And for our reading of God’s word, let’s begin with our New Testament reading, which comes from the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. Romans chapter one. And we will read verses 14 through 25. Romans 114 through 25. Listen to this. This is the very word of God.
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I’m eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I’m not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.
Amen. Much of that speaks to and flows into the Old Testament reading and the message tonight, but I want to bring particular attention to the fact that they didn’t glorify God, neither did they give him thanks. And with that, turn please to the Psalms and to Psalm 50. And that will be our reading and the text for this evening’s message, Psalm 50. A Psalm of Asaph.
The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes, he does not keep silence. Before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth that he may judge his people. Gather to me my faithful ones who made a covenant with me by sacrifice. The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Hear, O my people, and I will speak. O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you. Your burnt offerings are continually before me.
I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds, for every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.
But to the wicked, God says, what right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free reign for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I have been silent. You thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart and there be none to deliver.
The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me. To one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God. That’s the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray now that He would bless it to us. Father in heaven, thank you for the holy scriptures. And we pray that you would nourish our souls as we seek to feed upon the bread of life. We pray that your word would go forth, not in word only, but also with power, that your spirit himself would empower the word for our benefit and for your glory. And we pray all this for the sake of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. In the book of Genesis, we read about how Abraham prayed and interceded with the Lord in behalf of the cities of the plains, cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, because the Lord was going down to investigate.
He came in bodily form with two angels, and he was going to go down. And no doubt Abraham knew of the great wickedness of the people of those cities. And when he interceded in behalf of those cities. The thought, of course, that was weighing on Abraham’s heart was that, yes, those are wicked, wicked cities, but there may be some righteous in it. And so he prayed to the Lord and asked him if he’d spare those cities if there were 50 righteous. And you know the story about how he sort of worked him down. But in that dialogue between Abraham and Yahweh. Abraham, one of the appeals that he made to God was, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right? The judge of all the earth.
Abraham lived 2,000 years before Christ. And there was much in terms of theology that he did not know. He lived 1,000 years before David and before most of the Psalms were composed. He lived 500 years before Moses and before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and before the descendants of Abraham would go in and possess the land.
The covenant of grace was there, but it was only in its very beginning stages in the days of Abraham. It’s just beginning to unfold, and yet Abraham’s theology, as incomplete as it may have been, included at least this, that Yahweh is the judge of all the earth.
That’s originally what I was going to title this sermon, and would still make a perfectly good title, I think, the judge of all the earth. But as I continued to study and had an extra week this time around to prepare, this theme of glorifying God emerged. And so I titled the sermon, Man’s Chief End, because God’s gonna give us directions in this psalm about how we can glorify him. And isn’t that our chief end? To glorify him and enjoy him. This is a psalm of Asaph. As you see in the heading Asaph has 12 Psalms in the Psalter attributed to him. Asaph was a Levitical musician. He was the head of a family amongst the Levites. He was a choir master, a song, a singing leader of singing.
And Asaph lived during the days of David and he lived into the early days of Solomon’s reign. So he was still around, still serving in God’s presence in the early days of Solomon. There were Psalms that were composed and are attributed to him in the Psalter that actually weren’t written until even after, in some cases, the exile, after the Israelites had come back. So that’s many, many hundreds of years after the lifetime of Asaph. But those Psalms that are attributed to Asaph or that say a Psalm of Asaph were probably written by his descendants, or perhaps were just written in a style that reflects the style of Asaph. But there are 12, and of the Psalms that are attributed to Asaph, this is the first.
And what it teaches us is that all mankind is under the jurisdiction of the living God and will appear before him for judgment. That’s the overall theme of this Psalm. All mankind is under the jurisdiction of the living God and will appear before him for judgment.
I’ve got more alliteration for you in the headings tonight. Three headings that we’ll consider. The first is Notice to the Nations. The second is Chastening for the Chosen. And the third is Warning to the Wicked. So first of all, the psalm opens with a notice to the nations. And by notice, what I’m talking about is kind of like what a court would send you, a notice to appear, a summons, by the decree of the Most High God.
So it’s a divine summons. God summons the whole earth to appear before him. Why? Because he’s the judge of the whole earth, just as Abraham understood. In verse four, it says, he calls the heavens above and to the earth. That’s because he’s summoning the earth and the heavens to be witnesses in his court. this sort of thing happens a number of times in Holy Scripture. For instance, in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19, the Lord God says, So you see that that idea of God testifying to his people, and he’s calling upon the heavens and the earth to bear witness. That’s what he does in this psalm.
God himself is judge. He’s the judge of all the earth. Notice all the legal kind of courtroom language that we find in this psalm. First of all, the summons itself. God the Lord speaks and summons the earth. orders all the people from the rising of the sun to its setting to appear before him for judgment. And twice in the psalm, God has spoken of as judge, you see it in verse four, that he may judge his people.
You see it in verse six, God himself is judge, it says. And you see God himself giving legal testimony in verse seven, oh Israel, I will testify against you. And you see him bringing charges in verse 21. Now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. So there’s lots of courtroom imagery, lots of courtroom language in this psalm. And God is giving legal notice that he’s going to judge his people, his people.
Now, is he talking about Israel there? Yes, there’s certainly that element. And it’s certainly a reference when he speaks of his people, it’s a reference to the covenant community, but it goes beyond that. In verse five, he speaks of his faithful ones, the ones that are in covenant with him. Verse seven, he refers to them, he speaks to them, calling them my people. And he tells them, I am your God. So there’s that. certainly the address to the faithful, to the community of faith.
But again, as I say, it goes beyond that, because as Abraham well knew, God is the judge of all the earth. And this psalm speaks of the fact that The beasts of the field are His. The cattle on a thousand hills are His. And just as all the animal life on earth belongs to the Lord God, so all the tribes of earth are His as well.
All the people of the world belong to Him. They are His by right. You know from elsewhere in Scripture, think particularly of Psalm 2, that the Lord God Almighty gives to his son, to his anointed, to the Messiah, the nations as an inheritance. We’ll touch on that again. But all the people of the earth belong to him. He’s their maker. And he’s their judge.
So the warnings that we see beginning in verse 16 when we get to that third point, the warning to the wicked. Those warnings are applicable to hypocrites within the covenant community, people who name the name of God, people perhaps in context of the psalm are part of the nation of Israel, people in context of the modern church are members of the visible church. And yet our hypocrites within the covenant community, nevertheless, all the earth, all people will stand before Yahweh in judgment. And because that’s going to be the case, he gives notice, notice to the nations.
But then secondly, I’ve said, he speaks of chastening for the chosen. Verses seven through 15 are a rebuke, and it’s aimed particularly to the covenant community, to God’s own people. He testifies against them. He rebukes them. And that shouldn’t be unexpected. Because as we read in Hebrews, the Lord disciplines the one he loves. He chastises every son whom he receives. And so he’s chastising the chosen here in this part of the psalm.
He calls together his faithful ones. in verse five, his faithful ones, he speaks to them, speaks of them in those terms. And he speaks to them in gracious, covenantal terms seen already, he refers to them as my people. And he refers to himself as your God. And isn’t that kind of a summary of, of the blessings of the covenant, they shall be my people, and I shall be a God to them. So he’s addressing them in that manner.
And according to those terms, they’re His, but they’re also in need of a rebuke. Very much like the churches we read of in the second and third chapters of Revelation. In most cases, the Lord would commend the church for certain things, but then He would say, but I have this against you. So they were getting a pat on the back from the Lord Jesus, but they were also getting a bit of a scolding, a bit of a rebuke.
And you notice what he says here in Psalm 50, that he’s not rebuking them for their sacrifices as such. It’s not, the problem wasn’t their sacrifices. What he’s rebuking them for is for trusting in their sacrifices, trusting in their offerings. For trusting, by extension, in their own religious devotion, as if those acts of worship that they performed before God were meritorious somehow. So God’s corrective message as he chastens his people is this, I don’t need your sacrifices.
All the sacrifices were ordained by God. They were specific instructions were given by God for how to offer up sacrifices, when to offer them, why to offer them. And the people were doing those things. That was good. But God is rebuking them because they’re starting to trust in those sacrifices, starting to put confidence in their own works, even in their own works of piety.
So God is saying, I don’t need those things. He’s as much as saying, I, the Lord, do not hunger. So I don’t need a goat. I don’t thirst. So I don’t need anything that you offer up on my altar. He even says, if I did need something, I wouldn’t ask you for it. Because as it says elsewhere in the Psalms, the earth is the Lord’s in all its fullness. And those words almost exactly occur even in this Psalm. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, verse 12, for the world and its fullness are mine.
So as we consider this rebuke, this chastening for the chosen here in Psalm 50, one of the takeaways for us is there’s nothing that any of us can do to put God in our debt. There’s nothing we can do, nothing we can offer to Him that would obligate Him to us. And what God is telling his people here in Psalm 50 is that these animal sacrifices that they were offering according to the law, they were doing it the right way, but they do not please God if the worshiper’s hearts aren’t in it.
If they’re just mechanically going through the motions of bringing their offerings, being slaughtered by the altar, and all the parts that are supposed to be burned are burned, the priest gets the parts that he’s supposed to get. It’s not pleasing to God, even if you follow all the rules, if your heart isn’t in it. And the application for us today is that formalism, going through the motions, doesn’t please God even now in the New Testament church. Worshipping by rote. It’s not pleasing to him.
He wants our hearts. So what is acceptable to God? Well, he tells us in verse 14 and going on into 15. Here’s what pleases God. Here’s what’s acceptable to him. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble. That’s another series of phrases, series of instructions and exhortations that we see elsewhere in the Psalms. So Psalm 105, for example, opens with these words, Oh, give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name. And this is not exactly what he says in verses 14 and 15 here. And for those who sincerely give thanks to him, for those who sincerely call upon him, what does he promise? He says, I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.
So when by grace, through faith, we give thanks to God and call upon his name, we’re on track to fulfill man’s chief end, because it’s glorifying to him when we do that. We can only do this in and through Christ, our Mediator. We have to keep that in mind. If we’re going to give Him thanks, if we’re going to sincerely call upon His name, and if we want to truly glorify Him, we have to do it all through Christ. And if we’ve been drawn to Him, we’ve been brought into His family, if we’ve been adopted as His sons and daughters, then He’s going to At times when we need it and when it’s pleasing in his sight, he’s going to chasten us, he’ll discipline us. We should expect that. And we should be submissive under his disciplinary rod.
But this is a reminder to us too that judgment begins at the household of God. Isn’t that what Peter wrote? In his first letter, chapter four, verse 17, it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? So God, Judges his people in a disciplinary way. He chastises, he disciplines his children. And that’s the pattern we see here in Psalm 50. Peter said, judgment begins in the house of God. And so in verses seven through 15, God is addressing his faithful ones.
But then he goes on and gives a warning to the wicked. He issues this warning in verses 16, and it goes on to verse 21 or 22. It’s a sobering thought, sobering reality, but God will most certainly judge all the nations of the earth. He promises that. That’s the theme throughout the Psalms, that God will execute judgment among the nations.
I think especially of Psalm 2, once again, where God the Father speaks to his Son, to his anointed, ask of me. And I will give you the nations for your inheritance. You shall judge them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Or in Psalm 110, sit at my right hand till I make the nations a footstool for your feet.
You see those sort of themes woven throughout the Psalms, themes of God sitting as judge over the nations of the earth, but not just in the Psalms. Consider what we find in Jeremiah 25, verse 31. The clamor will resound to the ends of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against the nations. He is entering into judgment with all flesh, and the wicked he will put to the sword, declares the Lord. So you see that legal language again, the indictment, and God entering into judgment. or this awesome prophetic vision that Joel saw and is recorded for us in chapter three of his prophecy, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Yehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there. It’s everywhere in scripture. God is the judge, and he warns the wicked.
And Jesus did the same when he was on earth during his earthly ministry. One of the most awesome and solemn moments of teaching in the Gospels is in Matthew 25. It’s just before we enter into the major events, the main events of the Passion Week. before Jesus and his disciples go and celebrate the Lord’s Supper, celebrate the Passover, and Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper. In that final large block of instruction that Jesus gives, and that’s recorded for us in the gospel according to Matthew, it concludes with this. It’s like Jesus is landing the plane in terms of his earthly teaching ministry.
And he says, when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, Then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations.” And you know what he goes on to say will happen after that, that final judgment, that last day when our Savior returns, he’s going to sit on that glorious throne and he’s going to judge. just as Paul wrote to Timothy in his second letter.
That’s another solemn letter. Think of Jesus teaching in Matthew 25, just before he’s going to go to the cross. These last words of instruction that Matthew records. And then I think of 2 Timothy, because it’s Paul’s probably the last letter that he wrote. He knows the time of his departure is near, and he’s writing to his protege, his pupil, his brother and friend, Timothy.
And in chapter four, second Timothy says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom. So when we look at Psalm 50, and we read of the judge of all the earth, judging the nations, we need to come to understand that Christ is the judge of Psalm 50. Christ is the judge.
Now, when God addresses, starting in verse 16, the wicked, that, as I already alluded to, that includes the wicked among the covenant community. There were people in the covenant community, as there always have been, and sadly, there always will be throughout this present age. There were people within the covenant community, in the visible church, we might say, who are actually hypocrites. And they are included in the audience here in verse 16 and following. And although a lot of people would suggest that they’re the only audience, that the address of Psalm 50 isn’t really intended for the rest of the nations, I think the universal, The universal theme or tone of this psalm suggests that it goes beyond just the covenant community, and God is speaking to all the wicked here, whether they’re within the covenant community or not. All the tribes of the earth, in other words. And in verses 17 through 20, we see rebukes for all manner of sin.
Look at it with me again. He says, you hate discipline. You cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you’re pleased with him.” In other words, they call evil good, and good evil. You keep company with adulterers, he says. You give your mouth free reign for evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son.
So all these sins, these different categories of sins that we could, we could, in terms of the taxonomy of sin, we could categorize these under various of the commandments, we got the Eighth Commandment there, you see a thief, you’re pleased with them. Keep company with adulterers, that’s the Seventh Commandment. And these sins of the tongue, including and especially slander, even against a brother, the ninth commandment, but even sixth commandment in terms of that being spiritual murder to speak against a brother in that way. They have disregard for the scriptures. They hate discipline. You think of the many, many times in the book of Proverbs, it talks about how the fool despises and hates discipline.
And then when we get to verse 21, after citing all those offenses, God says to the wicked, these things you have done, and I have been silent. And what happens is that the wicked interpret God’s silence. They interpret God’s forbearance as approval. They think because God doesn’t act swiftly in judgment that he must not be too upset with the way they’re living and the way they’re acting, what they’re doing. These things you have done and I have been silent.
In Ecclesiastes chapter eight, verse 11, Solomon wrote, because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Now, we can take the words of that verse and the truth contained in it. as a commentary, perhaps, on slow-moving human systems of justice. And when the wheels of justice turn slowly and the sentence against a crime isn’t executed swiftly, then it just encourages people. People are emboldened to sin and to continue to be criminal in their behavior. But in terms of God’s own justice, what’s going on here as far as the psalm describes it is that Because God’s judgment didn’t come swiftly, sinners deceive themselves into thinking that what they’re doing is acceptable to God.
And even, as that verse goes on to say, even to thinking that God is basically like them. I mentioned in this morning’s message, one of the what I consider to be one of the sharpest rebukes that Jesus gave during his earthly ministry when he called out people and said, why do you call me Lord? Lord, but you don’t do what I say. This rebuke in Psalm 50 has always also stood out to me as a really sharp rebuke. I think the wording of it in the King James, which I remember reading as a younger man, even brings it out more to my ears brings it out more poignantly where God says, you thought I was altogether like yourselves.
And how shameful that is that people would and people do try to create God in their own image and think that he’s like us. If you were to do a search of scripture, you would not be able to find many or even any statements that say something like, God is like, because God doesn’t give us statements like that in the Bible. God is like, and he’s certainly not like us. We see the opposite, actually.
We see God over and over again saying to us through Scripture, there is none like me. In fact, as I thought about it, I can’t say that I’ve done an exhaustive search or study of this theme. But the one statement in all of Scripture that comes anywhere close to saying what God is like is when it says, He has anointed is like a refiner’s fire. That’s the only one I could come up with. He’s like a refiner’s fire, and that, along with what we see in verses 16 through 22, is a warning to the wicked.
It is an absolute certainty that the ungodly will not stand in the day of judgment. The wicked are under condemnation, and when they appear before the judgment seat of Christ, If they appear apart from the clothing of the righteousness of Christ, they’ll be sentenced to hell for all eternity. But that final sentence has not yet been executed.
And in this warning to the wicked, God still holds out the free offer of salvation to the wicked. Despite the sternness of this psalm, It ends with a strong tone of gospel hope. Speaking through this psalm, Christ himself graciously warns sinners to remember him and repent of their sins.
He’s an amazingly gracious Savior. As we’ve already observed, Christ himself is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead. And for all who put their trust in him for salvation, he, get this, he has already accepted the sentence. And he’s already endured the penalty for your sins. Look at the language we see at the end of this Psalm, verse 22. Mark this then you who forget God, lest I tear you apart and there be none to deliver. Jesus Christ, Christian, was torn apart for your sake. And he became your deliverer.
And so what sacrifice can we offer that actually pleases God? We can offer him the sacrifice of thanksgiving. He’s glorified when we give him thanks. Thanking him, calling upon him through Christ our mediator. This is the way to order our way rightly. This is to glorify him. And what does our gracious God promise to do? He promises to show us his salvation. so that we can glorify him and enjoy him forever. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.
Lord, we thank you that you didn’t leave us to ourselves. Thank you for giving us gracious warnings. Lord, thank you for chastening your chosen and thank you for even for those who are still straying and wandering and, and walking in wickedness, you warn them and you do so graciously. Lord, we pray that you would open the ears of many, even this very day to heed your gracious warnings and to turn to you to live lives that are ordered to right and to give you thanks and to offer acceptable sacrifices to you, to glorify you, Lord.
Lord, we pray you do this mighty work. We thank you for beginning the work in so many of us. We pray that the work that you’ve begun in us, you would be gracious and faithful to continue to bring to completion. And we pray that even before this day closes, you’ll begin that work in many, many others. As you build your kingdom, we pray it for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.