Psalm 50 – You Thought I Was Altogether Like You
By Bunni Pounds
*This blog is part of our weekly, virtual Bible Study through the book of Psalms. For information on how to participate, please visit this page.
When we come to faith in Jesus, we focus most of the time on two aspects of God’s character – Savior and Lord. It is drilled into us that we need a Redeemer who will save us from our sins, deliver us and heal us. Then we start understanding that we need a Master as well. He is Lord of all, so we believe and confess. We decide to follow Jesus.
How many times in our Christian walk do we ever “focus in” on God as our Judge?
He is our Judge and the Judge of the wicked.
Very rarely if ever do we think about that part of God’s job description.
Psalm 50 lays out the sins and corruption of wicked people and God goes from quiet to loud very quickly. God the Judge is manifested. It is clear who He is.
“Now consider this, you who forget God,
Lest I tear you in pieces,
And there be none to deliver.” (verse 22)
Two things hit me like a ton of bricks reading this passage. It was like the words were in neon lights with arrows around them attempting to get my attention.
The first phrase is this – “The Mighty One, God the Lord, has SPOKEN….” (verse 1)
Have you been through a time when you feel like God is not speaking to you? No Bible verses are impacting you; no messages from the pulpit are impacting your heart; no worship song is getting through the fears and the darkness in your soul – it is a hard place. How tormenting that is - the quietness of God.
For us today – we know that God is always speaking, but because of pain, rebellion, hardness of heart and more – many times we are not listening or believing that He is trying to speak loudly to our hearts. When the scales fall off our eyes and our ears are open to His voice again – it brings life.
Can you imagine the time from Malachi – the last book in the Old Testament - to Matthew – the first book in the New Testament - when God was SILENT? It was more than 400 years. Over 400 years of utter and complete silence with no word from God – no prophecy, no scriptures being written, no encouragement, no love poured out through exhortation – just silence. Sounds torturous, doesn’t it?
In Dallas Jenkins’ Christmas with the Chosen: The Messengers that I saw in the theatres a few weeks ago – there was a monologue in which one of the actors talked about the silence of God through that season. First – I tried to imagine what that season must have been like for the people of God. It hit me that when John the Baptist was promised in the womb of Elizabeth, what an incredible breakthrough that was. God spoke. He spoke to Zacharias and Elizabeth in Luke 1 loud and clear. Out of 400+ years of utter silence – God spoke to this couple and promised a Forerunner of the Messiah, and He spoke to Mary and Joseph.
LIGHT was coming, and His voice was coming.
God spoke. Then God spoke in the flesh with JESUS.
God came to earth and broke the silence completely and forever. Never do we have to experience silence again because “God demonstrated His love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
God the Judge who will speak and not be silent was prophesied here in Psalm 50.
“The Mighty One, God the Lord,
Has spoken and called the earth
From the rising of the sun to its going down.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God will shine forth.
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;
A fire shall devour before Him,
And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.” (verses 1-3)
He will judge the righteous and the wicked. All people will stand before Him. As we know – in the end of days, it will come down to if we have received His sacrifice or not.
Have we entered into covenant with Him through His sacrifice of Jesus or have we turned aside, rejected His love and commitment to us, and gone our separate ways?
This decision of receiving Him or rejecting Him will be the defining moment of each of our lives. He will be the JUDGE for all of us – but what kind of Judge will He be? Will He be a Judge with the fire of vengeance in His eyes or the fire of passionate love in His eyes toward us? This is up to our response.
He shall call to the heavens from above,
And to the earth, that He may judge His people:
“Gather My saints together to Me,
Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
Let the heavens declare His righteousness,
For God Himself is Judge. Selah (verses 4-6)
We need to reflect and think about that, God Himself is Judge. This aspect of who He is – if meditated on - can greatly impact how we live and how we interact with others. Will there be more of a passion in our heart to win the lost if God is a Judge to us?
The second phrase that jumped out at me in this chapter was this – “You thought that I was altogether like you…” (verse 21)
How often do we think about God with our human lens? We think He operates and thinks just like us.
We think He will just ignore what is wrong on the earth and the wickedness like we many times do – but He won’t. He is going to set everything in order.
“These things you have done, and I kept silent;
You thought that I was altogether like you;
But I will rebuke you,
And set them in order before your eyes.” (verse 21)
The world has forgotten that God is Judge and that He will at some point, completely rebuke them and set everything in order.
Modern culture has taught us that God is only love and that He just “loves” everyone and everything. In our backward minds – that means to us that He will ignore all of the wickedness and He will just cover all of the corruption, but that is untrue - His love is righteousness and holiness.
Love is setting things RIGHT and bringing justice into an unjust world. God is a Judge because He is love.
It is not LOVE to just let sin and wickedness rule over people. No – His love compels Him to judge and to SET FREE those who are bound.
“You thought that I was altogether like you”
To me today – this statement is a loving rebuke on my shallow understanding of God or my lack of hunger to know more about Him. We have so much more to understand. Regardless of how many times we have read the Bible – there is so much more to discover about Him. God’s attributes are endless to search out and the depths of His love wait for more discovery from us.
Psalm 50 is a wake up call for us today. Wickedness is running rampant as children are seduced into gender dysphoria, drug addiction, human trafficking and the utter destruction of their lives. We have to be on guard against wickedness and be almost militant in our response to protect our family members and friends. Now is not a time to melt into a false understanding of who God is. We need to understand that He is a righteous God, and He will JUDGE the earth.
Even if we are deceived to think He was something different based on our cultural understanding – we will soon realize at His Second Coming that God is not like us.
He is Holy and He is Just. He is the Judge.
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