Psalms 50:1

The Bible says in Psalms 50:1-2, “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.” In verse one notice the word “called.” The Lord Jesus seeks to save the soul of every single person on this earth. That is why His light shines for everyone in the world. But God gives people a free choice. Those who respond positively to the calling, become the chosen. That is why Jesus said, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” From where does the Light of Christ shine? It shines “Out of Zion.” Zion is Jerusalem. In the Old Testament God, when possible, used the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem to be a beacon to the rest of the world of His truth and of His light. In the age in which we live God uses Christians to spread the truth of the Gospel. Believers who are witnesses for Christ are “the perfection of beauty.” They are the people who are living life the way that it should be lived, serving the Lord and being used by Him.

The Bible says in Psalms 50:3, “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.” The message is about the coming of the Lord. Things will not always be as they are now. Jesus will come. He came the first time and died for our sins. He will come the second time to rule the world. Jesus will not “keep silence” because He has a message for everyone on the earth: “I love you. Repent and trust in me.” It says in verse three, “a fire shall devour before him.” Jesus is the Judge, and the time of a fiery judgment will come. But that time is not yet. Now is the time of grace. Turn to the Lord Jesus while there is time and before the fiery judgment comes. The wicked shall not always be given an opportunity.

The Bible says in Psalms 50:4, “He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.” God rules everything. All that God has to do is to command anything in His universe and that thing will obey whether it be animate or inanimate. It says about Jesus in Matthew 8:5-10, “And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,[6] And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.[7] And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.[8] The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.[9] For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.[10] When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” One of the things that God will do is that He will “judge his people.” Surely God will use His great power to judge the wicked people of the earth. Some day He will do that, but first of all He will judge His people because God has a very high standard for His people. After all, Jesus died for us. We owe Jesus everything, and God expects that we will give Jesus everything that we are and everything that we have. And in order to teach us, sometimes He must judge us. In other words, God evaluates our hearts and our lives, and He arranges what happens to us so that we will want to turn more resolutely to Him. That is called chastisement. “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourges every son whom he receiveth.” For example, God arranged that a rooster would crow just at the right time after Peter had denied the Lord Jesus three times; and the result was that Peter was convicted deep in his own soul of how much he had failed the Lord.

The Bible says in Psalms 50:5-6, “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.” The saints will be gathered together unto God. Every believer is a saint. The word “saint” means “holy one.” We are made holy because of a “sacrifice” that was made for us. Our sins were paid for by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. It is wonderful to have no guilt, no future judgment, and the comfort of knowing we have a home in heaven. That is the “covenant” that God has made with us. A covenant is a contract or an agreement between two parties. The best covenant is the new covenant, also called the New Testament, that we live under in this age because of Christ. That is, we live under the new covenant if we believe in Jesus. Our part is to trust in Christ to be our Savior. God’s part is to totally and completely forgive us freely because Jesus willingly went to the bloody death on the cross. We believe, and God promises. God always keeps His promises. The New Testament in Christ is an unconditional promise. You cannot get any better than that.

Verse six says, “the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself.” We are made righteous through faith in Christ. The reason that anyone comes to Christ is because before we get saved, we know that we are sinners and that we ought to be living a righteous and good life. Believers are given the righteousness of Christ as far as their standing before God is concerned, but there is also a practical type of righteousness that refers to the actual things that we do and the life that we live. God wants every believer to live a righteous life. Remember that once we are called to believe in Christ and we yield to that calling, God’s plan is that we become “conformed to the image of His Son,” as it says in Romans 8:29. God will judge every believer based upon this standard, and God will work in every believers’ life in order to cause us to grow in faith and to be more like Jesus. Learn to confess your sins and judge yourself, and you will not be judged. It says in First John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The Christian who does not daily confess his or her sins will experience the truth of First Corinthians 11:31-32, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.”

The Bible says in Psalms 50:7, “Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.” God says to believers, “Hear, O my people.” What does God want us to hear? He wants us to hear His Word. God said to Israel and to all believers, “I will speak.” God has spoken, and we have His words that we call the Bible. What will God’s Word do for us? What will God tell us in His Word? He “will testify against” us. The Word of God tells us where we need to improve. The Word of God is good for reproof, and for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. These are the last days and there is compromise and failure everywhere among Christians. The standard of following Christ is very high. One of the values of the Word of God is that it will show us where we are failing. It says in Revelation 10:9, “And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.”

The Bible says in Psalms 50:8-14, “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:” The sacrifices mentioned by God in verse eight were commanded in the law for the Israelites to always offer. They offered probably thousands of sacrifices daily. The sacrifices were part of their religious rituals and observances. It would be easy for someone to look at all the sacrifices of animals that were constantly being given, and to say, “We sure are doing a great job of serving God.” But what God is saying in verses eight through thirteen is that the sacrifices were not that important. God already owns all the animals. God owns everything. We cannot give Him anything that He does not already have. Verse fourteen tells us two of the things that God wants from us. He wants “thanksgiving.” Since God owns everything, He wants us to recognize all of His many gifts to us: the love, the opportunity, the freedom, and most of all the sacrifice that He made for us when He sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. God also wants us to pay our “vows.” A vow is when you promise to do something for God. Many people promise to start following Jesus at some point in their life, but then they fall away. Many people say that they will do this or that, but then they do not do it. God is looking for someone that seeks Him every day no matter what happens.

The Bible says in Psalms 50:15, “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” God wants us to pray to Him. God wants us to communicate with Him. God is the greatest of all social beings. God has billions of people on the earth and many more angels than that, and God can carry on a conversation with each one simultaneously as if He is speaking uniquely to each one. Jesus created people so that He would have more to love and more to communicate with. You are fulfilling God’s will for your life when you talk to Him. We need Jesus every day, and we will definitely need Him “in the day of trouble.” God promises that when we call upon Him, “I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” One reason that God helps us is to glorify His name. When you pray for others remember that. The prayer is that they will be helped, and that the result of being helped is that the name of God be glorified. Make sure that you give God the glory and the credit after He has answered your prayers and rescued you or rescued others.

The Bible says in Psalms 50:16-22, “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.” These verses are a message from God to “the wicked” people of the earth. Who are the wicked people? These are the religious hypocrites. These are the ones who claim to be serving God, but who are not. They “declare” God’s statutes. They take God’s covenant in their mouth, but God knows what they are really like. They hate instruction from God and from God’s Word. They are thieves and adulterers even while holding positions in religious organizations. They might be able to hide what they are really like for a while from people, but they cannot hide them from God. They speak evil and deceitful words, and they “slander” their own brother who was made in the image of God. What did God do when He saw all this evil? God said, “I kept silence.” That is because the Lord is hoping that the evil will wake up and turn to Jesus. If the wicked do not repent, God makes clear what the future holds for them when the Lord says in verse twenty-two, “Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.”

The Bible says in Psalms 50:23, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.” It is critically important to have “the salvation of God.” If you do not get saved, you will go to hell forever. Jesus is the Savior. Turn to Jesus, and He will give you salvation. But turning to Jesus involves turning away from your former path in life. In other words, someone who genuinely turns to Jesus wants to start doing the right thing: wants to order his conversation aright. The word “conversation means “manner of life” or “the way that someone is taking in life.” The same thing is said in John 3:20-21 about the true motivation someone must have when they get saved by faith in Christ, “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.[21] But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” Turn from the wrong way that leads to death, and turn to the right way that leads to life by turning to Jesus and calling upon His name for forgiveness and salvation.

___________________________________________________