Psalm 50
Sunday, 19 May 2024
“Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.” - Psalm 50: 22
This is a psalm where God alone speaks while man’s voice is literally not heard at all. The Psalmist calls our attention to God’s thundering voice. At times God’s voice may frighten us because His voice summons us to judgment, setting our sins before our eyes. In this Psalm God rebukes the sin of man forgetting Him.
Can man forget God?
Forgetting God is quite common. Here, the ones who are charged with forgetting God are neither idolaters nor atheists, but the ones who “declare God’s statutes, and take His covenant in their mouth”-V16. It is the description of the daily life of thousands of habitual ritualistic Christians.
Forgetting God is like shipwreck in our lives. A person doesn’t forget God in one day but as he/she gets caught up with the world system that runs after material gain and seeks to climb the ladder of success, our anchor on the Lord Jesus weakens. Little by little we drift away and gradually forget God. We forget His past works of salvation, as the Israelites forgot the way He bought them out of the land of slavery. We forget Him when our temporary needs are satisfied: “but when they had grazed, they became full… therefore they forgot me.”’ (Hosea 13:6).
Consequences of forgetting God
· Forgetting leads us to unbelief – Immediately following their Red Sea miracle, the children of Israel lost hope when there was no water. Repeatedly, they forgot the miracles God had done for them, they grumbled throughout, they didn’t believe they would be able to conquer the land God had promised. We often tend to forget His great acts and His promises!
· Forgetting makes us do foolish things – At Mt Sinai the people got tired of waiting for Moses- “They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull, which eats grass.” (Ps. 106:20). Forgetting causes us to get impatient and not wait on His direction. Impatience makes us do foolish things!
· Forgetting ignites God’s anger – Forgetting God, tests God’s patience and makes God’s anger rise for which the Israelites suffered the consequences. Part of our key verse says: “Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:” (V22).
‘To Remember’ is a command
Scripture is full with two simple commands: “Remember” & “Do not forget what the Lord has done for you.” Remembering all that God has done for us is foundational for Christian life and that’s what God desires from His children.
· Remember your desperate situation when you were without Christ, “…being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world…” (Eph. 2:12)
· Remember His redemption plan for you.
· Remember His forgiveness every time you provoked the Lord to wrath… (Deut. 9:7).
Dear brethren, lets us never forget what God has done for us-how He has redeemed us through His Son Jesus Christ! And remember His promise to us: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). The Psalmist ends this way: “Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.” (Vs.23)
“Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—“ Psalm 103:1&2
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