Psalm 146 is a psalm of praise. The psalm begins and ends with the refrain, “Praise ye the Lord.” It is praise of the Lord God of Israel, who alone is the help and hope of his elect people, the God who is forever the God of Zion and who reigns unto all generations. Contrasted with God is the prince, man at his best. And the question of the text is this: In whom do you put your trust?

Answering this question negatively, the text says, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man.”

However, before we can speak of princes, we must speak of God, for he is central in the text. We cannot understand the princes without first understanding who God is and why he alone is to be trusted. And too, it is necessary for us to understand what this text is dealing with. We would be mistaken if we never made it past a merely earthly interpretation of this text. Oh, yes, this is true, there is no confidence in princes even in that which is earthly, but the text is far deeper than this, for it deals not primarily in earthly matters but in the matter of salvation.

Verse 5 states that he is happy who has God as his help and who has the Lord God for his hope. It is then necessary to understand who this God is who makes one happy. First of all, he is the God of an elect people. It must never be presumed that this happiness is for those who are not God’s elect, that this is a happiness that any man can have. That this is the case is evident from the titles given unto God. He is called “the God of Jacob” and “the Lord” and “thy God, O Zion.” These names indicate that he is the God of a specific people.

That God is “the God of Jacob” refers to the fact that he is the God of Israel, his chosen people. Is it not from Jacob that the twelve tribes of Israel came? Of course, I do not mean to say here that all those of the nation of Israel were God’s people, for scripture testifies, “They are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6). Rather, I speak of Israel as the elect kernel, God’s elect as represented by the nation of Israel.

The name “Lord” indicates that God is Jehovah, the eternal i am, who is ever faithful to his elect people, who is the unchangeable God. Being unchangeable in his being, his love is unchangeable, so that he has only and ever loved a certain people, who are his elect.

When Psalm 146:10 refers to God as “thy God, O Zion,” it also references Zion, where God dwells with his people and where they worship him. He is shown to be a covenant God, one who dwells in love with his people in friendship and fellowship.

But still more! God, who is the friend of his elect people, is omnipotent. His omnipotence is shown to us beginning with verse 6 through the remainder of the psalm. It is here then that I say that you may not remain focused only on what is earthly, but you must see the spiritual reality behind all of these things. We see that God is the creator and sustainer of all things. All things are in his hands, and he directs all things according to his purpose. God is the keeper of truth. It is God who keeps his truth, so that it never fails, so that he ever preserves his church in the love of the truth and ever preserves the truth in her midst. It is God who executes judgment for the oppressed, who in life are ever oppressed by the wicked world, the apostate church, the devil and his hosts, and their own sinful natures that plague them. But God will execute judgment, he will smite all those who afflict his church, and he will judge his church to be righteous. For does not God love the righteous, and will he not turn upside down the way of the wicked (v. 9)? He gives food to the hungry, loosens the prisoners, opens the eyes of the blind, and raises those bowed down. Oh, yes, God does all these things in an earthly way, but does he not do all these things in a spiritual manner? He feeds our hungry and thirsty souls with his word; he loosens us from sin and corruption and from the bondage of sin by the work of Christ on the cross; he gives us eyes to see, so that we see him as the one, true God and so that we know and understand him as our God; and he raises us who are bowed down by sin and misery, who are so afflicted by the battle of sin that we cannot rise. But God is our strength, and he will deliver us and will raise us up who are bowed over. God also preserves the stranger and relieves the fatherless and widow. Are these not also vivid descriptions of God’s people? We live in this world as pilgrims and strangers, for this world is not our home, but our home is in heaven. And are we not as the fatherless and the widow? We are as those who are without a father and who go companionless in this world, but God is our father and our companion. God provides for us as a father; and as our friend and companion, he never leaves nor forsakes us.

We see too in all these things the one who is happy, who has God for his help and whose hope is in God. This person is nothing. Do not verse 6 and the following verses point out that this person who has God as his help is one who is in need of help? This person is one who is starved, oppressed, blind, a stranger in the world, a prisoner, and abandoned. These infirmities all point out the hopeless spiritual condition of this person. This person is a sinner, one who is destitute in himself, ineffectual to save himself, hopelessly lost, and oppressed by sin. But God is his help! God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, on God’s behalf to take away all the sins of the oppressed sinner, so that he might be judged righteous in Christ before the judgment seat of God. And too, this person is one who hopes in God. He is a stranger who hopes for heaven, and that hope is in the Lord. His hope is in the unchangeable God, and his hope is rooted in Christ Jesus and his cross, which secured forever his salvation. All of his expectation is in God alone.

Because the elect have this God as their help and have their hope in the changeless God who gave unto them salvation merely of grace, they are happy. This happiness is a spiritual happiness that cannot be defined in earthly terms, by the vain joy of this world, which is fleeting and is no true joy. This happiness really is an inner peace or comfort, so that amid the endless conflict in this life, we do not despair but always look to God and await the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

This happiness is the same comfort that the Heidelberg Catechism speaks of in Lord’s Day 1. When speaking of our only comfort in life and in death, answer 1 says,

That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Chris; who, with His precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him. (Confessions and Church Order, 83–84)

We also read of this happiness in 2 Corinthians 4: 8–9: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” This happiness is spoken of in this text in connection with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the same gospel spoken of in Psalm 146, which is that we have God as our help and that we hope in the Lord. That is the gospel, for to have God as our help means that we have Jesus Christ and all his saving benefits; and having Christ, we hope only in him, for in him alone is our salvation. Having Christ then, we are happy, so that though we be troubled, we will not be distressed; though we be perplexed, we will not despair; though we be persecuted, we will not be forsaken; though we be cast down, we will never be destroyed.

What then shall we say of princes? Are they sufficient to be the ground of such happiness? Absolutely not! We read, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” When the text speaks of princes, it does not mean men generally. Rather, the text speaks of man at his very best. Princes are those who are mighty in the world, who have a say in things, who are wise, to whom people look, in whom people have confidence. And yet princes are of no help, and thus they provide no happiness. They are of no help because they cannot do that which God does, as described in verses 6 and following. God alone is the doer of these things, and man has no part in them, which is to say that there is nothing that man can do for his salvation.

The reason that man cannot do these things for his salvation is because he is subservient to God in all things, for God is the creator of heaven and earth and all therein (v. 6). Man even at his best is a mere creature and is beholden to God for his existence. This is verse 4: “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” Man is mere dust. As soon as a man’s breath leaves his body, he dies and returns to the dust from which God created him. And in that very moment, man loses all his might, influence, and earthly things. In a word, man is mortal. And what trust can be placed on those who are destined to perish and return to the dust? This is the point of the end of verse 4: “In that very day his thoughts perish.” “Thoughts” here mean everything about a man, so that all a man does, aspires for, wishes for—all of his relationships and all of who he is—can be concluded under the thoughts of a man, for everything about a man is contained in his thoughts. And so, not only is man mortal, but also when man dies, everything about him ceases to be. His work perishes. His aspirations come to an end. His plans fail. His goals will never come to fruition. Man simply comes to an end. Thus princes are not to be trusted, for when they perish (and they shall certainly perish), then all who rely on them are left with nothing. And when the prince-truster dies, shall his prince, who is confined to earthly breath, be of any benefit to him?

How much more glorious is God! He never perishes and is omnipotent. Therefore, all that he wills shall come to pass. He is the eternal and unchangeable God, which man can never be. For this reason we are again renewed to joy, for we know that what God wills shall come to pass. Thus we have no need to fear, for we know that our salvation rests in God’s hands alone. Because salvation depends on him alone, we are saved and shall endure until Christ comes again because God never perishes but shall reign forever (v. 10). And when we die, we know that we have a heavenly Father who remains with us even in death and takes us up to heaven to dwell with him forever.

What then of us in the Reformed Protestant Churches? How many times have we not seen that princes are not to be trusted? Oh, yes, God gave us men who were princes. When we were in the Protestant Reformed Churches, God gave us princes who were wise, whose books we read, whose sermons we listened to, from whom we learned, about whom we would say that they could never teach false doctrine. But they did. And were we not surprised by that?

There is no help in princes.

Or did not God give us men and women who saw the error of the Protestant Reformed Churches, who protested, who instructed us, and then after all this departed for legalism? Were we not surprised when we saw who departed?

There is no help in princes.

Or when controversy over the school arose and it was made apparent that there were those among us who despised the creeds, were we not shocked by who despised the creeds?

There is no help in princes.

And again now, we see this. Are we not perplexed and bewildered? It is hardly believable that those who saw the lie of our mother so clearly and who led us out of an apostate church should now go panting after legalism and put us back into bondage by their stupid, man-made law. Did we not esteem them most highly? Did they not teach us the truth? Did they not write much concerning the truth? Were they not the chief of the princes, about whom we would say, “Surely they would not teach a false doctrine to us”? How then can they who loved the truth so dearly depart from the truth and return to the vomit again? Princes are but dust.

There is no help in princes.

Let us then put no trust in princes, in whom there is no help; but let us trust in God, who alone “keepeth truth for ever” (v. 6). Men do not preserve the truth in the church. The preservation of the truth is the work of God alone, for men are but dust; they have no strength.

What then shall we say about all of these princes whom God gave to us? They are mere instruments in the hands of God, the keeper of truth, who says, “Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life” (Isa. 43:4). God has used all of these men for the sake of the church. God used them to deliver us out of the apostate church, where we would have perished under false doctrine. They are but dust-instruments in God’s hand, which instruments shall perish, but God shall ever remain as the Lord of his church and the keeper of truth.

And, too, we have had nothing but controversy since the beginning. Shall we then say that we have no happiness and no peace? No, for our happiness and peace are not earthly or in a mere lack of controversy. Rather, we have joy and peace knowing that God is our help and that we have a sure hope in Jesus Christ. We possess happiness because we have Jesus Christ and that by the preaching of the pure gospel. Jesus Christ alone is the source of our happiness. We see that even though the church may be constantly fighting, she has peace because she has Jesus Christ.

There is then a word here for those who say that there is no peace in the church because she is always fighting for the truth and who depart from the true church for earthly peace. That word is, “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” The church that has God by Jesus Christ in the preaching of the gospel is happy. God by Jesus Christ is the source of her happiness, not that she does not have controversy. For Christ even says, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). The church will always be at war, but she is ever at peace and hopes in her Lord, who is her help. If you depart from the true church for earthly peace, you will find it; you will have an easy life, but you will not have peace, for you depart from God in whom alone is peace. Rather, you will be left with an earthly prince and an earthly peace that perishes.

Do we not then have a great occasion to be joyful? God is our God. He is our help. He is our sure hope. He shall keep his truth forever. He shall execute judgment for the oppressed. In him alone is happiness and peace. We then exclaim with the psalmist, “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” (Ps. 146:1–2).