Since I know basically nothing about football (and am only too happy to keep it that way), I had the passing thought that “50, 53, 60, 75” sound like something a quarterback might say before the ball is hiked. 🏈🤷♀️
PSALM 50
Perhaps the football play idea is not that far off. Psalm 50 describes Yahweh showing up in a fiery tempest and gathering His saints to Himself. Very Revelation-y. 🔥
And it’s like He needs to clarify a point with them about sacrifices. He doesn’t need them. He’s not hungry. That was a common idea in the ancient world. The gods were like cranky toddlers if they didn’t get what they wanted. They’d get “hangry” if they didn’t get enough flesh and blood. The gods were literally “bloodthirsty.”
And Yahweh says – I can feed myself, thank you very much. I made every critter on earth and every bird in the sky. I’m not dependent on you. It’s the other way around.
This is what God wants:
“Offer to God a thank offering and pay your vows to the Most High. And call me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.”
Psalms 50:14-15 LEB
It’s not enough to check the box of giving the Lord that required sacrifice. He doesn’t want obligatory sacrifices. He wants His people to realize that HE is the One taking care of them and be appreciative of that and to actually DO the things they promised to Him they would do. And to turn to Him first when they are in trouble and trust His ability to rescue. It’s not really that different than what most people want in a marriage relationship. And God’s people are His bride.
The last section of the psalm is God ripping into the wicked. In the midst of this divine dressing-down and listing of their wicked deeds, God explains to these incompetent fools why they get Him 100% wrong:
“These things you have done and I kept silent; You thought that I was just like you; I will rebuke you and present the case before your eyes.” Psalms 50:21 NASB2020
How things never change!
“Because the Almighty hasn’t thundered from heaven and rained down hellfire and brimstone on the last LGBTQ rally must mean that He is ok with it.” That is the reasoning of the wicked. It’s also the reasoning of many-a-fleshly-Christian. “God didn’t do anything to stop me so He must be ok with me reading smut or looking at porn,” (to put a very fine point on it).
That “logic” only works when we make God into our own image rather than remembering we were created in His image.
“You thought that I was just like you.”
This is God telling humanity where they missed the target.
God is not like you or me. He is completely other. In the effort to try to make God more “relatable,” many in the Church have slid off-road into thinking that “God is like me.”
He isn’t.
He never has been. EVER.
People want the end to justify the means. “So what if I trample theology in the dirt and drag the glory of Christ through sewage? We need people to know that ‘He gets us.’”
That message is a sneaky way of asserting a very dangerous doctrine: “God understands you because he’s one of us. Jesus was human after all. God understands that you can’t help yourself. It’s those mean old fundamentalist Bible thumpers who are uptight and intolerant and angry. They don’t get you. But God does. And he’s not angry at the sin you can’t help.”
Not angry? Look at the next verse:
“Now consider this, ye that forget God, Lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” Psalm 50:22 KJV
Let me put that into modern speech for those of you in Rio Linda.
“All you people doing your own thing and aren’t actually listening to Me? I’m dead serious. Figure it out fast because I’m going to tear you apart piece by piece and no amount of apologies will make me change my mind. Clock is ticking.”
We do sinners a disservice by making them think they are ok with a Divine Judge Who is on His way to destroy them.
I know this kind of preaching hasn’t been popular since Jonathan Edwards warned a bunch of drunken colonists that they were “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” but look what happens to a society that puts its thumb on the theological scale on the side of God’s grace and completely ignores His holiness and righteous judgment against sin.
Believing God won’t punish the wicked does not make it so.
God’s own words say otherwise.
Man. I get riled up on this topic. No wonder Jonathan Edwards’ sermons were like 3 hours long. Moving on…
I’m not suggesting we quit preaching the love of Christ and start pounding people over the head with Hellfire. But I am suggesting balance.
PSALM 53
Shoot. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. This psalm picks up where the last one left off. No one does good. Altogether filthy. Corrupt fools. Not one good one in the bunch. No, not one.
And what is the destiny of these workers of iniquity who devour God’s people?
Scattered bones. 🦴 That’s what happens to a corpse that doesn’t have a decent burial. The vultures and scavenging beasts drag the bones far and wide.
I’m tellin’ ya. It’s time to bring back these “scary” scriptures. The fear of God is not a bad thing. One day if you bump into someone in heaven who only turned away from sin because they “had the Hell scared out of ‘em,” I don’t think they’ll be sorry to be there. Just sayin.
I’m not suggesting we start conversations with unbelievers like “Hey, did you know that you’re going to Hell, you wretched sinner?!” But I do think we need to hold to the truth and not downplay the wrath of God or adhere to contorted doctrines that scrub out all Divine judgment.
You don’t have to hate on someone to tell them we’ve all missed the mark and need to repent and trust Jesus.
PSALM 60
We read yesterday about the battles that inspired this psalm.
I am stumped though. The inscription of this psalm says that it was written when David “strove with” or “burned” Mesopotamia and Syrain Soba and when Joab killed 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.
I read the narratives in 2nd Samuel 8 and 1st Chronicles 18. I read them in several translations. I read the account in Josephus. They all read like clear and decisive victories for Israel.
So why does it start like this:
“O God, you have rejected us. You have broken us. You have been angry. Restore us!” Psalms 60:1 LEB
The heading in the LEB even says, “A lament after a defeat and a prayer for restoration.”
At least I’m not the only one to notice the apparent discrepancy. Augustine noted it in his Exposition on Psalm 60 then proceeded, in true Augustinian fashion, to apply every syllable to the Church.
After poking around online and reading some comments by better scholars than myself, it’s getting a little clearer. Here is the Reader’s Digest Version:
When David becomes king over ALL Israel, the country is in a tight spot. Saul and all his sons except one die in battle. The Philistines are flexing on them. So are the Moabites and the Edomites and any other “ites” that care to. David gets the ark safely into his stronghold then goes to war. ⚔️
The bit about being “cast off” and “scattered” in the opening line is likely referring to the state of things that David has inherited. There is a reason why Saul fell in battle and Philistines are tromping about with impunity. This is Israel. God’s chosen people in God’s land. Defeat should not be in the dictionary. The Almighty God is on their side. Except that Saul wasn’t really leading the people to faithfully follow Yahweh. He was demonized and trying to kill David. The Ark had sat in a random guy’s house for 30 years and nobody seemed to care.
This psalm of David’s is a “Michtam.” That means it was to be inscribed on some kind of permanent surface. Perhaps a pillar. And its purpose is “to teach.” And Israel needed teaching. They have to understand the relationship between geo-political strength and faithfulness to Yahweh. They cannot have one without the other. If the people ignore Yahweh, and He is not honored in their midst – uh…. Good luck winning those battles. Israel had to be “shown hard things,” v3. (Sometimes we do too. Selah.)
This psalm is also going to help them remember that these victories are not their own doing. Joab and Abishai don’t get the credit for defeating Edom in the Valley of Salt. Yahweh did that.
They have been surrounded by enemies, but all that is in the process of changing. Just look at the places God mentions in the psalm:
When God says that Moab is His washbasin it’s speaking of the servitude of the Moabites to David. Edom is going to be a doormat. 🥾
It’s meant to be a powerful reminder that we do not fight in our own strength. The battle is the Lord’s and if He is with us, “we shall do valiantly.”
PSALM 75
😅 It’s like we got all the judgment psalms in one day. This one feels like it belongs somewhere between Revelation 14 and 19. And it is a song of thanks-in-advance for God’s deliverance from the wicked.
The LORD speaks in first-person in verses 2-5. He speaks of the earth “tottering” yet being held up by Himself.
It makes me think of this text (which is about the final judgment):
“The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again.”
Isaiah 24:19-20 ESV
Knowing that the Lord could flick planet earth 🌎 like a marble out into the frozen void of space (and we’d all instantly freeze to death) – the proud, rich, and famous should really dial back all their bragging.
Then Asaph explains that exaltation doesn’t come from Likes or Instagram Fame or going viral on Tiktok. (Well, it’s the ancient equivalent thereof.) God is the One Who raises up one and sets down another. And all the pride of the wicked is going to be cut off one day. And the righteous will be exalted. Which will be a nice change.
Let’s try to remember that moving forward when we encounter arrogant jerks. They just don’t know how small they are.
To The Reader 