Man, Psalm 49, the Bible reads in verse 1,
Hear this all ye people, give ear all ye inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and
poor together.
The first thing I want to point out about this passage is that it's directed at the
whole world.
And a lot of people have this strange doctrine that somehow the Old Testament was just only
directed toward the children of Israel, or that God only cared about Israel, and He was
just kind of letting the rest of the world just coast.
And then all of a sudden in the New Testament, He started to care about the rest of the world.
Well, here's the thing, God has always so loved the world.
And the whole point of having the nation of Israel was that they would be a light unto
the Gentiles.
They were supposed to be a pattern nation and also a missionary nation, if you will,
to reach the rest of the world.
And the Bible also clearly records specific prophets being given the mission to go preach
to all nations.
And Jeremiah was sent on tour to go preach in every nation and to just travel the world
preaching.
And obviously there are many other prophets and preachers that aren't recorded in Scripture
that did that same thing.
Just like today in 2020, there are people that are just on their own soul winning missions
and missions trips.
And a lot of that's been canceled because of the coronavirus.
But let's pick 2019.
All right.
You know, in 2019 and hopefully in 2021, you know, people are traveling all over the world
and spreading the gospel and they're not necessarily well-known, they're not necessarily famous.
The Bible says they are as unknown and yet well-known, you know, because in heaven they're
well-known, the unsung heroes that are just out there traveling from town to town, city
to city, preaching the gospel, just doing the work of the Lord.
And so God in the Old Testament cared about his word reaching the whole world.
So even in the Old Testament Scripture here, we have the audience here being the entire
world, right?
This psalm is directed at all inhabitants of the world.
It's pretty hard to misunderstand that verse and say, oh, this is just for Israel.
He says both low and high, rich and poor together.
Verse three, 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.
Now what we can pull from these two verses is that in order to have deep teaching, in
order to open your mouth with parables and dark sayings, you have to take in a lot of
deep information before you can speak that information, okay?
You can't teach that which you do not know yourself.
You can't explain what you don't understand.
And the Bible talks about people who desire to be teachers of the law who neither know
what they say nor whereof they affirm.
They don't know what they're talking about.
So a lot of people, they want to get up and start teaching the word of God and they want
to go into the deep things of Scripture and they have need that one teach them again,
which be the first principles of the oracles of God.
And they are such as have need of milk and not of strong meat.
So we need to make sure that we don't just go out and start teaching things that we don't
understand ourselves, okay?
Now thankfully the gospel is really simple.
So once you get saved, you can go out preaching the gospel right away.
Because it's so simple, it's so easy, you can literally learn it that day and be a soul
winner the same day.
Theoretically, you could do that and I've, you know, some people have done that.
But you don't need to be deep into Scripture to understand the gospel because the gospel
is so simple, a little child can understand, a mentally disabled person can understand.
And so when it comes to soul winning, that's something that everybody who's saved can get
involved in.
But when it comes to the deeper things of Scripture, we need to make sure that we've
studied to show ourselves approved unto God that we might be a workman that needed not
to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Why?
Because it's going to be ashamed or embarrassment if you get up and speak about things and then
later you, oh, whoops, I totally misunderstood that.
Now that's going to happen to anyone.
No one's perfect.
But you don't want to just constantly be putting your foot in your mouth, especially as a pastor.
You want to make sure that you study and you know what you're talking about.
And really just about any subject.
Okay.
Because what does the Bible say here?
He says in verse three, my mouth shall speak of wisdom and the meditation of my heart shall
be of understanding.
So, you know, there has to be some thinking, meditation and thinking that goes into what
comes out of our mouth.
And then he says, I will incline my ear to a parable.
Verse four, I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
He's saying, you know, first I'm going to listen and learn.
Then I'm going to be ready to share that with others.
Now when he talks about opening the dark saying upon the harp, what does that mean?
Well, this is a song.
Everything in the Book of Psalms is a song book.
And so this is music that is played on the harp and they're singing to go along with
that musical accompaniment.
And when he talks about a dark saying, he's talking about something that's hard to understand,
right?
Something that's obscure or dark.
We would probably say in 2020, we'd probably say, hey, it's complicated, right?
That's complicated or that's deep.
That's a tough scripture or that's a really hard thing to wrap your mind around.
He's saying, I'm going to explain some deep things.
Okay.
One of the things I like about this part of the Book of Psalms really just all the way
from Psalm 42 until now has been a really deep section in Psalms.
There's been a lot of depth and of course the whole Bible is deep, but I especially
like this part of the Book of Psalms.
So basically the first four verses are just an introduction.
Okay.
In the first four verses, he's just saying, hey, everybody listen up, everybody in the
whole world.
This is a message that applies to everybody.
It doesn't matter if you're Israel, non-Israel, rich, poor, high, low, everybody needs to
listen to this.
I am going to speak some deep things that I have understood from the Word of God.
Okay.
So then in chapter, in verse number five, we get into the actual subject of the Psalm.
It says in verse five, wherefore, which means why, should I fear in the days of evil when
the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
Now this question is the subject of the Psalm.
You know, when he gives this thought, the rest of the Psalm is going to answer this
question or explain this idea.
Now at first, this verse was kind of hard to understand, but when you read the rest
of the Psalm and get it in context, then it actually makes sense.
Look at the first word of verse number six, they, okay.
So that's a clue right there.
The they here are bad people because he says they that trust in their wealth and boast
themselves in the multitude of their riches.
Now is this a godly attribute, trusting in your wealth, boasting about your money and
your achievements?
Obviously not.
So these are ungodly people.
And he talks about these people negatively, and if you go down the chapter, you'll see
in verse 11, it says what their inward thought is.
At the beginning of verse 13, this their way.
Verse 14, like sheep, they are late.
So we see that in this passage, there's a they that we're talking about of these bad
people and what's in store for them and how their riches can't help them and so forth.
Okay.
So that's the context that we need to understand verse five when it says, wherefore should
I fear in the days of evil when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
What does that mean when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
Well, when you get it in the context of the passage, you understand that there's a bad
group of people out there that the psalmist is talking about.
And so basically, that's the people that we don't need to fear, that we don't need to
worry about those people.
So this statement is kind of hard to understand when he says the iniquity of my heels.
What does that mean?
Do our heels have their own iniquity?
What does that mean?
What is iniquity?
Iniquity is obviously some type of ungodliness.
And typically, the workers of iniquity, if we study out that term in the Bible, workers
of iniquity are typically the most rotten possible people.
They're typically synonymous with the sons of Belial or reprobates when we study that
term workers of iniquity.
They're usually people that are very harmful toward others.
They're harming the people around them.
And so when he talks about the iniquity of his heels, when we think of our heels, we
typically think of fleeing or escaping or getting away.
Because when somebody's at your heels, it basically means they're chasing you and they're
right behind you.
You know, you got somebody right on your heels.
Or if one event comes right on the heels of another event, you'd say it followed after,
it came right after.
Then we can also think of, of course, all the way back to Genesis 3.15, the first allusion
in the Bible toward the Gospel, when it says in Genesis 3.15 that the seed of the woman
will be at enmity with the seed of the serpent.
And it says that the seed of the serpent will bruise his heel.
And that the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head.
And in the New Testament, you know, it talks about how Satan's head shall be bruised under
our feet shortly.
And it talks about Satan or the serpent or the serpent seed bruising the heel of Christ,
of the seed of the woman.
And so we think of an enemy, the wicked, harming the just by basically biting at their heels
like a serpent that would bite at their heels or as they're stepping on them, you know,
they get bit on the heel or whatever.
So what we see here with the iniquity of my heels, this would basically be the iniquity
that is pursuing me, the iniquity that's persecuting me or trying to get me, the iniquity that's
on my heels.
And one of the things you have to understand is that there's certain poetic devices that
are used in the Book of Psalms.
You know, when you look at like English poetry or Spanish poetry or Italian poetry or Latin
poetry, every poetry in each culture in each period of time has different literary devices
being used.
So like, you know, when we think of poetry in America in 2020, you know, we're typically
thinking of things that rhyme, right?
We're thinking of kind of the English ballad form or we're thinking of, you know, ABAB
rhyming scheme or whatever.
And we have certain rhythms that we're used to, you know, iambic pentameter from Shakespeare
or whatever.
So, you know, different poetic devices, but here's the thing.
In the ancient world, the poetry was different.
You don't find a whole lot of rhyming in ancient poetry.
It was based on other things.
Some poetry is based on meter, you know, where it keeps a really strict rhythm, a strict
amount of syllables, certain syllables are emphasized, others aren't, pauses come in
strategic places.
Well, here's the thing.
You know, I did a whole sermon on this a while back called Poetry in the Bible, and I explained
the basics of the poetic books and the poetic books, of course, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
Song of Solomon, and believe it or not, the book of Job is a poetic book as well.
And then also, even though it's not considered one of the poetic books, Lamentations is a
poetic book.
And there are poems embedded in some of the other Old Testament books.
There's no poetry in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament, there's a lot of poetry.
And you know, the big thing in Bible poetry is stating things twice, right?
It's called parallelism, where you state it one way and then you state it another way.
So there's this kind of back and forth, and when you're reading the book of Job, it's
just like line after line, it's just kind of a restating of what was just said over
and over again.
Well, one of the other features of Hebrew poetry that I want to point out right now
is the fact that in the Bible's poetry, one of the devices that is used is to say things
in as few words as possible, in as few words as possible, so that if you're reading some
of these in the original Hebrew, it will kind of blow you away how short the verse is.
You're kind of like, where's the rest of the verse?
It actually gets longer when you bring it into English.
And it's sort of like when we put the subtitles on after the tribulation into Spanish, or
even actually when we dubbed it into Spanish, we had to cut out a lot of sentences, because
it turns out that Spanish is like 150% of what English is when it comes to the length
of the sentence.
So, you know, if you wanted to take everything that we said in after the tribulation, if
you were to translate it directly into Spanish, it's like time and a half as long, and so
it's hard to cram it all in there.
Actually, we can't read the subtitles fast enough, or in the case of dubbing, we can't
talk that fast.
You know, Brother Jimenez and I, we're in the sound booth, and Brother Segura, and we're
trying to talk fast, but we started just drawing lines through whole sentences, like, you know
what, we don't need this sentence, because there's just too much.
Well, that's how it is when you bring the Bible from Hebrew into English.
English is longer, okay?
And so a lot of this poetry is based on just these really short sentences.
That's the style of the poetry, saying things in as few words as possible.
So sometimes you'll get these sentences where you feel like, you know, a little information
is missing, like, can I get a little more detail here?
But that's just basically by design.
It's meant to be that way, is the point.
And he warned you in verse four, he said, this is going to be a dark saying.
So you can't expect it to be easy, right?
So that's why when you have this statement where he says, the iniquity of my heels shall
compass me about, that's a cryptic saying.
That's something where you really have to stop and think, like, what are you talking
about?
What is the iniquity of my heels?
But when you understand the fact that the Psalm is trying to use very few words, then
you understand that there's basically information that's left out.
So here's how you would kind of fill in the blank as you're getting this in context.
You'd say the iniquity of my heels is the iniquity of the bad guys that are chasing
me and are right at my heels.
Now that's a lot longer way of saying it, but that's basically what's being said.
And that's all just crammed into the iniquity of my heels.
And if you read it in Hebrew, it's going to be even shorter than that.
And that's the whole point.
It's a poem.
Okay.
And it's not meant to be easy.
It's meant to be difficult.
Some things are meant to be easy in the Bible.
Some things are meant to be hard.
You know, if the Bible were just easy, you say, why didn't God just make it easy and
just say what?
Well, you know what?
Then the Bible would get to be a boring book after a while.
If the Bible were just super easy, superficial, and the first time you read it, you just understood
everything, you'd get bored with it.
You know, some parts of the Bible are a little bit like a puzzle and they keep you busy,
right?
Trying to figure them out and understand them.
And so people whose minds want a little more stimulation, right, they love the Bible because
it keeps them thinking.
Even years and decades after studying it, you haven't even scratched the surface.
So the Bible is a deep book.
So that's what he's saying.
And you say, well, how do you know that you're right about that interpretation?
Well, because I'm getting it in context.
Because if we read the rest of the context, what I just explained actually makes sense
with what comes after.
Otherwise, if you came up with a different understanding of what it means with the iniquity
of his heels, because you could say, well, you know, I think it means the iniquity of
his heels, it's his own sin catching up to him.
You know, I think that's what it means, you know.
Well, here's the thing.
Why would he not be afraid of his sin catching up to him?
You know, your sin catching up to you, you ought to be a little bit worried about that,
number one.
But number two, if he's worried about his own sin catching up to him, why would he turn
around and the next word is they?
Well, whoa, buddy, that's your problem.
Your sin catching up to you is your problem.
But this passage isn't about him.
It's about they, they, them, them, they, they.
So it makes more sense that it's bad guys that are at his heel.
They're the ones who are coming down on him with their iniquity.
They've got an evil design on him.
Let's keep reading and you'll see what I mean in this passage.
So in verse six, he says, so verse five is sort of like a thesis statement.
And then verse six, we get into the meat of the psalm.
It says, they that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their
riches.
Now, can you think of anybody like that?
You know, I can think of somebody like that.
His name starts with a D and ends in Donald Trump.
But anyway, none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom
for him.
Now, look, whenever you read in the Bible and you see parentheses, here's a little tip
for studying the Bible.
Read it without the parentheses and then read it with the parentheses because the parentheses
are not part of the main thought.
That's why they're in parentheses.
And so if you want to get the main thought, you have to read it without the parentheses
and then understand what the parentheses are adding.
OK, so if we read this without the parentheses, it says none of them.
Verse seven can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him that he should
still live forever and not see corruption.
So what's the purpose of the ransom that he would still live forever and not see corruption?
And then there's just this added little footnote in verse eight that says for the redemption
of their soul is precious and it ceases forever.
That's like an added thought.
It's not necessary to the main sentence, right?
Obviously it's necessary because everything in God's word is necessary, but it's not necessary
to this sentence.
That's why it's in parentheses.
OK, so what he's saying here is, look, you know, if you trust in your wealth, you boast
in the multitude of your riches.
Well, here's something that money cannot buy.
Money cannot buy your way into heaven, nor can money buy anyone else's way into heaven.
You can't get anyone else to heaven with your money.
And you say, well, who in the world would ever think that they could pay money to get
someone else into heaven?
Hmm.
Let me think about that one.
How about the Roman Catholic Church right around the time of the Protestant Reformation
with the sale of indulgences?
This is what the sale of indulgences literally was.
You know, you're using your wealth as a ransom for somebody's soul.
You know, we got to get them out of purgatory, get them into heaven.
So we're going to pay for their sins with Visa or MasterCard.
You know, we're actually going to pay.
To get forgiveness for them, we're going to buy forgiveness.
And basically, you know, grandma died.
And we know that grandma chewed tobacco, you know, and we and drank and smoked and whatever.
So, you know, we know that she has issues and she's got burn off some of that bad karma
in purgatory.
So we have to, you know, pray her out of there because we don't want grandma in there for
just like, what, I don't know, months, years, decades.
And so, you know, if we make a donation to the church, we can buy an indulgence.
The priest will go chant a bunch of masses for her and, you know, that'll get her out
sooner.
You know, because we'd hate to see grandma suffer longer than she has to.
Now, of course, this is complete garbage because there's no such thing as purgatory.
There's no such thing as karma.
There's no such thing as getting, buying someone a ticket out of purgatory or into heaven.
Because the ransom of the soul is precious.
Now, the word precious means expensive.
That's what it means, right?
Think of this word, the price tag.
The price tag is telling you how precious that item is, how pricey it is.
So precious is like pricey.
So it's saying the ransom of their soul is precious.
So no amount of money can pay for salvation because salvation is too expensive.
Salvation is purchased by the precious blood of Christ, the precious blood, the Bible says,
the expensive blood of Christ.
Christ's blood is of higher value.
Now, we teach that salvation is simply by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
What must I do to be saved?
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
And people who teach a workspace salvation or a lordship salvation, here's what they
say, you're preaching cheap grace.
That's cheap grace.
Folks, it's free.
If somebody gave you something for free, would you say that it was cheap?
If you told someone you have to do absolutely no work and pay nothing to be saved, is that
a cheap price tag?
No, that's free.
Free is not cheap and cheap is not free.
That's two totally different things.
Okay.
So let me explain to you what cheap grace is.
Cheap grace is saying you have to repent of your sins to be saved.
Cheap grace is saying join the church and you'll be saved.
Cheap grace is saying follow the 10 commandments and you'll be saved.
Cheap grace is saying make Jesus the Lord of your life, take up your cross every day
and follow Christ.
Because I don't care if you take up your cross every single day for the rest of your
life, you are not even close to having earned the value of the blood of Christ.
You could beat yourself every day, crawl on broken glass, go out soul winning nonstop
and you can just feed the poor, bestow your body to be burned, give everything you have
and you will not even come close to even affording even one drop of the blood of Christ.
That's cheap grace.
So the lordship salvation crowd, the work salvation crowd, you know what they're teaching?
They're teaching cheap grace.
They're teaching a grace that you pay for with your works, turning from a life of sin.
And make no mistake, when they turned from their evil way in Jonah 3 10, God said that
was their works.
God saw their works that they turned from their evil way.
If you have to stop sinning, what is sin?
What's the definition of sin?
The transgression of the law.
Well last time I checked, salvation didn't come by the law.
If you have to stop sinning, that would be salvation by the law.
If you have to be willing to stop sinning, that's salvation by the law.
The law defines sin.
If you have to want to start wanting to be willing to be willing, that's not biblical.
Now look, I'm sure 99% of people anyway when they get saved feel bad about stuff that they've
done in the past and want to do better in the future.
That's 99.9% of people anyway.
I mean the vast majority of people aren't just like, yeah, let's sin, yeah, you know.
People typically when they do wrong things they feel bad about it and they want to do
right things.
Even people who are living in sin, you know what, the spirit's willing but the flesh is
weak.
A lot of times people that are living in sin, it's not because they just hate God.
It's because of the fact that they've given in to the flesh and they feel bad.
There's a lot of guilt in this world.
Normal people feel guilty.
People who never feel guilty are psychopaths, right?
But guess what, that's not part of salvation, a guilty feeling, but there are churches all
over America, even independent Baptist churches, they want to teach a guilty feeling as part
of salvation.
If you don't have that guilty feeling, you can't be saved.
If you're not willing to do what's right, you can't be saved.
What this ends up doing is it ends up becoming a workspace salvation because that's where
that path leads.
Now look, I know a lot of people, they'll talk about repenting of your sins and they're
just a little mixed up on this or a little bit gray on this.
And look, they shouldn't be gray on it, they need to get black and white on it, amen?
But it doesn't mean that they're unsaved if they're gray on this because I've seen good
preachers get mixed up in this and then later correct it, okay?
And even when I was a teenager, there was a time when I got a little mixed up on this
just because you're hearing all this junk from the pulpit about this and I got a little
bit confused at times, okay?
But at the end of the day, I always knew that I wasn't going to heaven because of anything
I did.
It was only because of my faith in Christ and it was Jesus paid it all, it's everything
that he did.
Salvation needs to be preached clearly so that people don't have those doubts.
And so we need the salvation messages across America to be crystal clear, it's free, there's
no works.
If it's of grace, it's no more of works and to him that worketh not and all that, okay?
That needs to be preached clearly, okay?
But when you have this attitude that says, well, you know, you got to be sorry for your
sins and stuff, it's like 99% of people are sorry for their sins anyway.
So why are you so worried about that?
And when you start saying you got to be sorry, then that's a real slippery slope.
Next thing you know, it's like, well, that means you got to be willing to change.
And then I heard a local independent fundamental Baptist pastor say, well, you have to be so
willing to change that you will change.
And then it becomes what?
You got to change to get saved, right?
You got to do the works.
And if you didn't do the works, you weren't saved.
That's unbiblical.
Folks, it's possible to get saved and not do any works because the Bible says, but to
him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justified the ungodly.
His faith is counted for righteousness.
That's the guy who didn't do the works, but he believed.
And folks, there's a whole scenario described in first Corinthians chapter three about people
who they get to heaven, they get to the judgment seat of Christ and all their works are examined
and all their works end up being wood, hay and stubble, nothing good as far as of eternal
value.
It doesn't mean they never did anything good, but I got news for you.
Every good thing you do doesn't necessarily have eternal value.
You know, you can do something nice, but it's not really making an eternal impact, you know,
or you can do something good for the wrong reason.
You lose the reward.
The Bible tells us if we're doing it for glory, we lose the reward.
So in first Corinthians three, he says, look, there's going to be a judgment seat of Christ
and our works are going to be tried by fire and some of those works are going to turn
out to be gold, silver and precious stones.
Some of them are going to end up being wood, hay and stubble.
And he says, if any man's work shall be burned, it says yet he himself shall be saved.
Yet so is by fire.
So the Bible describes a scenario of a guy.
It doesn't say if most of his works are burned and he only has a little bit of gold, little
bit of silver, little bit of precious stones.
It says his work is just toast.
And then the question is, is that guy still saved?
Because what, what, everything you did was not have eternal value.
You didn't do anything worthy of eternal reward.
Nope.
Well, is this guy getting into heaven or not?
What does the Bible say?
Yet he himself shall be saved.
And look, I could go on and on all night just giving you biblical proof after biblical proof
that you don't need works to be saved.
Okay.
That's what it means to be free.
It's by grace.
Okay.
So the, the, the redemption of our soul, verse eight is precious.
It costs a lot and it's more than any billionaire can afford because who are we talking about?
We're talking about the millionaires.
We're talking about the billionaires and they can't afford it for themselves and they can't
afford it for anyone else.
Okay.
Because it's purchased by the precious blood of Christ, not by your work or your deeds
or your money or anything that you can achieve.
You could donate a million dollars to the church.
You could donate a million dollars to this church and burn in hell for all eternity.
You're like, well, I gave a million dollars.
God doesn't care.
That's not even going to turn down the temperature of hell for you one degree.
In fact, it might even turn it up a degree for you.
I'm not kidding because the fact that you're donating to faithful word, that means you
knew the gospel more than some guy, you know, out in the jungle that only heard from one
missionary one time or something and you, you, you were aware of faithful word.
You were involved in faithful word.
You donated money to faithful word.
You're going up a few degrees because you, cause the, you know, you knew and rejected
it.
You didn't get saved.
You had even more of an opportunity.
So don't even think for one second that your good deeds or your good works or your money
is going to help you on judgment day at all because it's not at all.
He can't redeem his brother.
He can't give to God a ransom for him that he should live forever.
That's talking about eternal life and not see corruption for you see it that wise men
die verse 10 likewise the fool and the brutish person brutish means stupid like kind of like
a big dumb animal.
It's kind of what you think when you think of a brute 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 beast that perish this their way is their folly yet their posterity approved
their saying seal out.
Look at verse 14 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.
Look at verse 15.
It's important but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive
me see that now people who teach the Old Testament today in an academic setting they've completely
Judaized the Old Testament.
I've talked about this before how there's a movement to de-Christianize the Old Testament
and we're not just talking about the secular colleges.
They definitely de-Christianized the Old Testament.
You know if we're talking about Harvard and Yale and all these you know theology departments
but you know what a lot of the seminaries and Bible colleges you know what they're trying
to do.
They're trying to pattern after those worldly institutions and so instead of running their
Christian institution as a local church the way that Christ founded it the way the Bible
teaches they're patterning it after these worldly universities.
And so they end up borrowing a lot of the ideas which is the blind leading the blind
you know the ideas of the lost professors from these universities they're trying to
teach the Bible and they're lost and they don't even claim to believe the Bible.
Many of them are even atheists.
And in the process the trendy thing right now is de-Christianized you know we got to
look at it from the Hebrew perspective we got to put ourselves in the Jewish mindset
you know that's how we got to look at it.
And so if I've heard this once I've heard it a hundred times is that you know well the
Old Testament doesn't teach life after death.
That's a Christian concept being read into the scripture.
That's what they claim.
Is that what you're seeing here in front of you in Psalm 49?
But folks I've heard that over and over again say well you know the idea of you know heaven
and hell and eternal life and life after death you know that came late.
Hey that's the Sadducees talking.
Now there were people like that back in Jesus day they were called the Sadducees.
They didn't believe in resurrection.
They only believed in the here and now.
They didn't believe in life after death whereas the Pharisees did believe in life after death
and they did believe in afterlife, heaven and hell and so forth.
Now obviously they believed it all wrong.
I'm not saying oh the Pharisees got it right Pharisees were just screwed up in another
way.
You know the Sadducees are wrong Pharisees are wrong.
This is your false left right paradigm.
You know are you a Pharisee or a Sadducee?
John the Baptist.
You know he's neither right.
Jesus is neither.
The disciples are neither.
This is the false left right paradigm.
Whenever you have the false left right paradigm you always have the one that's wrong and then
you have the one that's really wrong.
You have the Republicans that are wrong and you have the Democrats that are really wrong.
You got the Protestants being wrong the baby sprinkling you know Lutherans and Methodists
and Anglicans and then you got the Catholics that are really wrong.
You know what I mean?
And basically Protestants Catholic light.
Republican is Democrat light right.
You know Coke or Pepsi kombucha right.
So you don't want something healthy.
So the point or how about water.
Hey man most of us just need to be drinking water as our main beverage.
But the thing is that you know the Sadducees were out there with this junk in the Old Testament
already and this junk still exists today.
But to sit there and say well you're not going to find that and this is what I've heard him
say too.
Oh well you know that didn't come from the Bible that came from Greek philosophy.
You know Plato and Aristotle you know they talk about life after death and you know that
got into the Bible.
Folks I could do a whole sermon and I've done whole sermons like this just showing literally
scores of verses from the Old Testament that explicitly talk about life after death explicitly
just verse after verse.
What about even in the book of Job where he says after my skin worms destroy this body
yet in my flesh shall I see God.
He didn't even just say oh the worms are going to destroy my body and my soul is going to
heaven.
Is that what he said?
Did he say and my soul goes off to heaven.
No he said I'm going to see God in my flesh even after the worms have eaten every living
bit of tissue off my bones to where it's just.
And I guarantee you that his bones have turned to dust by now.
I mean we're talking about a guy who lived approximately you know thirty six to thirty
seven hundred years ago.
I mean there's no flesh left there in that body unless he was a mummy.
He might have been a mummy.
I mean you know because they made Joseph a mummy.
So there were biblical characters that were mummified.
Hey unless he was mummified he's toast by now.
And he said in my flesh shall I see God.
He didn't say in the spirit.
That's a bodily resurrection folks.
And that's one example.
I could spend the whole night.
I don't have time.
I could spend the whole night showing you examples of bodily resurrection.
But here's the thing.
They're not even saying no bodily resurrection.
They're just saying no resurrection period.
No life after death period.
No eternal life period.
What does the Bible say?
The Bible says if God ransoms your soul what does he do for you in verse 15.
He will redeem my soul from the power of the grave.
He shall receive me.
And this ties in with Ecclesiastes talking about the spirit of man returning to God that
gave it right.
So God gave the spirit man and that spirit returns to God and the Bible talks about the
spirit of man which goeth upward and the spirit of the beast which goeth downward into
the earth.
Right.
Because because what does it mean for a beast to have a spirit.
It doesn't mean what a human spirit is like like the Bible talks about animals in terms
of soul and spirit.
That's not the same as our soul and spirit.
You have to understand these words mean different things in the Bible.
The word soul sometimes is referring to what we think of as you know part of our trichotomy
body soul spirit right when we think of soul we're thinking like the eternal soul the part
of us that's non physical that makes us who we are right.
It gives us our preeminence over a beast.
You know the and the spirit also you got the body the soul and the spirit and that's a
whole nother sermon on the body soul and spirit but the body is that part of us that
interacts with the physical world that interacts with matter.
The soul is that part of us where we interact with one another.
You know this is our feelings our emotions is our relationships right those are soul
based.
OK.
You know music right soul music.
So basically you know that's from the music is from the soul if you think about it right.
But then there's a third aspect of us as human beings that's the spirit and that is our interaction
with God.
OK.
That's our interaction with the divine.
So we got the interaction with the physical.
We got the interaction with one another.
That's the soul.
And then we've got the interaction with God.
That's the spirit.
Even unsaved people have a spirit.
That's why they seek religion.
Otherwise explain a billion Hindus.
Why are a billion people involved in Hinduism.
Because man desires some kind of religion some kind of worship.
You know it's almost universal.
And even you say what about atheists.
Even atheists they get kind of spiritual about the big bang.
They get pretty spiritual about you know black holes and dark energy and they get kind of
spiritual about their teachers.
You know if you look at their you know scientist heroes Carl Sagan is like their Moses to that.
I mean he's like a prophet to them.
They get they tear up thinking about him.
You know they've got their prophets and they get religious and philosophical and we're
stardust and you know what I mean like we are from the stars man and you know that's
their spirit trying to kind of do something with that even though they're an atheist.
It's true.
Now their spirit's dead.
OK.
When they get saved and their spirit comes to life and now they can have communication
communion with God.
If you're not saved you don't have fellowship with God.
You can't fellowship with God.
God's too holy for you.
You know you'll just get wiped out by him.
You just be consumed by him.
Jesus bridges the gap between man and God.
Without Jesus there can't be any communion between man and God.
It's got to go through Jesus.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
You got to go through him.
So if you don't go through Jesus there's this this void or great goal fixed between
you and God that you can't pass.
Jesus is the bridge right.
So basically that's the soul the spirit the body.
Now look does an animal have a spirit.
Well here's the thing.
The word spirit can either mean when you study in your Bible it can either mean that part
of us that communes with God that's non-physical or it can sometimes just mean breath breath
like spirit like we think of respiration OK is when we're respiring we're breathing OK.
So spirit aspirate I just learned a new Spanish word a week ago la aspiradora is a word I
learned.
Well a couple of people knew what that meant because they laughed about it.
So basically you know it's that bringing in of air and breathing out of air.
So that is the spirit.
Basically every living animal that breathes has a spirit in the sense that it has the
breath of life and the Bible calls it the breath of life it's breathing.
Folks that is something that science can't explain you know where did life come from
they can't explain that they try they don't know.
Even to define life they struggle OK.
So the fact that an animal has a spirit the fact that an animal is even alive and breathing
is only through a divine act of God.
Life itself is in that sense you know as far as starting life was supernatural had to be
a supernatural act of God.
So we don't want to get confused when we read that an animal has a spirit.
Well guess what when the animal dies where does that spirit go.
It just goes into the earth the Bible says right.
So man's spirit goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward into the earth.
Basically it just means it comes out of its mouth and just hits the ground because it's
just matter.
It's just particles it's just oxygen.
You know it's just it's just a gas.
It's not actually anything eternal.
Well it's the same thing with the word soul.
Sometimes the word soul is referring to that part of us that is our you know our seat of
emotion or who we are or whatever.
But then also sometimes the word soul just means the fact that you're alive and it's
the life force also is known as the soul in the Bible just just the thing that is keeping
us alive right now our life force.
So it'll talk about like like fish you know every living soul in the sea died.
It's not like and then all their little fishy souls just swam they swam to this big you
know ocean in the sky or something because we know that when they died they're gone.
God doesn't just have some mega salmon hatchery in heaven where there's just all these billions
and billions of fish popping up constantly.
You know you're just every time you go fishing you're sending fish to heaven or something
you know when you when they die they're gone.
Their spirit goes downward into the earth.
It's over right.
So we want to make sure we understand that.
And look if you study the Bible you'll see that what I'm saying is true.
Two definitions of spirit two definitions of soul all throughout the Bible.
You'll consistently see that.
OK.
And so don't give me this garbage that the Old Testament doesn't teach an afterlife.
It doesn't teach the resurrection.
Folks it makes a distinction between what.
Human beings their spirit goes upward and the animal his spirit just goes down into
the earth.
But now notice you say where are you going with this pastor.
Hey you think I went on a rabbit trail.
It's all about to come back into play here.
Look down at your Bible in Psalm forty nine.
What does the Bible say.
It says in verse number eleven their inward thought is these are the rich people the people
who think they've got life by the tail.
Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever.
What they think is that they're they're going to pass everything on to their children.
Their houses refers to like their.
Their estate.
Yeah.
You know their their.
Their dynasty.
You know what I mean.
Like the house is the people is what I mean to say.
You know what I mean.
Like like if I said as for me and my house we shall serve the Lord I'm not talking about
the building.
I'm talking about the people right.
So like if I said my house I'm talking about my wife my kids my grandchildren.
Like the house of David is referring to his descendants even many centuries later it's
the house of David.
OK.
So what the Bible says here they think that their houses shall continue forever.
They think that some other guy is going to carry on the Anderson name and then their
great grandchild Lord Anderson the fourth.
You know it's going to be on the Anderson manor at the Anderson inheritance and the
Anderson jewels and the Anderson you know name and whatever.
They think that's just going to go on forever.
But folks every dynasty ends.
Every estate every wealthy family.
You know you say well what about you know the Rothschilds.
They've only been around for a few hundred years.
They're going to crash and burn.
All right.
All of these families and dynasties and houses they don't go on forever folks.
But they think they will.
Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue forever.
You know that's why the Rothschilds wanted their kids and grandkids to marry their cousins
and stuff.
You know keep it in the family.
That's not going to last forever.
All right.
You're going to get two inbred.
Can't do that forever.
You know you might get away with it the first time but it's going to keep getting weirder
genetically at this late stage in the game genetically.
So they think that their dwelling places are going to last to all generations and they
call their lands after their own names.
You know they they name it you know the Anderson estate you know and Andersonville or whatever
you know.
And they think hey this is going to be I'm going to be remembered.
People are going to remember this.
But folks there have been a lot of towns that were named after a lot of people that
aren't around anymore.
You know Constantinople.
It's not called that anymore is it.
Called Istanbul now.
You know that didn't last forever.
And you know what.
Someday it might be called something else.
Sure it's not going to be called Istanbul in the millennium.
Amen.
You have to get rid of all those Muslim names.
We're going to be like Adam naming the animals.
We're going to get to rename a lot of these Allahu Akbar type named places.
You know we've got to give them some better names.
Amen.
Give them Christian Christianized names.
OK.
But he's saying here that's what they think.
But nevertheless verse 12 man being in honor abideth not doesn't matter how much honor
how popular how wealthy how well known what great legacy they have.
Man being in honor abideth not.
He does not last forever.
He does not abide.
He doesn't remain.
He is like the beast that perish.
So you see now I went off on that tangent.
See how it all came back around.
All right.
Animals when they die they're gone sorry dog lovers.
You better enjoy your time that you have with your dog now.
You're not going to spend eternity with that dog.
And I always get a few e-mails and a few YouTube comments so I'm bracing myself.
Folks animals when they die that's it for them.
Well guess what.
These people right here.
They think oh man it's going to last forever.
Folks they are going to rot and their soul is going to go to hell.
OK.
They are not going to enjoy their wealth or their honor.
It's going to go away.
And man being in honor abideth not he's like the beast that perish.
You know basically what he's saying is you know a thousand years from now these really
important people nobody even knows who they are anymore.
No more or less so than if a donkey had died a thousand years ago.
I mean think about there could be some key players some really important people today
that a thousand years from now people will have no clue who you're even talking about.
Now some people you're going to know OK like we're always going to remember who the president
was or something like that.
But think about all the other people who were really important in their day.
You know they ran some important business or they were an important mayor or something
and just completely forgotten to history.
Nobody knows.
And then even the presidents.
You know once we get into the new heaven and the new earth people's people are going to
be like Barack who Donald who they're going to be like who because the former things are
all going to be passed away forgotten.
Nobody's going to care.
It's not going to matter anymore.
You're not going to be taking history classes about 21st century America in the new heaven
and the new earth.
It's going to be irrelevant at that point.
So the point is that they perish.
They are like a beast in that sense that you know once they're gone they're gone.
Obviously we know from elsewhere in scripture that their soul has a punishment for it.
But in the context of hey they think it's going to the party's going to last forever.
It's not.
They think their legacy is going to last forever.
It's not.
They think their memory is going to last forever.
It's not.
They think their children are always going to inherit the wealth.
Their children are going to mess it up.
The grandchildren are going to blow the money or ruin it or lose it somehow.
And it says in verse number 16 be not thou afraid when one is made rich when the glory
of his house is increased for when he diet he shall carry nothing away.
His glory shall not descend after him.
So where's this guy going up or down guys going down and his glory is not going to descend
after him.
And so what the Bible saying when he says don't be afraid when the rich prosper.
He's saying don't get this attitude of oh it makes me so mad to see you know Bill Gates
get away with all these atrocities or whatever.
Folks don't be afraid when you see the rich prosper because guess what.
They're going to get their punishment.
They're going to lose everything.
Who cares.
And look eternity is long.
So let's say one of these wealthy people Rothchild Rockefeller let's say they live it up on this
earth and enjoy and God lets them live to be a hundred.
What is that compared to a thousand years in hell eternity.
It's nothing.
It's just a breath.
It's just a moment.
It's a vapor.
OK.
When he diet he shall carry nothing away.
His glory shall not descend after him.
And even if they are popular even if some guy dies and goes to hell and a hundred years
later everybody's talking about Grady is you know what.
It's still isn't going to help him.
He's not like in hell like well at least they're still talking about me at least that makes
me feel a little better.
That's not going to make you feel any better.
It's not going to reduce the temperature by one degree 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 is like the beast
that perish folks.
If you don't get it if you don't understand and really the important thing to understand
is the gospel you know understanding salvation through Jesus Christ understanding the Lord.
If you don't understand if you're an honor it doesn't matter how honorable you are how
famous you are.
If you don't understand you're like the beast that perish.
You're like an animal you know where once it's over for you it's over for you.
You're done.
You're never going to live again.
You're never going to see light again and you say well isn't there a resurrection for
the bad people.
Yeah there is.
There is a resurrection of the unjust but the Bible never calls it them living again.
Even when they stand before God you know it says that I saw the dead stand before God.
I saw the dead small and great they're still dead resurrection just means they came up
again.
It doesn't mean they came back to life.
You know that's not eternal life.
That's not life after death.
There is no life after death for the unsaved man.
He does not have life after death because being in hell is not considered life.
Standing before God at the white throne of judgment is not being alive.
It's to be dead.
That's what the Bible says.
I saw the dead.
The dead were judged by their works.
And so I want to just point out one other great statement.
It's one of my favorite statements that I think about a lot from this psalm is where
he says in verse 18 men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.
Boy that I remember the first time I read that that just jumped off the page at me and
I've thought about it ever since.
All throughout my life I've thought about this verse.
Men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.
Isn't that so true?
What's that saying?
If you live for yourself what would that look like to live for yourself?
Exactly.
Make a lot of money.
It's probably one of the first things that would come to mind.
Like hey if I'm going to live for myself then I could just spend my whole life making money
for myself and then I can just spend it all and do all this stuff that I want to do.
You know I can live in luxury.
I can eat all these expensive foods, live in expensive houses, drive fancy cars and
it's just going to be a life all about me and it's going to be all about money.
And how do I know it involves money?
Because God's constantly giving this dichotomy of like serving God or serving mammon.
You know you can't serve both.
And so there's this dichotomy there where money serving money when people do it for
themselves.
Now here's the thing.
Let's say somebody goes out and makes a ton of money in your family.
What do you think the rest of the family is going to say about them?
Their success.
Isn't that the truth?
I mean who's going to be considered, let's say you have a big family.
Who's going to be considered the success of the family?
The guy who really makes it financially.
Why?
Because men will praise you when you do well to yourself.
So if you go out and make a ton of money, buy yourself fancy clothes, drive a fancy
car, live in a really fancy house, people are going to think this is a good guy.
This guy's got it together.
This guy's the real deal.
Now I'm not saying that, obviously there are some qualities there of you know hard work,
you know being dedicated, whatever.
But folks that's not what life's about and the love of money is the root of all evil.
That's a serious warning there.
So here's the thing.
Who's the biggest success in God's eyes?
Is the biggest success in God's eyes the one who makes it financially?
Or is the biggest success in God's eyes the one who does the most for the Lord?
And here's the thing.
If you became the greatest servant of God ever and you know and obviously we don't really
know what that looks like.
You know whoever the greatest servant of God is, he doesn't know it's him because he'd
be too humble to realize it, right?
Whoever that is, he'd be saying no, no, no.
I'm a sinful guy, you know, because he's humble.
But here's the thing.
Whoever that is that's the greatest servant of God, I guarantee you they're not being
put up on a pedestal by the world.
I can guarantee that because the Bible says that that's what they do to the false prophets.
Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.
For so they did unto the false prophets.
What if you do well unto yourself?
Are men going to speak well of you?
What's the Bible say?
The Bible says men will praise you when you do well to yourself.
If you live a self-centered life just seeing how rich you can get, how fancy you can go,
you're going to have a big fan club.
You're going to have a lot of followers on Instagram and Twitter and you're going to
have people wanting to be you and praising you and tell you.
Look, there are whole documentaries about, you know, what a great person Ted Turner was.
How he was just so great.
He was just like the greatest person ever, you know, and oh, look what he did for the
United Nations.
You know, oh, look what he did for CNN.
He gave us CNN.
He gave us the cable news network.
And here's the thing.
People who spend their lives getting wealthy and living fancy lives, they're praised, right?
And even just on a lower level, you know, and I know that even just within a typical
family, the people who make the most money are going to be the ones that are lifted up
as the biggest successes of the family.
Now, you know, my family's not like that.
Your family's probably not like that because, you know, I come from a spiritual family.
Thank God.
I was born into a family where both my parents are godly Christians and they love the Lord
and they love things.
And you know what makes my parents happy?
That all four of their kids are in church.
That all four of their kids are saved.
That all four of their kids are fundamental Baptists.
That's what makes them happy.
They like to see the soul winning.
They like to see the godliness, you know.
That's what they like to see.
It's not, hey, which of us is making the most money?
That doesn't even matter.
But to the world, that matters big time.
It's the one who made it financially.
So folks, what's the whole chapter about?
Tie it all together.
The world lifts up the wealthy.
There are many wealthy people who are very wicked.
Now, there are some godly people that become wealthy, but most of the wealthy people are
wicked people because the love of money is the root of all evil and that you kind of
end up going down that path when you start getting a lot of money.
Okay.
That's just the facts of life.
Those wicked people are the ones who persecute us.
What does the Bible say in James?
Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats?
Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which you're called?
So that's what we see in this passage.
Hey, why should I fear in the days of evil?
Why should I fear in the days of evil when the iniquity of my heel shall compass me back?
You know, when these wicked people come after me, you know what, I know that everything
about them that makes them so great is all an illusion and it's all going to be gone
and I'm going to live forever.
I have power over the grave.
God is going to give me victory over the grave.
I have eternal life and long after these people are forgotten and the names of the place that
they named are all changed in the millennium so that their name is totally purged from
that area, folks, we're still going to be here.
So why worry about it is what he's saying.
Don't fret yourself because the evil doers that prosper, they are going to be toast.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord.
Lord, help these words to sink down into our ears.
Help us never to chase after money as the pursuit of our life.
Obviously, we all need to gain skills and make a living and make money to feed our families,
Lord, but help us never to get into seeking riches and all the fancy yachts and expensive
houses and expensive clothes, Lord.
Help us not to become that person.
And Lord, help us not to get envious of those people and think, oh man, look how good these
wicked people have it.
They're making all the money.
Lord, help us to realize how short-lived that is and how it can't really buy what really
matters which is not just our own salvation but the salvation of others, Lord.
Not only are we saved but we can go out and get other people saved and that's more valuable
than any wealthy estate imaginable, Lord.
Help us keep that perspective and view of the afterlife, eternal life, and not get focused
on the carnal things of this world.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, we'll sing one more song before we go this evening.
Open your song books to song number 397.
Feel as much when God is in it.
Song number 397.
To the harvest we'll not brighten.
There's a word for all to do.
Hark the voice of God is calling.
To the harvest calling you.