SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 2/24/2012 10:24:02 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “Certainty of Death-You Can’t Take
it With You”
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Psalm 49:1-4
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we will
begin to look at Psalm 49 and at the beginning of this psalm we will as usual
look at a number of introductions by various people to help us understand what
this psalm will teach us.
“Psalm 49 deals with the most real
thing about life—the
certainty of death. One of its
major lessons is that ‘you really can’t take it with you.’ Containing these kinds of very practical
lessons about life and death, it falls neatly into the category of a didactic
(educational) or wisdom poem. At places
it sounds very much like portions of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. It contains warnings to the rich and famous
and words of comfort for the poor. These
timeless OT messages undergird many NT passages, such as the accounts about the
rich fool in Luke 12:13-21 or the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. After a fairly lengthy introduction the body
of the psalm falls into two parts as indicated by the climaxing refrain in vv.
12 and 20. The wisdom poet of Ps 49 developed
his somber theme in two stages, focusing on death as the universal experience
of all men.” (John MacArthur’s Study
Bible)
Now we come to the man that I
have been reading most every day of my life since I began doing these Spiritual
Diaries and that is Warren Wiersbe. I
have mentioned many times that it has been said of Warren Wiersbe that he puts
the cookies on the shelf where you can reach them and I have had many “cookies”
from Warren Wiersbe’s shelf in the fifteen or so years that I have been reading
from his books and commentaries.
Warren Wiersbe states that the
psalmist of Psalm 49 has a message for everybody in the world. His message is for the important people and
it is also for the nobodies. It is for
the rich and it is for the poor as we see in verses one and two: “1 For
the choir director. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. Hear this, all peoples; Give
ear, all inhabitants of the world, 2 Both low and high, Rich and poor together.” He goes on to talk about the word that is
translated “world” which is seen in verse one.
The word is an unusual Hebrew word that means “the total human scene,
the whole sphere of passing life.” Let
us look at two famous and wonderful verses from the pen of John the apostle
which are found in his first letter, 1John: 2:15-17, “15 Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16
For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not
of the Father, but is of the world.
17 And the world
passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth
forever.” (KJV)
Let’s us look now at verse three
of Psalm 49 to see that the psalmist is speaking from his heart, “3 My mouth will speak wisdom, And the
meditation of my heart will be understanding.” Dr. Wiersbe writes “The wisdom and
understanding that the Lord gave him, and he dealt with an enigma (riddle) that
only the Lord could explain (v.4) ‘4 I
will incline my ear to a proverb; I will express my riddle on the harp. 5 Why
should I fear in days of adversity, When the iniquity of my foes surrounds me.’
The enigma was life itself and its
puzzling relationship to the distribution of wealth and the power that wealth
brings. How should believers respond
when they see the rich get richer?
Should they be afraid that the wealthy will abuse the poor? Should they be impressed by the wealth that
others possess and seek to imitate them?
The writer gives us three reminders to help us keep our perspective in a
world obsessed with wealth and the power it brings.”
We will begin to look at verses
5-20 in the next SD, but I think that the things that have been said about
Psalm 49 so far are worth thinking about, for as we look back through the
corridors of time we will see that wealth and power have been the reason for
most of the wars that have been fought through the history of the world.
How, as believers are we suppose
to think about wealth in a personal way?
It took me a while to find where these three verses in the book of
Proverbs were as I first thought they were in the book of Psalms. “Proverbs 30:7 Two things I asked of You, Do
not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me
neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 That I
not be full and deny You and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or that I not be
in want and steal, And profane the name of my God.” These verses give an answer to the question
that I asked at the beginning of this paragraph, for they give balance in the
answer and if one reads the Bible for any length of time they will find balance
in it in many areas.
I am going to close this section of
this SD with a something that a wonderful friend of mine said to me a few weeks
ago that has to do with what the psalmist is talking about in Psalm 49. My friend just turned 80 years old a few days
ago and I went over to see him just for a casual visit. He began to speak of how money and riches
caused the downfall of some of the former Christian Colleges and Universities
in the U. S. He said something that I
never would have thought about, but after I heard it believed it was true. When the U. S. was a young country we had
schools like Harvard and Yale that began as Christian schools. He believes that there were wonderful
Christian people on their boards, but in time as all schools go they needed
more money and so they would find people that were not as faithful in their
walk with the Lord, but had a great deal of money and put them on the board,
and next these people would bring some of their rich friend on the board who
were not believers at all and so you have the downfall of these schools, and as
he said money was the cause of it.
It goes back 125 years ago that D.
L. Moody began a school in Chicago that is now called the “Moody Bible
Institute.” Moody is still a strong Christian school and has been all of the
days it has been in Chicago. I believe
the difference is that the school has always had strong believers on their
board and strong believers as their presidents and strong believers as their
teachers. In 1974 I began to listen to
one of Moody’s radio stations WCRF in Cleveland, Ohio. I have learned many things from listening to
that radio station and also visiting Moody on several occasions and I am
thankful for Moody Bible Institute, I am thankful that it did not go the way of
most schools that began as Christian schools and fell into the trap of
money. I believe that the first
“Founder’s Week” at Moody I heard a sermon about money and the speaker was
telling a story of a church or college that needed money and they went to the
Lord in prayer claiming a verse in the Scriptures that said that God owned the
cattle on a thousand hills. It was a
cattle rancher who was moved by the Holy Spirit to meet their needs. Yes God owns all of the wealth on this earth
and all of the planets we see, but sometimes we are like what James says, “1 What is the source of quarrels and
conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your
members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and
cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not
ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that
you may spend it on your pleasures.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: “ “Proverbs 30:7
Two things I asked of You, Do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me
neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 That I not be full and deny You and say,
"Who is the LORD?" Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane
the name of my God.”
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Proverbs 30:7-9.
2. Mark 14:38.
3. Proverbs 3:5-6.
4. Phil. 4:11b.
5. Eph. 6:10-18.
6. Romans 12:1-2.
2/24/2012
12:15:32 PM
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