Psalm 146:4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish
Is there any hope? That is a question a lot of people ask themselves every day, and they ask this with anxiety. Is there hope for America? Is their hope for the West, more broadly speaking? Is there hope for the world? Is there hope for my family? Psalm 146 reminds us that the hope you have depends on the help you seek.
Verse 1 says, “Praise ye the LORD. Praise the LORD, O my soul. While I live I will praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have being.” Why is this psalmist pledging to praise God while he is alive? Well, it is because you can’t praise God after you are dead. To be sure, Psalm 146 reminds us of Revelation 19:5 which tells us very clearly that we will be praising God in eternity in heaven. But as to this life, if you are going to praise God, you have to do it now because your life is short. This is reemphasized in verses 3-4, “Put not your trust in princes,” the people of power, “nor in the son of man,” that is regular people, “in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” So, as to my praising the LORD and trusting man, both are limited in duration on this earth. Is there any hope? It depends. The hope you have depends on the help you seek.
There is obviously a contrast here between the short-lived nature of a human on this earth and the eternal perspective and power of the God who made this earth. God is the only one bigger than your problems who will also outlive your problems. So, I have the problem about whom I want to vote for. I want to vote for George Washington. He is a great guy. There is a problem. He is dead. What about the problem that I’d like to have a lot of money. Fifty dollars in 1776 would have been a lot of money, but the problem is you can scarcely feed a family at McDonalds for fifty dollars today. So, the time horizon for George Washington and money is very meager indeed.
Think about millionaires. There used to be books out like The Millionaire Next Door. The idea was that millionaires are not obvious. They live in normal houses and drive normal cars, but they have accumulated wealth. Well, millionaires aren’t what they used to be because a million dollars isn’t what it used to be. It will mean even less in a hundred years. The resources that seem to answer our problems are short-lived, and quite frankly our problems are the same.
What world power would the people who would have originally read Psalm 146 have feared? At one time they were fearful of Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria, none of which taken by themselves are world powers that are frightening today. So, God is the only one bigger than your problems who will actually outlive our problems. That is why verse 5 brings to light the contrast between the limited duration of our praise and trust and the eternal nature of God.
Verse 5 says, “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God.” I have hope because my help is found in God. Everything else and everyone else has time constraints. If my hope depends on the help I am seeking and I am seeking God, what does that mean? Verse 6 says, “Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever.” God’s truth is forever. Any book you are going to read has limited perspective and probably a limited duration of usefulness. You may have a book by some expert, but what will it be worth in a hundred or a thousand years? The Bible still works because God keeps truth forever. My ability to praise and to trust someone else is limited because my life is limited. The people I am trusting now I won’t be trusting in heaven in a million years because none of us will be needed to help each other. We will, in the fullest sense, be with God. So, on this earth in this life, God’s truth is forever.
God’s power is to all generations. Verse 10 says, “The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations.” So, God’s truth is forever and God’s power is to all generations. Regardless of what you see going on in the West, the world, or America, God’s power is to all generations. We can’t vote God in and we can’t vote God out. God still reigns.
The conclusion of this is just like the beginning; “Praise ye the LORD.” That is how the psalm begins and that is how it ends. Why? It is because God is not of limited utility or duration. God is forever. I can’t trust anyone today who will be here in a hundred years. I can’t praise God on this earth in this body in a hundred years, but in contrast, praising God is something I can be doing a million years from now because God is the only one bigger than my problems who will also outlive my problems. Why not get a jump on that and praise Him today because that is what we will be doing in eternity. The hope you have is no better than the help you seek. If that help is God, then that is all you need.