Put Not Your Trust in Princes

Psalm 146

Introduction

On the one hand, people have every reason to not put their trust in princes. The princes let them down over and over, again and again. You would think that people would stop trusting them. Every promised wave of reforms is promising to fix all the problems that were caused by the previous wave of reforms. We are like that woman in the gospels—the more the doctors treated her, the more her problems continued (Luke 8:43). As Mark makes clear, she only got worse (Mark 12:44). But the reason we keep resorting to these “princes” is that we assume, in our faithlessness, that we have no other options. We must either trust in this prince or that one, musn’t we? And the answer presented by this psalm is a clarion no.  

The Text

“Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: Which keepeth truth for ever: Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: Which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners: The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: The Lord loveth the righteous: The Lord preserveth the strangers; He relieveth the fatherless and widow: But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. The Lord shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord.” (Psalm 146).

Summary of the Text

We have here another glorious psalm of praise. Praise the Lord, O my soul (v. 1). As long as I am above the ground, I will continue to sing praises to God (v. 2). The next sentiment seems like a lurch, but it really is not. If you are God-centered as you ought to be, you will not look to men, or to the princes of men, for your help and aid (v. 3). If disaster strikes, people instinctively call on their gods. Why should it be the federal government? When you trust in man, what is the object of your faith? You are trusting in someone who is going to stop breathing sometime, and then go into the ground. All his thoughts go down there with him (v. 4). By way of contrast, the one who has the help of the God of Jacob, who hopes in the Lord his God, he is the happy man (v. 5). You are trusting in the one who made heaven, earth, and everything the sea contains (v. 6), and not in someone who is going to decompose somewhere in the earth or sea. The Lord is the truth forever. This Creator God is active in human affairs—he executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, and sets prisoners free (v. 7). He opens the eyes of the blind, He raised up those who are weighed down, and He loves the righteous (v. 8). He protects aliens, and He relieves orphans and widows (v. 9). But He also comes up to the wicked and flips them upside down (v. 9). Though we may see the wicked functioning “right side up” for a time, their hour is coming. And God is the one who will reign forever (v. 10)—your God, O you people of God, forever and ever. Praise Him (v. 10).  

While I Live

The psalmist promises to praise the living God as long as he has any breath. And we know that when the breathing stops, the singing will improve, and it will go on forever.

When we go to a concert, a moment comes when we are almost about to start, and the orchestra starts tuning up. Someone strikes an A, and the musicians begin noodling around with that A. It is not a song exactly, but it is very pleasant, and it is full of promise. It means the concert is about to start. All our praises in this earth are nothing more than the orchestra tuning up that way, adjusting their instruments. So as long as God gives you the instrument you have, and you have any breath remaining, then continue with that preparation. “Tune my heart to sing thy grace.”

Hallway of Hallelujahs

“Praise the Lord” here in v. 1 is hallelujah. We are now in a long hallway of hallelujahs, extending all the way out of the book of Psalms and into eternity. Praise of this sort is a function of heart loyalty, fully overflowing. So this is a stretch of true praise, indicating that the Psalms, like human history itself, is a comedy. It ends with a wedding. It ends with everything resolved. It ends on a high note, and the psalms of imprecation, and desperation, and penitence, are all behind us now. A time is coming when the judge of the whole earth will do right (Gen. 18:25), and He will set everything to rights. This means that absolutely everything is going to come into focus. Nothing will be disjointed, and we will finally be given the final and complete perspective.

Jesus as our Great Jehovah

And what is said here about Jehovah God is all fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus is Jehovah (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:13). He made “heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is” (John 1: 3; Col. 1: 16; Heb. 1:2). He “keepeth truth forever” (John 14:6)—because He is the truth. He executes “judgment for the oppressed” (Luke 20:47). He gives “food to the hungry” (Matt. 14:19). He sets prisoners free (Luke 4:18). The Lord opens the eyes of the blind (John 9:32). He raises up those who “are bowed down” (Luke 13:16). The Lord “loveth the righteous” (John 13:23). Jesus preserves the stranger (Mark 7:26). He relieves “the fatherless and widow” (Luke 7:12). The way of the wicked . . . well, He flips their tables upside down (Matt. 21:12). He, the Lord Jesus, will “reign forever” (Rev. 11:15).

Messiah the Prince

Charles de Gaulle once said that graveyards are filled with indispensable men. One time Alexander the Great saw Diogenes the Cynic looking carefully at a heap of bones. Asked what he was doing, Diogenes said that he was looking for the bones of Alexander’s father, but he could not distinguish them from the bones of a slave. Princes are but men, and they go into the ground just like everybody else. Even during those times when they want to help out, their armies and navies still come to nothing. They are but the shadow of smoke.

And you should also budget for the fact that they are personally fickle. Why do princes and rich men act like a weather vane on a gusty day? Because they are “powerful” and they can. But that also comes to nothing.

There is one Prince, however, who is not in this position at all. He died once for all, and rose, and so death no longer has dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). Not only that, He is not fickle at all. He is the same—yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). He is Messiah the Prince (Dan. 9:25).