text this evening is found in
Psalm 50 and verse 21. Psalm 50, the psalm that we've
just read, Psalm 50 and verse 21, These things hast thou done,
and I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such an one as thyself, but I will reprove them. and set them in
order before thine eyes. These things as thou done, and
I kept silence, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such and
one as thyself, but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before
thine eyes. In particular, to try to say
something ultimately with regards to the silence of God that He's
spoken of in the verse, These things as thou done says the
Lord God and I kept silence. And yet, there in verse 3, we read, Our
God shall come and shall not keep silence. The fire shall
devour before Him and it shall be very tempestuous round about
Him. So we have God not keeping silence
and yet also a God who at times does keep silence. These things are so done and
I kept silence. But first of all to say something
with regards to God and the supremacy of God and we see clearly here
in the heart of this verse, the heart of our text. Thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such and one as thyself. Men might be prone to have such
low views of God. In one of his letters to an acquaintance
whom he was seeking to minister to the reformer, the Protestant
reformer Martin Luther says, your thoughts of God are too
human. Your thoughts of God are too
human. We know how God revealed Himself. We're told it here in Scripture.
How He revealed Himself in particular to the children of Israel. You only have I known of all
the families of the earth. and what great favours and blessings
God bestowed upon them, granting them His words, and that word
a revelation of Himself, as we're reminded at the end of the Book
of Psalms, the language there in the 147th Psalm. At the end
of the Psalm, He sendeth out His words It says, He showeth
His word. He showeth His word unto Jacob,
His statutes and His judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt
so with any nation, and as for His judgments, they have not
known them. Praise ye the Lord. Surely it's cause to give praises
to God when we consider that He has been pleased to grant
to us His holy word, His blessed revelation of Himself. And it was the peculiar possession
of Israel under the old covenant. Unto them, we're told, were committed
the oracles of God. And in that great ninth chapter
of the epistle to the Romans, Paul reminds reminds us of the
great favor and the great blessing that was really the possession
of the children of Israel. There in Romans 9 verse 4, who
are Israelites, he says, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the
glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service
of God and the promises whose are the fathers, and of whom
as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed,
forever are they. And yet Christ comes unto His
own, and His own receive Him not. In spite of all these great
favours and blessings, how mysterious are God's ways. He comes, and
He comes into the midst of Israel and yet they knew him not they
reject him and they demand that he be crucified and yet in all
of that of course we see that God is accomplishing his great
purpose Peter says there on the day of
Pentecost you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified
and slain and yet all in accordance with the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God. And even in the Old Testament
we see that at times they did have such low views of God, such
poor views of God. Isn't that what's being said
here? in our text thou thoughtest that I was altogether such and
one as thyself they thought God was like themselves and he will on occasions rebuke them
for those sort of views he speaks to them time and again through
the ministry of his prophets and those prophets so often have
to be rebuking them, rebuking them because they don't want
to be different, they want to be like the nations round about
them. We see the prophet Isaiah many times speaking God's word against their
idolatrous ways. And why were they looking to
have the sort of gods that the heathen nations had, something
tangible? some image that they might bow
down before, because they had such low views of the Lord Himself. For example, in the 40th chapter
of Isaiah, again in the 46th chapter. Read those chapters
and see how he speaks of their idolatrous ways, and this is
some 100 years previous to the Babylonian exile, and why did
that terrible judgment come upon them? It was because they were
idolatrous. And God would deal with them,
and God would deal with them in such a severe manner by taking
them into exile, bringing in the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem
and to raise the temple to the ground and remove the people.
Oh, God would so deal with them as to bring an end to all their
idolatrous ways. And He did, because after the
Babylonian exile we read nothing more of their idolatries. But here is the prophet Isaiah
in chapter 40, what does he say? The mount of God. Verse 18, To
whom then will ye liken God? is the question. Or what likeness
will ye compare unto him? And then the question is repeated
there at verse 25, To whom then will ye liken me? or shall I
be equal, saith the Holy One? Oh, they made their images. The workman mouthed out a graven
image. The goldsmith spread that he's over with gold and cart
of silver chains. Needed he's so impoverished that
he hath no oblation. Choose of the tree that will
not rot. He seeketh unto him a cunning
workman to prepare a graven image that shall not be moved. What
are these? They are but the works of men. They are no gods at all. God rebukes them, God asks them
that question. And yet, this verse that we are
considering, in the words that God speaks, thoughtest that I
was altogether such in one as thyself, You might say in a sense,
is it not understandable? Didn't God make man in his image? After his likeness? Or they failed to understand
something of the greatness of God and the glory that belongs
unto God. They thought of God in terms
of themselves. To whom then will ye liken God,
he said? They ought to have large views
of God, great views of God. And now that stands forth here
in the psalm. Verse 7 here, O my people, and
I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against thee. I am God,
even thy God. And the very opening words of
the psalm, the mighty God. Even the Lord hath spoken. and call the earth from the rising
of the sun unto the going down thereof. He is the mighty God.
He is the creator God. And yet, because God had created
man and created man in his own image after his own likeness,
so they tended to think that God was altogether alike unto
themselves. They needed to have large views
of God. And isn't that true with us also? We need to realize something
of God's greatness and God's glory, and certainly when it
comes to the matter of our praying to Him. Who is the one that we
approach? Oh, think of the language of
dear John Newton, now I'm coming to a king. Large petitions we
did bring, for His grace and power are such. None can ever
ask too much. we are to ask great things of
our God or we are not to be those who are so straitened in ourselves
in our own unbelieving hearts that we limit the Almighty here we see then that whilst
there is a a measure of truth we might say in the words they
have taught us that I was altogether such and one as thyself they
are God's image bearers God made man in his image after his likeness.
We have to remember that that likeness has to do with the soul
of man, because when God made man, he breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, the spirit of life, and man becomes a living
soul, and it's there that the image is seated. It's nothing
to do with all the limitations of our physical being. It's that
soul of man. Or when is a man profited, says
Christ, should he gain the whole world, lose his own soul? What
should a man give in exchange for his soul? It's the soul of
man that longs after God, yearns after God, and can only be satisfied
with God himself. And we have to remember, of course,
that God is a spirit. The words that the Lord Jesus
speaks to the Samaritan woman there at Sychar in John chapter
4, God is a spirit, he says. The true worshippers worship
the Father in spirit and in truth. Yes, man is made in God's image,
but the image is an inward thing, it's a spiritual thing, it's
in the soul. And we have the language there of Elihu in the
book of Job, when he says to dear Job, I will answer thee
that God is greater than man. God is greater than man. Thou
thoughtest that I was altogether such and one as thyself. We are to see, we are to recognize
the great supremacy of God. He is the infinite one. And how
we see that, don't we, in that opening hymn that we sang, that
hymn of Isaac Watts, I'm the infinity of God. struck me as
we as we sang in that fourth verse
he speaks of God's eternity and yet there's a strange contradiction
he speaks of eternity with all its years of course there are
no periods of time in eternity there are no days or weeks or
months or years Eternity is altogether outside of time, and yet we can
allow some poetic license to dear Isaac Watts because of what
he is trying to say here. Eternity, with all its years,
stands present in thy view. To thee there's nothing old appeared. Great God, there's nothing new. There's no growing old in eternity.
Eternity is an ever-present now. There's no past, there's no future. How can we begin to understand
the Eternal God, the Infinite God, to altogether above and
beyond our imagination? Again, there in the book of Job,
those questions, canst thou by searching find out God? Canst
thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is higher as heaven,
what canst thou know? Deeper than hell, what canst
thou know? The measure thereof. Longer than
the earth, broader than the seas. We only know those things that
are tangible all around us. We're creatures of the day. And
yet God is that Great, that Eternal One, He ever has been and always
will be. And God is One. Hear O Israel
the Lord our God is One Lord. Oh what a mystery when we think
of the person, or the persons I should say, the persons of
the Godhead. God is one, hear O Israel, the
Lord our God is one Lord, and yet there are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost,
and these three are one. And in our baptising, what do
we confess? We confess our Triune God, we
are baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost. Oh, we're confessing, you see,
the great truth of God, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the Trinity.
It's not in the names, is it? There in Matthew 28, it's not
the plural, the names. It's the singular, God's name.
What is God's name? Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Oh, we're not to have such limited
thoughts of God. thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such in one as I shall but not only God's person or God's persons
the three persons in the one Godhead but think also of the
purpose of God the will of God and isn't the ability to will
one of the characteristics of personality we each have a will
and God has a will and it's interesting just to think for a while about
that will of God and I think of it in a threefold sense in
a sense God's will is simple it's singular again Job 23.13 We read, He is in one mind, and
who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even
that he doeth. He is in one mind, what his soul desireth, even
that he doeth. There is a simplicity here, when
we think of God's will or God's decree, God's purpose. Sometimes
the theologians speak of the decrees of God. And I suppose
there's a reason because we live, as I've already intimated, in
this world. We're in time, we're in space,
and events come and go. And we can read of great events
throughout the history of the world. and there's a sequence
to these things and we might therefore think and will think
in terms of God's decrees he does this and then he does that
and then the other and he's always doing according to his own will
and purpose but really you know God's decree is singular because
God is the eternal God we should think in terms of a single decree
a single decree Again, Job 42 and verse 2, I know that thou
canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden
from thee. That's the words of Job at the
end of all those strange, mysterious experiences. All that he had
to pass through, all the trials and all the problems, all the
great losses, all the afflictions that came upon him and he acknowledges,
I know that thou canst do everything and that no thought of thine
can be withholden from thee. The margin says no thought of
thine can be hindered. Lord God cannot be hindered in
any sense. He does according to his own
will all the time. and so as God's will is simple and singular so God's
will is also sovereign we see that so clearly my thoughts are not your thoughts
he says neither are your ways my ways but as the heaven is
higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts There is nothing that can frustrate
that sovereign will of God. All the inhabitants of the earth
are accounted as nothing and He doeth according to His will.
Among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth,
none can say unto Him, What doest thou? We're familiar with these
great statements of Holy Scripture. Our gods is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. We read there in the 115th Psalm. He's in the heavens. He sits
on the circle of the earth. And he beholds the inhabitants,
and they are like grasshoppers. And he takes up the nations as
a very little thing, even as fine dust on a balance or a drop
in a bucket, it says. This is the great God. He is
that one who is sovereign. The wise man reminds us there
is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord.
None can frustrate His will. It is simple, it is singular
and it is also that that is sovereign. In spite of all the The machinations
and the oppositions of men, many devices in a man's heart, says
the wise man. Nevertheless, the counsel of
the Lord that shall stand." Proverbs 19, 21. All God's will then. As God himself
is one, there is one God, so God's will is singular. It's a sovereign will. And also,
and this is the great thing for us, isn't it? It's a saving will. Why are sinners saved? Why are sinners visited in the
mercy of God? Why does God come down from heaven
and work in the hearts of men and women like you and me? in
order that we might experience all the blessings of salvation.
And how that blessing begins in our experience, of course,
when there is quickening. What are we by nature? We're
dead in trespasses and in sins. That's how we come into this
world. We're born in a state of alienation and enmity. And Our condition is one in which
we're lost. And our mind, the carnal mind,
the fleshly mind, its enmity against God, is not subject to
the law of God. Neither indeed can be. But what
does God do? He comes. And He comes by His
Spirit and does that great work which we call regeneration, the
new birth, which we're born not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Oh, it's not
man's will. It's not the will of the flesh,
it's the will of God. They're born of God's, of His
own will, Begatios, says James. It's the will of God. And it's the will of God's Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. and that will is one the will
of the Father is the same as the will of the Son and the will
of the Psalm is the same as the will of the Holy Ghost and the
will of the Holy Ghost is the same as the will of the Father
and the Son there are not three wills in God there is but one
will and we're told aren't we even so the Son quickeneth whom
He will whom He will and again I think of the words of the Lord
Jesus no man knows the Son but the Father neither knoweth any
man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will
reveal him it says it's the will of the Son in revealing the Father
and it's a strong word there, there are two words that could
be used to will and there in Matthew 11.27 It's the stronger
of those two words. He to whomsoever the Son willeth
to reveal Him. Or the eternal Son of God and
His will is one together with the will of the Father and the
Holy Ghost. There's no division. in the Godhead
there is a blessed simplicity in the divine will and yet there's
so much that's so mysterious to us think of the Lord Jesus
Christ God manifest in the flesh there in the garden of Gethsemane
in all the restlings of his holy soul as he contemplates the cross And he's praying to the Father,
and what does he pray? Father, if thou be willing, let
this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but thine be done. As the God-man, he has a human
will. And yet that human will, you
see, is always subject to the divine will. There's a mystery
in all of this. when we think of his strugglings.
He comes not to do his own will, he tells us, but the will of
him that had sent him. But there is a human will in
Christ, because he has a real human nature, he's a real man,
and yet he's always one with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
and there is that simplicity of the divine will. And you see,
all that is taking place in the soul of the Lord Jesus, the wonder
of it, the wonder of the incarnation, really. though he were a son,
we're told, yet learned the obedience by the things that he suffered
how he will do the will of the Father in spite of all that that costs
him he will be obedient and obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross, why? because God's will towards sinners
is a saving will as it is a sovereign will Are we not to think of God in
terms of ourselves? Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such and one as thyself. But I will reprove these things
and set them in order before thee. Well you said something or tried
to say something with regards to the supremacy of God when
we think of God in terms of The Godhead, three persons, yet one
God when we think in terms of the will of God and the simplicity
of the divine will. But what of this, this silence?
These things as thou done. And I kept silence. The silence of God. And what
does God reveal to us of himself when we think in terms of this
silence? what we see is patience is long-suffering we spoke or
tried to say a little of that this morning we were looking
at those words there in the book of James concerning
the need for us to have patience be patient therefore brethren
unto the coming of the Lord. In verse 7. Then again in verse
8, Be ye also patient, establish your hearts. And then he goes
on, we didn't make reference to that, but he goes on, doesn't
he, to speak very much of patience. You have heard of the patience
of Job, of seeing the end of the Lord. That the Lord is very
pitiful and of tender mercy. God himself is a patient God.
And what did we say concerning that patience this morning? Well,
we sought to emphasize the fact that it is that patience associated
with long-suffering and forbearing. The context there, the cruel
way in which God's dear people might be treated by the rich
and powerful men of the world. But I've got people to do that,
to be patient. long-suffering, and looking and
watching for the appearing of the Lord. And He will make all
things right ultimately, and certainly that will be the case
in the great day of judgment. Well, God is also a patient God. And we see it here. These things
hast thou done. What are these things that are
being spoken of at the beginning of the text? Well, is it not
what we have in the previous verses? 16 Unto the wicked God saith, What
hast thou to do to declare My statutes, or that they shouldest
take My covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction? and castest my words behind thee,
when thou sawest the thief. Then thou consentest with him,
and hast been partaker with adulterers. Thou givest thy mouth to evil,
and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against
thy brother, thou slanderest thine own mother's son. These
sins hast thou done, all these sins, these sins hast
thou done, and I kept silence. even the scorning of the word
of God. Verse 17, Thou hatest instruction,
and castest my word behind them. The willful rejection of God
and the word of God, these things hast thou done. And I kept silence. Or men might scorn God and scorn the Word
of God and the promises of God. But again, think of the language
that we have in the New Testament in Peter. And there in 2 Peter
chapter 3 and verse 3. Knowing this first, says the
Apostle, that they shall come in the last day scoffers, walking
after their own lust, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Where is the promise of his coming?
Why, it's over two thousand years since the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And did he not promise when he
left this world that he would become a guy? Where is that promise? All men scoff the word of God,
reject the word of God. But remember how the apostle
goes on to explain that that promise stands and there is a
reason. why God has not yet come. The Lord is not slack concerning
His promises, Peter, as some men can slackness, but He is
longsuffering to us. Not willing that any should repent,
but that all should come to repentance. As we said this morning, I know
that verse is much abused by the freewill Arminian preacher
who likes to imagine that God really wants to save everyone
and God's waiting as it were to save everyone but he cannot
save everyone unless they allow him to save them. But that's
a perversion of that verse because the Oswald, long-suffering to
Oswald, remember that's the same word as we had this morning,
patience God is patient to usward, who
are the usward, where we said this morning, we find the answer
by considering who the epistle is addressed to. And it's addressed
to them that have obtained like precious faith with us, through
the righteousness of God and our Saviour. It's a general epistle,
like the first epistle, and the first epistle also is addressed
to those who are strangers, scattered in various places, but they are
elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. through sanctification
of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. And so the Oswald is to be understood
in terms of those that God in His great purpose of salvation
in the eternal covenant, He has set His love upon the people
and He is still saving the people. But what are we to remember? Surely we are to remember Our
God shall come. Verse 3 of the Psalm. Our God
shall come and shall not keep silence. A fire shall devour
before Him and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to the heavens
from above and to the earth that He may judge His people. Oh,
there is a day The day of grace will not continue
for ever and ever. And so addresses these wicked
ones. These things hast thou done and
I kept silence. Thou thoughtest I was altogether
such and one as thyself, he says. What are we to do is the day
of grace. Paul says, despisest thou the riches of his goodness,
and forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness
of God leadeth thee to repentance. God keeps silence. He is a gracious
God. Because God keeps silence, men
in their folly and in their sin, carry on as if there's never
going to come that solemn day of reckoning. And these things
are written for us, aren't they? For our learning. That we, through
patience, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might
have hope. God is a long-suffering God.
And that's a great mercy. God forbears. I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether
such in one as thyself, but I will reprove them and set them in
order before thine eyes." Here we see God's reproof and it's
a mercy isn't it? it's a mercy to us when God does
act in the day of grace when God does come with his reproofs
when God comes and deals with us in such a manner that he shows
us our sins it's an awful thing really when God is always silent and we need to cry to God, that
He keep not silence. Look at Psalm 28. What does David
say? Unto thee will I cry, O LORD
my God, be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent to me,
I become like them that go down into the pits. Oh, we don't want
God to be silent. We want God to come. and to speak
to us and to deal with us. And when God does come in that
manner, why, we won't be silent. If God's dealing with us, we
won't be silent. David couldn't keep silence.
Look at the way in which David speaks in the In the 32nd Psalm,
verse 3, when I kept silence, he says, my bones waxed old through
my roaring all the day long, for day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer,
Selah. I acknowledge my sin unto thee,
and mine iniquity have I not hid, I said I will be, I will
confess my transgression unto the Lord, and thou forgave us
the iniquity of my sin. When God deals with us, we have
to cry, we have to call, we can't keep silent. We have to tell
Him. We have to make our confessions to Him. Or we have to acknowledge His
hand. Again, here in Psalm 39 and verse
9, it says, I was dumb. I open not my mouth because I
have ditched it. There are times when God does
make us dumb, we're stunned at his dealings. We don't want God
to be silent to us, we want God to come and speak to us. Oh, it's the worst thing of all
when God leaves us to ourselves and doesn't come and deal with
us and stir us in our spirits and touch us in our consciences,
and we go on in our own rebellious ways. No, we want the Lord to
come, His voice to cry. Oh, the Lord's voice says, Micah,
cryeth unto the city, the man of wisdom shall see thy name.
Oh, to discern his name. His name is that great God, that
eternal God, that infinite God but also that God who is a gracious
God and a merciful God who takes account of the sinner that God
who has revealed Himself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and He will bring us to the Lord
Jesus Christ Because there and there alone is our only hope. The law, what does the law do?
It silences men. That's the ministry of the law,
you know that. Whatever things the law says, it says to them
who are under the law that every man may be stopped. And all the
world become guilty before God, we're silenced by the law. Or
whatever it's a plea, the law cannot help us, cannot save us.
Ah, but the law is that schoolmaster that leads us to Christ. Christ
who is the fulfillment of the law, the end of the law, for
righteousness to everyone that believes. All we want is that
God then keep not silence, but as we have it here at the end
of the text, I will reprove the SS and set them in order before
thine eyes and then we have to come and we have to order our
cause at his mercy seat and we have to pray to him and plead
with him and seek again and again the pardon of all our sins and
all our rebellions for he is such a gracious God there's a
distinction surely made here between his saints and the wicked
He says in verse 5, gather my saints together unto me, those
that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And then, how
later, he addresses others, verse 16, unto the wicked. Unto the
wicked God saith, what hast thou to do with my statutes, or that
thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? And He speaks to
them here in verse 25 and He speaks of His silence. He's silent
to them. These things are so done and
I kept silence. Their thought is that I was altogether
such a one as I sound. Ah, but if we're the Lord's people
He won't keep silence. Our God shall come and not keep
silence. I will reprove the issues and
set them in order before thine eyes. Or that we might know then
something of what the psalmist knew. He knew gods, and he knew
something of the dealings of God, and he knew that this God
is the great God and the mighty God. Even the Lord hath spoken. Hear, O my people, and I will
speak, O Israel, and I will testify against them. I am God even thy
God what a word is that or the language of appropriation when
he says not only I am God but even thy God is this God our
God or that we might know him that we might know something
of his dealings his great patience his forbearance and that God
who is able to do all things, nothing impossible with him,
is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ever ask or
think. May the Lord be pleased to bless
his word to us now. Amen. Let us conclude our worship
now, conclude our day here in the chapel as we sing the hymn
687, The tune is Horton, 808. Ye broken hearts, all who cry
out on clean and taste of the gall of indwelling sin, lamenting
it truly, and loathing it too, and seeking help duly, as sinners
must do. 687, tune 808. are told, who cry out unclean,
and taste of the gall of indwelling sin, lamenting it truly and loathing As sinners must do.