What Would God Say about Your Worship? (Through the Psalms) Psalm 50

Welcome to through this weekend. Ministry of the truthful overtime will study all 150 Psalms with pastor Don Greene from Cruz Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio were glad you're with us is over the Psalms that as we join our teacher in the truthful or text for this evening is Psalm 50 and I invite you to turn to Psalm 50 we will read it as the opening to our time together in God's word this evening. Psalm 50 just letting God as it were, have the very first word in our time together here this evening.

Psalm 50 a Psalm of Asaph, the mighty one God, the Lord has spoken in some of the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone forth. May our God, not keep silence fire devours before him, and it is very tempestuous around him, he summons the heavens above in 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 so hero my people and I will speak. Oh 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 offered 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, but to the wicked. God says what right have you to tell of my statutes and to take my covenant in your mouth for you, hate, discipline, and you cast my words behind you when you see a thief you're pleased with him and you associate with adulterers you let your mouth loosen evil and your tongue frames the seat you said and speak against your brother, you slander your own mother's son. These things you have done and I Silence you thought that I was just like you, I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. 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 we have a Psalm here this evening. That raises a very penetrating question. The question is what does God think about your worship and God here in the Psalm as a word gathers together the nation of Israel before him, gathers his people before them and delivers a searing indictment against them for their false approach to worship, in part, they were people who went through the right motions who offered the prescribed sacrifices. But God says I don't accept that you're doing it all wrong. Even though you're going through the motions that I prescribed and then he addresses them in the. The wickedness of their lives. The hypocrisy of their lives and say why do you even claim my name as it were. If this is the way that you are going to live basically and Psalm 50 you have God calling the people who claim to know him to task for their unacceptable worship.

There's something very foundational about God that underlies this entire song. Oh, it's not expressly explicitly stated in the language of the text, but there's something fundamental about God that shapes the way appropriate worship is to be given to him. First of all, God is a personal God. He is a living God along with that God is a holy God that has application that has meaning not just for the people of Israel, some 3000 years ago when the Psalm was written.

This goes to the very heart of the way that you think about the Christian life goes to the very center of who you are and what you do and it has direct and immediate application for us when we gather together as the people of God to go through worship together in a formal way gather together as the people of God. We must understand that it is not acceptable to God. It is not enough for us to simply show up, go through the motions without our hearts being engaged.

Why would you think that when you are dead inside and indifferent to God that you could come and render worship to him that he accepts. In like manner, why would a man think that he could claim to know a holy God they could claim to be born again by that holy God. And yet, to live in sin that is in direct opposition in violation to the very character and holiness of God that he claims to know Jesus said that at the end of time. His words to many will be when they say, Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things did we not know you and niece will say I never knew you depart from me, what you who practice lawlessness.

Your life is characterized by habitual disobedience to my law into my word. What makes you think that you have a relationship with me that would somehow now bring you into heaven, that's going to be very prominent in the final day and so here we come to Psalm 50 God is addressing people for their unacceptable worship and he is convicting his people of their guilt. Now that's a step back for a moment, figuratively speaking of not going to make the geographic removal of myself from the pulpit, as I sometimes do us a step back for a moment and think about this simple principle that Scripture Scripture is not always going to make us feel comfortable in that way. A biblical ministry ate a systematic study of God's word takes us away from the realm of seeker sensitive ministry that seeks to make people comfortable to make them laugh, to make them feel at home and to soften their the edges of life for them. Scripture is not like that true Scripture is not like that. This is not a tax that you would preach to people in order to make them feel good because the text by its nature is confrontational. It addresses hearts that have gone cold lives that have drifted into disobedience and its God speaking to his people. This way it helps us to see that for those of us who truly love the word of God. Those of us are gathered together tonight. I know you love God's word. I know that's why you're here. Watch this you say to yourself, you settle in your heart deepens a conviction in your heart, Lord, I want not only that the comfort of your word. I want that I need that life is hard. I need the comfort of your word, but Lord, I also embrace it when your word comes to me and convicts me, I embrace not only the comfort of your word. I am braced the conviction of it, Lord. I place myself under your authority, I place myself under a living holy God. And I realize that that will require a response from me. Sometimes when I fall short.

Your word will need to confront me, Lord, I embrace that I accept that I want that. Why, why would you embrace something that is going to make you recognize that you fall short make you uncomfortable confront you with the need to change. Why would you embrace that well if I can tie Sunday to Tuesday impart you embrace that because your your goal. Your orientation toward life is utterly framed by Matthew 633 seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. When you recognize that you're still even as a Christian, a sinner who fall short of the glory of God. You're going to realize that seeking first his his kingdom and his righteousness means that there will be an element of conviction that is brought on your life and you say in advance. I am braced that you say ahead of time.

I want that.

Why because I want to know this. True and holy God. I want to worship him acceptably. I want to be found pleasing in his sight.

And III deny myself. I take up my cross and I follow him. That's it. That's the only true spirit of a true disciple those who want to place conditions on their following of Christ have never understood his Lordship to begin with, and so as we come to Psalm 50 we come with teachable hearts willing and even ready and desiring God's word to convict us so that he might shape us more into the image of the people that he would have us to be. That's where you're at right that's what you want. That's why you're here. So let's get into it.

That'll be good. So what happens in the song will first off, if you're going to take notes tonight as I encourage you to do. First of all what happens in the Psalm is is the God summons the witnesses as he brings charges against his people. He summons the witnesses and the witnesses are no mere human panel of human jurors. He's calling all of creation to give witness to the righteousness of what he is about to say.

Look at verse one, the mighty one God, the Lord has spoken. The Psalm opens with three different names for God kind of highlighting the, the majesty of the moment that is at stake here is God is about to speak, and he has summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. So God here the psalmist is saying what God is doing in the song is he is calling all of creation, to bear witness and to act as a witness to the legal process.

It is about to take his people through his calling all of creation. All of the world from the rising of the sun to its setting, we would say from East to West God and majestic glory says I call creation to bear witness to the way that I am about to deal with people and his seed of judgment is Zion, a poetic name for Jerusalem. Look at verse two out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone forth God as we said many times, manifested his presence in Jerusalem in a particularly glorious way. First, with the tabernacle with David then with the temple in the days of Solomon. God's presence was uniquely manifested from Jerusalem. And so it's as if from the center of his throne from the center of his presence. God is shining forth in order to declare this judgment. What you see as you go to verse three. Let's look at verse three. Together. May our God come and not keep silence fire devours before him, and it is very tempestuous around him. So you see, again we find in this text, a passage of Scripture that is not designed to soothe sinful men. This is designed to provoke in men a fear of God. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. It is by the fear of God that you keep away from evil and the Bible does not hide the glory of God. It puts it on full display in a way that is designed to sober us up to make us treat him with serious reverence with a sense of all with a sense of respect and deference and worship. Bowing down in humility before him. See, we just need to abandon the the effete effeminate God. That is been laid before us by modern modern churches in modern evangelicals and even worse, liberal churches, the just say the goddess someone just like us only even more grandfatherly in his approach. Well, what you think about God should be subjected to a verse like verse three. Here God is coming in judgment. God is coming in righteousness, and when he does that, you know what happens. The earth trembles. The earth smokes because he is so fast and powerful and holy in so knowing that the Psalm is leading us into an account of God judging his people. Here's what we here's what we take from that God's judgment is a time of power. It is a time of fear as shown by and is manifested by the dangerous forces that accompany it when it is described in Scripture.

Fire devours before him. It is very tempestuous around him go on in verse four he summons the heavens above and he summons the earth now right at that point you just stop for a moment, especially in light of some of the earlier Psalms were talking about God as a universal king in the two or three recent songs we've looked at and so let's step back for a moment in verse one, he summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Judgment is coming. Verse three now in verse four he summons the heavens above and the earth now is you're just following this if you're just reading this for the first time you your anticipation might be all God is now going to judge the heavens and the earth for their sin and rebellion against him. But that's not the purpose of this summons thing at all.

It's something much different. It's something that strikes fear because look at how it goes.

He summons the heavens above and the earth to judge his people is gathering together universal witness not to judge the heavens and the earth, but as in the passage that Andrew read force earlier judgment begins at the house of God and so he is he is calling them together not to judge them, but to act as witnesses to his judgment of his own people while this is not what you expected and all of a sudden perhaps the people of God is a reading this, starting out all the heavens and earth are being called together start to feeling a little bit a sense of false security and all of a sudden the text turns the tables and says this is about you today as God calls his people and you see that again in verse five gather my godly ones to me. Those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. In other words, the people of Israel gathered them together because I am about to act in judgment on them. I about to declare judgment on them. And as you see by what follows in the rest of the song. It's not to congratulate them on their godliness. As you might think if you just read verse five gather my godly ones to them is more the sense of gather my people together those who are in covenant with me by sacrifice those who belong to the nation and in verse six. What happens when the witnesses gathered together when heaven and earth, gathered together, there's a there's a there's a witness that resounds throughout the universe that the heavens declare his righteousness.

Verse six for God himself is judge that the most majestic gathering of a witness possible in creation, as it were kind of personifying heaven and earth, and they come together in their majestic creation, and their singular undivided testimony is God is righteous as he gives his judgment. Notice this law there at verse six stop and let that sink in. As you contemplate the scene. All of creation is gathered together, God has assembled his people before them, and he is about to judge them. This is no trifling matter. This is no this is no easy believe it is and that's going on here. This is the most sober. This is the most serious possible time to imagine that God is now holding his people to account for the nature of the worship that they render to him and it's not a matter that that this is going to be something trivial you know you don't call heaven and earth to bearers as witnesses. If you're just going to be playing around. Apparently, what God is about to address here is something that he gives highest priority to something that is of the utmost consequence to God. Therefore, it's of the utmost consequence to his people, so there with the salon at the end of verse six we step back and we say we have been ushered into a divine courtroom, which is about to wear something serious is about to take place. If you've ever been in a decent courtroom when I used to practice law and it was always a a sobering thing to go into a US federal court where you've got at the two-story room and and high wooden panels and there's just this Augustine presence. It says there is authority resident here there is there is though there is a way of a constitutional process that is in play here and and the judges been appointed by the president and affirmed by affirmed by the Senate and this is this is an Augustine serious matter when you step into a courtroom just by the very very design in the Ackerman's of the way the courtroom's design is designed to impress upon you the sobriety of what's taking place here there is law and authority representative of all the people being put on display. Well you take that and multiply it by infinity.

Multiply it by not by a human judge appointed by other humans, but by God over all creation with witnesses not in a stander in a jury box, but all of creation, bearing witness, you get the sense of something very profound is taking place here communicating to us, the, the high value the high importance that God places on the way that his people respond to him. Judgment starts at the house of God. So that's the scene.

What does God have to say to his people. He's acting as the judge is delivering the sentence here.

There is no higher. There is no higher court than God.

What does God have to say to his people. What would God say about your worship here this evening from that majestic place of complete authority well.

Point number two here tonight, he rebukes formality, he rebukes formality. In other words, he rebukes an external ritualistic approach to religion that does not have the heart engaged in it.

If ever there were a passage that committed people that think Roman Catholicism in all of its rituals and and rights are something that is pleasing to God. This is a passage that they need to see and repent in response to he rebukes formality now just a little bit of reminder here back in the books of Moses. We read about how God redeemed Israel to be his own nation and especially in the book of Exodus, God saw his people after they had been in slavery for 400 years. He delivered them by his mighty powerful hand brought them through the Red Sea and establish them in the land to be his people to be a people that were a holy nation unto him, they existed as a nation they existed in this land because a personal living powerful holy God had redeemed them to be a theocratic nation responding to him devoted to serving him, devoting to worship him.

What that means, among many other things, means that God had the absolute prerogative to address their religious life. He had the absolute prerogative is the God who would redeemed them said I redeemed you brought you into covenant. I laid out for you and the law of Moses. What this was to be like.

And now I am calling you to account in response to my word, and in response to my redemptive acts in your history. What does he say to him verse seven he says here are all my people and I will speak.

Oh Israel I will testify against you. I am God, your God, and so he speaks to them and is addressing them and you can't help if you take seriously the text. If you take seriously the holiness of God. The awesome features of his judgment. You can't help but shrink under the sound of this text to you as it were. Picture yourself speaking kind of metaphorically now kind of standing before him, trembling and quaking in your boots. God is all creation is gathered together, God says I want you to act as witnesses. I speak to my people. I am your God and I am about to address you wow is that ever majestic.

Is it ever terrifying.

The Bible says in Hebrews. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And so now God is speaking to his people, and there is nothing but silence on their part. This is not an exchange of ideas here, God is delivering his pronouncements and what does he say to them, well, you remember before I turned verse eight. You remember, it's just basic Bible content that God, after he had delivered them from Egypt. He established a series of sacrifices for them to follow which you can read about in the first seven chapters of Leviticus and given them different sacrifices for different times of the year and different times of of life. No sacrifices designed ultimately to teach them that they needed a blood atonement in order to approach their God. Now as you go on through Psalm 50 God is acknowledging that the people were presenting the sacrifices. Now look at verse eight with me here.

He says I do not reprove you for your sacrifices and your burnt offerings are continually before me.

He acknowledges says you're doing the sacrifices that are laid out now. We might ask you might step back and simply, what's the problem here is all the universe called to give witness and why is God coming down on his people like this if they're doing the sacrifices that God required from the when you asked that question all of a sudden you are opening the curtains and entering into what the whole point of this was supposed to be your entering into the whole way that God views worship the whole way that God views the way his people or to respond to him if watch this were just taken the text a little bits one step at a time. If the external practice of the sacrifices was in place and if that was the goal of worship, then there wouldn't be any reason for God to be torqued off at them with their if that was the point if it was just about external sacrifice and they were doing it. What could possibly be the problem well, God goes on and lays out for them exactly what the problem is. And here is what the nature of the rebuke is all say this and then will follow it through the text. God rebukes them because they had lost. They had neglected the inner spirit of the sacrifices he clarifies something important for them in this text that follows, beloved, watch this and when you see this laid out for you.

It's just so obvious. One of the things I've come to love about the songs is that they just lay things out in a way that is just so obvious, so undeniable that lead you compellingly to the conclusion that this is the way that it must be. That's what you see going on here, God is about to clarify something important for them. Watch this or listen to this.

You can watch and listen.

I don't it's either way is fine by me. God does not need these sacrifices for their own sake.

He doesn't need the sacrifices because of something that is lacking in him. This is what is going on to say God does not have a lack in his interbeing that requires him to need these animal sacrifices. God doesn't need those sacrifices don't contribute anything to the being of the perfection of God. He is perfect within his own being. He has no need of anything and so the sacrifices that he called his people to give were not because he needed them. He was just fine before the book of Leviticus was ever revealed. Now you see in verses nine through 11 nine through 12. He's going to lay this out and make it obvious. Verse nine will read through verse 11.

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 look, remembering what was seen in the past couple of songs. God is King. God owns the world, which means that he owns everything that is within it. He owns everything in the universe. Watch this in the context of this Psalm because he owns everything, including the world. That means that as a subset of that he owns all of the beasts, and all of the birds that exist anywhere in creation. They belong to him by right of ownership by right of creation. It's his.

Now, what does that mean in the context of the sacrifices that his people were offering to him.

He says don't you get it. Don't you see that it could not possibly be that I need those sacrifices because I've already got all the animals that there are in fact when you offer a sacrifice to me.

You're only offering something the previously belong to me to begin with, and so I don't need this to fill a void in me.

They should not think like some of the pagan gods in some of the pagan worshipers of those gods thought they should not think that God needed this sacrifice so that he could be well fed and content what God is saying here is, he says my people let me explain something to you if I needed an animal I would just go get one there all over the place. There fully at my disposal and it's my prerogative to take one whenever I want. Therefore, don't think that your sacrifices are giving something to me that I don't already have. I don't need this for myself. He says and then he expands on the absurdity of their misguided notion that somehow they were doing this in order to contribute something to God. Verse 12 he says if I were hungry I wouldn't 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. He says, look what people he says if I did have a need which I don't.

But if I did have a need.

I wouldn't tell you about it. I would just go satisfy it out of my own resources. I would take care of it myself. I am the creator. He says I don't need the creature to meet my needs and when you think about the sacrifices and the slaughtering of the animals verse 13 shall eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats says you guys at your whole mindset on this is so mixed up.

It is so wrong. It is so distorted. What a God who is spirit eat flash to sustain himself what you think.

The purpose of these sacrifices are. You act like you're doing me a favor by going through the external ritual does nothing for me.

It doesn't give me anything that I don't already have and so here in Psalm 50 you see that the people have God had missed the entire point of worship. They were content with the outward form of bringing a dumb animal to a living God, and they thought once they had done that they had discharge their duty just as many people in our world.

You have any bent toward religion think that if they just go to church once on Sunday and punch the Cardin and Neil when they're supposed to kneel and stand up when they're supposed to stand up but somehow that satisfies the character and righteousness of God. I did my duty I went through the external form in Psalm 50 is a penetrating rebuke in more than a rebuke of repudiation of that entire mindset I can remember as a as a young teenager long before I was a Christian. One time in particular where I had been out with friends and it done some naughty things. Whatever was at the time waking up saying I need to go to church tomorrow to make up for what I did last night. Always that painful and distasteful to remember and yet that's the mindset of those who think that somehow the works of their hands can make them acceptable to God that somehow God is impressed with that look.

God does not need that ritual.

That's not the point to tall and you have to be honest enough. As a pastor to realize that even as some gather together on a Sunday morning with their son coming with that silly mindset in the minds even in the church like ours will not so with you, beloved, not so with you not to think that somehow, some external manner could satisfy the demands of God that was never the point of the sacrifices and it's not the point of the people of God, gathering together in the New Testament era either.

Here's the thing, beloved God in his grace and his glory doesn't simply rebuke them.

He tells them what it is that he wants as we go on in verses 14 and 15. He lays out exactly what those sacrifices were supposed to end to produce in them what the spirit of the sacrifice was was the whole point. The sacrifices were a means to a spiritual in to a spiritual God from a spiritual people look at verses 14 and 15 K God, you say you'd you say it's really not about the sacrifice per se.

It's not just about the external slaughtering of the animal, what is it then that you will you say were doing the external things. Why are you dissatisfied with us. Verse 14 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 changes everything. This re-orients the whole spirit of the whole Old Testament system of sacrifice and at the same time informs us about what New Testament worship should look like today what is it that God requires in worship. He requires a personal heart response to expand on that God requires God demands the only acceptable worship to God is that which is presented with a thankful and trusting spirit in worship. That's what gives meaning to the outer act. If the heart is not engaged.

Nothing else on the outside matters. Do you understand that you realize that it is meaningless that it is worse than meaningless to think that you can just go through the motions and be congratulated by men. If your heart is not engaged in a this is a New Testament principal. First Thessalonians 5 verse 18 in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you.

One of the reasons that God condemns the ungodly Romans chapter 1, they refused to honor him or give thanks you see what God requires in worship is for you to approach him realizing that you are on the receiving end of undeserved benefits from him and that you would come to him with a heart of sincere gratitude that says Lord I thank you for what you have done. I thank you for who you are. I'm so grateful for the goodness and kindness that you have shown to me and so as I gather together with the people of God for worship in the Old Testament times as I offer the sacrifice God.

I do it out of a heart that is overflowing with thanksgiving in my heart to you. God says that's what I require.

Absent that it is unacceptable and it's not simply Thanksgiving.

Look at verse 14. Pay your vows versus element of sincere commitment that lives in light of the commitments that you've made before God and in verse 15, there's this element of trust, call upon me in the day of trouble. I will rescue you and you will honor me. So what is acceptable worship in the side of God. What is it that God is looking from your heart this evening. As you sit here tonight.

Is there a spirit of gratitude in your heart. A fundamental disposition of your mind that says God, I realize that I am here is an unworthy center. I realize that I can approach you only through my Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, buried in a grave rose again in order to carry my sins away and that through a self sacrifice of Christ I'm able to come before you, not in my merit, but in his righteousness alone.

I approach you and God. As I recognize that on thankful I am thankful you have shown mercy to me and undeserving center and God I I am here I am trusting you. I I set aside my anxiety I set aside my fear of the future. I set aside my wonderment to what's going to happen in the future of our country is all that aside, Lord, in order to tell you that I trust you, and even in the midst of the hard time that I'm going through. I call upon your name because I believe that you bless your people when they call upon you in trouble. God says that's acceptable worship to me.

A thankful, trusting heart with that the spirit of the sacrifices is joined to the outward sacrifice.

That's a sweet aroma to God that smells good but it's not because of the animal.

It's because the heart of the one who is presenting it and so beloved let's say this, and for you young people especially would speak to you here this evening as you start to calculate things. I realize there so many benefits for you. Having grown up in a Christian family, under the leadership of Christian parents who brought you to church week after week after week and bring you on Tuesday nights. Week after week after week. I don't know if you realize this but that is something that you should profoundly thank God for that. Your parents are like that, but not but it is. We recognize that blessing.

There's a temptation for you there's an enticement to evil, for you, even in the midst of that blessing that your heart would turn and twisted into something wrong, where it just becomes something that you're doing going through the motions, saying all well this is just what we do as a family and you know and I just go along and you never really engage your mind or engage your heart in it and you can start to get conditioned to think that that's okay well for you as you young person for the rest of us is somewhat older people more mature perhaps we all need to realize that as we come together to gather in in a place of worship like this that we cannot come with cold and distant hearts and just say I'm here. I'm just going through the motions and that's all that it takes well know know that's that's really messed up. Those of us is been redeemed by the blood of Christ, the know that we are on the route the receiving end of amazing grace, we should never allow that calcified attitude develop in our hearts that our hearts would turn to stone it and would be cold and indifferent. We need to be mindful of keeping our hearts warm before Christ and saying I'm never going to let the river of my gratitude to Christ. Run dry because there is just an unending source of blessing they give me an unknown ending source of reasons for gratitude and so as you sit here tonight as you young people think through what your whole nature of life is you should never accept a cold heart toward God. So what would God say about your heart of worship here tonight. What is it that's marking and animating your thoughts and your inner man as we go through his word is your gratitude. This warmth is of trust.

That's what God requires. Let me just say it one more time because it bears repeating. And also it's here in my notes I want to say there is no security for your soul in external ritual.

There is no security in your for your soul. In going through the motions.

Whether it be the rights of the Catholic Church or even sitting with the people of God where the gospel of Christ is truly preached nothing external like that provide security for your soul. You need to have a heart that is thankful that is trusting that is resting consciously gladly completely in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Only then is your soul secure friends don't don't rest in the outward act alone now as we go on as we continue in the Psalm, God is reject his people for their formalism, their external approach to worship as we go into the rest of Psalm 50 were going to see them bring a second and even more serious charge, he rebukes them for their hypocrisy. That's point number three. He rebukes their hypocrisy.

Remember we said in this first section that God is a living God and therefore requires a living heart filled response to avoid the sin of formalism will now we, and we recognize that God is a holy God. And that means that there should be a holy response to him and worship in the Old Testament when God delivered his people from Egypt.

He told them that they were going to be a holy nation to him. Exodus 19 verse six and he said also in Leviticus 19 to you said, you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. That's a passage is repeated in the New Testament as well. And so, as if were going to think rightly about worship Riley about responding to this God then we have to factor in at the center. The fact that God is holy and therefore we must come to him with the spirit of holiness, the spirit of repentance and turning away from sin. If we have any thought that that's going to be acceptable to him. By the time that the song was written a substantial element of the professing people of God had turned into sinless listen to verses 16 and 17. Look at them there with me were 16 to the wicked.

God says what right have you to tell of my statutes and to take my covenant in your mouth for you, hate, discipline, and you cast my words behind you. These people were marked by rank hypocrisy.

In one sense they would name the name of God, they would hide under his word, but it was meaningless to them. They spoke of faith, but they actually hated God's instruction and would have nothing to do with obedience. And that was shown by their sinful lives. Look at verses 18 to 20 God explains to them more fully what he means as he calls them wicked in front of the presence of heaven and earth acting as witnesses speaking to his people saying you wicked people. He explains what he means in verse 18 when you see a thief you're pleased with them, you associate with adulterers you let your mouth loosen evil in your time frames the seed you said and speak against your own brother you slander your own mother's son. He said said you are in league with thieves and adulterers, and you're a lying slanderous person, even against your own family is how you act God is convicting them of violating the 10 Commandments, you shall not steal. You shall not commit adultery, shall not bear false witness. He says you are deceitful and altering lying people and you think that you are giving acceptable worship to me.

You think that I accept that is exactly what he says in verse 21 he says these things you have done and I kept silence.

I haven't done anything about it. Up until now he says you thought that I was just like you.

You mistook watch this.

This is such a common spiritual mistake. There are countless souls that will suffer throughout eternity in hell because they made this fundamental mistake as they were living their lives of sin, because they did not experience immediate consequences that they did not immediately experience God's review and they had a measure of prosperity as they pursue their life of sin. They thought that there would never be any consequences they thought that God was pleased with them. They their way was right in their own eyes, and they thought that God was on their side. God says you misread the whole situation you had it all wrong. See, just because I didn't act immediately.

You took that for my approval or my acceptance you mistook my patients for approval. My long-suffering nature as though I would never convict you of these things will now the gig is up now judgment.

Time has arrived and you are called to account for your sinful lives, which my word been testifying against you for a long long time. Beloved market. With this, especially in light of the miserable state of so many Christian churches today who have nothing to do with rebuking sin, calling people to repentance or calling them to submit to the Lordship of Christ. God is a holy God, and it is a grave mistake to think that you can be right with God and live a life of sin, to think that because you prayed a prayer 30 years ago that your soul is safe and secure in Jesus, though it does not work that way. True, we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone, true Christ wipes away all of our sins, but you must understand something that when Christ saves a man when Christ justifies a man and declares him righteous in the presence of God based on the righteousness and blood of Christ.

When Christ does that and justifies a man he simultaneously and without exception also regenerates that man and makes him new so that that man lives out a new nature lives out in a life that is oriented toward holiness in a life that is content to live with sin has never been born again. Which means he's never been justified. In the first place, which means he is on a disastrous Road to perdition. God says don't don't don't insult me coming to me thinking that you're worshiping. When your life is arrayed like that now the tangent that I want to go back to. I am getting really really fed up with something that I see going on, more and more particularly as people tried to justify the so-called LGBT movement. It is, it is the increasing pattern of major news organizations to take it upon themselves to explain why the traditional biblical teaching on homosexuality in matters of marriage and sexuality is not what the Bible actually teaches. So you have you have the secular writers who who presume to teach from the Bible in a way that justifies the modern approach to the grossest of sins. That is a fearsome place for those writers to be an end of the world that they need to hear is found us, especially in verses 16 and 17 and I wish this would get into their hands because someone needs to speak up on behalf of the word of God that they are twisting and distorting in order to advance a modern political movement to the wicked.

God says what right do you have to tell of my statutes, what makes an unsaved journalist who thinks he who has no involvement with the things of God. The people of God, and no love for the Lord Jesus Christ. What makes him think that he can appropriate God's word explain it in order to justify a pre-existing conclusion that is already come to that is an awful place for man to be is a great sin for an unsaved person to try to use the Bible to advance their agenda.

They have no business doing that it is not their book.

Why would you take the words of God in your mouth when you cast them behind you and mock the exclusivity of Christ.

Beloved, as you see things like that just come back to Psalm 50 for perspective. Well, that's the end of that tangent God brings this indictment to a close and ultimately what you see here is, as the song concludes in Psalm 50 verses 22 and 23. The Psalm closes with a warning and with a promise from God. And this is this is the whole point God has done this, and yet he does it for the spiritual good of those who here if you've been convicted by anything that you've heard here tonight. Understand that God has convicted you in order to bring you to a place to invite you once more to his blessing in verse 22. He says now consider this. You who forget God.

He says consider what's been said and change repent and come to me and true worship or he warns them and this is God speaking do that or I'll tear you to pieces.

There will be no one to deliver you, God has graciously convicted them and showing them the folly of their thinking and the folly of their lives, and said it's time to repent and come into this true worship of gratitude and trust that I call my people to and if you do I will bless you if you rejected all tear you to pieces. And yet it ends with a promise of blessing notices one last thing on that warning that there's no hope of deliverance. If a man hardens his heart against this instruction from God all tear you to pieces and there will be no one to deliver you while. Should we fear God and yet the Psalm ends on a promise of blessing and notice that it's a call to Thanksgiving again. A call to a a life response to God. He says he who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me and to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God. He says just respond to this and I'll bless you turn away from your formal religion turn away from your hypocrisy of life come to me with a thankful, trusting heart and I will pour out on you. The blessings of full salvation. Once again, were brought to the same conclusion that I've said so many times from this pulpit and Lord willing. If he gives me breath.

I'm going to continue to say things like this again and again and again until every person the steps into this room is converted by the power of the Spirit of God to the glory of Jesus Christ.

When this is laid out with such clarity before you with the invitation from Christ is so free, so gracious, come to me all save you all show you my salvation. Why would you turn away.

Why would you harden your heart again and turn away and say no that's not for me.

I'm not listening.

Why would you do that. Why would you do that on what principle of righteousness or even your own self-interest. Would you harden your heart again to the call of Christ on your soul, Charles Spurgeon says about this closing verse, and I quote, he who submits his whole way to divine guidance and is careful to honor God in his life brings an offering, which the Lord accepts through his dear son in such a one, shall be made experimentally to know the Lord's salvation for the many of you, the majority of you that are here and you are thankful you are walking in the spirit of God you're here out of a thankful, trusting heart, look at this final verse and see the promise. God says I'll show you the salvation of God. He will complete what he's begun in you as certainly as he will judge the wicked. So certainly he will bless his people and fulfill beyond all that we could ask or think the fullness of his promises to those who love Christ at bow together and work for father, help us to take these words to heart work in us that we would respond to you with a settled sense of thanksgiving and of trust.

If these words of common convicted.

Someone going through the motions.

Someone father living a double life of sin. We seen that in our own minutes. Lord agrees us to think that there might be more. Father may your words against formalism and hypocrisy from Psalm 50 convicted such a one that he would be broken under the weight of sin and that he would turn fully to Christ for salvation. Bless us as we go. Father pray in Jesus name over and thank you for joining us for through the Psalms, a weekly ministry of the truth. Pulpit and if you have the opportunity. We would love to invite you to join us on Sundays at 9 AM Eastern and Tuesdays 7 PM Eastern for our live stream from truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. You can find the link@thetruthpulpit.com thanks Don and Fred. Be sure to join us each weekend as we continue through the sun with pastor Don Greene. You could find church information God's complete sermon, library and other helpful materials@thetruthful.com this message is copyrighted by Don Greene. All rights reserved