Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

R. C. Sproul, founder of Ligonier Ministries, used to tell a story about the second year of his teaching career, when he taught a class of 250 seminary freshman an introductory course on the Old Testament.

The syllabus called for a short term paper to be turned in at the end of each month of the semester, and he made it clear to them that any student that failed to turn their paper in on time would receive an “F” for the assignment.

So he tells the story that at the end of September, 225 students turned their paper in on time, and twenty-five came in trembling and begging, “Oh, Professor Sproul, we tried so hard, but we didn’t budget our time properly—we’re still trying to transition out of high school!

We’re so sorry!

Please don’t flunk us!”

So he told them they could have one chance to turn in their papers late.

Then at the end of the next month, what happened?

Two hundred students came in with their term papers, and fifty students were late.

And they said, “Oh, you know how it is, Prof! We’re having midterms, it’s homecoming week, we’re just running a little behind!”

So once again, R.C. said he would give them a chance to turn in their paper after the deadline.

Well, what do you suppose happened at the end of November?

A hundred turned their paper in on time, and a hundred-fifty didn’t!

They all walked in, as cool and casual as could be, not even pretending to be concerned about the deadline.

So R.C. said, “Johnson!

Where’s your paper?”

And the student says, “Don’t worry about it, Prof! I’ll have it for you next week!”

And he takes the grade book and writes, “Johnson—F!

Nicholson—where’s your paper?” “I don’t have it.”

“F!” Jenkins?

Where’s your paper?

“I didn’t get it--” “F!”

And all of a sudden, someone in the crowd says, “That’s not fair!”

And R.C. says, “Fitzgerald, was that you?

Didn’t you turn in your paper late last month?

“Yeah...” OK, if you want justice, here’s your justice!”

And he changed his grade from October to an “F”.

And the whole room gasped.

And Sproul looked around the room and said, “Anyone else want justice?”

He didn’t get any takers!

He goes on to say that:

“those students had grown accustomed to my grace.

The first time they were late with their papers, they were amazed by grace.

The second time, they were no longer surprised; they basically assumed it.

By the third time, they demanded it.

They had come to believe that grace was an inalienable right, an entitlement they all deserved.”

Sproul, R. C. (2010).

Chapter 10: “A Consuming Fire”: Holiness, Wrath, and Justice.

In Holy, Holy, Holy: Proclaiming the Perfections of God (pp.

144–145).

Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing.

A lot of people today have that same attitude towards God—that He doesn’t really care about their behavior, that He will “look the other way” when they break His Law.

Sometimes, as we saw earlier from our reading in Romans 2, people think that God doesn’t care about their sinful behavior because they’ve never seen Him do anything about it!

The temptation is to believe that God doesn’t care about our behavior any more than we do.

And if we’re honest, we know that Christians are just as prone to forget God’s holiness, to think that He has the same attitudes towards our behavior that we do.

That’s what Asaph (who wrote this psalm) says in verse 21:

There is a little play on words in Hebrew here that we miss in our English translation.

In Hebrew, this verse can read: “These things you have done, and I have been silent.

You thought that “the I AM” was just like “you are”....

When Moses asked God how he could trust Him to bring His people out of Egypt in Exodus 3, God responded by giving him His Name, “YHWH”, or “I AM”—it is the Name by which God says that He is the all-sufficient, all-powerful, utterly transcendant God, Creator and Sustainer of the whole universe, completely independent from and authoritative over all things.

Psalm 50 reminds God’s forgetful followers that He is not like us: He is a holy God.

We must never forget that the “I AM” is not like we are.

And Asaph himself knew a thing or two about what happens when God’s followers forget His holiness.

Back In 2 Samuel 6 we read the story of King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant—the symbol of the presence of God—into Jerusalem.

God had commanded that the Ark be carried by priests between two poles, but they figured that God wouldn’t mind if they just rolled it in on an oxcart.

And when the oxen stumbled a man named Uzzah reached out and put his hand on the Ark to keep it from falling off the cart—and God struck him dead on the spot!

He died because the people had begun to think that He was like them—after all, Uzzah was trying to save the Ark! Surely God would make an exception in that case?!?

But there are no exceptions to obeying God’s commands, are there?

And so the next time David brought in the Levites to carry the Ark, he called the Levites to carry it between two poles, as God had commanded.

And it says in 1 Chronicles 15:16 that David appointed singers to walk before the Ark and “raise sounds of joy” as they came into the city.

And look who one of the singers in the choir was:

Asaph sang before the Ark as it came into Jerusalem because of the deadly disobedience of their prior attempt.

So he knew a thing or two about the consequences of God’s followers forgetting His holiness!

And you can hear that sense of urgency throughout this psalm.

In fact, there are three different ways that Asaph reminds us that “the I AM is not like you are” in this psalm.

First, he reminds us that

I. God is Unbearably Glorious (vv.

1-6)

Listen to the way he describes God’s appearing in verses 1-6:

In verse 21, God says He has been silent while His people forgot His holiness, but here in verse 3 we see that He is not “keeping silence” anymore!

He comes in “devouring fire, around Him a mighty tempest”.

Think of the pictures you see on TV of a Category 5 hurricane blowing though a city, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Now picture what Asaph describes here in Psalm 50, of a hurricane of fire surrounding God as He comes to judge His people’s actions!

God’s glory is overwhelming in its power.

And in verses 4-5 we see that God commands the heavens and the earth to “gather His faithful ones”—He is the God that can command the very sky above your head and the ground beneath your feet to propel you into His presence!

You cannot hide from Him by running away, because he summons you “from the rising of the sun to its setting”!

You cannot get into an airplane and fly away, you can’t get into a rocket ship and blast off for the Moon to get away from His call—or even Mars or Pluto or another galaxy entirely!

The “I AM” is not limited to time or space like we are—

There is no way to escape God’s summons to judgment.

The psalmist goes to great pains to remind us that when that day comes for judgment, we will—every last one of us— we will stand before Him!

The “I AM” is not like we are—He is unbearably glorious, and in verses 7-15 we see that

II.

God is Utterly Self-Sufficient (vv.

7-15)

God has called His people to appear before Him in judgment.

And the first charge that He lays against them is about their sacrifices to Him.

The problem wasn’t with the content of their sacrifices—they were offering all the bulls and goats and pigeons and lambs in obedience to the Law of Moses (“your burnt offerings are continually before Me”).

The problem was their attitude towards their sacrifices.

They had begun to think that God was just like them—that He needed their sacrifices to sustain Himself!

This was actually the attitude of many of the other nations around Israel at this time—in the Babylonian story the Epic of Gilgamesh the goddess Ishtar bemoans the lack of sacrifices that resulted in her “god-sized hunger” (Sproul, R. C. (Ed.).

(2015).

The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (p.

888).

Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust.)

But God makes it clear—He does not need the sacrifices of His people to keep Him alive!

The “I AM” is not like we are—He does not get hungry or thirsty or tired.

And even if He did, we would have no way to supply His needs!

God rebukes His people for believing that He is dependent on them.

Now, before you go off looking down on those poor confused Israelites, think about your own attitude towards serving God.

Think about those times when you’ve made some sacrifice in order to serve God: You taught Sunday School even though you had a sleepless Saturday night with one of your own kids, you gave up your own lunch hour to go visit someone in the hospital, you spent your own money to fill backpacks for the giveaway on Saturday even though your budget is tight, you went out and knocked on doors in the neighborhood even though it was hard for you.

It’s easy to think of those things as “sacrifice” for God, and even to begin thinking that God was “lucky to have you”, isn’t it?

“Wow, look at me! I’m making such a great sacrifice for the sake of God’s glory!” “I’m a pretty good person, aren’t I? Look at how I do these things for God!”

Do you see what you’re doing?

Just like the Israelites that God is rebuking here in Psalm 50, you are letting yourself forget that God is not dependent on you to accomplish His purposes!

Do you really think He needs your cash to accomplish His purposes?