Chuck Smith emphasizes that God is a righteous judge who does not require our sacrifices, as everything belongs to Him. He highlights the importance of genuine praise and thanksgiving over mere ritualistic offerings, urging believers to recognize God's sovereignty and grace. Smith warns against the misconception that God's silence equates to approval of sinful behavior, reminding us that true repentance and acknowledgment of our transgressions are essential. He illustrates this through the story of David and Bathsheba, emphasizing that all sin is ultimately against God. The sermon concludes with a call to live righteously and to offer heartfelt praise to God.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll be continuing with God is a righteous judge As we turn in our Bibles to the 50th Psalm Beginning with verse 10 And now, with today's message Here's Pastor Chuck Smith For every beast of the forest is mine And the cattle on a thousand hills God is saying, I'm not broke I don't need your sacrifices I'm not going to reprove you for your lack of sacrifices My, every beast of the field is mine The cattle on a thousand hills And I like this God said, I know all the fowls of the mountains And the wild beasts of the fields are mine If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you Or I wouldn't ask you for help For the world is mine and the fullness thereof I like that God is not broke He's not desperate Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God thanksgiving Pay your vows to the Most High In the book of Hebrews it says, wherefore Let us offer unto God The sacrifice of praise The fruit of our lips unto the Lord And this is a sacrifice that to God is well pleasing God is pleased with your just expressing your love Your praise Your thanksgiving to Him Call upon me, the Lord said in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me And that comes now to my estimation One of the most truest forms of praise It is that praise that rises spontaneously out of my heart As I see the grace of God manifested towards me You know, I know that I really don't deserve it And yet God is so good and He answers prayer And when that happens I say, oh thank you Lord You know, that's so glorious And I'm just overwhelmed with the grace of God And it's just a spontaneous praise from my heart Which is really the purest form of praise I have great difficulty with that concept of Praise to get something That's like flattering a person Because you're trying to soften them up, you know For a handout And I find that a little difficult You think you can snow God? You say, oh God, you're beautiful and I love you Because you're wanting God now to respond and to bless you How true a praise is that? Is it a true praise to God? Or is it just a desire for something for myself? The true praise is that which is spontaneous Just as I see God's goodness and God's love And God's answers to prayer Call upon me, the Lord said And I will answer on the day of trial I will deliver thee and you will glorify me But unto the wicked, God saith What hast thou to do to declare my statutes That you should take my covenant in your mouth Seeing that you hate instruction And you cast my words behind you There are people Who just are totally Opposed to the commandments, the statutes And they disregard them completely They hate instruction God says, when you saw a thief Then you consented with him And you've been a partaker with adulterers To me this is an interesting thing And Paul brings it up in Romans chapter 1 He said, not only do they do those things That are worthy of death But they take pleasure in those that do them Here the Lord said When you see the thief You consent with him And you are a partaker with the adulterer The movie industry In its portrayal of crime In its portrayal of adultery It is called entertainment It is interesting to me And I wonder just what kind of a person Can be entertained by watching someone being blown away Who can find entertainment in seeing a person In an adulterous affair If you find pleasure in watching the crime If you get some kind of a thrill Out of seeing fornication or adultery portrayed It's sort of like what Paul said You take pleasure in those that do them You find that pleasurable And as the psalmist, or as God said actually You're actually consenting with them You become a partaker Vicariously in the adultery Then you give your mouth to evil And your tongue frames deceit You sit and you speak against your brother And you slander your own mother's son Or your brother These things you have done And I kept silence Now remember, God is not going to keep silence forever God is going to come, He's going to judge And He will not keep silence Verse 3 But here God said While you were doing these things I kept silence While things are happening today God is keeping silent And you thought That I was altogether one such as you You thought that And this is the serious mistake That people make on the silence of God They misinterpret the silence of God As to blindness in some cases God doesn't know who is God In Psalm 73 they say God doesn't know And so they misinterpret the silence of God As God not seeing Or as God not caring It doesn't really matter to God how I live If God didn't like what I was doing Then why didn't He strike me dead or something How is it that my life is still blessed Is a wrong rationale For my evil deeds And yet I've heard people say that Well God blesses our ministry And if God wasn't pleased with our ministry Wasn't pleased with our lifestyle Then why would He bless our ministry Worse People misinterpret that as God consenting to what they're doing And that's what God said here You thought that I was altogether like you Just because I kept silence But He said I will reprove you And I'll set things in order Before your eyes God will not be silent His reproof and day of judgment is coming Now consider this You that forget God Lest I tear you in pieces And there is none to deliver you For whoso offereth praise glorifies me And to him that orders his manner of living aright Will I show the salvation of God So quite a warning That God gives here as He speaks To first of all His people And then to the sinner Psalm 51 Is to the chief musician and it is entitled A Psalm of David When Nathan the prophet came to him After he had gone into Bathsheba So we know the story How that David in his older years Was in battle and he Sort of had a fainting spell And it was quite obvious he didn't have The same punch that he once had And the men said hey You know you're not going to go into battle anymore You're getting old man And you know you just don't have the same Strength and all and so It was determined that David should not go into battle anymore And so his armies would go out And David would remain in Jerusalem And while the armies were out And I believe it was the Amorites that they were fighting That David one evening on his housetop And you'd have to really understand Or see Jerusalem to really get the picture And you that are there You know how the city of David Ophel Is right on the side of the mountain If you've been to Jerome, Arizona You get the same idea You can throw a rock three blocks By just throwing it out Because it's on a steep hillside And it'll land three blocks down Because the streets are just You know back and forth And it's just Jerusalem was that way The houses were just built On the hillside And they didn't have yards But the roofs of the houses Served as their yards They were their patios And David was there on the patio of the palace Overlooking the city of Ophel And other people would be out on their rooftops And there was a lady nearby Who was bathing And David saw her And he lusted after her And he sent his servants over To invite her to the palace And there David entered into An adulterous relationship with Bathsheba He tried to cover the guilt By ordering her husband home Hoping that the husband would Spend the night with his wife And think that he was the cause of her pregnancy But the husband didn't cooperate And so David conspired to put him to death And the husband was killed in battle As a result of David's orders To Joab his general David then took Bathsheba as his wife And thought that His tracks were covered Nobody knew But the prophet Nathan came to David one day And said David there was a very wealthy man In your kingdom Had an abundance of flocks All that he could desire He had everything Next to him there lived a very poor man Who had only one ewe lamb And it was like a child It would eat at his table And sleep in the house All he had And the rich man had guests Who came and he ordered his servants To by force Go next door and take that one little lamb From his neighbor And kill it to feed his guest And David became angry And he said that man Shall surely be put to death He pronounced his judgment And Nathan pointed the finger And said David you are the man God gave to you the kingdom He gave you the riches And the glory of the kingdom He gave you many wives And you went and you took The wife of your neighbor And so this is the psalm That follows that rebuke Of Nathan Have mercy upon me O God According to thy loving kindness According to the multitude Of thy tender mercies Blot out my transgressions David's prayer and cry for mercy He has been found out God has put the finger on him Through the prophet so to speak And David is now calling out For God's mercy There were other psalms Where David said Lord You know reward me according to my goodness And my uprightness and so forth But not now He's not asking for justice Mercy O God Wash me thoroughly From my iniquity Now notice transgressions Blot out my transgressions A transgression is a deliberate Willful act of disobedience And David's act was A willful act of disobedience He knew better He knew the law of God He knew he was doing wrong When he engaged in that Adulterous affair with Bathsheba It was a transgression Blot out he said my transgression Wash me from my iniquity Now iniquity is just sort of a sum total Of the evil in my life And cleanse me from my sin Sin has as its root meaning The missing of the mark It may not always be deliberate Many times it's just the weakness of our flesh Still sin is still missing the mark But it isn't a deliberate willful thing Like a transgression I would like to hit the mark I would like to be All that God would have me to be But I come short I miss the mark And so Wash me or cleanse me From my sins And so often David ties the three together The transgression The sin The iniquity For I acknowledge my transgressions I confess them I acknowledge them And my sin is ever before me It was troubling his conscience He couldn't get it off of his mind It was one of those things that just Plagues you You're drawn Your flesh is drawing you And yet the spirit is saying No, no, no And thus this conflict This inner warfare As the flesh is lusting against the spirit And the spirit against the flesh And the two of them are contrary And you find yourself torn Ripped apart inside The feeling and the consciousness of guilt It's ever before me It's there David said against thee And thee only have I sinned And done this evil in thy sight Interesting to me Because as I would look at the story I'd say well he really sinned against Bathsheba Inviting her to his palace And you know using his influence And all to seduce her I would say that he sinned surely against her husband Who he sent to his death in battle But in reality All sin is against God When I sin, I sin against God It may have its effect upon other people And often does But the sin is against God He is the one who has set the righteous standard And any sin is against God So David acknowledged it's against thee When you sin, you are going against God And we need to realize that I may think hey man you deserve to be cut down You've cut down enough other people you know And I may sort of gloat in the possibility Of being able to cut you short To take advantage of you Because I know what a scoundrel you are But I'm really sinning against God It is God's law that is being violated And so David declared against thee And thee only have I sinned And I've done this evil in thy sight You don't hide it from God He thought he had hidden it He thought that nobody knew But God you knew I've done it in your sight You were watching me And I really feel that we need to have that consciousness Of the presence of God with us at all times I think it would alter our behavior If we only realized that the Lord was right there with us We forget that We sort of shove it out of our minds I've had people embarrassed Because they were using filthy language And they turned around and saw me standing there They blush and they feel embarrassed And yet they don't realize that the Lord is there I did this Lord in your sight You were watching me That you may be justified when you speak And clear when you judge It is interesting to me how that man so often Seeks to challenge the justice of God So many questions relate to Is God really fair? That is something that Satan has done from the beginning Challenges the justice or the fairness of God Is God fair to you Eve? In forbidding you to eat that luscious looking fruit He really isn't fair Eve Because he knows that when you eat it You're going to be just as wise as he is And he's trying to keep that from happening He's holding back from you something That would put you on a par with him And he's just trying to protect his own territory Eve That really isn't fair And the idea was God isn't fair Withholding from you something that is so Beautiful and desirable So Satan continues to challenge the justice of God But when God does judge He will be justified in doing whatever he does As we said during the midst of the judgment The declarations of holy and true and righteous Are his judgments We'll return with more of our verse by verse Venture through the Bible in our next lesson As we follow the prayer of repentance And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now I'd like to remind you That if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy For that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting One of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you With the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again our toll free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience You can order online anytime When you go to TheWordForToday.org And while you're there Be sure to browse through the additional resources That include Bible studies, commentaries, CDs, DVDs And so much more Once again that's The Word for Today online At TheWordForToday.org And for those of you who still prefer to write You can use our mailing address Which is The Word for Today P.O. Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include the call letters Of this station with your correspondence And now on behalf of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues His verse-by-verse venture Through the Psalms That's right here On the next edition of The Word for Today And now once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith With today's closing comments May the Lord bless you And keep His hand upon your life As you walk in fellowship with Him May you be strengthened day by day By the work of His Spirit within your life And may you begin to experience His victories, His power Over sin May the love of Christ And the peace of God And the communion of the Holy Spirit Rest and abide with all of you While we are absent from each other And may God draw us together again That we might grow In our knowledge and understanding Of His love and grace Through Jesus Christ Watch and listen to Pastor Chuck As he interviews Susan LaBerge The daughter of murdered victim Rosemary LaBianca Who was killed by Tex Watson And when Susan came to Christ She knew she had to forgive Everyone in her life And that included Tex See how this dramatic story Of God's mercy and forgiveness Would challenge you to forgive The unforgivable For more information On how you can order The Power of Forgiveness DVD Please call The Word for Today At 1-800-272-9673 Or visit us online At thewordfortoday.org This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California