Psalm 14: 1 – 7
So, how good are you?
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.
I had a memorable phone conversation with a person who was frustrated and angry with a co-worker who comes to our Christian Fellowship. Right from the start this guy gave me the full barrel of his problem with someone else.
He informed me that a guy at his work constantly hammers him to be born again. He told me that this other guy told him that if he did not accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, he was going to hell. Now how would you like to start off the day dealing with this type of phone call?
I sensed that the Holy Spirit wanted to guide my response, so I reluctantly went along with His guidance. I asked the caller if he thought his co-worker cared for him and was sincere in his concern that his eternal life was secure? The question kind of short circuited the way he might have expected the conversation to go.
I then asked the man permission if I could ask him a couple of questions, which he agreed to answer. They were;
. Do you believe there is a God?
. Do you believe that heaven exists?
The guy on the other end of the phone said ‘yes’ to both questions. Then I asked him, ‘So, then how does one get to go to heaven?’
The man remained quiet and did not respond. So, I then added, ‘suppose a person was a good person, would that qualify him or her to go to heaven?’ To this question the man immediately responded, ‘Yes’.
I then threw out the question, ‘how do we determine how good a person really is?’ Again, there was silence from the caller.
I then remarked to him, ‘Remember that old nun, mother Theresa, who gave her life for the poor and sickly. Would you say that she was a ‘good person’?
This question also spurred him on to a quick answer. He said he believed that this old saint was ‘good enough’ to qualify for heaven.
So, I then said, ‘Now stop and compare yourself to this good lady and how to you stand in comparison?’
The man would not answer so I continued my point. I told him that he was thinking that he fell far short in the category of ‘good’. I said that he was not good enough to get to heaven and I added that neither was I. So, our Great and Wonderful Loving God had to step in to help us be able to get there. Therefore, He came to earth and gave His life for the both of us because we are not able to get there on our own.
I concluded with our conversation by stating that he co-worker must really be concerned and care for him. He wants to make sure that you put your trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I ended by asking him what he is going to do with the information I just gave him.
His response, ‘I will join him at church this Sunday.’
The psalm begins with a verdict on man’s general attitude towards God and follows it with a general view of the whole world, seeing it as totally sinful. It then moves on to the fact that either YHWH’s or the psalmist’s people are being devoured in that world by ‘the workers of iniquity’, those who do not call on YHWH or obey His commandments but reveal the sinfulness of their hearts by their lives. This will assuredly result in some judgment on those workers of iniquity which will reduce them to great fear, because YHWH looks after the righteous. He allows them to be subject to chastening but in the end, He will act to deliver them. But these workers of iniquity will have only themselves to blame because they will have deliberately thwarted God’s people, overlooking the fact that YHWH is the refuge of His people. So, from this position of confidence the psalmist then prays that that deliverance will now become actualized.
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.
A general verdict is passed on mankind. People behave like fools because they reject the idea of God as the One to Whom they are accountable. They have many gods, they worship idols who but represent aspects of creation, but in their hearts, they reject the living God who speaks to them through the wonder of creation and through their consciences. They say that there is no such God.
‘The fool’ is an interesting comment. This is rather describing the morally perverse person who rejects the idea of living a godly life. ‘Folly’ in the Old Testament is a term used to describe the person who behaves foolishly in that he forgets or misrepresents God or refuses to do His will, he commits gross offences against morality (2 Samuel 13.12, 13) or sacrilege (Joshua 7.15), or he behaves discourteously and unwisely (1 Samuel 25.25). Inevitably he always sees himself as wise.
It is not his intellect that rejects the idea of God, but his will and emotions (‘In his heart.’). He does not want to have to face up to God because of what it might involve in a transformed life. He likes living as he is.
They are corrupt within and their lives reveal what they really are, sinful, violent, idolatrous, sexually perverted. Romans 1.18-32.
The final verdict on the world is, ‘There is none who does good.’. All mankind are fools in this sense, for sin is folly. The difference is that some have found forgiveness. God Is declaring that there is no true, positive, untainted goodness in the world. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3.23). All are likewise guilty.
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.
God would not judge men without a fair examination, and so He looked down to see if there were any who understood and sought after Him. The vivid human traits of man to something outside his worldly thinking brings out the truth of God’s constant examination and assessment of humans (Genesis 11.5), and His call to accountability. But all had turned aside, even the best; all had become morally tainted (Job 15.16). There was not one man on earth who did good and did not sin (Ecclesiastes 7.20).
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.
God Is astonished at the folly of men. He sees that they are so lacking in wisdom and common sense that they neither call on YHWH nor treat well those who do truly call on Him. They ‘eat up My people as they eat bread’. ‘My people’ must refer here to those who truly call on Him, the faithful in Israel (Micah 2.9; 3.5). Those who fail to do so in the end cease to be ‘His people’. They are combined with the enemy. Devouring or eating up His people refers both to depriving them of their possessions, devouring their wealth, and to oppressing them, giving them a hard time and even doing violence to them (Micah 3.1-3; Isaiah 3.14-15). So, the world is seen as in deliberate antagonism against God, and against true righteousness as personified in His true people.
‘The workers of iniquity’ are thus those who deliberately continue in the way of sin having refused to become one of His people. They are not necessarily great sinners as the world would view it, but they are from God’s viewpoint, because they fail to truly respond to Him.
What is more they overlook the fact that ‘God is in the generation of the righteous’, that He Is among the righteous and concerned about them and looks after them in each generation. Thus, He will judge the persecutors in such a way that they will be in great fear. And all because they have taken advantage of, or have derided, the lowly who have taken refuge in Yahweh, and whose thoughts and honesty and peacemaking attitude make them a prey to their scheming.
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.
The psalmist finishes on a note of longing. O that Israel’s deliverance had come. This confirms that they are here seen as under misfortune.
But even if we translate as being in ‘captivity’, it would not necessarily mean exile. It could equally signify being in subjection in the land. So, we are probably to see them as being under the iron rule of some foreign monarch, subject to tribute and in a period when they were being treated badly. ‘From Zion’ has in mind Mount Zion from which, speaking in an earthly way, God will act. And that is the final certainty, that YHWH will restore His people. And then they will be glad and rejoice.
The message of the Psalm is of God’s calling to the account the folly of the nations, both as regards Himself, and especially as revealed in their attitude towards His people, having very much in mind here His true people. The thought is that His being and nature are so obvious in the light of creation and conscience, and His people so precious, that humanly speaking, from the psalmist’s point of view, God could only question the behavior of the world in its treatment of His people.
