Yahweh’s Case

Against Israel

(Psalm Fifty)

Psalm 50 is a very unusual psalm, bearing a strongly prophetic tone in which God speaks against His covenant people. The psalmist uses a courtroom motif, wherein God summons the heavens and earth to witness. He charges His covenant people with the crimes of wrongful worship (in insincere formalism) and walking in hypocrisy in regard to the covenant. He invites them to consider their ways and walk in genuine worship and righteousness.

Outline

I. God Summons All (vv. 1-6)

II. The First Indictment – Worthless Worship (vv. 7-15)

1. Worthless worship (vv. 7-13)

They misunderstand God.

2. Invitation to right worship (vv. 14-15)

III. The Second Indictment – Wicked Walk (vv. 16-21)

1. They talk of the covenant. (v. 16)

2. They walk in hypocrisy. (vv. 17-20)

3. They misunderstand God. (v. 21)

IV. Final Warning (vv. 22-23)

Worship right and walk right.

Exposition

Heading – “A Psalm of Asaph”

Asaph is a leading Levite musician (1 Chron. 16:4-5) who also wrote Psalms 73-83.

I. God Summons All (vv. 1-6)

The Mighty One, God, the LORD, has spoken,
And summoned the earth

from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Notice two things about these words. First, he opens with an unusual grouping of three names of God. Alexander Maclaren commented, “The psalm opens with a majestic heaping together of the divine names, as if a herald were proclaiming the style and titles of a mighty king at the opening of a solemn assize… El speaks of God as mighty; Elohim, as the object of religious fear; Jehovah [Yahweh], as the self-existent and covenant God.”¹ This is an appropriate opening, because, as we shall see, the Israelites’ problem is their failure to understand the character of God.

Second, He summons the earth (and heavens in verse 4) in its entirety, “from the rising of the sun to its setting” being a poetic description for everything. They were called as witnesses to the original covenant agreement with Israel, and now they are called to witness God’s case against their violation.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God has shone forth.
May our God come and not keep silence;
Fire devours before Him,
And it 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. Selah.

God has filled Zion, His earthly home with His glory. Now the call is for His glory to show forth His fiery presence and His tempestuous judgment against sin.

Notice the psalmist invites God’s judgment, much as Habakkuk’s “How long, O Lord…?” What kind of person cries out for the judgment of God against His people? One who treasures the glory of God more than the material comforts and conveniences of His people.

The characters of this judicial drama are now identified. Heaven and earth will fill the courtroom.² The covenant people, Israel, are called as defendants in this trial. And God Himself (emphatic) is the judge. He enters not to a bailiff’s announcement, but to the heavens’ declaration of His righteousness. God is the judge!

Selah – take a pause and think about that!

II. The First Indictment – Worthless Worship (vv. 7-15)

1. Worthless worship (vv. 7-13)

They misunderstand God.

"Hear, O My people, and I will speak;
O Israel, I will testify against you;
I am God, your God.
I do not reprove you for your sacrifices,
And your burnt offerings are continually before Me.
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?”

God steps forward as the witness. The problem is their worship. "I do not reprove you for your sacrifices; your burnt offerings are continually before me." The problem is not in the physical sacrifices. They are indeed sacrificing animals.

The indictment, implied in verses 9-13, is that they are giving sacrifices with a wrong attitude or mindset. This is seen in the next verses. “The mindset is that God somehow needs these sacrifices, that He is dependent on His people for His food or for His satisfaction or strength. That's the indictment — their sacrifices insult God as a needy God or a dependent God.”³

His response is that He has no need, He is the all-sufficient one, possessing all that is in the world. And if He did have a need, He would not tell them, because He could meet His own need.

They have failed to see God in His greatness and His self-sufficiency and His sufficiency for their needs. They did not understand the nature of God and that corrupted their worship.

2. Invitation to right worship (vv. 14-15)

"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 will honor Me."

This makes clear what God wants. He wants to be recognized, not as needing our worship and being somehow poorer without it. He wants to be recognized as the “all-sufficient One,” who gives to us out of His abundance. So He calls for three things.

First, He invites them to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving (Todah), a sacrifice part of which was eaten as a communal meal, accompanied by a testimony of thanksgiving. God is to be recognized as the giver of good things in their lives.

Second, He wants them to “pay your vows to the Most High.” If you want to see what a vow is, look at Ps. 66:13-14:

“I will come into thy house with burnt offerings;
I will pay thee my vows,
that which my lips uttered
and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.”⁴

This is the expression of thanksgiving for answered prayer, promised in a context of great need. It is offered, not to one who is needy and pitiful, but to the Most High – one who is exalted above the needy, but answers their prayers.

Third, He wants them to offer prayers of distress, so that He can answer. This will show Him to be the Giver and Rescuer, the Provider and Savior that He really is.

I am reminded of a preacher of declared that God is not glorified by a busy bucket brigade that scurries about offering Him the water they have attained in order to use it in putting out fires. He is most glorified when broken sinners bend with their empty buckets before the fountain of His grace and have their buckets filled with His fullness. This reveals His true character as “the all-sufficient Giver of grace,” Who meets the needs of needy sinners.

Acts 17:25 says, "God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, for he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything."

Our worship must magnify His greatness and His grace. That is what worship really is: offering to God ourselves, our praise, our treasure, or our service, in response to His greatness and His grace.

III. The Second Indictment – Wicked Walk (vv. 16-21)

1. They talk of the covenant. (v. 16)

But to the wicked God says,
"What right have you to tell of My statutes
And to take My covenant in your mouth?”

These people spoke of His statutes and a covenant relationship with Him. But God makes it clear that such talk is not enough…

2. They walk in hypocrisy. (vv. 17-20)

“For you hate discipline,
And you cast My words behind you.
When you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
And you associate with adulterers.
You let your mouth loose in evil
And your tongue frames deceit.
You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother's son.”

While appearing righteous by their speech, they tolerated and participated in theft, adultery, and slander, even against their family. Notice that last part. The degree of their slander is emphasized in parallelism. They are so comfortable in your practice of slander, they have aimed it at “your own mother’s son.”

What is it about the tongue? We get so comfortable in its evil habits. Where does that evil come from? The heart, “for it is out of the heart that the mouth speaks.” The tongue is a great window to the heart.

3. They misunderstand God. (v. 21)

"These things you have done and I kept silence;
You thought that I was just like you;
I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.”

They have mistaken His patience (silence, rather than verbal correction) for His approval. They had forgotten that God is holy and righteous, and He expects righteousness of His people. We excuse sin and take His commandments lightly. And then we assume He does the same – just like us. But He is not. So He calls them to court, indicts them, and warns them strongly…

IV. Final Warning (vv. 22-23)

"Now consider this, you who forget God,
Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.
"He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me;
And to him who orders his way aright
I shall show the salvation of God."

Here is the firm warning of the judge: Consider my complaints against you or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.

Their response needs to encompass both points of this complaint: worship that honors Him, and a way of life ordered by the covenant.

Lessons

1. “Keep God great in your eyes. Beware of a mindset that belittles and insults God. God is an absolutely unstoppable, unfailing, constant, volcano of power and fire and joy and help. He never wearies in the slightest and is omnipotently enthusiastic about his gracious purposes in your life. Never let a weak or miserly or tightfisted or weary or boring God enter your mind. He owns all and loves to glorify his power and grace by delivering people who call on him. Keep God great in your eyes.”⁵

2. “Believe his promise in verse 15: ‘Call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you.’ In the day of financial trouble trust him! In the day of cancer, trust Him! In the day of marital conflict, trust Him! Remember he is talking in this psalm to people who are on trial in his court for insulting him. There is hope even for these — and for you. Believe God.”⁶

3. Our lives must be governed by the truth about God. When our understanding of God is wrong, the ethic of our lives is necessarily wrong. Wrong worship and wrong living are both traceable to wrong theology about Him. As A.W. Tozer once said, “The single, most important thing about any man is what He thinks about God.”

4. Make sure your worship is sincere. God does not receive worship that is merely routine. He wants worship that springs from a heart of gratitude and/or awe.

5. There must be consistency between what we say and what we do. Otherwise we are hypocrites. And God has strong words for hypocrites.