Psalm 50 begins here as a psalm
of Asaph. And Asaph was a, as we read in
the scriptures, that he was, he both prophesied and the scripture
says that he was a musician. And so we're not certain If this
psalm is a psalm that was penned by Asaph or if it was penned
for Asaph, we can't really tell that because the word of does
not appear in the Hebrew language and so that's kind of a word
that's just put in there. but it is a psalm which is either
meant for Asaph, or it is for Asaph, or it could be one that
was penned by Asaph, but it doesn't really matter who the penman
of it was. We know that it is the Lord who
is speaking. And so, the Lord's pleased to
speak to us in this. So let's read
it. The mighty God, even the Lord,
has spoken and call 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. 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. Gather my saints together unto
me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the
heaven shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself. Selah. Hear, O my people, and
I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against thee. I am God,
even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy
sacrifices, or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before
me, or which have been continually before me. I will take no bullock
out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds. For every beast
of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field
are mine. If I were hungry, I would not
tell thee, for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof. Will
I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer
unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High.
and call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee,
and thou shalt glorify Me. But unto the wicked God saith,
What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, or that thou shouldest
take My covenant in thy mouth? Seeing that thou hatest instruction,
and castest My words behind thee, when thou sawest a 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
things hast thou done, and I kept silence, and thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such in one as thyself. But I will reprove
thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this,
ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none
to deliver. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth
me, and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will
I show the salvation of God. Now, what a glorious psalm this
is, and this is indeed a, you might call it a prelude to Psalm
51. And it is because of that reason
that I believe personally that this psalm was written by David
and given to Asaph. But again, who knows and what
really difference does that make? But as you look at some of these
things that are said in this particular Psalm and then if
you're familiar with Psalm 51 and the gist of that Psalm and
the things that David said there you can see some things that
carry over into that very Psalm. The mighty God, even the Lord
has spoken. Now it would seem that it would
be unnecessary to speak of God as the mighty God. But He's pleased
to remind us that He is the mighty God. And the reason for that
is that men are prone to worship other gods. They're prone to
worship gods that have no power. That's the scripture full of
indications of that. And the Lord, that's why the
Lord said, God's before me. And he didn't mean that in order.
See, a lot of people think of that in terms of, thou shalt
have no other God before me. In other words, put me up here
number one. Isn't that kind of how a lot of people think? You
know, well, as long as we make God number one, then we can do
all these other things. No, that's not what he's saying
at all. He said, get them out of my sight. He said, there is
no other God before me, because He is the mighty God. David said
in one of the Psalms, he said the heathen, they make gods after
their own fashion. They don't have any eyes, they
don't have any feet. Have you ever heard anybody say,
I've heard preachers say this, God has no hands but yours. He has no feet but yours. I remember
hearing Ferrell Griswold one time roaring from the pulpit
in opposition to that. He said that he had been in a
motorcycle wreck and he was recuperating at home and was all in a body
cast and he was sitting up in a wheelchair. And said this preacher
came on, I won't call his name, but he was a pretty famous TV
preacher. And he didn't have anything else
to do but sit there and watch this guy. And the guy said, God
has no hands but your hands. He has no feet but your feet.
And he thought of himself sitting there in that wheelchair in that
body cast. And he says he just cried out
in the middle of the thing, and his wife came running in there
to see what was wrong. He said, ìHeís preaching on a
wheelchair, God!î Now, Godís not in a wheelchair. Heís got hands, Heís got feet,
and He does according to His will in the army of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth. And he does not wait for
anybody to ask him what he's doing. He doesn't care if anybody
knows what he's doing. He's gonna do what he's gonna
do. He is a mighty God. What a mighty God we serve. The
mighty God, even the Lord, the one who inhabit this eternity,
the one who has need of nothing, as he says down here, if I was
hungry, I wouldn't tell you. Isn't that quite a bit different
than what we hear, oh, the Lord needs you today. He needs you
to do this for Him. Won't you just do something for
God? Oh, brother, that's the wrong concept. God doesn't need
for us to do something for Him. We need for God to do something
for us. Because you see, He's the mighty
God. And He said, if I was hungry, now He never would be hungry.
But he said, if I was hungry, he said, I wouldn't tell you.
I wouldn't come to you, because what could you do about it? You
know, people get all, religious men especially, they get all
You know, what kind of ride along on what they can do for God?
Oh, we've done these wonderful things, you know, we've fed these
multitudes, and we've, you know, built all these buildings, and
we've done all these things, and oh, we're just going along
great. We're just, you know, bringing
a million more, and sixty-four, and all of that. We're going
to do all these things. And the Lord just sits in the
heavens. He says He'll have them in derision. He'll laugh. Because you see, He's the mighty
God. He stands in need of nothing. He stands in need of no one.
And that causes people to get mad. You want to get some people
mad at you, start telling them that God doesn't need them. Tell
them that what they do has no effect on what God does. They'll
get mad at you. Because you see, men want to
believe that they can somehow or other cause God to do things. A lot of people look at prayer
like Aladdin's magic lamp. And if they rub it hard enough,
or they get enough people to get with them and rub it together,
they can back God into a corner and He'll have to do something. Well, dear brethren, He doesn't
have to do anything. He's the mighty God. Now, according
to His mercy and kindness, He does indeed help the sons of
men, lest we should be destroyed. But don't ever think of God in
some fashion as needing anything that men could offer up unto
Him, because He has no need of these things. He is not lacking
in any way, shape, or form. He is a mighty God. Even the
Lord has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the
sun to the going down thereof. Now I believe that as you study
the context of this and what it's saying here is that He has
announced to the earth, the Lord has announced to the earth through
the creation who He is. He has announced to the earth
from the rising of the sun to the going down of the sun. There
is no way that a man can look at the creation that is before
him outside of the rebelliousness, the natural rebelliousness of
a man's heart and not fall down on his face and worship the Creator
of heaven and earth. From the rising of the sun to
the going down of the same. Now I know that the scientists
tell us, and they're probably right on this case, that the
sun doesn't rise and it doesn't set, but that the earth turns
and it appears as it is. I'm not gonna argue that from
a scientific standpoint, but the scripture says that the sun
rises and the sun sets, and so we'll leave it at that. You know,
old John Jasper, he preached a message numerous times, and
he said, the sun do move. And actually the scripture does
say that the sun moves. Because the scripture said that
the sun moved. You know, because the Lord either
stopped the earth's rotation or removed the sun. Because it
went back and stayed still at the battle of Agilon. And it
also moved back 10 degrees on the sun dial. So either the sun
moved or the earth stopped, one or the other, if you want to
be scientific, you know about these things. But from the rising
of the sun, we know what that means. Does man have anything
whatsoever to do with the rising of the sun? I mean, if all the
men on the earth got together tomorrow and said, we're gonna
keep the sun from rising, Could they do it? I mean, if you put
the best minds of men, all the scientists from all the earth,
and they got together, would there be any way possible that
they could do that? Jack? No, because they would
all melt because the sun is even a hundred miles away from the
storm now. That's a hot sun. You are absolutely
correct about that. It can melt millions of hours.
That's right. He has called the earth from
the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. What a great
and mighty God He is. There is a testimony to God in
the creation. out of Zion. Now here's another
testimony that the Lord has sent forth in the earth. Now He sent
forth, He has called to the earth, that is He has announced to the
earth through the rising of the sun and going down of the sand
that He is the mighty God. But there is a greater testimony
that the Lord has given that He is the mighty God that has
been given to the earth But yet, the men of the world, apart from
the grace of God, cannot see it. Out of Zion, the perfection
of beauty, God has shined. The Lord has identified Himself
with His people from the beginning. Now, if He identified Himself
with His people from the beginning, He must have had, He must have
a people that He identified from the beginning. The world is not
an experiment on the part of God to see who will believe and
who won't believe. But the Lord created the world
to manifest the glory of His grace in the redemption of a
people which He loved from before the foundation of the world.
Paul speaks about that numerous times. And again, that's one
of those doctrines that makes people mad. If you tell them
too much about it, because they say, well, wait a minute, you
mean to tell me that there's nothing that I can do about that? And I'm here to tell you, apart
from the grace and mercy of Almighty God, there's not a thing in the
world you can do about that. Now here's a glorious thing,
and this is it, and this is the thing people worry about. Well,
what if What if, and I'm kind of getting off on my thing here,
but this came to my mind, what if a man just seeks the Lord
with all of his heart, soul, and mind? I mean, sincerely,
he's calling upon the Lord. And it turns out that he's not
one of those elect. Well, in the first place, dear
brethren, that can never happen. Because a man cannot and will
not call upon the name of the Lord apart from the grace of
Almighty God stirring him and moving him to do it. The Lord
said so. He said, No man can come unto me except it were given
to him of my father. No man can come unto me except
the Father draw him. You see, except the Spirit of
God draws a man, he'll not call upon the name of the Lord. And
it'll never be that a man could seek mercy from the hand of God
and not receive it. Because God is a God of mercy.
And He shows mercy to them that call upon Him. And them that
call upon Him are those whom He has given grace to to call
upon Him. Otherwise they'd never do it.
Now otherwise you'd be stuck with a dilemma in thinking that
a man can stir himself up to seek after God when the Scripture
says there is none. that seeketh after God. Now,
are you the exception to that? I mean, can a man be an exception
to that which God said there's none that doeth good? No, not
one. There's none that seeketh after
God. There's none that understandeth. Where does understanding come
from? Does it come out of a man's mind?
Do you just gather up in your thought process to understand
the things of God? Or is it that God in His mercy
gives you understanding. How did you know you were a sinner?
Except God showed you that you were a sinner. How did you know
that Christ was the Savior? Except the Lord showed you that
Christ was the Savior. That's the only way it can happen.
Oh, I mean, you can learn things, but I'm talking about in the
depths of your soul and heart. See, there's a difference in
knowing the things about what the gospel's about and knowing
the one whom the gospel is about. And that's, you see, that's what
we hope to preach is the one about whom the gospel is. Because you can go a lot of places
and just learn some facts about various things that Christ did.
But oh, only the Spirit of God can cause you to delight. in
the things that Christ did. To see the glory. See, the natural
man out here, he can learn everything about the Bible that you can.
But the natural man, without the Spirit of God, he cannot
see the glory that's here. He sees Jesus Christ. I mean,
he may be, you know, when Easter rolls around, he might be the
first one down at the church house. You know, he might be
involved in all sorts of things, but apart from the grace of God,
he cannot see the glory that surrounds this one who went to
Calvary's cross and poured out his life's blood for men. See,
a lot of people, we live supposedly, they tell us, which is a total
misnomer. It's an impossibility. But they
tell us that we live in a Christian nation. And if you ask the average
person, they would say, I'm a Christian. Now, they wouldn't have any more
idea about what that is. They were called first Christians
first at Antioch. They didn't call themselves Christians.
They were called Christians. Why? Because the people say,
boy, them people, they're following the way of Christ. See, a Christian
is somebody that follows the way of Christ, not somebody that
joins up to a church and says, I'm a Christian. That doesn't
make a man a Christian. The only thing that can make
a man a Christian is the Spirit of God constraining a man's heart
to walk in the way of Christ. To love the way of Christ. To
delight in the things of God. Not just follow the religion
of his fathers. It's a sad thing to me. Religion
is a sad thing to me because millions are duped in the halls
of religion into thinking that if they just go along the way
because this is the way mom and daddy went and this guy and the
other, everything is going to be alright. No, I'm telling you,
apart from a revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ, a man is not going to inherit the kingdom of God. Because it belongs to him. And
out of Zion, where is Zion? Zion is the kingdom of God. Zion
is the people of God. and out of the people of God.
You see, the Lord Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. And He has called His people
His fullness. You see, the church is the fullness
of Jesus Christ. Because we're united together. Christ inhabits His people. He
dwells with His people. He guides His people. He directs
His people. And He said, out of Zion, the
perfection of beauty, God hath shined. He has manifested. He
said to His disciples, ye are the light of the world. Sometimes we look around and
we think, well, man, we're a pretty damn light, aren't we? But you
see, the Lord has His people right where He wants them to
be. He's working in us both willing to do of His good pleasure because
He's the mighty God. And though things may not be
going along like we think they ought to be going, they're always
going along exactly as He wills them to be. What a glorious God
we serve. He's not hoping men will do His
will. He said, I call a man from a
far country to do my will, and he does it. I call a bird from
the east, and he does it. A sparrow shall not fall to the
ground without the father. Because you see, the Lord directs
the flights of the sparrows as much as He directs the steps
of men to fulfill the glory of His purpose. And it is in Zion,
it is in the Kingdom of God, it is in the magnification of
Jesus Christ in the preaching of the Gospel that He is pleased
to shine. The Lord said, if I be lifted
up, I will draw men unto Me. How is Christ lifted up? He's
lifted up in the preaching of the gospel, in the magnification
of His name. As His people walk among the
men of this world as a separate people, as a people who are peculiar,
as a people who are odd, we don't fit in. We don't go along with
the ways of the world because the world has a social agenda
and says these things are fine. We don't embrace that. We don't
say, okay, well, we'll go along to get along. The preaching of
Christ is an offense to the world. The gospel will never be embraced
in this world because Christ is a rock of offense,
a stone of stumbling, and He is that chief cornerstone which
the Lord placed. He's that stone cut out of a
mountain without hands. He is the mighty Savior. Out
of God the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our God shall
come and shall not keep silence. A fire shall devour before him,
and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. Peter said that
the Lord would come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God. He is a mighty God. 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 covenant with me by sacrifice. Now, how
do the people of God make covenant with God? Now, a lot of people
think that the covenant of redemption
is one which man has a part in. that he comes along and the Lord
lays all this stuff out, and he said, now if you'll do this,
this, and this, then I'll do this. Now that was the way the
covenant of law was. You see, the covenant of law
was, do this and live. How'd that work out? No, that
didn't work out very good, did it? Because any covenant that
is conditional upon the obedience of men is sure to fail. Any covenant
that is built upon anything that depends upon men is sure to fail. Because we are a people by nature
who are set at odds with the way of God. And we will go contrary
to the way of God given the opportunity. You don't believe that? Just
look at the garden in Adam. What did Adam do? He acted according
to his nature, did he not? The Lord told him. The Lord didn't say, Adam, if
you eat this. He said, Adam, in the day that
you eat this, you shall surely die. What did Adam do? He acted according to his nature.
That's what he did. And men will act according to
their nature. That's a, you know people, sometimes
people are encouraged by that, I'm discouraged by it. When I
think about the fact that I'm gonna act according to my nature
most of the time, that doesn't make me happy. It troubles me. Because I know that within me
there's an evil heart of unbelief. And I'll go contrary to the way
of God the first chance I get. I mean, if the Lord doesn't constrain
me, if He doesn't hold me back, if He doesn't keep me, I will
go astray. But praise be unto God. He's
pleased to work in His people, both willing to do of His good
pleasure. But He says, He shall call, or He shall announce to
the heavens above and to the earth that He may judge His people. In other words, He has set forth
the Word of God before the earth so that he might judge his people. Now wait a minute. I thought
God's people didn't come into judgment. Well of course we come
into judgment. All of God's people come into
judgment. Here's the glorious thing though. You see, judgment's
not a bad thing if you're not guilty. Now when you come into
the judgment and you're guilty, that's an awful thing. Is it
not? But if you stand before a judge
and you haven't done anything wrong, and he says you're not
guilty, that's a glorious thing. And the Lord is going to judge
His people because He has already passed judgment on their substitute
who has taken their sin upon Himself and become sin for them,
that we might be made what? the righteousness of God in him. And so the day of judgment is
a glorious thing for the sons of God because it is in that
day that it shall be made clear and manifest to the whole creation
that God has a people that He loved in Jesus Christ, and He
has set them apart, and they are His, and He shall say to
those on His right hand, Enter thou into the joy of the Lord.
Now why do they enter? Is it because of all the good
things they did? No. It is because of what Christ
did. Because Christ is our advocate. He is our substitute. He is our
intercessor. He is that one who has stood
in our room and place. He is our righteousness. And
we stand before God as those who have never sinned because
of that which Christ has performed in our behalf. Gather my saints
together unto me. What did He say He was going
to do? He was going to gather them. He said He was going to gather
them from the four corners of the earth, from out of every
kindred, tribe, and tongue. Now if it was all left up to
the free will of men, how would that necessarily come to pass? Because He might have had plans,
you see, to have some from every kindred, tribe, and tongue, but
never could get any of those Africans to believe. I mean,
they just wouldn't do it. You've heard the old saying,
you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Well, the Lord can lead a horse to water and make him drink,
because He makes His people willing in the day of His power. He calls
His people by name. He said, I know my sheep. I call them by name. And they
what? They hear me. They believe. gather my saints together unto
me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." Now you
know you can make a covenant by proxy. You ever heard of giving
somebody the power of attorney? Well, when somebody has the power
of attorney, they can act in your behalf. Is that not true?
Now before you were ever born, The Scripture says before the
foundation of the world that the Lord by proxy in your behalf made a covenant that standeth
sure with His Father. And it is a covenant that is
sealed with blood by sacrifice. But it is a covenant in which
you had no No activity whatsoever. You didn't make any agreements
because you were not of age. You couldn't have made the agreement
because it was made too far back. But you had one. If you be in
Christ, you had one who stood in your room instead as your
proxy. And he said, Father, all that
you have given to me, I will lose none. I will pay their debt. I'll satisfy. that law, which
they have broken, which they will break, because at that time
you hadn't broken the law, had you? But you see, according to
the purpose of God, according to the purpose of God, it pleased
Him to subject his people under vanity for the purpose of bringing
glory to his name in their redemption. Now that's another one of those
things that'll get people mad. They don't want you to tell them
something like that. Because once again, well that just makes
it all of God. Well hey, it is all of God. Salvation of the righteous is
what? Of the Lord. Jonah confessed
it. He said, Salvation is of the
Lord. Why did he say that? Because the Lord brought him
to a place where he understood there wasn't a thing in the world
he could do to deliver himself. He was done for. The belly of
the fish. But the Lord saved him out of
it. Gather my saints together unto
me, those that have made covenant with me by sacrifice. There's
only one sacrifice that we'll do as we get on. We don't have
time today, but as we get on into this psalm, we'll see what
that one sacrifice, and Brother Al talked about it this morning,
is not by the blood of bulls and goats that the Lord is pleased. He says here, I'm gonna skip
down, he says in verse eight and we'll close on this thought
and we'll go back on this next week if the Lord's willing. It
says, I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt
offerings to have been continually before me, or those sacrifices
and burnt offerings which have been continually before me. The Lord said, I won't reprove
you for that. You see, the blood of bulls and
goats in the tabernacle and later in the temple never took away
one's sin, but they did perform an important function. And that
was to testify of the blood sacrifice that would be made that would
indeed take away sin. And so the Lord says, I will
not reprove thee for your continual offering of these burnt offerings.
Because you see, even though the law was a schoolmaster to
bring a son to Christ, we had to be brought there by the law.
And so it was by the law and in these sacrifices that the
comers thereto were never made perfect, but they were made mindful
of sin. And that's all that the sacrifices
in the Old Testament could ever do was testify to the sinfulness
of men. Because they could never testify
to the complete cleansing of men. But when the Lord Jesus
Christ came as the sacrifice which was pleasing in the eyes
of God, then there's no need for a further
sacrifice. So the Lord says, I don't reprove
you for these continual sacrifices, but then he goes on to say, but
I didn't need them. He said, I need the blood of bulls and
goats. He said, I own the cattle on a thousand hills. What do
I need with a bunch of barbecued goats? I mean, what do I need
with all that? I don't need that. If I was hungry,
I'd tell you. But Christ is our sacrifice. Oh, what a glorious thing, dear
brethren. Oh, when the Lord is pleased to bring to a man's conscience
the reality that Jesus Christ has paid the price for sin. What a glorious thing it is.
You see, you want somebody to be able to shout hallelujah,
it's when they come to the place of that understanding. that is
not nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling,
naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace,
foul, I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. And oh, what a glorious thing,
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. And when the
Lord pleased to apply that to the conscience of a man, That
man's been made free. That's what the freedom of the
sons of God is. Free. Free from the law. Oh,
happy condition. Jesus hath died and there is
remission. You see, that's the glory that
surrounds the Gospel. Because it's a finished work.
It's the finished work of Christ. It's not a work that's sitting
there waiting for us and we've got to do something for it. But
it's that which Christ did. And He calls us. He calls us. Even as Paul said,
Reckon ye yourselves therefore dead indeed unto sin, but alive
unto God through Jesus Christ. Brethren, we live because He
lives. Our life is hid with Christ in God. Oh, what a glorious thing. And He is the mighty God. He's
a mighty Savior. He's that one who's mighty to
save. If God be for us, Paul said,
who can be against us? If the Lord is determined to
save His people, I want to ask you something. Who can keep that
from occurring? Just like the sun, as Jack told
us, you can't stop the sun from coming up. And you can't stop
the Lord from saving His people that He loved with an everlasting
love. And if He's for us, who can be against us? Oh, what a
glorious salvation there is in Christ. He's the Savior of sinners. And He saves such as call upon
His name. Never has a sinner perished who
came seeking mercy at the hand of Christ. Because He will save
those that call upon Him. Oh, the glory of Christ, the
wonders of His salvation. May we ever praise Him and be
found to be a people walking faithfully before Him.