A call to covenant faithfulness
Some fault God for having favorites—making the Israelites his people. But to whom much is given, much is required, and God never failed to hold Israel to account. The same is true of his people today.
An Asaph psalm.
1 Almighty God YHWH speaks
summoning earth’s inhabitants
from where the sun rises to where it sets.
2 From Zion, perfect in beauty
God appears in splendor.
3 Our God is coming, and he will not fail to speak.
A fire devouring everything in his path
and a tempest encircling him
4 he summons the heavens above
and the earth below
to witness as he judges his people.
5 “Summon all the believers
who sealed their covenant commitment
by sacrifice!”
6 Then let the heavens
attest to the justice of his charges
because he is a just God.”
7 “Listen, my people, as I speak.
I’ll state my charges against you, Israel:
I am God, your God.
8 I don’t fault you for your sacrifices.
or the burnt-offerings you constantly offer.
9 But I don’t need bulls from your barns
or rams from your folds.
10 Because all the beasts of the forest are mine
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird in the mountains
and own everything that runs in the field.
12 “I wouldn’t tell you if I were hungry
since the world and everything in it is mine.
13 Do you think I eat the meat of bulls
and wash it down with the blood of rams?
14 No, make thanksgiving your sacrifice to God
and keep your vows to the Most High.
15 Then call on me when you’re in trouble
and I’ll rescue you and you’ll honor me.”
16 As for the wicked, God says this:
“What right have you to recite my laws
or mouth the words of my covenant?
17 For you spurn my discipline
and brush my words aside.
18 You run with every thief you meet
and hang around with adulterers.
19 You let your mouth speak evil
and your tongue make up lies.
20 You sit around badmouthing your kin—
slandering your own siblings.
21 Because I kept quiet
when you did these things
you thought I had no more problem with evil
than you do.
But now I indict you
and lay out my charges against you.
22 “Think well now, all you who ignore me
lest I tear you apart
and there’s no one to save you!
23 Everyone who gives me thanks
offers a sacrifice that truly honors me.
And to everyone who holds to my path
I will reveal my great power to save.”
God isn’t a tribal God in the sense that his chosen tribe can do no wrong. While he commits to working with broken, messed up people, just like us, he always holds them to a higher standard than he holds others to. Many other psalms speak of his rescuing his people, but this one warns of his coming to judge them on account of their formalism and hypocrisy. They think mere sacrifices—equivalent to our churchgoing—satisfy him. That is, external acts of worship without the grateful, trusting hearts those acts are meant to express.
Such formalism inevitably grows into full-blown hypocrisy. When we no longer want to become holy—thankful, compassionate, gracious, kind, truthful, fair—as God is holy, we simply want our own way. Emptied of the life of God, all our religious talk and our worship’s other externals are left a mere cloak that hides our disregard for God’s moral demands. Finally, with our religion a mere outer form, we decide that the end justifies the means and throw in our lot with moral deadbeats.
Seeing this, God denounces the Israelites’ wickedness. Before a watching world, he charges them with violating his covenant and urges them to change their ways before he tears them apart, enacting the covenant’s curses. This refers to the sacrifices they offered to seal their covenant commitment to him. The destruction of the animals the Israelites sacrificed pictured the curses they owned as their just deserts should they violate the covenant. Their sacrifices were never meant to insulate them from those curses, though they’d strangely come to think they would.
The psalmist’s basic idea is that we’re all going to encounter God, one way or another: we choose either his warm embrace or his furious judgment. As amazing as his grace is, it embraces only those who truly seek to become like him by holding to his path.
Prayer:
Lord, it’s so easy to slide into formalism, worship without heart, forget my need of grace, stop trusting you, and embrace worldly ways. From there, everything goes downhill fast. Keep me from so slippery a slope. Please make me holy as you are holy. Amen.
In your free moments today, meditate on God’s promise:
“To everyone who holds to my path
I’ll reveal my great power to save.”
