The Dead End of Self-Confidence Text: Psalm 49:13-14
Introduction: The Universal Folly
We live in an age that worships at the altar of self-esteem. Our public schools, our corporations, and sadly, many of our churches, are dedicated to the proposition that the worst possible sin is to make a man feel bad about himself. The modern man is told from his youth up to trust in himself, to believe in his dreams, to follow his heart. He constructs his entire life on the foundation of his own cleverness, his own strength, and his own ambitions. He is the captain of his soul, and his portfolio is the proof.
This psalm, Psalm 49, is a bucket of ice water thrown on that entire project. It is a wisdom psalm, a dark saying on a harp, addressed to the whole world, rich and poor together. Its central message is that the wisdom of this world, which is a wisdom built on the idolatry of wealth and self-reliance, is a dead end street. It is a fool's errand. And the tragedy is not just that one generation of fools pursues this path, but that the next generation watches them, applauds their sayings, and then marches straight off the same cliff.
The world thinks the Christian message is foolishness. But the Spirit of God here pulls back the curtain of reality to show us what true folly is. True folly is to live as though death is not coming for you. True folly is to believe that the hearse pulling up to your neighbor's mansion will never make a stop at your own. It is to think that because your words are quoted in the Wall Street Journal, they will carry any weight in the courts of heaven. This psalm is a frontal assault on the pomposity of godless man, and it shows us with bracing clarity the final destination of all such proud rebellion.
We are examining two verses that lie at the heart of this psalm's argument. They describe the way of the fool, the approval of his posterity, and the grim reality of his final estate. This is not pleasant, but it is necessary. For unless we understand the terminus of the broad road, we will never appreciate the glorious gift of the narrow way that leads to life.
The Text
This is the way of those who are foolish,
And of those after them who are pleased with their words. Selah.
As sheep they are appointed for Sheol;
Death will shepherd them;
And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning,
And their form shall be for Sheol to consume,
Far away from his habitation.
(Psalm 49:13-14 LSB)
The Path of Folly and the Applause of Fools (v. 13)
The psalmist first identifies the path and its deluded travelers.
"This is the way of those who are foolish, And of those after them who are pleased with their words. Selah." (Psalm 49:13)
The "way" being described is the one laid out in the preceding verses, the way of those who "trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their riches" (v. 6). It is the path of brute self-confidence. The word for foolish here is not describing a mere lack of intellectual horsepower. In the Bible, the fool is not the man who cannot reason; he is the man who will not reason from the right premise. The fool is the one who has said in his heart, "There is no God," or, what amounts to the same thing, "There is a God, but He doesn't signify in my business dealings." This is a moral and spiritual foolishness, a deep-seated stupidity of the soul.
Their way is their confidence. They walk this path with a swagger. They believe they have secured themselves against the contingencies of life. They have their 401k, their gated community, their trust fund. They think they can ransom themselves from trouble. But the psalmist has already told us that no man can ransom another, or give to God a price for his life (v. 7). The price is too high. All their wealth cannot purchase one more breath than God has allotted them.
But the folly is contagious. It is a generational disease. Notice the second clause: "And of those after them who are pleased with their words." The next generation comes along, sees the mansions the fools built, reads their autobiographies, and applauds their sayings. They listen to the commencement addresses, they internalize the worldly wisdom, and they determine to follow in the same self-assured footsteps. The father builds his empire on greed and godlessness, and the son inherits the business and the worldview along with it. No one learns. The historical evidence piles up, coffin by coffin, yet every new generation thinks it will be the one to finally outsmart death.
And then we have that word, "Selah." This is a musical or liturgical notation, but it functions as a divine command to the reader: Pause. Stop. Think about this. Consider the sheer, breathtaking insanity of this cycle. A man lives his whole life for his stuff, then he dies and leaves it to someone else, and that someone else, who just saw the whole vanity play out, says, "What a brilliant strategy! I shall do the same!" Selah. Let the weight of this stubborn, generational blindness sink in.
The Shepherd of the Damned (v. 14a)
Verse 14 gives us one of the most chilling images in all of Scripture. It reveals the true destination and the true master of the foolish.
"As sheep they are appointed for Sheol; Death will shepherd them;" (Psalm 49:14a)
These men who saw themselves as lions of industry, as masters of the universe, are revealed to be nothing more than sheep. And like sheep, they are dumb, they follow one another, and they are utterly helpless before their appointed end. They thought they were carving their own path, but they were simply being herded into a pen.
Their destination is Sheol, the grave, the realm of the dead. All their lives they denied the power of death, or they ignored it, or they tried to build monuments to defy it. But death has the final say. They are "appointed" for Sheol. This is a divine decree. Their end was not an accident; it was an appointment they could not miss. God Himself has set their course.
And who is their shepherd? Not the Lord, who is the shepherd of the righteous (Psalm 23:1). No, their shepherd is Death itself. This is a terrifying personification. Death is not a neutral event for them; it is an active, malevolent ruler. It herds them, it guides them, it pens them in. They thought they were following their own ambitions, but they were actually following the call of the Grim Reaper. He was leading them to the slaughter all along. All their striving, all their acquisitions, all their boasting was simply the bleating of sheep on the way to the abattoir.
The Great Reversal (v. 14b)
But the story does not end in the darkness of the grave. The second half of the verse introduces a stunning reversal of fortunes.
"And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning," (Psalm 49:14b)
Here is the great antithesis that runs through all of Scripture. While the proud and the foolish are being herded into the darkness by Death, the upright, the righteous, are promised dominion. In this life, it often appears that the wicked are the ones with dominion. They rule in the boardrooms, in the halls of government, in the media. The righteous are often the ones who are mocked, marginalized, and oppressed. They are the sheep, and the wicked are the wolves.
But God promises a great turning of the tables. This dominion will come "in the morning." This is a powerful eschatological image. The night of this world, with all its injustice and oppression, will not last forever. The morning is coming. This refers ultimately to the morning of the resurrection, the dawn of the new creation. When Christ returns, those who are His will be vindicated. The meek shall inherit the earth, not in some ethereal, spiritual sense, but in reality. The saints will judge the world (1 Cor. 6:2). Those who were last will be first, and those who were first will be last.
This is a promise that should straighten the spine of every believer. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Your refusal to bow the knee to the idols of this age is not folly; it is the truest wisdom. The morning is coming, and with it, a righteous dominion that will never end.
The Final Humiliation (v. 14c)
The verse concludes with the final state of the wicked fool. His end is consumption and exile.
"And their form shall be for Sheol to consume, Far away from his habitation." (Psalm 49:14c)
Their "form," their beauty, their pomp, everything that made them glorious in the eyes of the world, will be utterly consumed by the grave. All the trappings of their success, the physical presence that commanded respect and fear, will waste away. Sheol will devour their glory. The grave is a great equalizer, and it strips men of all their earthly pretenses. The worms do not distinguish between the flesh of a king and the flesh of a pauper.
And their end is one of exile. "Far away from his habitation." The word for habitation here can mean a princely dwelling or palace. All their magnificent homes, their sprawling estates, the places where they thought they had established a permanent legacy, will be lost to them forever. Their final home is the grave, and it is a home far removed from the glory they built for themselves on earth. They are eternally evicted from their own paradise.
The Gospel in the Morning
This psalm presents a grim picture, but it is a necessary one. It shows us the end of all humanistic striving. Left to ourselves, this is our destiny. We are all born fools, sheep going astray, appointed for Sheol with Death as our shepherd. This is the wages of our sin.
But the psalmist himself provides the key, the great hope that stands in stark contrast to this whole sorry affair. In the very next verse, he says, "But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me" (Psalm 49:15). Here is the gospel.
While Death is the shepherd of the wicked, the Lord is the Shepherd of the righteous. David says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me" (Psalm 23:4). The righteous man also walks into the valley, but he does not walk alone, and he is not abandoned there. His Shepherd walks with him and brings him through to the other side.
How is this possible? Because the Good Shepherd became a sheep for us. Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, allowed Himself to be appointed for Sheol. He allowed Death to shepherd Him to the cross and into the grave. He let His form be consumed. He was laid in a borrowed tomb, far from His heavenly habitation. He took the full curse of verse 14 upon Himself.
But Death could not hold Him. On the third day, the great "morning" of the resurrection dawned. And in that morning, He broke the power of Sheol and took dominion. Because He lives, we who are in Him will live also. God receives us, not because of our wisdom or our wealth, but because He has redeemed our souls through the blood of His Son. Christ is our ransom, the price that no man could pay.
Therefore, do not fear the fool who grows rich. Do not applaud his sayings. Do not follow his way. His path ends in the dark pasture of Death. Instead, trust in the Good Shepherd. Follow His voice. His path may lead through the valley of the shadow, but it ends in the morning of resurrection, in a glorious dominion, and in a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.