
Now, we know that money is a factor in our decisions.
I mean, that's just life,
but it should never be our primary driver.
And when money becomes our primary driver
for what job we have or the decisions that we make
in our life, we're trusting it.
You hear me?
That's one way you know you're trusting it
is because that is the sole determiner.
It overrules everything else.
That'll put you in a, listen,
that'll put us in a compromised moral position.
It will.
Money should not have that much control over a saint.
Because we don't trust it.
It shouldn't determine our priorities like that.
Right?
It's not worthy of that level of influence in our lives.
It's not because it's just temporal.
It's not eternal.
Now look at verse number 11.
Speaking of those who are wealthy,
those who, he's talking about us now,
their inward thought is that their houses
shall continue forever and their dwelling places
to all generations.
They call their lands after their own names.
Nevertheless, man being in honor abideth not,
he is like the beasts that perish.
And then the Lord tells us what he thinks about that thought.
Inward thought, verse 11, he says, here's their thought.
This their way is their folly,
yet their posterity approved their say, say la.
In other words, everybody that comes after them
pats them on the back and says, hey, they were great,
they were great.
The way they thought, their worldview was good to go.
And the Lord says they're fools.
Verse 11 tells us and indicates to us
these people assume that what they have will outlive them.
Right, that's why they name things
and they have their possessions and they know,
well, at least my possessions will,
my house and my land and it'll continue to my descendants
because they know they're gonna die.
Verse 10, for he seeth at wise men die.
That's why they put their names on it
so that their names will be remembered when they're gone.
But the psalmist is reminding us of the cold
and bleak reality that their names will not be remembered.
You know, you visit any cemetery,
I wanna tell you something.
You visit any cemetery, you know what you find?
A whole lot of graves nobody comes to see.
They're forgotten.
One generation, nobody knows who those people are related to.
One generation, it's all forgotten.
That's pretty dark, is it not?
I think of my own grandfather.
And I don't, listen, I don't mean this as a knock on my kids.
This is just real life.
This is real life.
They barely even knew my grandfather.
I think you knew Joshua and I might have known
my grandfather, Henry.
Some of you, I think.
Some of you, I think, might have met,
I think Brother Ari probably met him and stuff.
Oh, you don't remember?
Okay.
My grandfather is buried now at Woodlawn.
And I, on occasion, have gone to his grave
and have thought of him.
But when I cease to do that, nobody will.
That's dark, ain't it?
This is what the psalmist is telling us.
You know, over here in Parkdale,
I don't know if anybody knows where Parkdale is,
but it's in Berea here, not far away from here.
My grandmother had a house, one notch wood drive.
I grew up, they go in there all the time.
I mean, I basically lived there almost.
Because it talks about their lands.
They put their name on their lands and their properties.
Right, you see that?
My grandmother has, many of you know,
my grandmother has moved to live with my mom
in Spartanburg and more.
Because her husband, Henry, he died,
and so she couldn't keep up the house and everything.
It's what a lot of people do.
The thought of these people is,
well, at least my land and my property
will go on to the next generation,
and my name will be on it, and I'll be remembered.
I'll tell you something.
On occasion, I'll go by that property in Parkdale,
that house where I grew up, where my memories are.
I'll go by there, and I'll drive there and see it.
I've actually knocked on the door,
walked in and been invited in
by the people who live there now.
But when I stopped doing that,
it's forgotten.
All the memories that are there, gone.
Are they not?
Nobody will even remember that my grandmother
ever lived there, or that people had a life there.
You know what this is?
This is cold, bleak reality.
I'll tell you something.
Possessions.
I know we derive a sense of satisfaction,
especially as we get older,
from memories and things like that.
But there's an aspect where we gotta
remind ourselves of this.
Possessions are a very poor thing
to put our trust in and to set our hope in.
It is sad to see,
yeah, I wanna go up to those people
at my grandmother's house, and I'll say,
you know people lived here and had a life here.
They're like, no, it's my house.
And they're right.
I'm trying to drive home to you
what the psalmist is saying.
I'm trying to make you sad.
I made you sad.
Verse 12 says,
nevertheless man being in honor,
in other words, though man is of all creation,
because he mentions the beast.
Though man is held in the highest honor
in God's created order,
he is like the beast that perish.
He abideth not.
God calls this thinking folly.
Look at verse 14.
They are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them. Notice like sheep, that's another
beast. And their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. Now here's the
crux of the song. This is the key. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the
grave. Look at verse number seven. None can by any means redeem his brother. So listen
to this. So I by my wealth and money have no power at all to redeem my brother from
the power of the grave. But in verse number 15, it is not a man but it is God himself
that is redeeming. Now what does the word redeem mean? What does the word redeem mean?
The word ransom is in the verse seven, right? The word ransom. The word redeem. You know
what both of those words indicate? A ransom, you have to do something. When you pay a ransom,
you have to give money. When you redeem something, you buy it back. There's money involved. It's
not this song about money. It's about wealth and here it appears in a different way. In
verse seven it says, no man can redeem his brother's soul that he not go to the grave.
He can't redeem him from the grave. No matter how much money he has, it's ineffective for
that. But God will redeem us. And in order to do that, he had to pay a price. He had
to expend his wealth. How did the Lord redeem us? The psalmist says, can you read it out
loud for us? I think it's verse 12. The Lord will redeem my soul. Read that. 15. God will
redeem my soul. We don't say that. We say, God did redeem my soul. You know why? Because
the price has already been paid. And it says, well you might say, well it's talking about
the grave. It's talking about dying, which is true. Remember I told you there's an aspect
of it that is beyond the grave. Where does the grave come from? You know what the grave
is? The grave is a direct result of sin. It's a fallout of sin. Now we know in the New Testament
the Lord Jesus Christ came and he redeemed us from sin, right? His blood, 1 Peter chapter
one verse 23 I think it says, that we were redeemed not with silver and gold from our
vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ as of the lamb without blemish and without spot. The Lord paid money. The Lord
paid something, excuse me, very precious to redeem us. He redeemed us from sin and in
doing so the result was redemption from the grave. Even though we die it will not have
power over us. That's because of the cross. So it's hidden in there. It's not fully revealed
in Psalm 49, but it's there. Now we're almost finished. God will do the redeeming. He will
redeem my soul from the power of the grave. God is the redeemer. God himself is the savior.
God paid the price to buy man back from the power of the grave. He says, but God will
redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me. Once redeemed from
the grave, in other words the psalmist is acknowledging I'm going to die, but then even though I'm
dead I will later then be received to the Lord. I will go to be with God in his presence
and he will receive us into everlasting habitations, Luke 16, 9. So look at verse 15. We're almost
finished. Look at verse 15. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave. You know
what the psalmist is doing? Think about the psalm talking about possessions, talking about
wealth. You know what he's telling us? Sets your eyes on something beyond the material
possessions of this world. That's what he's telling us. In the Old Testament even. Look
beyond the grave to when you're with the Lord. He says verse 16. Be not afraid when one is
made rich when the glory of his house is increased for when he dyeth he shall carry nothing away.
His glory shall not descend after him. That's not true of a believer who sets his affection
on things above and who uses his material possessions. The Lord says in 1st Timothy
6, we just read it, we can use our material wealth that we have all as rich people in
this room to lay up things in eternal life. So in a way we do carry something away, just
not the material things of this world. Though, verse 18, while he lived he blessed his soul,
and men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself. He shall go to the generation
of his fathers and they shall never see like man that is in honor. Remember, in creation
he is the top dog, he is the one held in highest honor. And understandeth not is like the beasts
that perish. Here's what he's saying. This is an indictment of mankind. Not only is man
like the beast in that he doesn't abide, right, his life is short. That's what he says in
verse 12. But he's also like the beast in that he lives to only fill his belly. And
to live for wealth is the same thing that an ox does, or a pig, or a dog, or a wild
beast, or a lion, or an ant. They have nothing higher, nothing greater, nothing beyond to
live for. So they live for what fills their belly, a beast. And the Lord says in the last
verse, man that lives like that, even though he's the highest of God's creation, should
live for something much higher. A man who lives like that, understandeth not is what
it says. But it's just a lie. And he's saying, I'm not going to believe that. I'm just going
to say, he lives just like a beast. I want to tell you something, but we're not that.
Not only are we the highest of God's creation, we are God's children. The Lord wants us to
keep our priorities and our view of the material possessions he gives us in the right context,
with the right value placed upon them, so that we have an eternal view. And that's what
us pray together.