Psalm 50:16-23 “But to the wicked God says, ‘What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips, since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have participated with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil. Your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son. You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you, and accuse you in front of your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver. Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me, and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.’ ”

This is a huge warning to us. It’s not as simple as the wicked don’t know God and the righteous do. Sometimes even the righteous can act wicked. Here we see that people in the covenant community who knew Him, didn’t follow Him. They ignored His Word. They stole, committed adultery, lied, slandered, and gossiped. God reminds them (and us!) that He is not like that. He is holy and pure, and expects His people to be the same. If we know Him, we have a responsibility to be like Him.

For additional worship: All People That on Earth Do Dwell (Emu Music)

Psalm 50:7-15 “Hear, my people, and I will speak. Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. I don’t rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens. For every animal of the forest is mine, and the livestock on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains. The wild animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Will I eat the meat of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the Most High. Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”

The Israelites were supposed to sacrifice. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was offering sacrifices as a means to an end. Offering sacrifices with improper motives. Offering sacrifices with impure hearts. Symbolically performing an action without meaning. Outwardly serving without inwardly loving.

Loving God is first and foremost. How can we expect Him to answer us if we don’t love Him?

Mark 12:30 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.”

For additional worship: Love the Lord (Lincoln Brewster)

Psalm 50:1-6 “A Psalm by Asaph. The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines out. Our God comes, and does not keep silent. A fire devours before him. It is very stormy around him. He calls to the heavens above, 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.’ The heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge. Selah.”

Even though God’s people are special, here the whole earth is called to account. All are responsible before God, but His chosen have a greater level of responsibility and therefore judgment – at least in this life. With great privilege comes great responsibility. We would do well to remember that!

1 Peter 4:17 “For the time has come for judgement to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God?”

Did you catch some of the imagery here? God is the Mighty One. A fire devours before Him. It is stormy all around Him. He is majestic and awe inspiring!

For additional worship: Psalm 50 (Koine Music)

Psalm 49:16-20 “Don’t be afraid when a man is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory won’t descend after him. Though while he lived he blessed his soul— and men praise you when you do well for yourself— he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light. A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish.”

Envy is useless and destructive. So what if a person receives wealth and glory in this life? This life is only a small part of eternity. Understanding is more important than wealth!

Proverbs 11:4 “Riches don’t profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.”

For additional worship: I’d Rather Have Jesus (Selah)

Psalm 49:10-15 “For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves. But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish. This is the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings. Selah. They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion. But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah.”

All die, but all don’t go to the same place! God will redeem your soul if you’re not one of the foolish.

John 6:39-40 “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

For additional worship: There is a Fountain (Acoustic) | Reawaken Hymns

Psalm 49:1-9 “For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth will speak words of wisdom. My heart will utter understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will solve my riddle on the harp. Why should I fear in the days of evil, when iniquity at my heels surrounds me? Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches— none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give God a ransom for him. For the redemption of their life is costly, no payment is ever enough, that he should live on forever, that he should not see corruption.”

Here is wisdom: no matter how much money you have, or how many possessions, you can’t live forever. We all die. There is only one thing that we can pack and have for eternity: our relationship with Jesus!

For additional worship: I Boast No More (Caedmon’s Call)

Psalm 48:9-14 “We have thought about your loving kindness, God, in the middle of your temple. As is your name, God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgements. Walk about Zion, and go around her. Number its towers. Notice her bulwarks. Consider her palaces, that you may tell it to the next generation. For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even to death.”

God is glorious because He is full of love and grace and all His judgments are righteous. His glory is reflected by the city where His temple resides!

Since we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, shouldn’t we be reflecting the glory of God too?

2 Corinthians 3:18 “But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

For additional worship: Breathe On Me Breath of God (Acoustic Hymn with Lyrics)

Psalm 48:1-8 “A Song. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, in his holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the north sides, the city of the great King. God has shown himself in her citadels as a refuge. For, behold, the kings assembled themselves, they passed by together. They saw it, then they were amazed. They were dismayed. They hurried away. Trembling took hold of them there, pain, as of a woman in travail. With the east wind, you break the ships of Tarshish. As we have heard, so we have seen, in the city of the LORD of Armies, in the city of our God. God will establish it forever. Selah.”

The majesty of the city of Jerusalem goes beyond its walls and its elevation. Its majesty is primarily because it is the city of God, where His temple resides, and where His army defends it. The Gentile armies try to defeat her, but they can’t!

The glory of the earthly Jerusalem should remind us of the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem, our coming home.

Hebrews 12:22-24 “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.”

But shouldn’t it also remind us of the place of our own corporate worship, the joy that comes when we gather, and the sanctity of the saints coming together to praise and to learn?

For additional worship: This Is Not a Place of Resting (feat. Jeremy Casella)

Psalm 47:1-9 “For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. Oh clap your hands, all you nations. Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the LORD Most High is awesome. He is a great King over all the earth. He subdues nations under us, and peoples under our feet. He chooses our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob whom he loved. Selah. God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God! Sing praises! Sing praises to our King! Sing praises! For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with understanding. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the peoples are gathered together, the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted!”

This Psalm recognizes God’s sovereignty, His authority, His loving-kindness, and looks forward to His ultimate rule over all the earth. We have a part to play in that rule, because He has given us an inheritance. If that isn’t a reason to praise, what is?!?!?

Hebrews 9:14-15 “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, that those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”

For additional worship: Come, Thou Almighty King – Keith & Kristyn Getty

Psalm 46:6-11 “The nations raged. The kingdoms were moved. He lifted his voice and the earth melted. The LORD of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, see the LORD’s works, what desolations he has made in the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots in the fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted amongst the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.’ The LORD of Armies is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.”

The nations may rage. They may rail against God and make war against His people. For us, the war is probably more figurative than literal. But God’s got this! He is sovereign, and watches over His people. “Be still” is another way of saying trust in Him. Rest in Him. Pray to Him. Have faith in Him. The Lord of Armies is with us – the God of Jacob is our refuge!

For additional worship: Psalm 46 – Lord of Hosts – by Shane & Shane