Psalms 50:21

Psalms 50:21

In what sense are the words true that we think wickedly that God is such a one as ourselves?

I. We are constantly judging of His knowledge by our own.

II. This is true also with reference to His holiness.

III. We have an inadequate estimate of the veracity of God. We infer from the delay of His interposition that, like a mere man, He may threaten and not execute. It needs a very firm faith, and a very patient spirit, and a very tender conscience to keep alive in man's heart the practical and living conviction that for all these things God will bring him into judgment.

C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 321.

Notice:

I. God keeping silence. By this is intended God's appearing for a while not to take heed of the course of those who are sinning against Him. There is sufficient of God's prompt and even swift and startling vindication of His law to show that there is a God who judgeth the earth; and there is not sufficient of it to lead us to suppose that a final day, when the judgment shall be perfect, is not necessary.

II. Look, next, at man misinterpreting and misusing God's silence. The intention of God is to lead man to repentance, and the effect of it upon too many hearts which thus misinterpret and misuse it is only to lead them to sink more deeply into indifference and to be hardened in sin.

III. God says at last that He will break silence. The longsuffering of God will not last for ever. Whether we look at the history of the Flood, or at the history of the Cities of the Plain, or at the history of the people of Canaan, or at the history of Nebuchadnezzar, or at the history of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem, we see that at last even the longsuffering of God comes to an end.

J. C. Miller, Penny Pulpit, No. 771.

References: Psalms 50:21 . G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 137; J. Armstrong, Parochial Sermons, p. 66.