PSALM 14: An Atheistic World

Intro:

Name, wife, HS pastor, thankful for FBC, part of the preaching team & working thru OT

Its somewhat poetic that I’m here this morning preaching bc it was not too long ago on this campus I was running from God in my HS years

in HS I thought I was the coolest kid, best player on the field, I thought the world revolves around me

i thought I had life all figured out

but This was me… so young, awkward, bad haircut, foolish (somehow still snagged her)

but on this campus I was invited to FBC on campus ministry and heard the gospel and was connected to the church - where I eventually attended a camp and the Lord opened my eyes to the gospel, changed my heart, granted me repentance

now if you come to this campus on wednesdays at lunch you will still find me but this time as the guy with pizza and a bible - preaching to studnts who are just like me

And the main worldview of HS students is atheism - the main questions I’m answering revolve around the Big Bang, Evolution, and existence of God

HS min is sending a team to Czech in a few days which is the most athiestic country in the world!

Whether you’re in our valley or across the world, atheism is prevalent EVERYWHERE

Listen to some of the worlds famous authors, politicias and entertainers...

Mark Twain - You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories and you say that we are the ones who need help?

Jesse Ventura - Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak minded people

Ricky Gervais - A Christian telling an atheist they’re going to hell is as scary a child telling an adult they’re Not getting any presents from Santa

Ernest Hemingway - All thinking men are atheist

Sam Harris - Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary.

How could the worlds “greatest minds” and most loved entertainers come to such conclusions? How can we be sure they are wrong and we are right? How can we convince them otherwise?

But its not just the rich & famous who questions God’s existence - it’s your co-workers, extended family, friends - what led them to that conclusion and how can we convince them otherwise?

Maybe its you… not aloud but in the quite of your heart, in a difficult circumstance or a moment of anxiety you too question the existence of God. You could never confess that because your identity is wrapped up in Christianity & church but you too may think “there is no God”

Having a biblical worldview is the only way we can properly assess the world around us. David, in Psalm 14 gives us a correct appraisal of our fallen world that we need to give our attention.

Need:

REPETITION - God typically doesn’t repeat Himself, if He does it probably deserves our attention but imagine God saying the same things 3 times. That is what we find in Psalm 14 - it has almost an exact replica in Psalm 53 and is quoted in Romans 3 and is explained in Romans 1. So how badly do we need to study the words that God has placed multiple times in the Bible?

HUMILITY - How often we think too highly of ourselves and down on others

EVANGELISM - If you want success in evangelism you need a deep understanding of the world you’re evangelizing

READ T

Prop: Nobody is Good

Thesis: 3 Perspectives

That will make up our 3 points on the outline

Transition: Perspective #1

1. The Fool’s Perspective v.1

DEFINITION: The Fool in the Bible is someone who is MORALLY WICKED not, INTELLECTUALLY LACKING.

The word for fool in hebrew = Nabal

1 Sam 25:25 ““Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him...” - successful but wicked farmer

2 Sam 13 - Amnon forces his own sister to sleep with him and she says “if you do this thing you will be NABAL”

Gen 34:7 - When shecem forced Dinah (jacobs daughter) to sleep with him, her brothers said its was nabalah (disgraceful)

Isa 32:6 “For a fool speaks nonsense, And his heart inclines toward wickedness: To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the Lord...

A fool is not someone w/ a low IQ but someone who is NO GOOD.

So it is not the uneducated, mislead, or confused that determine their is no God it is the immoral man.

LOOK BACK AT VERSE 1 The fool says IN HIS HEART there is no God

Notice that the fool doesn’t think in his head, or say with his mouth but says in his heart there is no God

Before every professing Christian here says “well I don’t need to hear this” can it be that though you say you believe in God with your mouth, you say you don’t in your heart?

PAUSE

Matt 15:8 “‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.”

I believe this to be the state of the American church

65% of Christian Men confessed to watching pornography once a month

20% of Christian women regularly watch pornography

FROM ALL KINDS OF CHURCHES over 1 million people leaving the faith & the God they once said they loved EVERY YEAR

- SO YES it is possible to say you believe in God with your mouth but not with your heart.

If the Lord was to strip away all your deeds, your lifestyle, and cut straight & deep down into your heart would He find it genuinely beating for Him or would He find it cold, dead & denying that He actually exists?

LOOK WITH ME AS VERSE 1 CONTINUES - There is no God

The english translation supplies the words “there is” and The original Hebrew simply says “No God!”

as in “no god for me!”

The unbeliever doesn’t just not believe God exists, they ACTUALLY HOPE He doesn’t exist.

THINK WITH ME - So why does the Bible say that the person who doesn’t believe in God is a fool?

why not just misguided or uniformed?

Aren’t there brilliant atheist in the world?

He is a fool because he knows there is a God but denies it. we find that in Romans 1 where Paul has the most extensive discourse on atheism and really explains Psalm 14. He says Rom 1:21 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks...

You might ask HOW DO THEY KNOW GOD EXISTS?

Paul says Rom 1:19-20 “...that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

The evidence for God is so thorough it is impossible to not know He exist,

James Boice says “According to these verses, the revelation of God in nature is not hidden, so that only a highly skilled scientist can find it. It is open in manifest to everyone. A child can see it. There is enough evidence of God, in a snowflake, a fingerprint, a flower, a drop of water to lead any honest member of the human race to believe in God, and worship him. Every single object in the world shouts God to humanity.”

and our response to this evidence should be thanking and worshipping God.

So if it is so clear that God exists, why do SO MANY people say he doesn’t?

Pauls answer is in verse Rom 1:18 they suppress the truth in unrighteousness,”

EXPLAIN SUPPRESSING - meaning men will deliberately stifle ANY and ALL truth that challenges their sinful lifestyle

You see people don’t become an atheist because of scientific evidence - they become an atheist so that they can indulge in their sin and act like there is no God who will judge them.

SLOW - You can never look at the world (WITHOUT a MORAL BIAS) and say “well of course we came from monkeys, and monkeys came from reptiles, and reptiles came from fish, and fish came from a living organism, and a living organism came from a dead one, and organism came from matter and matter came from NOTHING” NO!! You must foolishly say in your heart there is no God and then based on that FALSE presupposition, you will grasp at straws to prove a worldview that approves of your sin.

Spurgeon “But as denying the existence of fire does not prevent its burning a man who is in it, so doubting the existence of God will not stop the Judge of all the earth from destroying the rebel who breaks his laws. Nay, this atheism is a crime which much provokes Heaven, and will bring down terrible vengeance on the fool who indulges it.”

The fool says there is no God too ignore the judgment of God but ironically in doing so provokes more wrath from God.

PAUSE

And see how atheism in theory always leads to atheism in practice. BACK TO PSALM 14

David comments on the fools perspective of the world saying

They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds;

the language he uses is active meaning they are acting corruptly and doing abominable deeds

because when You say there is no God - you can then live as if there is no God, no one to be accountable to

ILLUS: When the teacher leaves the class OR conditioning in practice

People start yelling

Say inappropriate jokes

Start sharing answers

The classroom goes from order to absolute chaos

The atheist tells themself “God isn’t looking, He’s not even there ” SO I MUST BE I am free to do whatever I want.

App: I know many here say there is a God but does your life reflect that? Or do you live like God is not looking?

Do you live like God sees everything that you look at?

Do you live like God hears everything that you say?

Do you live like God sees you when you’re away from your spouse?

Do you live like God sees you when you’re away from your parents?

God sees your internet searches, your netflix account, what you think about

He hears your conversations, your music, the things you say in your heart

Many professing Christians live atheistic lives. They sin in private as if God isn’t there. Don’t be fooled Luke 8:17 ““For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”

LOOK BACK v. 1There is no one who does good.

This is the state of our godless world, it contains no neutrality, it has no one doing good, this is where the POINT #1 the fools perspective leaves us -

one man said What a picture of our race is this! Save only where grace reigns, there is none that does good. Humanity, fallen and debased--is a desert without an oasis, a night without a star, ..., a Hell without a bottom

TRANSITION: The FOOL’S PERSPECTIVE leads us to understand that NOBODY IS GOOD but more important and more helpful than the fool’s perspective is...

2. The Lord’s Perspective v.2-6

The Lord’s perspective is one from UP HIGH looking down and scavenging the earth for even a glimmer of knowlege, a glimpse of wisdom. Many wrongly assume that because THEY CAN’T SEE GOD, HE CAN’T SEE THEM, not the case, He is actively looking

Hebrews 4:13 “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

ILLUS:

THE FLOOD - Gen 6:12 “God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”

BABEL - Gen 11:5 “The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.”

See God does not judge without first observing the evidence, God looks intently upon US ALL to see if there are any who live as if He is present (understanding) or at the very least ANY WHO SEEK HIM! and what does He find?

They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.

So before we say “well he must see something good! We arent all athiest!” we are not excused, he looked and saw ANY, ANY, ALL, NO ONE, ALL TOGETHER, NO ONE, NOT EVEN ONE.

PC CRAIGIE “The fool is not a rare subspecies within the human race; all human beings are fools apart from the wisdom of God”

ILLUS: BUT JESSE what if there is a man on an island who REALLY wants to know God but he just doesn’t have a bible? Is he too corrupt, can he not do good?

I haven’t seen that man BUT God has and he tells you right here his search came up empty nobody is good.

Well what about an unbeliever who helps an old woman across the street? Is that not good? - LISTEN TO Rom 14:23 “... and whatever is not from faith is sin.”

Trust God’s perspective HE HAS LOOKED - and seen the heart of every man, the motive behind every action and couldn’t find one that was good, one that was pure.

v. 4-5 Do all the workers of wickedness not know, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, But the Lord is his refuge

The wicked who don’t know God naturally regularly (like eating bread) persecute, malign and mock the followers of Christ. REWRITE

David uses this language of eating bread to show the nonshelant & habitual nature of the unbeliever, they will regularly persecute, malign and mock the followers of Christ.

BC If they hate God, they will hate God’s people and of course AT THE END OF VERSE 4 in their prideful rebellion they will not “call upon the Lord” in humble confession.

So God will cause in them a GREAT DREAD

CROSS REF Psalm 53:5 “There they were in great fear where no fear had been;

The image is painted of the high and mighty sinner mocking a believer acting superior and secure in themselves but later goes home and in the quite moments they have to themselves they are STRUCK with fear, terror and anxiety.

Nothing seems to cause this panic except for their own conscience testifying against them

The principle is clear - no matter how much you tell yourself God isn’t watching or that He isn’t even real, the law has been written on your heart and you will have moments where you feel the guilt of breaking it. GOD WILL PROVE YOU WRONG

ILLUS: Dolphins in mexico

Can you think of anything better than swimming with dolphins?

They’re cute, friendly, they're like dogs that live in the ocean

My wife is an animal lover and so on our 1 year anniversary trip to mexico I thought that there could be nothing better than getting us tickets to swim with dolphins

You might think “wow that’d be amazing, unforgettable, closest thing to heaven this side of eternity”

So when we arrived at the encounter I got 3 package options 1 hr (1 activity w/ dolphins) 3 hours (2 activity w/ dolphins) or 5 hours which was a whole day of swimming with dolphins and a FREE LUNCH

OF course i went w/ the 5 hour option as any good tourist would

and if I showed you pcitures from our time you’d see us smiling holding on to dolphin fins, me getting the foot push, brooke getting a kiss on the cheek from Nautilus; you’d see us having the best day of our lives

BUT THOSE PICTURES WOULD TELL A LIE

They couldn’t be further from the truth

The reality was we swam for 5 hours in thick and smelly dolphin… waste

I wasn’t allowed to wear sunscreen so my shoulders got fried so bad they bled and scabbed and I couldn’t sleep on my back for a week

The trainers would speak to everyone else in spanish and people would go “ohh wow” then they look at us and in enlish say “basically I was telling them that these are good dolphins”

to top it all off the FREE LUNCH gave us food poisoning and we were stuck in our room for the rest of the trip

Though it often seems like people who disobey God have the best life, the most fun, the most friends, the most followers, the most wealth… know that behind the perfect life they portray online, there are moments of GREAT UNSPEAKABLE fear, anxiety, stress and dread. Because they have a conscious that that testifies against them and they know they will meet their maker one day and be held accountable for their life of sin. THEY KNOW JUDGEMENT IS COMING

App: Do you have those moments? We know that MANY will approach Christ on the last day - who faked their Christianity - and in reality denied God to indulge in sin. Maybe some like that are here this morning. You cover it up with church attendance, a JMAC Bible but God has told me here that YOU KNOW you are a fraud, He has seen your fear, He has watched you freeze in dread, because you know V.5 God is with the righteous generation, and that V.6 the Lord is the refuge to the needy not those who see no need for Him.

You know ultimately that God will judge sinners. He either punishes His son for you or punishes you in full.

Rev 6:15-17 “Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?””

The knowledge of that coming day must strike fear into the heart of the unregenrate.

Do not continue down that path of unconfessed sin, do not play around with unrepentant sin, confess your sin to Him today- be freed from the weight and guilt that you bear.

App: Do you believe POINT #2 the Lord’s perspective, are you convinced that no one is good?

He says that what he found was that every NON-BELIEVER is a worker of wickedness who eat up his people

He says that the unregenerate person wants to humiliate the lowly

Do you actually believe this? Because what this means is that your unsaved friends and family are not good people, not morally neutral, not okay, not a nice guy - they are ENEMIES of GOD and ENEMIES of GOD’S PEOPLE

James 4:4 “..whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

This should lead you (not to fight God’s enemies) but to do what Jesus said Matt 5:44 ““But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”

Your unsaved neighbor, co-worker, hairdresser, family member, is an enemy of God awaiting judgement - Who will you warn them?

They are fools who live like there is no God and trust me if they as people made in God’s image, living on God’s planet, Acts 17:28 “for in Him we live and move and exist, - they are all of that and yet can sincerely say there is no God - than you cannot convince them otherwise, you can not reason with them, no argument will change their mind

BUT PRAISE GOD FOR THAT - They don’t need you to present good evidence, they need God to AWAKEN THEM to understand the gospel. So don’t fret about how well or how knowledgeable you are in the Bible - just give them the gospel and pray that the Holy Spirit would illumine their minds to understand it.

Trust the Lord’s perspective that NOBODY IS GOOD.

TRANSITION: and when you do, it will lead you to The 3rd persepctive POINT NUMBER 3

3. The Hopeful Perspective v.7

Psalm 14:7 “Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores His captive people, Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.”

With NO ONE DOING GOOD - David prays for deliverance from Zion (the mountain in Jerusalem of the temple) meaning salvation from God

Well the majority of the Psalm has been a universal indictment on humanity with a somber tone but David turns here and you can almost hear this song turning with an upward lift in a major key - Whats going on in verse 7?

David prays for salvation to come from Zion

Zion is the area in Jerusalem where the city of David was built

And Mt Zion was the place where the jews went to worship God

It was the place where solomon eventually built the temple

It is the focal point of Jerusalem - “the city of God” the place where God was meant to dwell

To ask for salvation to come from zion is to ask for salvation from God himself

a hopeful perspective sees that THEY CAN’T SAVE THEMSELVES, and they have no friend who can save them so they must look to the God they have provoked to save them

ILLUS; You know if someone HIT you, they can’t come to me and say “will you forgive me” bc I can’t grant forgiveness on your behalf - and so all men who want salvation CAN only Go to God whom they have offended to ask for forgiveness.

The godly people in the old testament longed for the Messiah to come and save them and they looked forward to the day when God would establish His kingdom upon the Earth and restores (other translation) the fortunes of His people.

They looked forward to the day that God would come and set up His righteous throne in Zion. That he would step foot in Jerusalem. they waited for God to come to Israel to save them.

it is no coincidence that It was in Isreal that Jesus, God in human form, was born and lived obediently to God, who ACTIVELY AND PASSIVELY did good continually.

that it was in Jerusalem that Jesus Christ hung on a cross as a substitution for all who would believe

That on that cross God poured out His righteous wrath that sinners deserved upon His son who didn’t

That it was in an Israeli tomb that Jesus rose from the dead to conquer the power of sin and death

that in Isreal Jesus ascended to heaven and sat down at the right hand of the father

and that in Jerusalem Jesus Christ will return again but not to save those who are lost but to judge those who rejected him, to defeat those who say “There is no God”

App: And David continues “when the Lord restores His captive people (other translations say the fortunes of his people)” the original term is broad enough to mean "when the Lord brings restoration to His people” they will rejoice and be glad, they will celebrate

App: In this dark world filled with sin, trials, tradgedy, sorrow, difficulty - we have every reason to be celebrating because God has restored us to himself.

App: Maybe you come here this morning beaten up - you need no reminder of your sinfulness - well than can I remind you to be glad and rejoice because Psalm 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” We ought to sing a little louder, smile a little wider, because our sin is forgiven and our salvation is secure and our future is eternity with Him!

App: Many here have come to a true saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and I’d just encourage you to not go back to foolish living. You don’t have to live like there is No God - you know God & you know His word - so in every area of life; marriage, parenting, friendships, work, school - you have the answers that the world doesn’t - you have the ability to live in obedience to God which results in joy, blessing and assurance.

App: If you are the fool described in Psalm 14 than I pray this morning would shake you and awake you to act wisely for the first time in your life because there is hope for the fool

God came to save the fool TURN 1 Cor 1:27-30 “but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,”

The gospel is so simple a child could understand it, Turn from your sin and believe that Jesus died for it and rose from the dead and be saved

Or will you reject it, will you foolishly convince yourself otherwise.

For those who have been given a saving faith would you AGAIN praise God. The reason he chose you is not because you were ALREADY so close to believing in Him, not because you were already pretty good, NOT because you were useful to Him but because you were so foolish and helpless that if you were to BE SAVED it MUST glorify God because you would and could NOT ever do it on your own.

Apart from divine grace You are not good, nobody is - praise God that he came to save the foolish nobodies like me and like you.

PRAY

Lord, this is the state of mankind - dead, wicked, depraved awaiting justice to be distributed by you. Keep us humble and remind us that these words are about us and let us rejoice in our salvation. God we understand that this is the world that we have been called out of and called to go to with the gospel - it is clear that if anyone is to turn to you it will be because of your sovereign grace - let that comfort us and embolden us to be faithful in evangelism. God this is the world that our missionaries have gone to, so we lift them up and ask that you’d use them in Albania, Czech and Uganda to reach those walking in foolishness. Bring yourself glory in all of these things.

we pray this all in Jesus name, amen