Daily in the Psalms : Psalm 14 THE IMMORALITY OF ATHEISM The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Psalms 14:1-3 It is unquestionably immoral to deny the existence or ignore the influence of the Eternal God of Heaven. The fact that He is God gives Him the right to do as He pleases with every man. There is the problem! Many Atheists loudly proclaim the rights of man, but they will also loudly deny the rights of an Almighty God. He made us, He made the world, and He made all that is in the world. To deny or ignore Him is the most profound immorality. To subscribe to this immorality is to allow sin to go unchecked. The God deniers embrace sin because sin is directed at God. All transgression and all transgressors have the desire to climb the heights of Heaven and dethrone God Himself. Atheism is the essence of ingratitude, injustice, dishonesty, pride, hatred, and selfishness. The Psalmist says that they are corrupt. Atheism is not the result of an intelligent person honestly seeking the answer to a question too great for him; it is the result of a proud and corrupt heart. It is passion, not reason that generates atheism. God denying sinners hate God; that is the foundation of their claim. They simply do not want to be reminded of or subjected to Him. How foolish it is to hate someone that you deny the exist of. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Romans 1:21 Children will readily acknowledge God, but years of sin and neglect and worldliness will cause a person to sink into the hopeless pit of atheism. A life lived long enough without God will cause that person to believe that there is no God. A nation that increases is wealth, luxury, and power will see itself as self-sufficient. This is the breeding ground for atheism. The steps are as follows: We wrong God, we forget God, and then we deny Him. Those that deny God will lose the principle and beauty of a moral life. Belief in God is the constraining force in the human life. When it is gone, the whole man quickly is corrupted. Those that lose their belief in God will also lose the principles of health, beauty, life, and usefulness. “Fool” is the correct way to describe such a person. The fool has lost the correct idea about God and the things of God. Therefore, all his ideas are opposed to God. Opposition to God creates a fool! With Godly reason and influence gone, all this is left is a basic animal instinct. Atheism can NEVER create nobility. Without God man will rot and the society he dwells in will also rot. When the Psalmist calls them fools, he is identifying the most extreme depth of human depravity. Atheism is the source of immorality and God will judge it with profound wrath. THE PROBLEM OF AND THE SOLUTION FOR HUMANITY The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD. There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous. Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge. Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. Psalms 14:1-7 The Problem - The Corruption Of Humanity God looked down from the windows of Heaven to see that there were none that sought after Him. The Psalmist is speaking primarily to the nation of Israel, but these words apply to the Godless nations of our day. Many, our nation included, are fast approaching this condition. The condition that caused great grief in the heart of the Psalmist prevails in the world today. While verse five says that there were some that were righteous, but that does not contradict the statement that the world as a whole is corrupt. He speaks of their very nature. They are corrupt down to their heart, the inner man. When the inner man becomes defiled, the deeds also become defiled. The heart is the source of the thoughts, the reason, and the actions, when it is defiled it is like waters that are poisoned at the beginning spring. We are seeing this condition come upon our society; the very lives of people are becoming depraved. Abominable works begin when people openly renounce God. Without Him, there is no limit to man’s depravity. The things that are repulsive to the Christian are becoming sweet to most in the world today. This is not a simple sickness, but a consuming and deadly disease. It is so profound that good can not be seen because of the evil. The Solution – The Deliverer For Humanity The Psalmist prophetically calls for the rise of The Reformer, Christ. Philosophy may make a man look and sound good on the outside, but it can never regenerate the soul. The problem is not a problem of the head, it’s a problem of the heart. The world has a moral fault, not an intellectual one. The Psalmist’s reference to a fool was not to one that was simple-minded, but to one whose heart was so degraded that it was incapable of receiving truth. The Biblical word for “Fool” is only used to describe spiritual corruption. A change in external relationships cannot bring about true deliverance from sin. Politics, commerce, and manners can never perfect a man in the eyes of God. It is like wiping your face with a soiled cloth. Man has so elevated himself that he now believes that he has the power to heal himself from the wounds of sin. Man has no such power! The reference to Zion in the Old Testament was to the place where God promised to meet with His people. In the New Testament age, that place is the Church. Out of the Church come the blessings that will give man hope and purity and freedom. Men must receive Christ and become part of His Church, because one day He will return for that Church to break the tyranny of sin and give to His people eternal freedom and the pleasures of His righteousness. THE CONSCIENCE Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD. There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous. Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge. Psalms 14:4-6 The Psalmist is asking a question that the answer has already been given. Have these people no knowledge? Have they no conscience, have they no experience? They did have the knowledge of God and it is that fact that makes their sin so great. Man sins against his own understanding. Everything in man protests against sin. Man sins against his own conscience. The morality that God places within every man thunders out against sin. Man sins against his own experience. History will reveal to any reasonable man that everything that is honorable and desirable is the result of obedience. It also reveals that the path of disobedience and transgression is a path of misery and shame. Sin is not a mistake; it is a crime! Their conscience was asleep when it came to other men. They committed great injustices against the weak, the good, and the poor. They did not see it as sin; they considered it right and lawful in their own eyes. To them, light became darkness. It was asleep when it came to God. They called not upon the Lord. They simply forgot God and eventually denied Him. God will arouse man’s conscience when His longsuffering changes to wrath, when the terror of His judgment causes man to tremble in fear. The terror of God came upon them suddenly and they came face to face with their deeds. They thought that God’s people were foolish to trust in an unseen hand, but they awoke to the reality that they were the fools and now faced that same hand. May we not indulge in sin to the point that our conscience cannot move us toward a loving and longsuffering God that is ready to forgive the guilty and wash away every stain of sin.
Psalms 14So Glad To Be So Saved
Danny "Preacher" Bezet
|