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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:05]
B
Hey, this is Shelby and Paul. We're talking through Psalms 46 through 50 today, which we're excited about. Be sure that you hit follow or subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. That way you can continue with us all year long as we journey through Scripture. Okay. Monumental day 1/3 of the way through the Psalms today, which is really exciting. I'm so loving going through the psalms. But Psalms 46:50, what do you want to draw out about these psalms that are episode today? Paul?
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A
Yeah, I want to highlight Psalm 49 for us. This is a wisdom psalm that addresses this question of God's justice, kind of this question of why do the righteous encounter trouble while unfaithful people seemingly get along so well? And the psalmist in verse four, I kind of like how he sets to solve this riddle kind of through this song that he's writing. And that's kind of a cool way to think about dealing with philosophical questions artistically in a way. And the psalm gives a pretty simple argument for the conundrum that God distinguishes between the faithful and the unfaithful when they die. And so the singers of this psalm, you know, kind of assume that they are among the faithful. They can boldly declare in verse 15, but God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, which is kind of the final resting place of the unfaithful Sheol. And further, be not afraid when a man becomes rich, for when he dies, he will carry nothing away. His glory will not go down after him. And so there's also this theme of wealth here, that the prosperity of the unfaithful should not be a reason for envy for the faithful. And so the song essentially allows the community to together remind themselves that what really matters is the final destination of their life with God, and not necessarily the circumstances and the prosperity that they encounter that they have on earth.
- [01:54]
B
So all that makes sense to me. I think my question here, though, is that we know that we could never be faithful enough in our life to change our own, like, final outcome. Like, no matter how hard I try, I am going to fail in faithfulness. So what do we make of that as we read through the psalm?
- [02:10]
A
Yeah, that's really insightful, and that's definitely right. And it points us to Christ. And I think specifically in Romans gives us some good language. Think about here. It tells us that the wages of sin is death and that all have fallen short of God's glory. So you're pointing that out. Exactly. That, you know, even the faithful community, it's not because they were actually better and lived more righteous lives than the unfaithful. It's something different. And I think verses 1 and 2 of the Psalm show us that it's not just like a covenant context for Israel, like we've talked about in the past, of, like, blessings and curses. He's speaking to all peoples, both low and high, rich and poor. So if we kind of think back to the book of Romans, it can give us some good guidance here. In chapter four, Paul talks about Abraham, who we've read about before. And it says that he was justified by faith, that when he believed God, that's what granted him righteousness, was his faith, not any obedience on his behalf. And so I think in the psalm, actually, we can see that even represented in verse 13, it says, this is the path of those who have foolish confidence. So it's talking about the wicked there, but it's showing that they are putting their confidence for the afterlife in something foolish, and namely, in this psalm, wealth. So if there's something that the wicked are putting their foolish confidence in, there's something that's wise to put your confidence in. And we know that that's Christ. That's in God, not just in ourselves, and to put our confidence in something reliable that saves us, namely through his death and resurrection. Right.
- [03:53]
B
Yeah. Okay. I love that. I love the emphasis on wisdom here, because we know the Psalms are a wisdom book, but they're often. They're just poetic in nature. They're songs. And so. But we're really seeing that wisdom shine here, which is really cool. Okay. But beyond just feeling confident in our salvation, that this psalm points us to Christ, is there anything else that we should take away or apply from this psalm today?
- [04:16]
A
Yeah, I think it's also kind of a invitation to not just put our faith in Christ, but to live a righteous life as well. Because we can have our faith in Christ and still place our earthly confidence in things like wealth or our profession or whatever it might be. And so it's an invitation not just to be confident in the things of this world and in our earthly prosperity, even if we know, hey, after I die, I'll be with with Jesus, to receive everything that we need from Christ. Because the New Testament also tells us in 2 Peter that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. And so we don't need to put our confidence in earthly things even now, even though we have eternal security in Christ, we can put our faith in Christ for the moment today as well.
- [05:08]
B
Yeah, that is a great takeaway. My takeaway is so simple. It's from Psalm 46:1, and it says, God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is. And this is the part that always gets me, a helper who is always found in times of trouble. And I think I can believe that God is available at times to me if I pray just right and if I'm praying in accordance with his will. But here it says he's always found in times of trouble. And so that was a huge encouragement to me personally today. Okay, Paul, this wraps up our time with you in the Psalms. We're gonna be talking both with CJ And SC as we continue through the Psalms.
- [05:50]
A
They'll do a great job, I'm sure.
- [05:51]
B
Oh, it's going to be fantastic. But thank you so much for taking us through the first 50 Psalms. It's been great, of course.
- [05:56]
A
Yeah. A lot of fun.
- [05:57]
B
Yeah. So fun. And we're going to continue in the Book of Psalms tomorrow.