Psalm 50 comments

 

Psalm 50:1 ¶  «A Psalm of Asaph.» The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.  2  Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. 3  Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. 4  He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. 5  Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. 6  And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.

 

1Chronicles 16:4  And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record, and to thank and praise the LORD God of Israel: 5  Asaph the chief, and next to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Mattithiah, and Eliab, and Benaiah, and Obededom: and Jeiel with psalteries and with harps; but Asaph made a sound with cymbals; 6  Benaiah also and Jahaziel the priests with trumpets continually before the ark of the covenant of God. 7 ¶  Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the LORD into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.

 

So, we have Asaph mentioned in conjunction with David and the Psalms.

 

This Psalm opens with one of the great declarations of the Bible worthy to be repeated in prayer praising God. Here is another.

 

Psalm 145:3  Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.

 

And another that underscores that Christ is the visible image of the mighty God.

 

Isaiah 9:6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

 

And we have this from the New Testament;

 

Titus 2:13  Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

 

God’s glory shone from Jerusalem.

 

Isaiah 12:6  Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.

 

God’s presence preceded by a devouring fire;

 

Psalm 97:3  A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.

 

Daniel 7:10  A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

 

Here is prophesied that God will call and then judge His people. Although there are many verses regarding this in the Old and New Testaments and in Revelation I am reminded of these when we are gathered to Him.

 

2Corinthians 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

 

Matthew 24:31  And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

 

1Thessalonians 4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

 

Verse 6 is repeated later;

 

Psalm 97:6  The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory.

 

Psalm 50:7 ¶  Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. 8  I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me. 9  I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. 10  For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11  I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12  If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13  Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? 14  Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: 15  And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

 

The Psalmist established God’s glory and sovereignty and then leads to a fundamental of the faith; our need to be thankful and to glorify God. God, the God of the Bible, is their God, for whom they have their reason for being as a people separate from other people.

 

Psalm 81:8 ¶  Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me;

 

Isaiah 1:18  Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

God does not need their sacrifices for we know that our obedience to God involves placing ourselves in the right relationship with the one who created us, not in any physical benefit to Him.

 

Psalm 24:1 ¶  «A Psalm of David.» The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

 

In any event every wild beast and every domesticated animal belongs to Him anyway. We are fooled by this notion of property when all of life is His. He knows the flying things, fowls, personally.

 

As Luke writes;

 

Luke 12:6  Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?

 

Or as Matthew noted;

 

Matthew 10:29  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

 

What we are called to do is seek Him humbly, to seek His mercy in time of distress, to glorify Him for His mercy and help. We are to walk with our Lord humbly.

 

Micah 6:8  He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

 

Reality, the world, the universe, belongs to God. It is His property.

 

In verse 14 thanksgiving is a sacrifice.

 

Psalm 69:30 ¶  I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. 31  This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.

 

Psalm 107:22  And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.

 

Hebrews 13:15  By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

 

Psalm 50:16 ¶  But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? 17  Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee. 18  When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. 19  Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. 20  Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son. 21  These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. 22  Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in

pieces, and there be none to deliver. 23  Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.

 

Here God condemns the phoniness, the hypocrisy, of those who will not obey Him but who use His words to justify their wickedness or simply disobey Him while proclaiming that they are His. There are many Christians today and through history who honored God with their lips but denied Him with their actions.

 

God here is judging hypocrisy. We should be warned. God’s judgment is a terrible and frightening thing. But those who praise Him and live according to His word will see His salvation. This denies the concept of what some call, “easy-believism.” There is a balance in the Bible in that we are not justified by the Law and works and yet, without works, faith is a dead thing and without acknowledging God’s standard in at least the Ten Commandments our protestation of our relationship with God is a phony thing.

 

See here in the following passages from Jesus Himself and from Paul’s letters how He underscores what we must do while he all the while speaks of how we are not justified by the Law.

 

First, the easy part;

 

John 6:28 ¶  Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29  Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

 

Galatians 3:24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

 

Ephesians 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.

 

So the Law does not justify us or save us but that doesn’t mean the Law, at the very least the moral Law, is not God’s standard of righteousness. First for the verse after Ephesians 2:9.

 

Ephesians 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

 

And then from Paul again focusing on our behavior, or our conversation;

 

Romans 13:8  Owe no man any thing, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.9  For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 10  Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

 

As Christ Himself focused on the whole point of the Law;

 

Matthew 22:35  Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36  Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38  This is the first and great commandment. 39  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

 

But with James really sticking it to us.

 

James 2:14 ¶  What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15  If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16  And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17  Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18  Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19  Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

20  But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21  Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22  Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23  And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24  Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25  Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26  For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

 

Clearly, a balanced view of the divide between works and grace must be taken or we run into all sorts of errors.

 

In conclusion this is a great Psalm for us to pray over for understanding. God is so clear about what He calls for if we take in the whole counsel of His word.