Psalm 50 is a sobering Psalm. Right off the bat it positions the Lord as judge over all the earth. In the first 15 verses God summons his people and delivers a surprising rebuke. They had been offering sacrifices rightly enough, according to God’s own statues. So his rebuke is not so much for that. Yet in another sense it was–for even when sacrificing properly, they were not honoring God. He reminded them that he owns all the cattle on a thousand hills. Therefore, they couldn’t give to God anything that He did not already own. And in receiving these sacrifices, which were already his, he does not receive them as though he needed them–he wasn’t hungry for meat and blood.
God didn’t exactly rebuke them for making sacrifices since offerings were being made according to his own word. But they needed to remember that it was not their cattle God was after in establishing a sacrificial system, but their hearts. We can’t offer sacrifices to God with the mind-set of delivering God his due. No. We make sacrifices as an expression of what God already has, and what in his gracious provision he has provided to us. Which should set our hearts seeking the Lord for even more. The result of a proper sacrifice is not the fulfillment of a requirement, but establishing a pattern of asking–and then asking for more and more–through which God will abundantly supply, demonstrating his power and being glorified by meeting all our needs.
But that’s not what I find so sobering and shocking in this Psalm. It’s the rest of the passage that cuts me to the heart. The rebuke directed at his own people was serious, and convicting. But look what he says to those who are not his people (and I must remember that without the glorious grace of adoption this is where I was, and would still stand).
“But to the wicked God says:
‘What right have you to recite my statutes
or take my covenant on your lips?
For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you…’”
Psalm 50:16-17
“What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips?” Wow. God isn’t correcting the wicked; he isn’t graciously pointing out a failure in attitude or orientation. He isn’t patiently examining and adjusting their hearts. No. He casts them out utterly. He is not debating the proper approach toward sacrificing; he’s asking what right they have to even open their mouths. Because the wicked cast God’s words behind them, God refuses to even enter into conversation with them. His stand is simple–repent you wicked ones “lest I tear you apart.”
As one who stood outside the people of God, one who did indeed cast the words of God behind me, I stood with these condemning words on my head. Before God in his mercy plucked me from the edge of destruction I arrogantly took God’s statutes on my lips to degrade them, to heap contempt on them, to despise them. I shouldn’t have even had them on my lips, but I dared not only to take them up but to ridicule them.
So what possible reason then could I have to expect mercy? I wasn’t trying to obey God’s statutes. The people of God may need rebuke for improper practices and need adjustment in their heart’s orientation toward God’s grace, but I wasn’t even in the game. I stood outside uninterested, scoffing, and despising the word of God.
There’s more. As I stood scoffing, disparaging and disrespecting God’s word, even then when I considered the possibility of the existence of a God, of eternal life, and judgment–I did not fear. I arrogantly and presumptuously assumed that God was “one like myself” (Ps. 50:21). I believed that if God existed at all that he would certainly accept me, that he would understand my failures, recognize my goodness and welcome me.
How deceived and dangerously ignorant I was. How horrifying it would have been to be expecting an understanding side-hug from God as he welcomed me into eternal life and instead to hear him roar, “Who are you? and what right did you have to take my words on your lips?” as he sent me into eternal darkness.
There was nothing I did that changed God’s mind toward me, that motivated him to rescue me from such a terrifying fate. It was his mercy alone, undeserved, inconceivable mercy that received my disgust and returned love. By his grace he opened my eyes to the beauty of Christ. How thankful I am for the cross, where in one grand action God bled, atoning for my sins, and demonstrated his glorious love converting my hard heart–turning me away from total destruction and delivering me into the kingdom of his son.
Bless the Lord O my soul. Lord you are merciful, converting enemies into friends–transforming mockers into singers of your praise. Hallelujah!
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