This Life or the Next?
Psalm 49: 12-20
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A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
Time was when the business community followed a fairly predictable forty-some year cycle. By that I mean, when most businesses were family owned, those businesses changed owners when the owner died or cashed in his business. Sometimes the assets passed intact whole to a next generation, more often the assets were sold at auction piece by piece. Whichever method happened, the cash value was kept within the family to provide for any remaining declining years.
Then in the 1890's there was born a new breed of incorporated businesses whose share holders could change quite regularly without any major impact upon the company as a whole. Unfortunately, this major change in the way business was conducted gave an unfair advantage to these now "immortal" conglomerations. Certainly it took half a century for the new economy to attain dominance - however that is the current situation as it now stands. It is difficult if not impossible for a small Mom and Pop business to succeed in any area dominated by Corporate strategy. The incorporation strategy possesses very many legal and financial advantages to those already in position to manage any particular area of the economy.
Now to be certain, investors have fallen in love all over again with stocks and options because of the seemingly inevitable continued growth in the value of the certificates, if not the business itself. Recently, a web based company, Yahoo, jumped in value by 25% in one week. If you had owned 100 shares of that company ten short days ago, you would have made $6,700 in value since then! I know a person whose hard work has kept therm from following an investment in a little known automotive company thirty years ago. It seems they had purchased 100 shares on speculation for a single digit price. Recently they heard that the stock had split and wondered if that was good. Their friends were incredulous - that they had no idea how much had been made on such an investment which had split several times over and had become a major player in that automotive field!
Like the twenties, almost everyone assumes that the market can only continue to go up and up and up. However, like the Pharaoh who was advised by Joseph, we must consider what happens when the whole market economy of of a nation is caught up in fewer and fewer corporate hands. Historians look at the Egypt which Joseph passed into the royal hands and see a great world power severely hampered for hundreds years, because the whole of the economy was much less than its parts. That decline in Egyptian power created the possibility for a small shepard Kingdom in Israel to grow and flourish for several generations in the persons of David and Solomon. Then their glory too passed in the resurgence of the royal houses in Assyria, Babalonia and Persia.
Now the point of all this is the fact that even when Corporate Socialism overtakes God's better design of small free-holders and family operations, the time for bigness is never immortal. Just like individual humans, everything designed by humans must die and be replaced. Even if the stock market remains strong into the next century, your wealth is not finally secure and as the old saw goes: "You can't take it with you!" Tough decisions must always be made about where to invest our wealth for real prosperity instead of pipe dreams. We should also consider what we ought to be doing so that we may consider how the God of heaven might bless us now and later.
Notice that twofold opportunity: now and later. What I am really saying is "this life or the next". Yes, we may certainly hope that the Lord will provide for our necessities in this life, but we must always remember that our final and best reward is with and in Jesus Christ when we go to Him or He comes to us at the end of the age.
Our psalmist this morning would encourage us to consider carefully the distinction between the transitory rewards of this life compared to the eternal rewards in Jesus Christ. Spurgeon in his commentary compares the worldly wealthy described here in Psalm Forty-nine to the vile persons celebrated in Sir Walter Scott's poem who go down _ "to the vile dust from whence they sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung." Derek Kidner entitles this psalm with the phrase: "This world's empty glory". By that he encourages us to consider an essential lesson in verse twelve. The lesson is there in the phrase "does not remain". An older translation uses the words "abideth not". In this twelfth verse the force of the meaning is that there is no "overnight lodging"! In other words we might truthfully read: "But man, despite his riches, is really homeless!"
Now that is a thought to really pause and consider! While we each may have some economic problems that a winning lottery ticket might temporarily solve, at least we have places to sleep. Well might we consider the impact of mankind's spiritual homelessness. "He is like the beasts that perish". Every single human being but two in the biblical record has died and returned to dust.
Our psalmist advises us in verse thirteen that "This is the way of those who are foolish." I remember once being invited to a get rich quick meeting sponsored by some Amway people. It was carefully set up, besides the presenter there was another "Uhuh" person or cheerleader who approved everything that was said! Spurgeon comments here that there is no need of missionaries to teach people to be foolish, it comes naturally. Of course he lived in the last century, had he lived in the present time he would probably marvel at the vast bureaucracies we have created to encourage foolishness! One lesson that I have learned within the educational bureaucracy is that at long last some people will finally deserve eternity in hell for no other reason than their practiced stupidity.
But enough of this revelry in depressing themes. The second strophe of verse fourteen and the whole of verse fifteen lift our sights from our worldly situation to the eternity of our Father's Kingdom. "The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning". We have only to consider the financial disasters of the Great Depression to comprehend the truths told us here. As I tell my students, generally anyone who was out of debt, anyone who was willing to grow their own food and do their own work _ these survived the Great Depression better than most. Remember the television series The Waltons? Even in extreme poverty, the family had fellowship, food and even a hint of spiritual comfort. How many times did we see the closing credits of that series as the family bedded down for the night with their fond "Goodnights". They slept soundly as they anticipated the morning.
The movie Glory which took homeless black men off the street to flesh out the temporary regiment celebrated one scene when the soldiers considered the "great getting up morning in heaven" the night before their suicidal charge on Fort Fisher. Those characters reminded me of our fatherly black First Sergeant in basic training who went from platoon to platoon to encourage his charges to consider what combat could really lead to: death. And in those precious evening hours he poured out his soul and told us about his relationship with Jesus Christ. "On that great gettin'up morning" all earthly relationships will be changed for eternity.
See the promise of hope in verse fifteen? These are words that we can claim for our own even as we trust in Jesus. "But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; for He shall receive me." Ought we really to envy the rich? Look there at verses sixteen through nineteen. Let us especially note the situation in verse seventeen! You can't take it with you! So don't worry about wealth, ask only that your needs be met and that the Lord might give you a little extra to share with those not as well off as yourself. Who knows, if we are responsible with what little the Lord has given us, he might see fit to bless us with additional wealth.
Certainly, we may affirm that there are wealthy people who belong to the Lord, and their wealth has been shared extensively. Many of the landed gentry in Britain gave away everything they had to help the poor during the Great Depression. Great is their reward in heaven. But still in our worldly existence there are some who live only for the present, they are the ones who have riches without understanding and our psalmist closes in verse twenty by emphasizing again the thought in verse twelve. He reminds us of the way of all flesh. May we learn that understanding is so much more precious than gold and may we earnestly seek the God of verse fifteen in order that even as we loose this life we might have life eternal in the next. Amen.
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Resources Used: |
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Kidner, Derek. |
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms. | |
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Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
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The Holy
Bible, New King James
Version. | ||
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049b |
26 Jul 92 & 12 December 99 | |