“What man can live, and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?”
– Psalm 89:48
Oh, what a powerful pair of questions. As a reminder, we are praying each day in these Pray The Word episode’s for specific needs that people send in through radical.net/prayerrequests. So if you have things you want to send in, just go to radical.net/prayerrequests, put your name right there. Just specific ways we can be praying for you, your family, your church, people around you. And actually, I want to do something a little bit different today. I want to pull together just different prayer requests that I’ve seen into one. Specifically people just wanting to pray for family members and friends who don’t have faith in Jesus right now, who don’t know eternal life in Jesus, that God would use circumstances, this crisis to open their eyes to the inevitability of death and the beauty of eternal life in Jesus.
Pray for someone in your life who does not know Jesus. Let’s ask God to save them. Deliverance from ultimate death only comes through the finished work of Christ. May we share the good news of the gospel with them.
This Verse Reminds Us That We Will Have Everlasting Life
This is something I’ve just been burdened to pray for continually. In my time alone with the Lord each Sunday as I’m preaching just pleading that God would use this temporary pandemic to bring about eternal peace in many people’s hearts. And that’s why I’m just drawn to Psalm 89:48. What man can live and never see death? What a poignant question and so appropriate, so applicable when we’re in the middle of a pandemic, a virus spreading that we haven’t figured out how to stop, where we’re all reminded of the fragility of life and the inevitability of death. And what man can live and never see death? And the answer’s obvious, no one. No one. Death will come to all of unless Jesus comes back first.
Death will come to all of us, so who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? And the picture is no man can do that but there is one who can do that. The God man, Jesus. This is the essence of the gospel that we love. If you haven’t trusted in Jesus, I just want to encourage you with this news today, that death has been conquered by one. Jesus died on a cross for your sins, for my sins. He rose from the grave in victory over death, so that all who turn from their sin and trust in Jesus will be forgiven of all their sin and reconciled to a relationship with God for eternal life, just pure John 316. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life.
Psalm 89:48 Prays For People Who Don’t Know Jesus
So Psalm 89:48, who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? No person can in and of themselves, but Jesus can. He can deliver you and me from death, which means we have the greatest news in the world to share during these days. To tell people in a scene where we’re reminded of the fragility of life and the inevitability of death, that there is one who’s conquered death and eternal life is possible through him. So I just want to lead us right now to pray for somebody in your life who doesn’t know Jesus, and I just want you to bring them to your mind right now and we’re just going to lift them up.
And I would even invite you if it’s appropriate just to say their name out loud in a minute. And for us just to intercede together for individuals by name who we know don’t know Jesus. So let’s just pray right now. Dear God, we pray for, just lift up names of people right now who you know don’t have a relationship with Jesus. Just lift their names up right now in your heart, maybe just speak them out loud.
God, we lift these names to you. Oh God, there’s so many names just flooding through my mind right now. God, we pray for all these people that we’re lifting before your throne right now. Not one of them can escape death. Maybe they can escape this virus, but not one of them can escape death and some may succumb to death because of this virus. So God, we pray. We plead right now for their salvation. We pray that you would deliver their souls from the power of death through faith in Jesus. God, please do it. God, please give us boldness to share the gospel with these people even today to give them a call.
Psalm 89:48 Prays That People Open Their Eyes And Hearts To God
Send them a text, write them a note, email, however God to communicate to them the greatest news in the world. God we pray that you would open their eyes, their hearts, to see your love for them. That you have sent your son to die on a cross for them so that they don’t have to perish, but have eternal life. God, please, please, please draw people to salvation in Christ.
Please bring eternal peace in the middle of this temporary pandemic and help us. Help us to be bold with the gospel. Compassionate with the gospel, not afraid to share the gospel. Help us to proclaim this news like it’s the greatest news in the world because it is so that people’s souls might be delivered. Psalm 89:48 from the power of death, God, please it may be so we pray for these people that we’ve lifted up to you, we pray for them in Jesus name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
