Topic: Rebuke for the Wicked [Tuesday May 26, 2015]
Text: Psalm 50:16-22
Key Verse: “But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?” (Psalm 50:16).
In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
From our text, the Lord was talking to people who believe they were in a covenant relationship with Him, since they recite the statutes of the Lord and proclaim His covenant with their lips. Yet, their hypocrisy was very evident to Him. They hated instruction and turned their backs on God’s words. These people consent to the evil deeds of others. When they saw a thief, they consented with him. They joined in with the adulterers. Their mouths were full of evil and their tongues were full of deceit.
Forgetting God has severe consequences. God prosecutes the hypocrites based on their own deeds and the evidence against them is mounting. The image used for divine judgment is that of a lion or similar beast tearing its helpless prey. Further, there will be no one to rescue these people from this judgment. We cannot think that we are God’s covenant people when we are exercising such obvious disobedience.
Bible in One Year: Amos 1-5
Thought for The Day: A man’s follies and wickedness will eventually mark him out.
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
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