The Thought of This Psalm Is the Safety of the Godly, and the Peril of the Ungodly

Sunday SchoolPsalm 148/6/2017

The thought of this Psalm is the safety of the godly, and the peril of the ungodly.

Psalm 14

1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.

2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
3 They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one.

4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call on the Lord?
5 There they are in great fear,
For God is with the generation of the righteous.
6 You shame the counsel of the poor, But the Lord is his refuge.

7 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord brings back the captivity of His people,
Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.

1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good.

• Verse 1 is David's analysis of the sad condition of the man who rejects God.
• The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." — David looked at those who denied the existence of God and came to the conclusion that they are fools. The idea behind this ancient Hebrew word translated fool is more moral than intellectual. David did not have in mind those not smart enough to figure God out (no one is that smart); he had in mind those who simply reject God.
• David says this because of the plain evidence that there is a God; evidence in both creation and human conscience that Paul described in Romans 1. The fact that some men insist on denying the existence of God does not erase God from the universe; it instead speaks to their own standing as fools. As Paul wrote in Romans 1:22, Professing to be wise, they became fools.
• The fool has said in his heart, — David not only found what the fool said to be significant; where he said it is also important (in his heart). The God-denying man David has in mind is not merely troubled by intellectual objections to the existence of God; in his heart he wishes God away, typically for fundamentally moral reasons.
• John 3:20 explains it this way: For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
• The phrasing of said in his heart also reminds us that it is possible for one to say in his mind that there is a God, yet deny it in his heart and life. One may believe in God in theory, yet be an atheist in the way they live.
• They have done abominable works, — David here considers the result of denying God. It leads men into corruption and abominable works. This isn't to say that every atheist lives a depraved life and every God-believer lives a good life; yet there should be a marked difference in moral behavior between those who take God seriously and those who do not.
• There is none who does good. — As David considered the sin of the God-denier, he looked out over the landscape of humanity and concluded that there is none who does good. He did not mean that there is no human good in this world; but that fallen man is so fallen that he does not by instinct do good, and even the good he may do is tinted with evil.

 We are born with both the will and the capacity to do evil; no one has to teach a child to do bad.

 The path of least resistance usually leads us to bad, not good.

 It is often easier to encourage others to do bad, instead of good.

 Many of our good deeds are tinted with selfish, bad motives.

2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.

• The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, — While man may wish to forget about God, God never forgets about man. He is always observing man, looking down from heaven upon the children of men.

• In man's rejection of God, there is often the wish that God would just leave us alone. This is an unwise wish, because all human life depends upon God. This is an impossible wish, because God has rights of a creator over His creation. Acts 17:28, “for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’” Matthew 5:45 (Jesus speaking), “that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

• To see if there are any who understand, who seek God — When God does look down from heaven, one thing He looks for is if there is any understanding or seeking among humanity.

• We deceive ourselves into thinking that man, on his own, really does seek God. Don't all the religion and rituals and practices from the beginning of time demonstrate that man does indeed seek God? Not at all. If man initiates the search then he doesn't seek the true God, the God of the Bible. Instead he seeks an idol that he makes himself. (John 14:6, Revelation 1:5-6, 1 John 4:15-19, John 15:16)

3 They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.

• They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; — When God looks, this is what He finds. He finds that man has turned away from God, and has therefore become corrupt. And they have done it together. 2 Timothy 4:3-5, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
• There is none who does good, no, not one. — When God finds none who does good, it is because there are none. It isn't as if there were some and God couldn't see them. David here observes and remembers that man is truly, profoundly, deeply fallen.
• Charles Spurgeon said, “What a picture of our race is this! Save only where grace reigns, there is none that doeth good; humanity, fallen and debased, is a desert without an oasis, a night without a star, a dunghill without a jewel, a hell without a bottom.”

4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call on the Lord?

• Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, — David first considered the profound fallenness of man; now he deals with the fate of God's people in such a fallen world. God's people might seem like the weak fools, but David understood that it is the workers of iniquity who have no knowledge.
• Who eat up my people as they eat bread, — It looks like the workers of iniquity are strong and have the upper hand. David wondered if the people of God are abandoned to the fools and the corrupt of this world; to those who do not call on the Lord.

5 There they are in great fear, For God is with the generation of the righteous.

• There they are in great fear, for God is with the generation of the righteous. — After asking the question, David now answers it with great wisdom. The workers of iniquity seem strong and confident, but they are actually in great fear, because they can't erase the consciousness that God is with the generation of the righteous.
• No matter how strongly they (the workers of iniquity) may wish to deny it, they live under the cloud of knowing that they are battling against God, and can never win.

6 You shame the counsel of the poor, But the Lord is his refuge.

• David here announces it to the workers of iniquity that they may work against the poor, but God has a refuge for them that cannot be breached. If you are fighting against God you will never succeed.

Spurgeon considered the ways that the poor takes counsel.

 He takes counsel with his own weakness, and sees that he must depend upon God.

 He takes counsel with his observations, and sees the end of the wicked.

 He takes counsel with the Bible, and trusts it to be the Word of God.

 He takes counsel with his own experience and sees that God answers prayer.

Spurgeon used this verse to consider the ways that Christians should stand strong though they are shamed and mocked by the workers of iniquity. “You young men in the great firms of London, you working men that work in the factories - you are sneered at. Let them sneer. If they can sneer you out of your religion, you have not got any worth having. Remember you can be laughed into hell, but you can never be laughed out of it.”

Spurgeon also said, "Oh! but they will point at you.' Cannot you bear to be pointed at? 'But they will chaff you.' Chaff - let them chaff you. Can that hurt a man that is a man? If you are a creature that has no backbone, you may be afraid of jokes, and jeers, and jests; but if God has made you upright, stand upright and be a man."

7 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord brings back the captivity of His people,
Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.

• Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! — David knew that the LORD was a refuge for His people and that the workers of iniquity would never win. Yet that was hard to see at the present time, so David expressed his great longing that God would bring the victory and deliverance He had promised to His people.
• When the Lord brings back the captivity of His people, — This was not the Babylonian Captivity, many generations after David's time. Here captivity is used in a general sense, speaking of any time or situation where God's people are oppressed and bound. (Like when Jesus saved you and me, brought us out of captivity.)
• Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad. — David anticipates the coming deliverance, and calls the people of God to be joyful in consideration of it. (We need to rejoice in our salvation and that God still saves.)

Page 1 of 4