The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): What does God need from us? And what does he want from us? Today on the Bible Study Hour, we're reminded in Psalm 50 that our God is a God of justice. He sees our hearts and he knows our intentions. How then should we approach him in prayer and worship? Where should our thoughts and attitudes be focused?

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. We know that there are people all around us who don't trust in God or the saving grace of Jesus Christ. And we know that they will one day be held accountable to God for their disbelief.

What about the rest of us? How does God judge believers? And what does God require of us? Let's join Dr. Boice and turn to Psalm 50.

Dr. James Boice: Last time when we were studying Psalm 49, I pointed out that because the Bible is progressive in its revelation, it's often the case that a New Testament passage is a commentary upon something we find in the Old Testament. That's to be expected. I pointed out that in dealing with Psalm 49, it's actually the other way around.

Jesus told the story of the rich fool who saved up all his possessions and put them in barns and said, "Now take it easy, you don't have to work anymore. All of this is going to be fine, eat and be merry." And Jesus said, "You don't know, you're a fool, that this very night your soul is going to be required, and then who is all that going to go to? Who's it going to belong to?"

Now, Psalm 49 was a commentary on that. The New Testament part is the story, and the Old Testament passage is the explanation. We have something like that when we come to Psalm 50, only in Psalm 50, we have the normal pattern. What we have described in Psalm 50 is a judgment, a scene of judgment.

And in the New Testament, especially in 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 17, we have commentary on it. You know that text. You'll know that it says this: "For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel?" Well, those are sober words, and this is a very sober Psalm.

Now, the background to it, of course, is that it is a Psalm of judgment, as I said. And that becomes very clear in the opening verses. As a matter of fact, this first section, verses 1 through 6, are a deliberate reference back to the appearance of God on Mount Sinai and the giving of the law.

Let me read what Exodus 19 says about that: "On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning and a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.

Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder." There are deliberate references to that in these opening verses.

It's not the same, of course, because Exodus 19 is a narrative and this is a Psalm, but the verbal reminiscences carry us back. One can hardly read this, if he knew the Old Testament, without realizing that that's what it's talking about. In verse 3, for example, "a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages."

And then, in case we didn't get it at that point, later on, we have verbal echoes of the kind of things we find in the language of Mount Sinai. Verse 7, for example: "I am God, your God." That sounds very much like the first line of the Ten Commandments: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt," and so on.

And then, very explicitly, in the latter half of the Psalm, the references to three of the Ten Commandments. In verses 18, 19, and 20, references there to the eighth commandment, the seventh commandment, and the ninth commandment. So, the psalmist is very deliberately setting forth that kind of a pattern. It's hard to imagine anything more serious or solemn than this summons to judgment.

Now, let's look at several things about it from these opening verses. First of all, you notice the names of God that appear there in verse 1. The New International Version translates them "the Mighty One, God, and the Lord." In Hebrew, it's El, Elohim, and Yahweh or Jehovah. Now, the first two of those, El and Elohim, could be translated the God of gods, because the first is singular and the second is plural.

The word Elohim, even though it's plural, is usually used of God. And although some commentators say that what that really means is the God of gods who is Jehovah, the Lord, most commentators think that really what you have here is the piling up of three mighty names of God. Certainly, the New International Version translators thought that, because that's the way they translated it.

In other words, it's a solemn beginning. Each one of those names has its own connotation. The word El speaks of God as mighty, a mighty God. Elohim is the creator before whom we should stand in reverential fear. And then the word Jehovah is the covenant God, the self-existent eternal covenant God who enters into a special relationship with his people.

Now, that's intended to be solemn. It is El, Elohim, Yahweh who calls the people before his court. And then the second thing we want to notice is the scope of the summons. It's intentionally broad. Notice how it goes: God is speaking, and he summons the earth, all of it.

From the rising of the sun on the one side to the going down of the sun on the other, from east to west, everybody on the face of the earth. And then, lest we miss it, a little bit later on, he looks up to the heavens above and then he goes down to the earth below. So, you see, he's going from east to west, and then he's going up and down.

He's embracing the whole universe. So you have a monumental and all-embracing summons. This appears at this point to us, if we're thinking through it, to be the final judgment, when God is calling all the heathen to stand before him in order to pronounce judgment on them for their many sins.

And then there's a third thing, and this third thing comes to us as a surprise. Because when you get to verse 4, and also in verse 5, what you discover suddenly is that the people he's calling before him for judgment are not the heathen, which you might have anticipated, but actually his people, that is, the people of Israel.

Notice verse 4: "He summons the heavens above and the earth that he may judge his people." And what he says is this: "Gather to me my consecrated ones who make a covenant with me by sacrifice." Now, that's a common device in the Old Testament, though it's not done always in exactly the same way.

I think of the most and best-known example of that, which is from the minor prophet Amos. You know how Amos begins his prophecy. You know it's by a series of judgments from God on all of the surrounding nations. He starts with Damascus, which is up to the northeast of Israel where he was prophesying.

And he pronounces a judgment upon them, and everybody in the nation of Israel would say, "By all means, pronounce a judgment against Damascus because they're the great enemy and we want them to be judged." And then he swings down the other way, and he begins to talk about the Philistines and he pronounces a judgment on them.

They were always the enemies of the people, especially during the time of the judges and even into the time of David. And so everybody's glad to have that kind of a judgment. Then he goes up to Tyre along the coast, and then he goes down to Edom on the other side, and then he tacks on Ammon and Moab.

He's going all the nations round about, and finally, he talks about Judah in the south and, last of all, there's a judgment against Israel. It must have been very shocking. Now, in a very short and truncated way, that's what you have here. God Almighty, Jehovah, the God of his people, summons the whole earth to judgment.

And when he begins to speak the judgment, it's a judgment against his people, which is why I began with the reference from 1 Peter 4:17. You see what it says is, it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. Notice the word Selah. It's over there in the margin following verse 6.

It's not always possible to tell exactly why that word is there, and there's even some question about what that word Selah means. Nobody translates it because they don't know how to translate it, but it seems to be used in a way that indicates a pause. A pause for reflection.

It might have been a musical notation. This is a break in the music, like a change between the first movement of a symphony and the second, might have been that. Or it might be for us in our thinking, not the music, but as we read this, we get to that point we're supposed to stop.

However it was intended, if it does mean that this is a place to stop and ponder, it is certainly significant appearing at this point in the Psalm after the summons. You see, God is saying "I'm going to summon my people," and before he begins to bring a judgment against them, he says "Now stop and consider, this is very serious business."

In other words, it's the same sort of thing we have in Habakkuk. Habakkuk, in the second chapter, has those words sometimes used as a call to worship, but it doesn't mean that at all. The words go like this: "The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him." That's a call to judgment.

It means God's in his court; be quiet, settle down, and listen because now the judge of all the earth is going to speak. And so that's what we have. Now, there are two indictments here. The first is to a group of people that Derek Kidner, one of the commentators, calls the nominally orthodox or the mechanically pious.

What you have in verses 7 through 15. And then there's a second category of people and there's a judgment pronounced against them, and they are what are called the hypocrites, and their judgment is more severe. We start with the first. They're people whom, when God reproves them for a lack of genuine love, retreat into ritual or liturgy.

Now, there's nothing wrong with ritual in itself. The forms of a church or the forms of a synagogue, whatever it may be, if they're given to us by God or given to us for our good. Sometimes people say, well, they don't like liturgical elements in a service, and so we're not going to have a liturgical service.

And so they become liturgical in their non-liturgical approach, and there are certain forms that they follow in order not to be liturgical, but the forms are a kind of liturgy. If you've ever been part of a Quaker meeting, you know, that's probably the greatest example of all.

They don't have anybody in charge, nobody leads a certain thing, but anybody who's in it knows that there's a very strict order that people follow. Certain people speak and certain times they speak; it's a kind of liturgy. You always have some kind of a liturgy if you have order at all. And it's not bad. It's given to us by God.

And in the case of the sacrifices of Israel, what are referred to here, or in our cases, we have the communion service and so forth, those are meant to remind us of spiritual things. In the case of the sacrifices, they were certainly to remind the worshiper that everything comes from God.

When they present a thank offering, which is what the Psalm speaks about, it's a way of saying what you have given us comes from you, we recognize that, we give you back a portion. And when they presented their burnt offerings, it was a recognition that the only way you can approach God is by sacrifice, that is, by an atonement for your sin.

You don't have any righteousness in yourself. The liturgy, the ritual is meant to teach those things and they're good. But you see there's a great problem with liturgy. I was talking about it this morning when we were studying Romans 11, and that is that you come to trust the ritual.

You know how that is. You can come to think that the form of the service is so beautiful, and the prayers are so beautiful, and the way we go through the ritual is so rewarding and personally satisfying that you simply forget that it's to point you to Jesus Christ and bring you to faith in him.

And whenever that happens, then you get to think of yourself not as a person who has received something from God who needs to express thanks to God for what he has done, but rather as a person who's doing something for God. You say, isn't it wonderful that we come to church and look what we do for God?

You know, we have this beautiful building and we put on these beautiful services and all these things that do, God should certainly be thankful for that. And so you begin to get hardened, and the rituals do exactly the opposite of what God intended them to do. Now, that's what was happening with the people.

That's why Derek Kidner says they became nominally orthodox and mechanically pious. If you looked at them on the outside, you would say, why they're doing everything they ought to do. They're in the synagogue, they're in the church, they're going through all the motions.

But actually, they thought they were doing something for God and therefore they missed the point of it entirely. Now, that is why there is such an emphasis in these verses upon God not needing anything from them. Isn't it interesting that verses 9 through 13 elaborate that point?

"I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry I wouldn't tell you, for the world is mine and all that is in it. I do not eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats."

You see, what that is recognizing is that the proper cure for that bad attitude of the nominally orthodox, those who are pious in all their observances, those who love the formalism—the cure for that is to recognize that God doesn't need anything from us.

And we do need to recognize that because, really, it is very hard to get that through our thick skulls. We constantly think that we're capable of doing something for God, and that God must be very pleased because of the things we're doing. What is God pleased with? Not what we do for him. What can we do for him?

His whole world is mine, all the cattle. You could bring a million sacrifices; I got a million more, says God. I don't need your sacrifices. Well, what is it that pleases God then? Well, what pleases God is a thankful heart. Isn't that interesting? That's what this Psalm emphasizes.

You find it in verse 14 at the end of that first section, the first indictment for formalism: "Sacrifice thank offerings to God" is what God says. Be thankful. And then later on at verse 23, the end of the Psalm, it's the same thing: "He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me and prepares the way."

You see, it's speaking of that, not faith. In the New Testament, we would say what God wants is faith. The gospel is preached and he wants us to believe it and respond to it, and that of course is right. But here in the Old Testament, it speaks about being thankful because the problem it's dealing with is the attitude of the worshiper that thinks that somehow by his worship he can make up something that is lacking in God.

The contrary to that is to recognize that we can't, that it's the other way around. Everything we need comes to us from God and therefore we ought to be thankful for it. Thankfulness embraces all the other things. So you see, if you're worshiping God in a formal way, if you think somehow that the most wonderful thing you can do is the beauty of the service, you have to learn that there's nothing really that you can offer God.

Heaven is much more beautiful than anything you can do here. And what we have to be is thankful that he's given us that which we actually do enjoy. So that's the first thing. You know that toward the end of the Old Testament, the prophets speak out against the sacrifices, even to the point of saying cut it out.

God says in some of the prophecies, they make me sick; I'm tired of them because you're just coming in this formal way and your hearts are far from me. So that's what certain kinds of formalism do. Now, in the second half of this beginning with verse 16, we move to a different category of people.

And it's very clear because verse 16 begins, "To the wicked, God says." Now, those in the first category are making a bad mistake, but God doesn't call them wicked. They're trusting in the ritual, and that's drawing them away and hardening their hearts, and it's a great danger.

But he doesn't call them wicked. These people are called wicked, and the reason they're called wicked is this: they're there in the churches reciting the laws, taking the covenant of God upon their lips, but actually deep in their hearts, they hate his instruction and they're casting his words behind their back.

In other words, they turn a face toward God and they say, "Oh yes, God, we're doing all these things." They go through all the ritual, but as soon as they get his law, they really don't want to obey his law; they throw it back behind them so they can go on and do exactly what they please. Kidner calls these hypocrites and hardened characters.

Now, what's the problem here? Well, the problem here is that these people are only the alleged people of God. They seem to be the people of God, but they really aren't. They're the unconverted. And the reason we know they're among the unconverted is that they are not obeying the law of God. That's how you know it.

You see, we have a great problem in the church. Sometimes I ask this kind of question; I say, do you know any people like that in the church? And if you have any sensitivity at all, you say, yes, indeed we do, and there are plenty of them. Certainly, in the evangelical church in America, there are.

And many of them are in very visible positions, and they fall into scandal and they bring dishonor to the name of God. The theological problem here is what is called antinomianism. Antinomianism means against the law. "Anti" is against and "nomos" is the law. So antinomianism—it's the kind of thinking that says we can be alright, we can say all the right things, but we don't have to obey the law of God.

As a matter of fact, we can be opposed to it because we're saying the right things. There's a special kind of form of this in evangelicalism today, and the way it's usually expressed is to say you can have Jesus Christ as your savior without having him as Lord. What is a savior Jesus Christ who is not the Lord Jesus Christ?

A savior Jesus Christ who is not the Lord Jesus Christ is not the true Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ isn't your Lord, he's not your savior because the Lord Jesus Christ and the savior Jesus Christ are one. And yet we have a kind of theology that says, well, as long as you say, "Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior," I can do anything I please.

Now, this Psalm says you can't. What is more, it says if that's the way you're thinking, you're wicked and you're a hypocrite and you need to be corrected. Now, what is the correction? Well, think of it this way. In the first indictment, verses 7 and following, where he's talking about the nominally orthodox, that is, those who are formal in their religion, what he needs to remind them of in that section is that God is a spirit and he has to be worshiped in spirit and in truth.

In other words, going through the motions doesn't count if your heart isn't in it. So Jesus said you have to worship God in spirit and in truth. It's not whether you worship in Jerusalem or Samaria that really matters. That's what those people need to be told.

What do the hypocrites need to be told, these antinomians that are no true Christians, in verses 16 and following? They need to be told that God is a moral God. And so if you're coming to worship a moral God and you're pretending to be a follower of a moral God, you'd better be moral.

And that's why space is given over here to a sampling of the Ten Commandments. You see, the long section in the first indictment has to do with God not needing anything because he's spirit. He's not a body that you have to feed him with sacrifices.

God is a spirit to be worshiped in spirit and in truth. In this section, the corresponding part is the reiteration of the law. And so you have three of the commandments; they're samples of the ten. "You shall not steal," that's what verse 18 is all about.

"You shall not commit adultery," the second half of verse 18 is talking about that, the seventh of the Ten Commandments. And then, finally, "You shall not bear false witness," which is the ninth of the Ten Commandments. Now, we know from the teaching of Jesus Christ that what's involved there is more than just the outward act.

Especially when we talk about adultery, he said you're guilty of that if you just lust after a woman in your heart. That's the way Jesus explained it. The difficulty with that is that many of us treat it this way: we say, well, now look, if to be guilty of adultery, all you have to do is lust in your heart, not even commit the act, well, everybody does that.

Therefore, if everybody does that, it really can't be so bad. And so we say we don't have to pay a whole lot of attention to that. Or we're talking about stealing. If just the thought of stealing is as bad as actually stealing, well, everybody does that, and so stealing can't be so bad. What I want to point out is that the Psalm does exactly the opposite.

The Psalm doesn't treat it lightly. As a matter of fact, the Psalm treats it even more strenuously than we would tend to say otherwise. Listen, it doesn't merely say you are guilty of being a thief, though probably these people were. What they're condemned for is joining with thieves.

And in the matter of adultery, he's not saying necessarily that they are guilty of adultery, though perhaps they were, but he says you throw in your lot with adulterers. You like their company; you like to hang around with them. You like their stories.

You get a lot of kick about hanging around with people who are clever and are actually stealing. Or verses 19 and 20, those who are smart with their mouth, cool, but who lie and can't really be trusted. You see how that operates? He's saying, like it does in Psalm 1, that these are the people who sit down in the gate and associate with those who are evil and eventually become just like them.

This last one is serious, this matter of speaking falsely. We're told not to do that; you shall not bear false witness. The reason this is so bad is that, to speak quite frankly, it becomes a habit. If you're not a man or a woman of truth, if you don't make it a practice always to say things as clearly as you can on the basis of how you perceive them, if you're always kind of shading things, well, it will become a habit of life with you, and your speech and your thinking and everything will be conditioned in that way.

That's what he says here, you see: "You speak continually against your brother." Not just that you lie once, but you get into a pattern of doing that, and it's bad. And moreover, you do it with everyone. That's what the latter half of that means: "You speak continually against your brother and you slander even your own mother's son."

Now, he's talking about not stepbrothers and stepchildren; this is the one that's actually closest to you—your brother or your sister from the same mother, the one that you should be especially close to. But, if you make a habit of not speaking the truth regularly, well, you're going to do that even with people who are closest to you.

That's what he's saying. And so he gives a warning. He tells these people to straighten out because he said the problem is what you're doing, you're thinking that I am altogether like you. Why do they do that? The reason they do that is that they've forgotten that God is a moral God.

Because they don't care about morals, they think that God doesn't care about morals. Because they don't think about judgment, they think that God doesn't think about judgment. And what happens is that they find themselves, now to go back to Peter, now to the second letter of Peter—I referred to 1 Peter earlier—to go back to 2 Peter, they're the people who say, "Where is this coming he promised, this judgment that's going to come when Jesus Christ returns?"

Because as far as we can see, everything has continued exactly the way it was from the beginning. And you know what Peter says. He says the Lord's not like you. You say, "I don't see it in my lifetime and I've lived to be 50 years or 60 years, therefore God's not going to judge."

He says you forget that God isn't like you, because with the Lord, a thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years. And the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness. He doesn't think the way you do, but rather he's delaying his judgment in order to draw all of his people in.

And then it will come. And Peter, when he refers to it, says it's going to come in fire, just as the psalmist does here. Well, you see, that's where Psalm 50 ends. What we have is a very nice outline. Sometimes I give the outlines at the beginning; let me give this outline at the end.

You have the summons to judgment, verses 1 through 6. You have the first indictment, the indictment of the formalism in verses 7 through 15. A second indictment of hypocrites, verses 16 to 21. And finally, verses 22 and 23, you have the final charge. The final charge is to both categories of people.

And the point, you see, is that on the surface they seem exactly alike. Here are the formalists in church; they're allowing the ritual to take them away from a true spiritual relationship to God. God rebukes them. And here, on the other hand, are the hypocrites and they're going through all the same motions, saying all the same things, behaving just like the ones who believe but are becoming formalistic.

You look at them on the outside, you say, "I can't tell the difference." And it's true, often we can't. But God says the way you tell the difference is this: I'm going to come and I'm going to pronounce a judgment, and I'm warning you about it.

And those that really know me are going to take the warning, and they're going to sacrifice thank offerings, which acknowledge what God has done. And as they do that, they're going to find that the way of salvation is unfolded to them, and that in a very great way.

You know how Jesus talked about it. He said there was a man who went out to sow, and he sowed his field with all the grain. And then an enemy came along and the enemy threw tares into the field. And when the servants saw that the tares were there, they said, "Let's pull up the tares, they don't belong in the field with the wheat."

And the master said, "No, let them grow because if you pull up the tares, you're going to pull up some of the wheat too. Let them grow until the harvest and then I'll sort it out." And you see, this is a day in which the gospel is being preached, and those who hear it and who respond turn from their ways and follow after God.

And although there are times in the church in our day especially when you can't, it would seem, tell the difference between those who are utter hypocrites and those who are trying but nevertheless have the life of God really within them, although you can't tell it, one day you are going to tell.

And the way you're going to tell is whether they've done what the psalmist tells us to do here, whether they've actually come to trust God and they're thanking him for the salvation which he gives. Well, I guess that's the point at which to end, to ask whether you've done that.

Are you really trusting in him? Are you thanking God for what he's done? If you've done that, then you're in the company of those with whom he's working and in whom the life of Jesus Christ is found, and the blessing of God Almighty rests upon you. Make sure that that's the case.

The Bible says make your calling and election sure. Don't presume upon it. Make sure you're really trusting him, and you can do it right now. Let's pray. Our Father, we do thank you for this Psalm. These Psalms are always so practical, and this is certainly a practical Psalm for us.

It speaks to the very problems we have in this day in the evangelical church and in other places too. A kind of formalism on the one hand, hypocrisy on the other, and yet a situation in which your word is preached. Grant that those who are your people might hear and obey and respond because they are your people, and work in them to bring them to a fuller knowledge of what it really is to be a follower of Jesus Christ. For we pray in his name. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to this message from the Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the reformed faith, and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a reformed awakening in today's church.

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