The Sin of Forgetting God
Psalms 50
September 22, 2019
As a kid my parents used to have a check framed hanging on the wall.
• It was a check my dad used to buy horses and apparently they were horses that made him a lot of money in a time when we desperately needed it.
• Below that check the words were written: “Rock Pile”
• It was a reference to the story of Joshua 4 when the children of Israel crossed the Jordan river into the Promised Land.
From inside the riverbed Joshua commanded the people to gather 12 stones.
Joshua 4:20-24 “Those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. He said to the sons of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ then you shall inform your children, saying, ‘Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.’ “For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, so that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”
• The stones were to cause Israel to remember their God.
• They were meant to cause them to remember their Savior and Provider.
• They were meant to be a tool to teach the next generation about the greatness of God.
It was all about remembering.
Indeed, so much of the Old Testament was set up like this.
I’ve always liked the way the writer of Hebrews described the Old Testament ordinances.
Hebrews 5:12 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”
The ordinances of the Old Testament
Were referred to as “the elementary principles.”
And that such a good description.
• When you think about the Law of God it was very elementary.
• Everything could be seen or tasted or touched.
• It was very picturesque meant to make a memory in the mind.
For a sacrifice,
• You searched for an unblemished Lamb.
• You then laid your hands on it.
• You killed it and spilled its blood.
• That blood was sprinkled on the altar.
And everything there was very dramatic so as to make a distinct memory.
It provided for parents to do for their children exactly as God commanded.
Deuteronomy 6:4-8 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.”
All of the visual realities made it easy to talk to your children about God
As you walked through life.
• You searched for a perfect Lamb and you talked about the holiness of God.
• You laid your hands on that Lamb and you talked about the need for atonement.
• You killed that Lamb and you talked about the penalty of sin.
• You sprinkled that blood on the altar and you talked about the mercy of God.
• You saw that pile of rocks and you talked about the deliverance of God.
• You put that verse on your gates or on your forehead and talked about how nothing was more important than loving God.
Everything commanded was meant to cause you to remember God.
BUT SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENED.
People began to find comfort in the ritual and to totally miss the point.
That is to say they substituted the ritual for the relationship.
Before long everything was about the tradition and the ordinance
And the ritual and God’s place in all of it was forgotten.
It’s what Jesus continually rebuked the Pharisees for.
• They walked around in long robes and prayed in public and sacrificed mint,
and dill, and cumin, but they didn’t love God.
It’s what Jesus rebuked the church at Ephesus and the church at Laodicea for.
• They went through the motions of religion, but they had no love for Christ nor
saw any need for Him.
It was what Jesus said in Matthew 15
Matthew 15:7-9 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'”
Jesus called their worship futile.
Jesus said it was in vain.
It was all about them, and not about God.
Of course our Lord also taught us very distinctly
What true worship was supposed to be like.
Speaking to a Samaritan woman Jesus said:
John 4:23-24 “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
There is just such a stark difference between the two.
• True worship remembers God, loves God, is grateful to God, and cries out to God in genuine gratitude.
• Ritualistic worship seeks only to go through the motions of the ordinances without ever really giving any thought to God at all.
And that has been a problem that has reared its head
More than once throughout the Bible.
Nearly every prophet in the Old Testament addressed that same problem.
Go to Isaiah 1:11 – “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?”
Go to Jeremiah 7:21 – “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh”
Go to Hosea 6:6 – “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice”
Go to Joel 2:13 – “rend your heart and not our garments”
Go to Amos 5:21 – “I hate, I reject your festivals”
Go to Micah 6:7 – “Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams..?”
Over and over we find God, through His prophets,
Addressing His people that He is not looking for sacrifices,
But He wants them to love Him and obey Him
And be grateful to Him and to trust Him.
And that is the message of Psalms 50 as well.
The backdrop for the Psalm is that God’s people have forgotten Him.
And not only will we see what that looks like,
But we will also see what God has to say about it.
It is a courtroom scene, and one that all of God’s people should hear.
We’ll break this Psalm down into 3 main points.
#1 THE SUMMONS
Psalms 50:1-6
We actually talked this morning again in Luke 12
About the realities of the coming judgment.
In these first 6 verses the Psalmist reminds us of
7 great reminders about the God of judgment.
1) HIS PREEMINENCE
“The Mighty One, God, the LORD”
It’s not hard to grasp that the Psalmist wants you to understand that
WE ARE NOT DEALING HERE WITH SOME IMPOTENT JUDGE.
He is not some pushover whose power
Is merely awarded to him by someone else.
Judges in our day have power,
But it is only power which is given to them by someone else.
And their judgments only have power because they are
Supported by the police force or other institutions.
But God’s position as judge is not some awarded position.
He sits as judge because no one dares defy Him.
• He is “The Mighty One”
• He is “God”
• He is “the LORD”
He is above all. He is preeminent.
Man must remember this.
In our day when man seems to want to continually pass judgment on the works of God.
• They ask, “Why does He allow so much evil?”
• They ask, “Why does He allow natural disasters?”
• They question His goodness, and some would even be so bold as to say He’s not doing a good job.
How backward the world has it.
He is God, and while we will all stand before Him,
He will never stand before us.
And the weight of this Psalm is found in the reality
That this God “has spoken”
That means, stop what you are doing and listen.
2) HIS PRECINCT
“And summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.”
In short, everyone is under God’s precinct
• Everyone will answer to Him and stand before Him.
• There is no chance that when you die you might stand before some lesser judge.
Every man gives an account to the God who created them.
Romans 14:10-12 “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.” So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”
3) HIS PERFECTION
“Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone forth.”
This speaks not just to how good God looks,
But ultimately to His standard of judgment.
• He always judges perfectly.
• He always judges righteously.
• The guilty are never acquitted.
• The innocent are never condemned.
• His standard is the perfect plumb line of righteousness.
He is a perfect judge.
4) HIS POWER
“May our God come and not keep silence; Fire devours before Him, And it is very tempestuous around Him.”
It is A TERRIFYING SCENE to say the least that
This Judge takes the bench amid a devouring fire of judgment.
It is not wonder Jesus told us:
Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
• This judge has full power to carry out His judgments.
• There is no threat of an appeal to a higher court.
• When He speaks, it is done, and He has the power to carry it out.
We are reminded of the incident with Job.
• As Elihu warned Job of God’s imminent judgment we actually saw a thunderstorm approaching.
Elihu said:
Job 36:33 – 37:5 “Its noise declares His presence; The cattle also, concerning what is coming up. “At this also my heart trembles, And leaps from its place. “Listen closely to the thunder of His voice, And the rumbling that goes out from His mouth. “Under the whole heaven He lets it loose, And His lightning to the ends of the earth. “After it, a voice roars; He thunders with His majestic voice, And He does not restrain the lightnings when His voice is heard. “God thunders with His voice wondrously, Doing great things which we cannot comprehend.”
And when God answered Job out of the whirlwind
Job would learn of God’s great power.
5) HIS PREROGATIVE
“He summons the heavens above, and the earth”
In short, He can judge whomever He pleases.
AND ALL WILL COME.
We’ve seen at the GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT
How death and hades and the sea give all the dead which are in them,
And they all appear before God.
If He summons you, you are coming.
If He desires to judge you, you will be judged.
Hebrews 9:27 “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,”
6) HIS PEOPLE
“to judge His people”
No doubt God will judge all men at the last great day,
But this Psalm is about how God has chosen to judge His people.
He says in verse 5, “Gather My godly ones to Me, Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
ON THIS OCCASION God has chosen to enter into judgment with all those who have said that they will follow and obey Him.
• It is those who said they would follow Him and love Him and obey Him.
• It is those who entered into a covenant agreement with Him.
And on this day, they are the ones who are called to stand before God.
It is as Peter said, “Let judgment begin with the household of God.”
7) HIS PRESENCE
“And the heavens declare His righteousness, For God Himself is judge. Selah”
There will be no proxy in the courtroom.
There will be no stand in just passing down the ruling.
Throughout the Old Testament prophets came and spoke of God’s will and God’s desires and warned of God’s judgments.
But at the time of the judgment, no one will speak for Him.
“God Himself is judge.”
But very simply we have here learned that the God of the universe
Has decided to summon His people before Him
For the purpose of judgment and this is a terrifying thing.
That is the summons
#2 THE SIN
Psalms 50:7-21
This is the bulk of the Psalm.
It is God outlining His judgments of His people.
And you will find here that God has TWO GREAT ISSUES with His people
That He desires to address.
Most certainly the church should pay attention.
1) THEIR EMPTY RELIGION (7-15)
What we find here is a clear case of misplaced confidence.
They are far too certain that what they are doing is acceptable to God
WHEN IT IS NOT.
Now you will notice that God begins by explaining what He is NOT dealing with.
(7-8) “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.”
Make no mistake, God IS JUDGING His people.
God came to “testify against” them.
But the problem is not their lack of attendance or sacrifices.
The problem is not that they have grown lax in their religious participation
THEY HAVE NOT.
In fact God says “your burnt offerings are continually before Me.”
They were busy in their religion.
But God first wants them to understand that
Sacrifices in and of themselves are not the goal.
(9-13) “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?”
When you read those 5 verses WHAT YOU ARE FORCED TO ADMIT
Is that to assume God finds satisfaction in the religious gifts we bring
Is a bit absurd.
God created every animal on the planet.
They all belong to Him.
Are we really to assume that what He wants more than anything is for us to bring one to Him as a gift?
Try that with our spouse this Christmas.
Just go to your wife’s closet and pick out one of her dresses,
Then wrap it and give it back to her for a present.
But in reality that’s sort of what is happening
When we bring any gift to God.
He already owns it all.
Nor is it a matter of need on God’s part.
(12) “If I were hungry I would not tell you”
It’s also not that God needs our money as some sort of financing operation so that He can accomplish His goals.
WE ARE NOT GOD’S PROVIDER.
• All of the things that we bring are meant to be brought with hearts full of gratitude and faith.
• With God, when we bring our offerings, it really is the thought that counts.
But according to God all His people were bringing Him
Was a bunch of sacrifices or routine religion and nothing else.
AND THIS DID NOT PLEASE HIM.
In fact, He tells them what He wanted.
(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.”
Do you see what God wanted?
GRATITUDE
“Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving”
• That reveals to us that they were bringing God offerings, but they weren’t bringing them out of a spirit of gratitude.
• They weren’t bringing them in recognition of what God had already provided.
• Their heart was all wrong.
Maybe they thought they were purchasing salvation.
Maybe they though God would be obligated to give them more
Either way, the concept of gratitude to God was gone,
And you cannot worship God without gratitude.
FAITHFULNESS
“And pay your vows to the Most High”
Solomon said:
Ecclesiastes 5:4-6 “When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands?”
When God confronted Israel through the prophet Hosea He said:
Hosea 6:4-6 “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning cloud And like the dew which goes away early. Therefore I have hewn them in pieces by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth; And the judgments on you are like the light that goes forth. For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Jesus told the Pharisees:
Matthew 23:23-24 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”
Their religion was more about manipulating God
Than it was about submitting to Him.
They did what they did to get what they wanted,
Not out of a spirit of submissive obedience.
God also wanted TRUST
“Call upon Me in the day of trouble”
• Instead of running to Egypt or running to some other false savior, why don’t you run to Me?
What a message it sends to God when
His people run everywhere else for deliverance but to Him.
God wanted HONOR
“I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.”
Through Malachi God asked:
Malachi 1:6a “‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the LORD of hosts to you,”
SO THE FIRST PART OF THIS INDICTMENT BECOMES CLEAR.
The people were faithful to bring sacrifices and to attend all the ceremonies, but God was not pleased.
BECAUSE
• In their offerings there was no gratitude.
• In their attendance there was no faithfulness.
• In their lives there was no trust.
• In their ceremonies there was no honor.
They were missing the point.
In the mid 90’s our Texas Baptist convention went through a split.
I remember the battle lines were clearly drawn.
• You either took to the side of the fundamentalists
• Or you took the side of the liberals
For many rural churches the fundamentalist side seemed right because they were the ones that held most strongly to the traditions and rituals.
But just because a people do all the right things externally
Does not make their worship pleasing to God.
They may worship in truth, but do they worship in spirit?
• Many, like the church at Ephesus, had actually left their first love.
• Their religion consists of tradition learned by rote.
And to that, we simply have to ask, why we do what we do?
• Why do we appear here in church?
• Why do we put money in the offering plate?
• Why do we pray?
• Why do we sing?
• Why do we preach?
Because all of those things without a spirit that loves God
Are just empty religious rituals.
God confronts here their empty religion.
2) THEIR EVIDENT REBELLION (16-21)
Here is the other problem.
While they are very religious, it appears that their religion is only skin deep.
They seem to have the ability to make great confessions about their faith and then live with absolutely no conviction whatsoever.
And God is addressing that.
(16) “But to the wicked God says…”
Don’t misunderstand, God hasn’t changed audiences.
He is still talking to His people whom He has summoned before Him.
It’s just that God is more accurately addressing their character.
They are covenant people and they are wicked.
And to these covenant people, possibly even teachers, God asks:
“What right have you to tell of My statutes And to take My covenant in your mouth?”
Wow!
That would be like God looking at the church and saying,
“Who do you think you are to go out and preach My word!”
Why?
(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.”
• Do you see that they are phonies?
• Do you see that they are hypocrites?
• Do you see that they have no conviction?
They “hate discipline”
That means they have no interest in holy living,
For they don’t want God to confront or correct their sin.
Isaiah 30:9-11 “For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons who refuse to listen To the instruction of the LORD; Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”; And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right, Speak to us pleasant words, Prophesy illusions. “Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
We understand when the world doesn’t want to be corrected by God,
But it is a sad day when the church resists that correction.
These people want pleasant words they do not want their sin exposed.
“you cast My words behind you”
They have no interest at all in what God has to say about anything.
2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,”
• They are bored with the scriptures.
• They are bored with the text.
• They want something exciting and innovative and entertaining.
They have no concern for what God has to say about anything.
This is evident in their disdain for preaching
And in their propensity not to read their Bibles.
“When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, And you associate with adulterers.”
What a grievous evil we see even in the church today
When the church loses her propensity to be light and salt in the world.
• The darkness hates the light and does not want their deeds exposed
• So many in the church so prefer to be loved by the world that everything is acceptable and laughable.
• There is no testimony against their corruption…
• There is no witness against their sin…
• There is only smiles and handshakes and rejoicing in a good reputation.
God has outlined behaviors in His word that He hates
And yet His people run into the world and congratulate those who do it.
Just look at social media
• A teenager announces her pregnancy – “Congratulations!”
• A man announces a divorce from his wife – “Gotta do what’s best for you man!”
• A pastor posts a picture holding a sign at a gay pride rally saying “I’m sorry” and it is met with “love this!”
• And we won’t even get into all the posts shared with profanity and lewd images
And I’m talking about supposed Christian people.
What must God think when His people
Would rather blend with the darkness than expose it?
“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. “
• They were liars and slanderers.
• They spoke things that were not true and they used their lies to destroy others.
Have we forgotten what Jesus said about slander?
Matthew 5:22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.”
And yet His people did these very things.
• Tolerance of Evil
• Lying
• Slander
Do you understand that these are things that God never does.
And yet His people were running out into the world
And representing Him by doing those things.
(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.”
Notice that strong indictment.
“You thought that I was just like you”
A few months ago the United Methodist Church held a vote to determine whether or not homosexuals would be allowed to serve as ministers and whether ministers would be asked to officiate same sex marriages.
Thankfully they voted to maintain their long held convictions
and decided not to allow it.
But you should have seen the outrage via social media.
• “My God just loves people”
• “My God accepts everybody”
• “My God told me not to judge”
All of those statements simply indicate people who hold to the sentiment God expressed here, “You thought I was just like you”
But that is what His people were doing.
They totally disregarded all truth and conviction
In order to be friends with the world and run into their sin.
Where the first side was the Fundamentalist.
This group is the LIBERALS.
• They just throw out the word of God and throw out what He says.
• They become their own judges of all things moral and give littler care to what God thinks about anything.
The first group failed to worship in spirit,
This group refuses to worship in truth.
They don’t care what God has to say about anything.
But here you have God laying out the sin of His people.
• EMPTY RELIGION – FUNDAMENTALISM
• EVIDENT REBELLION – LIBERALISM
BOTH FAIL TO HONOR OR LOVE GOD.
And He said, “I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.”
The Summons, The Sin
#3 THE SOLUTION
Psalms 50:22-23
Pay special attention to that first statement.
“Now consider this, you who forget God”
Do you see the main indictment of His people?
Those two groups above look like polar opposites
And yet they have ONE MAIN THING IN COMMON.
They “forget God”
• One forgets Him in the worship service.
• The other forgets Him in the world.
And so God tells them they’d better straighten up.
“Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.”
We read this morning about that wicked slave
Whom the Lord will cut into pieces and assign to the unbelievers.
Apparently that is an age-old sentiment.
God is not joking here.
God wants them to start recognizing Him and giving Him gratitude.
“He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me”
Start seeing whom I am and what I do
And give me gratitude and honor for it.
That is worshiping in spirit and in truth.
“And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.”
That means make a forcible change in your life.
Stop doing evil and start doing good.
Now, I want you to notice something in these last two verses because it is a good reference for us.
God basically tells them He wants 4 things.
• REMEMBER ME
• RECOGNIZE THE REALITY OF JUDGMENT
• HONOR ME WITH GRATITUDE
• FORCE YOURSELF TO CHANGE DIRECTIONS
When you put all 4 of those realities together do you know what we call it?
REPENTANCE
• To once again focus on God and see His wrath on sin.
• To be thankful and grateful for His goodness
• And to determine to stop offending Him and start living to please Him.
And that is what God demands here from His people.
This is not a message for the world, this is a message for the church.
Repent!
Bring me more than ritualistic religion –worship Me in spirit!
And live your convictions in the world – worship Me in truth!
Otherwise, I will tear this place apart.
There has to be a conscious effort
On the part of His people to not forget God.
Remember He is a God who will judge His people.
Hebrews 10:230-31 “For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
