-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:38 Good to have you here. Welcome to the cafe. It’s a great day here at the cafe.
00:44 Hope you’re having a wonderful day, a wonderful week. Today we were talking about God’s great love for his people and we see that so clearly in Psalm 50. We also see God’s wrath as well in Psalm 50.
00:56 And so we’re starting a four-part series looking at Psalm 50, what we can learn from this great Psalm. And I’m gonna read the first six verses here. Psalm 50.
01:07 The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion the perfection of beauty God hath shined. Our God shall come and shall not keep silence.
01:23 A fire shall devour before him and it shall be very temptuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
01:40 And theheaven shall declare his righteousness for God has judged himself. Selah. And we have here in the first six verses of Psalm 50 a lot about God, the characteristics of God, starting with him being mighty.
02:01 You know he’s a mighty God verse one of Psalm 50, the mighty God. You know he’s a strong God, he’s an all-powerful God. How often in our faith do we limit what we think God can and will do?
02:06 How often do we look at the bills and say, how’s this gonna work? Or look at the doctor’s report and say, how’s this going? How are we gonna get healed? Or look at a child and say, how are they ever gonna understand? Whatever it is, how often do we limit God when he is mighty?
02:24 It says the mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the Sun unto the going down thereof.
02:35 How was the earth created? God spoke it into existence. Genesis 1, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, verse 3 of Genesis 1, and God said, let there be light and there was light.
02:53 And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day.
03:04 And God said, again here it is, verse 6 of Genesis 1, God said, God spoke it, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.
03:17 And it let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which are under the firmament from the waters which are above the firmament. And it was so.
03:29 And God called the firmament heaven and the evening in the morning were the second day. And God said, here he is speaking again, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear. And it was so.
03:38 And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good. And we see here in Genesis 1 that God is seeing and creating and seeing and creating.
03:51 And he’s doing it by speaking it into existence. And we see in Psalm 50 in the first verse, the mighty God even the Lord hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion the perfection of beauty God hath shined.
04:09 Oh does God shine, amen. Oh when you have a sunny day and it’s a beautiful day, that’s God’s shining out, amen. And when it’s dark and peaceful at night, the moon is glowing, that’s God shining out.
04:25 And everywhere in between, all seasons, all things that are going on in our lives, God is there and he’s present. And for the believer, he is shining in the believer. Verse 3, our God shall come and shall not keep silence.
04:38 A fire shall devour before him and it shall be very temptuous round about him. Verse 3, we have God as a fire, amen, as a all-consuming fire. God is seen this way in the Old Testament when he’s leading the Israelites by night.
05:03 In daytime he’s leading them by a cloud. At nighttime he was leading them by fire. Jesus’ eyes in the judgment are like fire.
05:09 When you look in his eyes, amen, that fire purifies, that fire cleanses and that fire gets down to the true meat of the issue.
05:18 And we see here in verse 4 what this is getting to, this idea of fire. He shall call to the heavens from above and to the earth that he may judge his people.
05:35 We see that God is a righteous judge and God will judge everyone. Every knee shall bow, amen. Everyone will give an account for how they lived, amen.
05:40 No one is exempt from God’s judgment. The saved believer will simply be able to claim the blood of Christ and will be able to claim their salvation at the judgment and therefore they’ll be at the bema seat to receive a reward and those that have not been saved will be at the judgment seat, the white throne judgment.
05:59 And it’s going to be a grievous day for many and that’s why 1 Corinthians 11:31 tells us for if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.
06:11 You know, think about this, the broader context of 1st Corinthians starting at 28, but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.
06:30 Now think about this, this is about the Lord’s Supper, amen. We read this verse, this section of Scripture when our church takes the Lord’s Supper because the idea is we should not take it if we don’t have a right relationship with God, amen.
06:43 We are called to examine ourselves and that if we are taking it and we don’t have a right relationship with God then we are spiritually dead, we are spiritually asleep, we are offending the Lord and we shouldn’t do that.
06:56 And so we see here that when we judge ourselves, when we look at God’s principles as the judge and we say he is the judge and the Bible gives us such a rich detail into his principles, when we look at those principles and we apply them to our lives and we judge ourselves based upon those principles then we won’t have to face his judgment on the same principles because we’ve already done that.
07:18 And what that means is that we can’t make good on our own righteousness, on our own terms, we can only make good on God’s terms and his program which is to be saved and to repent of our sins and to say you know what we don’t want to do those anymore, we don’t want to live like that anymore, we see God what you think of sin and we’re going to go ahead and embody that in our life, we’re going to agree with God when it comes to sin in our lives
07:45 and we’re going to repent and get right with God and we’re going to live for God, we’re going to judge ourselves so that we’re not judged.
07:52 If you know a good Bible-believing Christian they will be convicted of their sin immediately for almost every time that they know that they’ve sinned, amen. A good Bible-believing Christian would never want to be involved with alcohol because alcohol doesn’t keep you of a sober mind, amen.
08:11 It’s hard to maintain that idea of moderation, whatever that means, and so you don’t want anything to do with it.
08:19 Our teenager had a drink, it was a soda, but the kids were teasing him, the college kids were teasing him that though there’s alcohol in it and there wasn’t and he absolutely melted down because he knows better,
08:31 he’s convicted of that, he wants to be of a sober mind, he doesn’t want to go near the unclean thing, amen.
08:34 I’m proud of him for that and it was hysterical watching him kind of melt down because we kept showing him the label, there’s no alcohol, they’re just kidding with you, they’re just kidding with you, it’s just a soda,
08:42 but to him he was he was convicted of that even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
08:48 That’s how we should be as Christians, amen? We should judge ourselves and we should use a godly standard, not a worldly standard and the problem oftentimes is that man will use a worldly standard and say, oh God should be okay with it, it’s in the world, and he created the world.
09:02 Well that’s that’s faulty logic, he created the world but sin is in the world, amen. And he gave Jesus Christ his only begotten to heal the sinner of their sin debt, to heal that, to take into account the sinner’s sin debt and make it paid in full by what Christ did on the cross, that’s the idea of being saved by the blood of Christ.
09:24 And so why would Christ die for our sins if it’s okay to live in the world and sin? Of course it’s not, and we don’t live by our works, we’re not, we don’t have a works-based salvation, we’re once saved always saved,
09:38 yet once we’re saved we should be convicted not to sin, we should judge ourselves on that high level. 1st Corinthians 32, but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world, there you go, condemned with the world.
09:50 Verse 33, wherefore my brethren when you come together to eat, tarry one for another, and if any man hunger let him eat at home, that ye come not together unto condemnation, and the rest will I set in order when I come.
10:01 You see here in 1st Corinthians we’re given commandments, we’re given ways to live, we are told, and this is Paul speaking to the believer here, we are told how God would have us to live and we are to judge ourselves on those type of ways, amen.
10:15 Alright, moving on to verse 5 here of Psalm 50, verse 5, gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice, and that word covenant is very important. I went to the King James Dictionary
10:34 and we have a covenant, means to fit or suitable, to come, coming together, a meeting or agreement of minds, and it goes through different definitions. In theology the covenant of works is that implied in the commands, prohibitions, and promises of God.
10:52 The promise of God to man, that man’s perfect obedience should entitle him to happiness. This do and live, that do and die. The covenant of redemption is the mutual agreement between the Father and the Son, respecting the redemption of sinners by Christ, as I was just talking about.
11:07 They had a covenant. If you look at the New Testament Scriptures, Jesus is constantly referencing, I came to do the will of the Father. I am obedient to the Father.
11:16 Not my will, but thy will, the Father’s will. And so we see that covenant relationship there. The covenant of grace is that by which God engages to bestow salvation on man upon the condition that man shall believe in Christ and yield obedience to the terms of the gospel.
11:31 And so that’s our covenant, isn’t it? We’re in the age of grace, we’re in the church age, and we have a covenant here that God has given us a promise, as we see in John 3:16,
11:40 as we see in 1Corinthians 15:1-4, as we see throughout the entire Bible. God gave us a way to be saved, a way to be saved, amen.
11:48 And so that we’re not condemned with the world, amen? And so we have God’s covenant to be thankful for, because God’s not a liar. And we realize that when God gives us a promise, you can take it to the bank, amen. You don’t have to worry about God changing.
12:04 The Bible says there’s no variableness or turning with God. So I can take an Old Testament Scripture, and I can rightly divide, I can read it verse by verse, we can go through it, and we can clearly see that God had a covenant with his chosen people, the Israelites, and he has a covenant with us.
12:20 And they are both very important, amen? And finally, in Psalm 50, we have verse 6, and the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself, Selah.
12:31 The heavens declare his righteousness. Psalm 97:6, interesting here, both verse 6, 6th number of man. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory.
12:44 Now, if you ever go anywhere that’s beautiful, and chances are you can, because even a backyard garden can be beautiful, or a little creek can be beautiful, a mountaintop can be beautiful, a field can be beautiful, right?
12:58 You go to any of these beautiful places and see God’s creation, it declares his righteousness, it declares a creator, an intelligent creator, and a creator that has a purpose for life, a creator that takes care of even the sparrow, amen. A creator that adorns flowers.
13:20 My mother-in-law planted, I want to say, some tulips, I think, and for Easter, they’re purple, they’re now growing and blossoming in our front yard, and they’re gorgeous. It declares the righteousness of God.
13:34 The heavens declare it, nature declares it, and what do we do? How do we respond? We have an all-knowing, beautiful, poetic, wonderful, amazing creator, and do we respond in kind by wanting to live for him, by accepting Christ as Savior, fully and wholly in our hearts, realizing our sin debt, realizing Christ is the only way to be saved, believing on Christ and what he did on the cross, by the shed blood at Calvary, and then living for him after being saved? I hope you’ll do that today.
14:05 Tune in next time for part two of Psalm 50.
14:08 Thank you so much for listening. Take care, God bless, and amen.