The Heart of the Bible—The Book of Psalms · Pastor Adam Wood · Psalm 50 · November 19, 2025

Transcript:
All right, we'll go to Psalm 50 tonight. And what we will do is we will read the Psalm as we go rather than all at the beginning. Psalm 50. Psalm 50, a Psalm of Asaph. So you can divide this Psalm basically into three parts and then a tag on the end. The tag is verse number 23. And the three parts are verses one to six, verse seven to 15, and verse 16 to 22. And then you have the tag on verse 23, just in case that's outlining as something that you enjoy doing, dividing it up. It's not something that comes naturally to me, but sometimes the scripture just kind of flows in that way. And so maybe that'll be a help to you. So before we read, let's pray and ask the Lord to bless our study tonight. Our Father in heaven, we look to you. Lord, our eyes are upon you. You are the God who is the God of judgment. Lord, you are a God who is a consuming fire. You are the Almighty God. You are the great God. You are the everlasting God. And Lord, we in anticipation look forward to the day that you come and we meet you face to face. Lord, we fear not for your coming. Lord, we say even so come Lord Jesus. But there are many, many in our world who should fear, even as this Psalm talks about. Lord, please help us Lord to live in hope of your return in the constant expectation of your return. And Lord, help us to take the things that are written in this Psalm some 3000 years ago through your servants. And that they would, Lord, just as they're alive, then as they are now so that they would give us and quicken us as we read your word. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, Psalm 50 verse number one, the Bible says, the mighty God, even the Lord, had spoken and called 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 heavens shall declare his righteousness for God is judge himself, say la. God is judge himself, say la. And the judgment is one of the key themes and subjects in this Psalm, judgment. It's mentioned in verse four, it's mentioned in verse six, it's mentioned in verse seven, in verse 21, and in verse 22, judgment. So it skips a portion in the middle of the Psalm where it doesn't really talk about judgment as much, but judgment is a major theme in the Psalm. And in verse number one, notice what it says, God has spoken, now notice to whom or about what God is speaking. He's speaking, he has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. What does that cover? That turn of phrase, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, what is that talking about? It's talking about, huh? But it's referring to the circuit of the sun, right? It's for everywhere the sun shines from the rising of the sun to the going down, it's referring to the entire world. And I know we scientific types will say, well, I mean, that's only the portion of the sun, the earth, the sun, but this is a turn of phrase that refers to the entire world. And so the Lord speaking, the context of the events that we're reading in the first six verses is the whole earth from the rising of the sun to the going down of it, verse number two. Now, this is important because this is God's message, this is what he's telling in the context of the whole earth, everyone in the world. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined. Now we know what Zion is because it hasn't been too long previous that we studied Zion. Remember we looked at the Psalm that spoke of Zion in chapter number 40, let's see, verse number, rather chapter number 48, Psalm 48 talks about Zion. And we saw, remember, we saw Zion, there's two layers of meaning in Zion. You have the earthly Zion, which is Jerusalem, and then you have the heavenly Zion. And in this case, when we go back to Psalm 50, out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined. Now you could look at that in a way and you could say, well, out of Zion, that's referring to Jerusalem, the city of God's people. So you could say God's people shine. And you could, by extension, refer to the church, like a city on a hill. And that would be a valid way to look at it. But I think the primary meaning of this is I think it's referring to the heavenly Zion because of the next verse, it says this, for our God shall come. So you have this idea of the Lord is shining out of Zion. He's coming from Zion. And he's coming to us, verse three. He's coming to us with fire and all that. So the idea is the Lord is coming from Zion to us. And we're, you know, speaking to Israel here, we're in Zion. We are, figuratively, we are Zion, and here the Lord is coming. So I think it's talking about God's leaving heavenly Zion, where he abides, where he dwells, and he's getting ready to come and judge. That's what the first six verses are talking about. So he's leaving his heavenly Zion, and when he leaves, he's shining. That's what we talked about last week on Wednesday night, which is the glory of God. Well, actually, that was on Sunday when we talked about the transfiguration. And the idea of glory, what is the primary representation of glory that we see in scripture? What is it? What is it that God has represented in the physical world? By light. And here it is in verse number two, God hath shined. Now listen to this verse. Matthew 24, verse 30. This is, Matthew 24 and five are speaking reference to the coming of Christ, right, in his advent. Here's what it says. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Great glory. You know what that's talking about, right? That's talking about that light, right, that they saw, the glory of Christ. Now here's what's interesting about the coming of Christ in the second advent. When the Lord Jesus comes to judge, and he comes to take his kingdom, it's kind of a difficult thing to fully get our brains around, because the information's a little bit sparse in scripture, but there appears to be a period of time in which the Lord Jesus appears in glory, and all the world sees him before he actually begins, he actually descends to earth and judges. And that's what you see in verse number of Matthew 24, verse 30, is there's a sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and they see him in the clouds, there's a shining. And so you have this idea, what's interesting is when you compare the two, verse number two, it says God has shine. So everything you read in this psalm about God coming, it's actually Jesus, which tells us who Jesus is. But you have Jesus coming, but before he comes, as he departs his heavenly Zion, and he appears, he shines in glory before he descends. Then you get to verse number three. Now remember, we're talking about the coming of God to earth, so this truth of God's coming to earth is something that goes way back in scriptural history. This is not a New Testament doctrine, this is an Old Testament doctrine, which is the foundation of the New Testament doctrine. So even in the Old Testament, God said, I'm coming, you just wait, I'm coming. And that's why the Jews got so messed up and so deceived is because they misunderstood the coming of Christ in his first coming, because that coming was foretold also, but it wasn't the one they were really interested in because it had no glory and it had a cross, and they weren't interested in that part. Not even the disciples were all that interested in that part, right, because they didn't understand it. B...