God’s Silence is Deafening - Psalms 48-50

God’s Silence is Deafening

Psalms 50:16-23 (ESV)
16 But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to recite my statutes
or take my covenant on your lips?
17 For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you.
18 If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
and you keep company with adulterers.
19 “You give your mouth free rein for evil,
and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother's son.
21 These things you have done, and I have been silent;
you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
22 “Mark this, then, you who forget God,
lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
23 The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
to one who orders his way rightly
I will show the salvation of God!”

The above verses are a rebuke against those who forget God and/or mockingly claim His “statues,” but do not fulfill them.  Mankind thinks they can play with God and put Him away when they don’t need Him.   These verses gives us the outline of today’s modern “religious” practice.  We here people “claim” to be this denomination and that denomination but their lives have no reflection of who God is and what His statues really demand on us.   God is clear in this passage, “Mark this ...”, He says in verse 22.   He wants them to consider, to pay attention, to take heed of what He has to say.   They think because God does not immediately interact with them over their sin, that God is “silent.”  They think His inactivity about their sins makes him complicit and complimentary to them.  But, this is not the case.  They will all stand in judgment for what they have done.  God is not silent.  In fact, His inactivity is quite loud.   He recognizes the one who gives a sacrifice of thanksgiving.  He recognizes the one who “orders his way rightly,” according to God’s word.   God is speaking.  He speaks very loud to those who walk in His ways.  To those who “recite” His statues but do not do them, He may appear as silent.  But, His silence is dealing to them.