The word “fool” doesn’t get as much use now as it once did. If one of my mates does something profoundly stupid I don’t usually cry out “you fool”. I might say “you are such an idiot” or “what a goose”. I’m sure many people you know would use much more colourful language than that. Fool is one of those sort of quaint, old words that generally conjures up images of a court jester or maybe some act of silliness. There’s a very prestigious competition held every year called the Darwin awards. It gives recognition to..well, fools. And often fools who have made fatal mistakes. Here’s some of the award winners from 2006:
• Two teenagers in Britain where so into Star Wars that they wanted to re-create the light-sabre fighting scenes. So they got two fluorescent tubes, opened them up and poured petrol down it, then set them alight. One of them died, the other escaped with serious burns.
• A man was travelling by train home from work in the US. He fell asleep and missed his stop. He so wanted to get home that he pried open the train doors and jumped out. What he hadn’t considered was that the train was travelling at 80km/h across a bridge over a deep ravine at the time. Needless to say, he did not survive.
• In Croatia a man named Marko wanted to clean his chimney. He went to his workshop to build a tool to clean it. It was a very high chimney and his broom was too short. However, he planned to attach it to a chain, weigh it down at one end with a metal object and hang it in from the roof. He found what he thought was the perfect metal object –heavy yet small - and went about welding it to the chain. Somehow he overlooked that the object was a hand grenade and filled with explosive material. Very soon after heating up the welder there was a loud explosion. Marko was killed instantly, his workshop destroyed and the windows of several cars shattered. His chimney remained untouched.
These are indeed very foolish people. They did things without thinking through the consequences. And that’s sort of what a fool is. Someone who ignores the consequences of their actions. But the way the Bible, or more specifically, the NIV translation that we’re using this week, uses the word fool has nothing to do with silly mistakes or immature behaviour. It’s nothing to be laughed at or joked about. When the Bible uses the word fool it is to refer to actions that are deeply misguided and have incredibly serious consequences. It’s talking about an attitude that is inherently wicked. It’s no trifling matter to be called a fool by God.
Who is the fool in Psalm 14? Well, according to vs. 1 it’s those who say in their hearts “there is no God”.
Now in a group this size I reckon there will always be someone who thinks of themselves as an atheist – a person who doesn’t believe in God. Or maybe an agnostic – a person who thinks the question about God’s existence is so irrelevant that effectively they don’t believe in God, either. Those might be new terms to you this morning. While technically they’re different beliefs, in effect they lead to the same place.
That might be you here this morning. Maybe you were forced to come here by your parents and sat through yesterday thinking what a load of bollocks! God didn’t create anything, he doesn’t even exist! Or maybe you were invited her by a friend and keen to think through this biggest of questions – but at the moment you’re not convinced. It’s not my intention to rant and rave at you this morning. It’s not my intention to be simply insulting and tell you what fools you are. Nor am I going to sift through the scientific and philosophical arguments for the existence of God. But I will challenge you to think about why it might be foolish to claim there is no God. And I will challenge you to think about the consequences of that belief.
But when Psalm 14 talks about those who say in their heart there is no God, I don’t think it’s just talking about the atheists out there. Because there’s many, many more ways to say it in your heart than to say it out loud with your mouth. And I reckon quite a few of you here this morning might fall into this category.
Think about this type of man, or this type of woman – the sort of person who goes to church or youth group, who comes from a nice Christian family, who can spout all the right answers in bible studies. But when they’re at school the same filth comes out of their mouths as their non-Christian friends. The same course language, the same jokes that make fun of intimacy, or ridicule the opposite sex. The same selfishness that wants to spend all my money on myself rather than giving a bit to God’s work. Perhaps even the same drunkenness at parties. That type of man or woman – that type of teenager – could still be the fool who says in his heart “there is no God.” They might say in their heads “yes, God exists” while they say in their hearts “he’s not my God.” He’s not my God because I don’t submit to him. I do what I want when I want. And that may not always be a conscious decision, it might come about in stages with a little temptation here, a little peer pressure there. And in the end we have a fool who’s heart says “I have no god but me.”
Vs. 2 explains where that sort of attitude leads: “they are corrupt, their deeds are vile, there is no one who does good”.
I was at a funeral not that long ago. I’ve actually been to three or four funerals of young men in their late teens or early twenties in the last few years, none of whom were Christians. But without exception at each of these funerals the comment was made that this was a good man. He was a good person, it was said. I saw on the news not that long ago the distraught mother of another young man who had died in a car accident. At the time he was being pursued by police because the car he was driving was stolen. Through her tears, his mother kept saying “he did some silly things but beneath it all he had a good heart. He had such a good heart. He was a good person”. This guy had a criminal record as long as your arm. Now those sorts of sentiments are perfectly understandable coming from a mother who’s just lost her son. But in the end, it’s fantasy. If we think we can be good without God we are deceiving ourselves.
You’ll hear plenty of people in our culture tell you that you don’t have to be religious to be a good person, that you don’t have to follow God to be a kind, generous, moral person. And by the world’s standards that may be true. But that, too, is a fantasy. Many of the greatest tyrants and genocidal maniacs of the last century were confirmed atheists or people who had bizarre beliefs about God. Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union murdered millions of his political and ideological enemies throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. Pol Pot, the communist leader of Cambodia similarly was responsible for the deaths of millions. Mao Zedong, the leader of communist China sent millions to their deaths in his “cultural revolution” of the 1970s. And, of course, Adolf Hitler, who wrote that he considered himself the new Jesus Christ, the new king of the world, he murdered 9 million Jews, gypsies, disabled people, political opponents, including many Christians.
Now that list doesn’t necessarily prove anything – many evil men and women over the years have committed atrocities supposedly in the name of God, as well. But it starts us toward the conclusion that the Bible comes to – that without God there is only corruption and wickedness. In fact, ignoring God is the very heart of corruption and evil – let me read the first three verses again:
PS 14:1 The fool says in his heart,
"There is no God."
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
PS 14:2 The LORD looks down from heaven
on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
PS 14:3 All have turned aside,
they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
All have turned aside from God, and that’s why there is no one who does good. You can’t be good without following the LORD. However much money you give to the poor, however many little old ladies you help across the street, if you’ve rejected the authority of your creator then nothing you will do will impress him. As Jesus says, no one is good but God alone.
But those three verses tell us something even more profound than that. They give us God’s assessment of all humanity. Those of you who know your new testaments well would have recognized these verses from Romans 3, where this psalm, as well as a few others, is quoted. I mentioned self-esteem yesterday, and if you want to get a good dose of self-esteem then read Romans 1-3. After a bit on an intro in chapter 1, it flows like this:
- the writer, Paul, points out that the barbarian peoples of the area are all godless and wicked. They worship the created things rather than the creator and commit all sorts of disgusting acts.
- But, he goes on to say, you civilized, refined, wealthy Greeks are no better. You too are sinful and corrupt.
- And if the Jews, God’s chosen people, think themselves any better, they’ve got another thing coming. They are just as bad.
- In fact, he concludes in Romans 3 with this psalm, all have sinned. No one is good, no one lives up to God’s standard.
It’s inspiring stuff! There is no one who does good, not even one.
It reminds me of Genesis 18 when God is threatening to destroy the city of Sodom. Sodom is a den of sin, particularly sexual sin – just like our cities and towns of today. The incident that’s recounted is in Genesis 19 and you can read it for yourself. I won’t re-tell it now, it’s very much M-rated! Suffice to say, it’s pretty disgusting. But before that God tells Abraham that he’s going to destroy the city of Sodom because it’s sin is so bad. And Abraham is aghast. This is what he says to God: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing--to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
GE 18:26 The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
But the conversation doesn’t stop there. Abraham goes on to say – well, what about 45. Surely you won’t destroy it for only five people less? And God says – alright, 45 then. And Abraham keeps pressing. What about 40, what about 30, what about 20, what about 10? And God says – if I find 10 righteous people in the whole city I won’t destroy it. And that’s the end of the conversation.
In the next chapter, the city of Sodom is destroyed by fire – all it’s inhabitants and every living thing. The LORD couldn’t find 10 people. There is no one righteous, not even one. These are the fools who say in their hearts “there is no God”.
It sounds insulting, doesn’t it, to be called a fool. And it’s supposed to be. But more importantly, it’s supposed to be a warning. And this raises the question – why is it so foolish to ignore God?
The answer to that is pretty easy to work out, really. It’s foolish to ignore God in the same way that it’s foolish to ignore the oncoming train when you’re standing in the middle of the tracks. Or the same way that it’s foolish to ignore gravity when you decide to jump off a 50-story building. If you remember nothing from yesterday, hopefully you remember this point: God is big and we’re little. So we need to get with the programme. We need to get on board with what God wants, not the other way around.
Given this, vs 4 asks the question – will evildoers ever learn? Will those who oppose God and persecute his people ever change. Because, in the end, as vs 5 states, they will be overwhelmed with dread because no one can oppose God and live.
When we get to our Bible study on psalm 94 in a few minutes we’ll see this with a bit more clarity, this judgment that the evildoers face. But in our passage here it’s more implied than spelt out. In Psalm 94, the writer cries out to God to judge the wicked, to restore justice. And there’s almost a glee in his words as he reflects on what the corrupt have in store for them.
I’ve often wondered – is judgment something we should be looking forward to? I’ve been having a bit of trouble with a real estate agent recently. I live with a few mates in this big house and we’re not the tidiest of people – but what do you expect of four blokes. When you rent you have to suffer through inspections from the agent to make sure you haven’t been destroying the property. We haven’t been, and we make a effort to clean up a bit before these inspections, as well. Just in the last few months the real estate agent has decided that our house isn’t clean enough – even though it was in the same condition as for previous inspections. She sent us a letter of complaint saying she would re-inspect. We got some friends around and cleaned up again. It was really quite good. Floor was good enough to eat off, if you ask me. Admittedly, that’s no saying much. I’d probably eat off the floor of a public toilet if I was paid enough.
She called back saying it was still unacceptable. Her specific complaint was that the powerpoints were dusty. We have no contact with the owner, but this agent sent a bad report to her and a couple of days before Christmas we got a letter saying that we needed to find somewhere else to live. Because of dusty powerpoints. We’ve found somewhere but I then phoned our agent to sort out some final things to be answered by a different woman. She told me that, after evicting us, the old agent had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and would be off work for several months. You know what my first thought was – “I hope she enjoys the judgment of God!” We have since tempered that, and I have made a point to pray for her health. But is that a completely inappropriate response? Is it wrong to look for justice in that way?
I’m not entirely sure it is wrong, given what you’ll read in Psalm 94. but what I am sure of is that we all need to get our own hearts right before God, first. Judgment is good if you’ve sought refuge in God – just the judgment of an exam at school is good if you’ve studied hard and done well. But it’s bad if you’re not prepared.
Psalm 14 tells us that there is no one who does good, not even one. By rights, we all should be facing God’s judgment with dread and fear. We all deserve death and destruction. So we I look around this room I could point to anyone and say “you deserve to be punished by God”. (go through several leaders by name). I could point to myself and say “I deserve to be punished by God.” That’s a scary thought, and it is a fool who ignores it. But by taking refuge in God we can be protected, we can be forgiven. And that’s our message for tomorrow.
But for today let me leave you with the challenge that this passage presents: what does your heart say about God? Not just your head – although that’s important, too – but your heart. Are you a fool?
