Lessons From the Psalms - Psalm 50

[00:00:07] Welcome to Lessons from the Psalms. This is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host.

[00:00:13] On this podcast we will be going over the book of Psalms.

[00:00:21] Let's open in prayer. Father God, I thank you for anyone listening to this Psalm today.

[00:00:27] I pray that you would reveal to everyone listening how much you truly love each and every one of them.

[00:00:34] I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. This is Psalm 50 beginning in verse 1.

[00:00:42] The mighty one God the Lord has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its going down.

[00:00:52] Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth.

[00:00:59] Our God shall come and shall not keep silent.

[00:01:03] A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around him.

[00:01:11] He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge his people.

[00:01:18] Gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

[00:01:26] Let the heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge.

[00:01:33] Say, Lord, Hear, O my people, and I will speak.

[00:01:39] O Israel, and I will testify against you.

[00:01:43] I am God, your God.

[00:01:47] I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are continually before me.

[00:01:56] I will not take a bull from your house nor goats out of your folds, for every beast of the forest is mine.

[00:02:05] And the cattle on a thousand hills.

[00:02:08] I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

[00:02:15] If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all its fullness.

[00:02:23] Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?

[00:02:29] Offer to God thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High.

[00:02:35] Call upon me in the day of trouble.

[00:02:39] I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

[00:02:44] But to the wicked God says, What right have you to declare my statutes or take my covenant in your mouth,

[00:02:55] seeing you hate instruction and cast my words behind you.

[00:03:02] When you saw a thief, you consented with him and have been a partaker with adulterers.

[00:03:10] You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit.

[00:03:16] You sit and speak against your brother.

[00:03:19] You slander your own mother's son.

[00:03:22] These things you have done, and I kept silent.

[00:03:27] You thought that I was altogether like you, but I will rebuke you and set them in order before your eyes.

[00:03:37] Now consider this, you who forget God.

[00:03:41] Lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver.

[00:03:47] Whoever offers praise glorifies me, and to him who orders his conduct a right,

[00:03:55] I will show the salvation of God.

[00:04:00] Now friends, I'm going to break this Psalm down for you.

[00:04:03] First of all, this Psalm is attributed to a man called Asaph.

[00:04:10] He wrote 12 Psalms.

[00:04:14] Asaph was one of the music leaders that King David had assigned to the temple during his time as king of Jerusalem.

[00:04:27] This is known as a wisdom Psalm, but this is one of many Psalms that God is talking about the difference between those who basically are righteous people and have a fear of the Lord.

[00:04:44] And that is the first 15 verses of this Psalm.

[00:04:49] And those who do not have a fear of God and live their lives as though God either is not real, is not a factor in their life, does not exist.

[00:05:03] But he differentiates.

[00:05:05] And this Psalm is very conducive of that.

[00:05:10] So let's break this Psalm down, the first two verses.

[00:05:14] The mighty one, God the Lord has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its going down.

[00:05:24] Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth.

[00:05:31] Now whenever you hear the word Zion in the Bible, we're referring to the city of Jerusalem.

[00:05:39] And it says God will shine forth.

[00:05:42] If we go to the very end of the Bible in the book of Revelation, it says that there will be a new earth and a new Jerusalem.

[00:05:53] And God will live there with those who have made the decision to receive Jesus.

[00:06:02] Now verses three through six is a prophetic part of this Psalm.

[00:06:10] And this prophecy is talking about the coming of the kingdom of God.

[00:06:16] So this speaks about the future.

[00:06:19] Let's look at verses three through six.

[00:06:22] Our God shall come and shall not keep silent.

[00:06:27] A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around him.

[00:06:35] He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge his people.

[00:06:42] Gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

[00:06:50] Let the heavens declare his righteousness for God himself is judge.

[00:06:58] Say, law.

[00:06:59] And whenever you hear the word say, law, it means meditate and ponder what you've just read.

[00:07:08] But verse six tells us that God eventually will be the judge of all mankind.

[00:07:15] And when your life ends, he will be the decision maker as to whether you get into heaven or whether you end up in hell.

[00:07:27] Let's look at verse seven.

[00:07:29] Hear, O my people, and I will speak.

[00:07:32] O Israel, and I will testify against you.

[00:07:36] I am God, your God.

[00:07:39] I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings which are continually before me.

[00:07:47] Friends, this is telling us that God wants us to recognize who he is.

[00:07:54] He is the creator of all and we should bow our knee before him.

[00:08:01] Everything we do, everything we say, he is aware of and he knows about.

[00:08:08] I will not take a bull from your house nor goats out of your folds.

[00:08:14] For every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills.

[00:08:20] I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

[00:08:26] So this is God reminding us that he is the creator of all.

[00:08:31] And everything on earth is actually his.

[00:08:35] I want to get that point across.

[00:08:37] We may think it stuff is ours, but it actually is God's and he is leasing it to us.

[00:08:46] He has given it into our hands.

[00:08:48] So basically we are the proprietors of this, but he actually owns it.

[00:08:55] And here he says, if I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all its fullness.

[00:09:03] Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?

[00:09:08] Offer to God thanksgiving and pay your vows to the most high.

[00:09:15] Call upon me in the day of trouble.

[00:09:18] I will deliver you and you shall glorify me.

[00:09:23] Friends verse 15 of Psalm 50 is the definition of what God wants from each one of us.

[00:09:33] He wants us to call upon him whenever we have a need.

[00:09:39] And he will deliver you and we are to glorify him.

[00:09:45] Now let's look at those people who, one, are not Christians.

[00:09:51] They either don't believe in God or God is definitely not a part of their lives.

[00:09:56] Let's listen to this.

[00:09:58] But to the wicked, God says, what right have you to declare my statutes or take my covenant in your mouth?

[00:10:08] Seeing you hate instruction and cast my words behind you.

[00:10:15] These people do not take instruction.

[00:10:20] When you saw a thief, you consented with him and have been a partaker with adulterers.

[00:10:28] You give your mouth to evil.

[00:10:31] In other words, they do not watch the words that come out of their mouth.

[00:10:35] They don't care.

[00:10:36] And your tongue frames deceit.

[00:10:39] You sit and speak against your brother.

[00:10:43] So that is gossip.

[00:10:45] You slander your own mother's son.

[00:10:48] These things you have done and I kept silent.

[00:10:52] You thought that I was all together like you.

[00:10:58] And that is such a key point because God is nothing like these people.

[00:11:06] A matter of fact, God cannot inhabit sin.

[00:11:12] So wherever sin is present in the world,

[00:11:16] God is not going to be there.

[00:11:19] But I will rebuke you and set them in order before your eyes.

[00:11:25] Now listen to this.

[00:11:26] Now consider this.

[00:11:28] You who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver.

[00:11:38] In other words, God is the judge.

[00:11:41] And if you choose not to obey him or acknowledge him, he can and maybe will bring you down.

[00:11:55] So let's look at our last verse.

[00:11:57] Whoever offers praise glorifies me.

[00:12:02] There is a phrase in the Bible that says God inhabits the praises of his people.

[00:12:09] So if you praise him, God is automatically going to be there.

[00:12:14] And to him who orders his conduct aright, I will show the salvation of God.

[00:12:23] Friends, Jesus is our salvation.

[00:12:28] He came to earth to forgive all of the sins of all of mankind in one fell swoop by dying on that cross.

[00:12:39] Glorify him, praise him.

[00:12:42] And friends, I will see you soon as we take a closer look at Psalm 50.