As I read this psalm, this is one of the psalms that begin the end of the Book of Psalms. And the last psalms are praise songs that frequently were sung by the Jews, especially the Second Temple Jews, as they were going up to Jerusalem for the high feasts. They would sing these. They knew them very well. Let me read Psalm 146. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the fatherless. But the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The Lord will reign forever. Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. Please pray with me. Father, as we dive into this psalm, may the riches of your word Come to our hearts, come to our minds. May we experience the truth of your goodness and your greatness as David, so that we too may cry out, praise the Lord, hallelujah. You are our God forever. We ask these in Jesus' name, amen. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah, that is the word that we use. Hallelujah, praise Jehovah. Hallelujah, that ah from Jehovah is short for the Lord. Praise Jehovah, hallelujah. This is what they sang as they ascended the mount. We're gonna go right for now to verse three and four. And I'm just briefly gonna address this for now. Most people think this psalm was written by David, probably one of the best known kings in the history of the world. David says, do not put your trust in princes, in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth, and on that very day, his plans perish. Man is a finite creature, as we know in Psalm 103. Let me read that for you. Verses 14 through 16. For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field, for the wind blows over it, and it is gone. And its place knows it no more. David understands that man will perish when his breath departs, when he ceases to breathe. He returns to the earth. We dig a hole. We put them in a hole. We cover it back up. They return to the dust. We return to the dust that we came from. David understands that. David reminds us that even princes are finite. It's kind of ironic that David would state in the psalm not to trust princes, right? He was a king. He was an anointed king, anointed by God, yet he's telling us not to put our trust in it. I say he's probably one of the most famous kings in all of history. I met a woman a few months ago about my age and she had a very nice script cursive on her forearm, King David. And I didn't understand why we ended up having a conversation. It ended up that that was the name of her grandson. I said, your grandson's name is David. She said, no, my grandson's name is King David. And a few weeks later, I met her granddaughters. They were about four and five, and they're chasing little King David. I mean, they were calling him King David. Can you get back here, King David? It was interesting. I don't know thousands of years from now if anybody's gonna have my name tattooed on their arm or President Trump. But King David was a very important figure in our history. And he's not forgotten. And yet David tells us not to put our trust in princes, in kings. We have to remember too that he was anointed as a small boy. Right before the story of him defeating Goliath, he was anointed to be God's chosen king after Saul. And David knew that as he was growing up. One of the things I miss, I think we miss, living in the United States in the year 2019, are some of the nuances of what it meant to have a king or a prince. Our rulers right now last four years, maybe eight. They don't have ultimate authority. They can't get something done on their own. And that's probably a good thing. We have lots of checks and balances. But a king, his reign was the rest of their lifetime usually. and their authority was absolute. I had a birthday yesterday, 54. I have to confess that in almost 40 years of driving, I've had two speeding tickets. And my personal encounter with our justice system has been standing in front of a magistrate twice, Begging for mercy, right? Hoping to get the points taken off of my license or reduce the fine. And that was granted. But that was the only power that that magistrate had. He had no real power. It was not a real threat. About five or six weeks ago, a friend of mine by the name of Sam died. He was in his 90s. And I can only tell you the story the way he told me. Sam was an Orthodox Jew. He was in a concentration camp for about three and a half years. He cared in that camp for his father. They both survived. The rest of his family never came out. He never saw them again. Sam's account of one of the camps that he was in, the camp that he was in the longest, he said was huge. He said he estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people were in this camp. And he said they had big buildings that they used as barracks, where they had bunkhouses and things like that. And there were lots of train tracks that run through the middle of this compound. And I guess before the war, it was a lumber yard. So that was the reason for all the buildings for storage and the rail tracks going through. And every day at about 4.30 they would have to line up outside for roll call. And he said they would stand outside sometimes for hours, sometimes in the snow, no shoes, no shirt. They had to stand in groups of about 80 to 100 people. And he said it took them a little while to figure that out. But they figured out that you can cram 80 to 100 people into a boxcar. So if they were moving people, they would take them by groups. And he always had to stand in the same spot. So his spot was in the front row. I think he said second or third to the left. As he tells the story, one day, all of the guards seemed to be on edge. He knew there was something happening out of the ordinary. Their shoes were polished. Their ties were straight. Everybody was where they were supposed to be. And he said at that time there was an SS official that came through the camp and personally inspected each one of those groups. And he would stand at the group and he would point his finger and that group went there. That group went there. No questions. No discussion. He said that man stood so close in front of him that he could smell his breath. He later found out that man was Eichmann, Adolf Eichmann. And he said it was kind of comical, it was sad, that they took him on a tour of the camp. They showed him the ovens. He had friends. Their job was to care for the ovens, to empty them, to make sure they were running. And he said Eichmann looked into the oven and he said he almost lost his lunch and his friends thought that was just hysterical. That man had ultimate authority and Sam experienced that with the point of a finger. The groups that Eichmann pointed to were never seen again. I think we lose some of that when we're reading what David's words are and understanding what having a king and having a prince really is about. It is about that ultimate authority. Now, David says, don't put your trust in a king or in a prince. Many times when there's a prince or a king, people do all kind of jockeying. They want to get close to the king. They want to be on the king's good side. because there's benefits to that, and sometimes that's true. The unfortunate thing is when a king dies, everything changes, right? And a lot of times that king's second-hand person or third-hand person is gone right along with them because the new king doesn't trust them. David is right in saying that we should not put our trust in princes or in kings, And if he's right about that, we also should not put our trust in ourselves, in our husband, in our wife, in our children, in our grandchildren, because they are all fallen. They are all fallible, no different than a king, no different than a prince. It's not difficult, I think. Let's paint a picture of Christ, Christ when He was under duress, when He was stressed. Let's think about after the baptism, He went into the wilderness for 40 days, 40 nights, didn't eat, didn't drink. and was tempted by the devil. And what was his response? He quoted scripture, right? He quoted from Deuteronomy. He again experienced the ultimate stress on the cross. And I believe there were five things that we have recorded that he said. Two of those were direct quotes from scripture. He quotes Psalm 22, the beginning and some think the end, too, when he says it is finished. That is near the end of Psalm 22. And I believe it was Spurgeon who said something to the effect of a spice is never so aromatic as when you crush it. Right? When you crush it, the heart of that spice comes out and you smell that. And he equates that to Christ. When Christ was being crushed, when he's being crushed on the cross, what came out was scripture and was prayer. So in light of that, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to consider Christ at a different time, possibly before Pilate. Pilate had that ultimate authority. He's standing in front of a man who has the authority to have him executed with a wave of his hand. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to think that Christ in his humanity may have gathered comfort and strength from this psalm, reminding him, don't put your trust in princes. they are gonna perish. And as we go further through this Psalm, just keep that in mind. So David starts out almost with a warning, not to place our trust in princes, in kings. And then he tells us who our help is, who our hope should be. In verse 5, blessed is he whose hope is the God of Jacob. He identifies the God of Jacob. Jacob, the man who wrestled with God, who struggled with Him in order to know Him. And I think David identifies God as the God of Jacob because there were still many false gods at the time. It's good for us to identify specifically who David is talking about. It's interesting that some of the more liberal Jews that I would talk to will use that saying, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. as describing God appearing three different ways to different men. And they will interpret that as saying, then there's my God, and this is how God appears to me. It's not a unifying statement like we think it is, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Some of them will turn that and say, it's different, different appearances, different revelations. It's an interesting twist. David goes on, verse six, he who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever. It's kind of interesting to consider just verse five and the beginning of verse six. And back to verse three and four. It's almost the summary of the book of Job. Job for chapters and chapters. is getting counsel from his friend, is getting counsel from men, men who believe they are wise. And then in chapter 38, God finally answers Job and says, brace yourself, right? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? When I set the boundaries for the sea, when I set the stars in the sky, he reminds him he is the God of creation. He is all powerful. It's reminiscent of Job, and David does this in just a few verses. We were, about two weeks ago, we were down in Orlando. When I was growing up I was very interested in the space race and all the space, I can remember watching one of the Apollo missions on a black and white television in the basement. While we were there they launched the heavy Falcon rocket, carried I think 24 satellites into the air. We were about an hour and a half away I was tempted to drive, I'm glad I didn't because the launch didn't happen until 2.30 in the morning, but I was able to, I set my alarm for about 20 after 2 and off the balcony of the place we were staying I could see that rocket going up and it was about 55 miles away and I could see it well enough that after about a minute and a half I could see the three boosters separate from it. That was exciting. I wish I would have went. A couple days from now, a few weeks from now, is the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. There's a lot of talk down there. There's a lot of things in all the souvenir shops and such. And it was a big deal. And I really enjoyed that. I'm reading a book right now called Rocket Men. It is about the men of the Apollo space, the Apollo 11 mission, the astronauts, the men who put it together. And one reporter asked Neil Armstrong as he was sitting on the launch pad if he was nervous. Were you upset? Were you afraid it was going to blow up? And his response was he was more concerned about the 400,000 to 500,000 people that it took to put that together, being disappointed if it was a failure. And it took that many. And people today will say that was man's greatest accomplishment, right? Landing men on the moon. I believe there were 12 men who walked on the moon. But think about that in perspective, right? That's one moon. We are one planet. We're three days trip away. How many other planets are out there? How many moons in our solar system? How many solar systems are there in galaxies that we know nothing about? And our greatest claim to fame was that we sent 12 people to this little itty bitty moon. That was our greatest accomplishment. It's almost minuscule when you think about the greatness of creation, the greatness of our creator. Again, don't put your trust in men, in our accomplishments. Put your trust in the Creator, as David says, who made the heaven and the earth and the seas and all that is in them. Verse 7, who executes justice for the oppressed. David is probably remembering the oppression of the people in Egypt, the Israelites in their captivity, and God's promise to deliver them. The rest of verse seven, who gives food to the hungry. It's not difficult for us to think that David was again remembering the manna in the desert and the water from the rock and how God mercifully took care of his people after he delivered them from their oppression. It's easy for us to remember Jesus feeding the 5,000 It's probably more important for us to remember Jesus feeding us with the bread of life. What a greater gift that has been for all of us. Verse eight, the Lord sets the prisoners free. Man is bound by sin. We are in bondage to sin. As a result of our sin, we are also in bondage to sickness and injury and death. And all of those things he came to set us free from. If you go to Romans chapter eight, verse one, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That is true freedom. That is freedom that we all need and desire. The rest of verse eight, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. Again, this was something that Jesus did in his ministry on earth. If we think back to Old Testament, it was God who opened the eyes of Hagar as she was sent out in the desert with Ishmael. They were about to die, they had no water, God opened her eyes to see far off water that he had provided for them so they would survive. And he promised that he would make him a great nation and they would live. But it was only because God opened her eyes. And we also need to remember that it is the Spirit that opens the eyes of our hearts to see the sin in our lives, to see the reason for a Savior. He is a merciful God. He sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. Think of Psalm 3, verse 3, when David was being chased by his son Absalom. And David proclaims that it is God who is like a shield around him. He is his glory. He was the lifter of his head. I think of John chapter four, the woman at the well. She was at the well at probably high noon because she didn't want to be there earlier when the other women were there. She was an outcast of society. She had had five husbands, and the man that she was with was not her husband. And I think there's two ways to interpret that. Either the man she was with, she was not married to, or the man she was with was married to somebody else, but that man was not her husband. And Jesus sat down next to a Samaritan woman, which was not done, and he talked to a woman, which was not done by a Jew, especially a rabbi, And there was a back and forth. And the ultimate outcome was that she got to know the Messiah. And what did she do from there? She left. She ran to the village. She told anybody who had listened to her that she had found the Messiah. He had lifted her out of that. He had lifted her head, gave her a new life, gave her a purpose. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. John chapter eight, a woman caught in adultery. Possibly a great injustice happening there. There she is lying in the dirt, being accused of adultery. The penalty was death by stoning. They're about to carry out the execution and Jesus steps in. And what was the possible injustice? Where was the man? Why was it only her being stoned? Was he even one of the ones standing there with the stones? We don't know. Possibly a great injustice. And what does Jesus do? He writes in the dirt. He asks anyone who is without sin to cast the first stone and one by one they leave. And then what does he do? He reaches down and he lifts her up off of the ground. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. And he forgave her and he told her to sin no more. I was going to read Luke chapter 18, but Bob went through that a little bit this morning, right? The Pharisee and the tax collector. What a great story of a man whose head was bowed down. Actually, I think the tax collector was not even permitted to be in the temple. He was unclean. But yet he snuck in, and he was hanging around the side in the shadows. And the Pharisee cried out, thank God I am not like these sinners, like that man, like that tax collector. I tithe 10% of everything I have. I pray three times a day. And the tax collector, hiding in the shadows with his head bowed, striking his breast. which seems odd to us. But if you know the Jewish custom, when on the Day of Atonement, when they pray and when they confess their sin, it is their custom when they say the word sin to strike their breast, which is exactly what the tax collector was doing. He was bowed down before God asking for mercy. And what does Jesus say? Which one of those men, which one of those men was justified? The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. We know that God counted Abraham as righteous because of his faith. And it is those who trust in God's word and keep his commandments. From Proverbs 8, verses 8 through 13. All the words of my mouth are righteous. There is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and all you may desire cannot compare with her. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil, pride and arrogance, and the way Pride and arrogance in the way of evil. Verse nine, the Lord watches over sojourners. He cares for those who are vulnerable. That is a term, sojourner, that we're not very familiar with. It means traveler, it means somebody who, for whatever reason, whether it's business, we can consider probably Mary and Joseph sojourners as they traveled for the census. They were not at home. They were in a strange place. They relied on people to come to their aid. People like that were also very vulnerable to attack. They were easy prey for robbers. The Lord seems to have special care for those types of people, especially those who are not able to care for themselves He goes on to say that he upholds the widow and the fatherless. And this seems to be a special concern of the Lord throughout scripture. James chapter one, verses 27, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Hosea 14, three, in you, the orphan finds mercy. Exodus 22, verses 22 through 23. They are commanded, you shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry and my wrath will burn and I will kill you with a sword. And your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless. As we look at these last verses, it's almost a list of how we should live, right? How we should live as merciful, obedient Christians. Who we should care for. We should think about justice. We should worry about the fatherless, the widows. Feed the hungry. Care for those who have needs. Open the eyes of the blind. It's almost a checklist. This is kind of a way that we can look at what David is saying. We can compare all those things to Christ's life and how he lived them out and make that a special part of our life. This is how we are to live out our lives and emulating those things. He concludes that verse with a very short but pointed statement, but the way of the wicked, he brings to ruin. And that's all he says. It's almost as if he's saying, I don't need to say any more. It's as good as my words, the way of the wicked, he will bring to ruin. When I originally started looking at this psalm, possibly to preach it, I was also reading Proverbs a lot. And it was very interesting to see David's words in this psalm compared to the words of his son Solomon in Proverbs, and how much similarity there was in all of these points. You can, in fact, what I wanted to do originally was to take each one of these points and compare that to what Solomon said in Proverbs and list each one of those out, and it's pretty easy to do. We're gonna spend a little bit of time in Proverbs with this last verse, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. I'm gonna read from Proverbs 1, verses 24 through 31. Verse 24, because I have called you, I've called and you refuse to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one is heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when terror strikes you. When terror strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me, because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof. Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their way, and they have their fill of their own devices. Again, we hear the way. There's a way of the Lord, and there's a way of the unrighteous. That's not committing a sin. The way is a way of your life, the pattern of your life, the habits of your life, the choices of your life. And God is saying, I will bring destruction on those who choose not to fear me, who choose not to listen to my counsel. And I will bring destruction swiftly. And he says, he will laugh at their calamity. I'm just gonna skim through just a couple more Proverbs, two verses 22, but the way of the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. 325, do not be afraid of sudden terror or the ruin of the wicked when it comes. 33, the Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked. And as you go through Proverbs, it goes on and on about God's judgment and how swift that will be and how decisive that will be. And we know that that's because God is just. As David started out in the beginning of the psalm, we are not to put our trust in princes, in kings of this world. Oftentimes there is no justice. We can rely on courts. We are given them as a gift. In fact, one of the other things that I think we can take from David is that he's not saying we are to ignore or disrespect our leadership, right, our kings. When he says, don't put your trust in them, he doesn't say it in words, but I think he says it by an example of his life, the way he lived. Again, he was anointed to be the king as a boy, but he had to wait for Saul to be removed. Now, in our own minds, our own wisdom, we would say he had every right to take Saul out, right? Saul tried to kill him multiple times. He pursued him with an army. David was so close to him in a cave when Saul was relieving himself that he was able to cut a piece of his cloak off. But he would not lay a hand on Saul. He did not respect Saul as a man. But he respected the anointing. He respected the office. And I think that's a lesson for us. How do we look at this world that we live in? It is such a polarized political atmosphere right now. There is no honor in politics. There's no coming together. It is just two extremes. And we can't let that get us down. We can't let that disrupt us. We can't focus all of our attention on that. I really try never to bring up politics with Shirley when we're driving in the car, because she just, she goes off. And I always remind her, Shirley, don't worry about the details. We know the end. And she laughs, and yeah, I know, I know. But it's true. It's healthy for us to be good citizens, right, to participate in politics, to vote. But don't put your trust in that person. We need to rely on that office that God has appointed for us. to give us some civility in a fallen world without laws, without governance, we would be in big trouble. I think through David's life, he gives us a good model for how to address that. And I really thought hard about that, and it became clear just thinking about every opportunity David had to take out Saul, every reason. He was after him. He was going to kill him. He had every right to defend himself, but he always chose not to because he held that anointing higher. He had regard for that. It's just disheartening to me when I hear, I think it was the women's soccer players a few weeks ago who said, you know, they would never go to the White House. That's disrespectful to the office. You might not like the person, but let's have some respect for the office. probably a few months ago, I believe, that Joe Biden was called out by the DNC because he made a remark about the vice president and said he was a decent man. He had to recant that the next day. You can't even say the opposing party is a decent man. There's no honor in politics anymore. Again, we can learn a lesson from David. So how do we tie all this together? He finishes this with verse 10. The Lord will reign forever. Your God, O Zion, to all generations, praise the Lord. If we take to heart that our trust is not in princes or kings or presidents, or even husbands and wives and children and grandchildren, that's not where our hope should be. If our hope is in the creator of this universe, which David calls us to see, who created the seas and all that is in them, the heavens and the earth, if our hope is in him and we see the justice, that He will bring. Even though today, where we live, we may experience times of injustice, we can see it on television, we may experience it in our own lives, there will be a call when justice will be served, God's name will be vindicated, the righteous will be brought to Him. And if we can take it to heart, that to live obedient to God looks like those things that he described, caring for the oppressed, feeding the hungry, special care for the widows and the orphans. That's what it should look like. If we take all those things to heart, now let's go back to verse one. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live, and I will sing praises to my God while I have being. That gives us cause to praise the Lord when we know He is just and He is merciful. and we are called to be his people. We are adopted as his sons and daughters. What greater gift can we have? What greater cause could we have than to cry out hallelujah, praise Jehovah? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you as your people, sometimes weary by the ways of this world, frustrated with injustices that we see, concerned at times with bickering of men among men. Father, do not let this consume us, do not let it occupy our time, but fill our time, fill our hearts, fill our desires. with your word, with a desire to know you better, to know ourselves, to serve you better as we emulate Christ in caring for those who are needy, who are hungry, who are blind, who are prisoners, who are widows and orphans. Give us a heart of mercy. Give us a heart that longs for justice. Father, give us a desire to do the things that might require courage and strength beyond our means in order to see justice done. Father, as David, we praise you, hallelujah. Praise the Lord for all that you have done for us. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.