Psalm 50

Introduction

Something. Our God presenting himself in glory that they had never seen. Presenting himself to the people, the people that would enter into covenant with him. The formalized covenant is entered into in the 24th chapter, where sacrifices are made in the book or the law of the covenant is read to the people. And the people in two places in that chapter swear that they will obey all that God has said. And the blood is splattered upon the altar, and the blood is sprinkled upon the people, and they enter into a covenant with God. But most of us here this morning recognize from our Old Testament history that Israel was seldom faithful to their covenant with God. And even if one generation was faithful, well, there’s still the matter of succeeding generations, and they were to enter into a covenant with God.

So it brings about the idea of covenant renewal. Times which the people would come before their God and renew, even what we think about in marriages today, and you think of sometimes couples that have been married for 30, 40, 50 years, sometimes they will renew their vows to each other. It does not mean necessarily that they have been unfaithful to each other or that they broke their covenant. It’s just that they are reaffirming their covenant with God, their covenant with each other. And so Israel might have several occasions in which they would come together to renew and to reaffirm the covenant that they had made with their God.

The covenant is renewed. The blessings and curses of the covenant are read in Joshua chapter 8. They’re again another picture of covenant renewal. We see in the times of the kings, whether it be King Asa, or whether it be during the days of Joash and the priest Jehoiadah, or whether it be King Hezekiah or King Josiah, there are these pictures of covenant renewal where there is recognition that we the people have not been faithful to the covenant with God. And so we need to renew our covenant with God. Psalm 50 is a picture of covenant renewal. I want to begin reading here in Psalm 50. Let’s read the first six verses. The word, I’m sorry, I’m in Jeremiah 50. Well, they both have we’re, if you want to go to the Jeremiah class this morning, we’re in chapter 50 in there as well.

1. God Judging His Covenant People

Psalm 50, though, Psalm 50, and beginning in verse 1. The mighty one, God, the Lord has spoken and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shown forth. May our God come and not keep silence. Fire devours before him, and is very tempestuous around him. He summons the heavens above and the earth to judge his people. Gather my godly ones to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens declare his righteousness, for God Himself is judge. In first reading this, we get this picture of God assembling the whole earth before him. And our mind may instantly go to the matter of judgment. In fact, my heading, the heading that’s supplied by the translators in Psalm 50, simply says, God, the judge of the righteous and the wicked.

Well, that is certainly true that God is the judge of the righteous and the wicked. But the picture of the Psalm here is not of God judging the whole earth, it is God judging his people. It is God reflecting on his covenant people, those who have made sacrifices to him, those who have entered into covenant with him. And what God has done is he assembled the whole world to witness this judging of his own people. In fact, he even says he calls the heavens and the earth. You may recall in passages in the law of Moses. Where, for instance, in Psalm, I’m sorry, Deuteronomy 30 and in verse 19. Whereas God has set before the people blessing and curse, he has set before them life and death.

2. Offer to God a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

But the very creation is witness of what the people have entered into with their God. The very creation is witness to the fact that this people has affirmed that we will be loyal and faithful to our God. And so in this picture here, as God, again in that picture of you have from Exodus 19, of God and fire coming before him, this picture of the awesome nature and glory of God. He has assembled together all that is witness between him and his people. This people that has entered into a covenant with him. Then you move on to verse 7. Hear, O my people, and I will speak. O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God your God. Now note why he says in verse 8, I do not reprove you for your sacrifices.

So let’s just understand that. God is not saying you should not have been offering sacrifices to me. He is not saying I reprove you for the fact that you’ve offered the correct sacrifices. He says, your burnt offerings are continually before me. But note what he says about them. I shall take no young bull out of your house, nor male goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats? What you have here is God reflecting upon the attitude of the people in their sacrifices.

Were the sacrifices wrong? Absolutely not. The sacrifices were in fact required by God in the very law. But what was their attitude in offering these sacrifices? They were treating God, they were treating Jehovah God as simply another idol. You may know that the heathen in sacrificing to their idols and worshiping their idols would oftentimes set up little shrines. And they would go morning and night and they would place before their God bread and wine or anything else that that God may need to make sure that that God was provided for.

That in their mind, that really what God is wanting for us from us is sacrifice. He needs bulls. He needs goats. He needs us to come and to make these sacrifices for him so he can eat, so he can be satisfied. And so while God says, I did not reprove the fact that you’re offering sacrifices, you are not offering them for the right reason. You have this mentality that so long as we make the sacrifices, then our God is happy. Our God is pleased. His appetite is satan. Everything is okay. Here’s what God says to them, verse 14. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in the day of trouble. I shall rescue you. And you’ll honor me.

Make the sacrifices. I don’t reprove you for that. But recognize here is what I’m really wanting from you. That as you make these sacrifices, it ought to be a means of thanksgiving. That this is our God. And as these people are about to renew their covenant, this ought to be their attitude. As even if they’re considering the very sacrifices that they would make and renewing their covenant, come to me with thanksgiving and recognizing who I am and what I’ve done for you. And come to me in faith, recognizing that when you are in trouble, if you’ll just call out to me, I will be there and I will rescue you. Here is what I want from you. I want your heart, I want your soul, I want your allegiance, I want your faith.

And so there is no contrast between the sacrifices and what God is really wanting from them in all reality. If this people have been coming before God and offering sacrifices of thanksgiving, if this people have been coming to God in faith, recognizing that if we are in trouble and we call out to our God, He will be there for us, then what would they have done? They would have continued to offer the sacrifices, they continue to follow God and obey God and all that He says, but they would do so with gladness and thanksgiving and recognizing here is the awesome God which we serve.

3. What Right Have You to Take My Covenant

God is reminding his people, if you value this covenant with me, then here’s what this covenant is all about. It’s not a covenant based on how many sacrifices you can make. It’s not a covenant based on how many bulls and young goats can you offer to me. It is a covenant based on you should be thankful that I am your God. And you should be trusting in me, because I am your God, and I will rescue you, and you can honor me. But then the tone changes again in verse 16. But to the wicked, God says, Now let’s again recognize God is not picturing here the heathen. He is picturing the wicked among his own people. He is picturing the people who have thought that so long as we make the sacrifices, everything is okay, and yet we can go and we can do whatever we wish to do.

They are wicked. To the wicked, God says, What right have you to tell of my statutes and to take my covenant in your mouth? Standard covenant procedure would be that as the blessings and curses were read, either the people may repeat those, or they may simply affirm that yes, we will do all that God has said. And so God is reproving them for this. You are wicked in that you’re not doing the very things which you say, and you affirm with your mouth that you were going to do. You have taken my covenant in your mouth, and so he says, You hate discipline. And you cast my words behind you. In verses 18 through 20, you may recognize from the very Ten Commandments, the commandments of thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness.

And so he says to them, When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you associate with adulterers. You let your mouth loose and evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son. You dare to take my covenant in your mouth. But in your very actions, you are showing that you have no regard for my covenant, because you are violating what my covenant is all about. You violated the very law of the covenant. And so he things, he says, These things you have done, and I have kept silence. You thought that I was just like you. I’ll reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. Because judgment doesn’t always come swiftly.

4. You Who Forget God

Judgment doesn’t always come as soon as we do something that is wrong. Sometimes we can deceive ourselves into thinking that, well, God is okay with it. God is just like me. He doesn’t care necessarily what I do, so long as I come to him. I make the sacrifices, I pledge my fidelity to the covenant, I am free to go and live how I want to live. God says, I am not just like you. I am righteous, I am just. And so your unfaithfulness to this demands that I now judge you. And so I judge you. Now consider this, verse 22. You who forget God.

Taking that phrase in the whole totality of the Psalm, who is it that forgets God? It’s not those who don’t ever go and worship God. It is not speaking of those who fail to make sacrifices. No, he is speaking to people who worship God. He is speaking to the people who they make their sacrifices. He is speaking to the people who pledge fidelity to God’s covenant. And yet they are not faithful to God’s covenant. They do not follow God. They do not keep his law and his commandments. Those things are not holy in their heart and in their eyes. And so he says, You who forget God. Or I will tear you in pieces, and there’ll be none to deliver. Israel should have been entering into covenant with God because of the protection and the love and the blessings that God could bestow.

Because there is no God like He. There is no one who had protected them like He had. There is no one who could provide for them like He could. But God says, if you forget me, if you depart from my covenant, then not only have you lost your protector, you have set yourselves against me. And what do we know from the Bible? Whoever is set against God, God wins that battle. God can punish and God can destroy. But he who offers a sacrifice, verse 23, a thanksgiving, honors me. And to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God. Here’s the appeal. Honor your covenant with me. Come before me, not just with sacrifice, but with thanksgiving in your heart. Come before me joyously in recognition of who I am and that you are my people.

Come before me with gladness and thanksgiving for what I have done for you and what I can continue to do for me for you. And set your way aright. Just given what the Psalm says, we know what that means. If forgetting God was transgressing the very covenant law of God, then what does it mean to set your way aright? Follow God now. If you’ll come to God in faith and thanksgiving, then you’ll desire to set your way aright. You’ll desire to follow the very laws and the commandments of God. And he says, You do that, and I’ll show you the salvation of God. This is the appeal to the people as they were entering into their covenant with God, renewing their covenant with God. That God was judging them.

5. Reaffirming That We Are a Covenant People of God

All was called to witness this. And God is reproving them because they had not been faithful to their covenant. Their faithfulness began, our unfaithfulness began in their minds because they began treating God as someone or something who just wanted some token pledges from them. And then that moved to, well, so long as we make the token pledge, so long as we make the token sacrifice, then our fidelity to his law is no concern to us. And in doing so, they forgot God. You ever consider the fact that as we come together on a weekly basis, we are in effect reaffirming that we are a covenant people of God. As Jesus took the cup and he passed it, he said, This is my blood of the new covenant, Luke 22 and verse 20.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 25 that as often as we drink of it, we proclaim his death. We recognize that what we will do a little bit later on this morning is a remembrance. It is a memorial feast for what our Lord did for us. But a part of that is that in giving his life, he opened the new covenant. He opened this relationship that man could be restored back to their God, and man could have his sins forgiven. And so a part of what we are to remember every Lord’s day is not just the fact that Jesus died, but that because of that death, we are now entered into this relationship with God. This is our covenant. And we are reaffirming that every first day of the week.

Some of us may even have to renew covenant because of our lives and our transgressions. But whatever it may be, we are saying to God, as we come together, we honor you, we love you, we are your covenant people. And if that’s what we’re here to do today, then do not let the warnings of Psalm 50 pass. Because what God says to his covenant people is, here’s what I want from you. Does he want us to come together on the first day of the week? Sure. God would not reprove us of that. But God will reprove us if we think to ourselves, because I have come to worship him, I am okay. That has put my salvation in my hands. That’s not true. What God desires from us is that we come together on this day and we live our lives every day, not by just offering a few trinkets to him, not by just offering a few bulls or young lambs or whatever it is that we may say that we will give to God this day, but come to him with a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

That today, God, we have come to you a joyous people, a people who love you, a people who recognize you have saved us, and you alone could save us. That the sacrifice of your son is what we need, and so we live this day and we praise you this day in honor of that, and we will offer to you everything that we have. That’s what God’s wanting from us. And then we pledge, as we reaffirm our covenant today. Not any notion of salvation because of the things that we do, but we pledge to him our fidelity to him. We pledge to him our faithfulness that we will follow him, that we will look to his ways and look to his laws and we will keep those things because he could say to us as well.

Conclusion

How dare you take my covenant in your mouth? And yet you go home and you ignore me. You ignore me because of how you’re treating your spouse. Or you ignore me because of what is on your mind and what is on your lips. Or you ignore me because you just don’t think of me. We are here to reaffirm that we are the covenant people of God. And if we are the covenant people of God, then we are pledging, God, we will follow you. We will trust in you. We will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving that honors you. We will set our ways aright, trusting that you will in fact show us your salvation. We’re going to sing a song of invitation this morning. You can be in a covenant with God.

You can be in a covenant relationship with God because Jesus has made that possible. The sacrifice of his son has made that covenant possible. You can be in that relationship. We have faith. We repent of your wrongs, be baptized, and have your sins forgiven.

We can go by book. What’s the book number again? 332. 332 in the book. But I would also exhort those of us who have come together to reaffirm our covenant with God this day. Let us search our minds. Let us think this is the relationship we have pledge to enter into with our God. We have come together to say we are your covenant people. Then search your hearts, search your minds. Have I come today to offer Him the thanksgiving that he is due? And have I come today pledging myself to set my ways aright, to follow Him, to follow His ways. It may be that you see that there are things amiss in your life, and maybe you just need to commit yourself this morning, even in silent prayer to God.

That God, I am going to reaffirm my covenant with you. But it may be even that you would desire the prayers of the saints here. As we strive together to be the covenant people of God, that we can aid one another, and that we can be there for each other. And so if you see that you need this covenant with your God, and there’s something amiss between you and your God, then let us help you in some way as we stand and as we sing.