Psalm 14 - A Sinners Portrait
Notes
Transcript
Psalm 14- The Psalms project
Dove did this video trying to get to the core of what real beauty is. They had a forensic sketch artist interview people who he couldn't see to describe themselves to him and he was going to sketch him. People tend to be really hard on themselves and they tended to tell him about all the flaws they saw in themselves. the image the artist drew looked kind of bad, magnifying all of the flaws that they saw in themselves. The portrait of themselves was incomplete, or at least flawed.
But then they had someone, a stranger describe them to the forensic artist, what they actually looked like. This portrait was more true to life and depicted the actual person being interviewed. When relying on our own depiction of ourselves or something else, the image tends to be flawed based on our own upbringing, what we have gone through, what our own experiences are. But we can trust that God’s portrait of what the world is like, who we really are is not flawed and sometimes it is hard to take.
Unlike the dove commercial on real beauty, God’s portrait of the sinner is something that is not pretty, it is not better then what we think of it. Those that are lost in sin try to portray it better than what it really is. In fact God’s portrait of a sinner would kind of be the opposite. We sometimes see the good where as God points out what the sinner and the sin is really like.
Psalm 14 is another wisdom Psalm that paints a portrait of what the sinner, the evil ones really look like. and opposed to that what the righteous look like.
HBI - The sinner are those who foolishly say that God is not for them, they have turned away from God. But God is with those who are righteous and turn to Him.
vs 1 and 7 - the righteous and the sinner.
vs 1 and 7 - the righteous and the sinner.
1 The fool says in his heart, “There’s no God.” They are corrupt; they do vile deeds. There is no one who does good.
We begin the portrait of the sinner in Verse 1. The fool is what we are looking at here. We see the beginning of what the sinner looks like. I find it interesting that the English word fool comes from the Old English meaning a blacksmith’s bellows. So a fool, the English anyways, means someone that is full of Hot air. Warren wiersbe calls the fool here the practical atheist.
It seems this fool is one who is a little more quiet with His defiance. The wind bag believes in His heart that there is no God. Psalm 10 expands on this a little bit.
4 In all his scheming, the wicked person arrogantly thinks, “There’s no accountability, since there’s no God.”
I once met a man, wonderful man and He knew I was a pastor coming to visit. The first thing He said to me when I introduced myself is “I am an athiest”. He did not believe in God and wanted to see my reaction. The fool, here though is someone who seems to have known God, or at least knows of God and Has seen Him work. But the person has said in his innermost being that God does not exist, or that the idea of God has no consequences in His own life.
I want to look into the idea of the heart for a minute. Something that we will likely get into again. According to the Bible, the heart is the center not only of spiritual activity, but of all the operations of human life. “Heart” and “soul” are often used interchangeably, but this is not generally the case. The heart is the central point of our thoughts, the power of our will, place of our emotions and knowledge of morality (right and wrong). All these in the bible are described as coming from the heart.
The heart and soul are sued interchangeably.
5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
Aman is designated wise or foolish according to the heart.
12 I will therefore do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has never been anyone like you before and never will be again.
we are also designated as pure according to the heart.
4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not appealed to what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully.
You get the point, we could do a whole series on the heart alone. The idea being That in our soul, in the center of our being, in all that we are there are people that make a choice to say I will not follow God, as far as I am concerned there is no God.
Take Rhett and Link for example. Very famous youtube personalities They were also Christians, former missionaries, and Campus Crusade (now Cru) staff members. They once claimed to be Christians. But with fame comes pressure. With the mounting pressure to succeed to the demands of culture, and taking a stand on the LBGTQ movement. They did what we now call “deconstructing their faith. They are now Agnostic agnosticism means that you can not know one way or the other if there is a God. They caused the consuion to thousands of youth around the world who watched their show.
There is a bookend, or a companion verse to 14:1 the way this passage is written in the original Hebrew. we go to
7 Oh, that Israel’s deliverance would come from Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
Instead of a warning to the foolish though we get the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the hope for the righteous.
first we start with Zion. In short it used to be a fortress in the city of Jerusalem on the top of a hill. After David took possession of it, he built the royal palace there and Zion, within Jerusalem became the seat of power. The meaning expanded farther to include the temple and refers to Jerusalem, figuratively to the people of Israel and God’s spiritual Kingdom.
Oh that the people’s deliverance would come from the temple, from the seat of power from the people of Jerusalem. Oh that God would come establish His kingdom here on earth. Oh that the Messiah would come and save us and rule us. This is in a sense what this is saying.
Instead of the wind bag saying that there is no God and therefore no consequences of my actions. we have the righteous one that longs for the coming of the messiah and the K of G.
The portrait of the righteous stands in stark contrast to that of the sinner. which leads to the question do you long for the coming of the Lord God, for it is going to happen. Or is it something that you are going to greatly fear.
Psalm 2-3 - The Lord’s Perspective
Besides the portrait of the sinner and the portrait of the righteous we get more of the Lord’s perspective on the sinner. Verse 1 and 7 are a group, they belong together and so do verses 2 and 3
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God.
3 All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one.
God looks down to investigate mankind from His throne on high to see if there are any righteous any wise.
The wise are those that follow God with their hearts, that say there is a God. The wise are seen by their love for God and adherence to His laws. I was thinking about the idea to look down on heaven from. God is on His throne, to look down on sinful man and see that there is none that are wise, who on their own are going to follow God. To look down on meaning He is in charge, but also that He is over and above us and can not be a part of sin and evil. This doesn't say that here but through the greater context of scripture this is what we see.
In response to God looking down on people from Heaven seeking to deliver mankind there is none He sees as wise as the bible calls wisdom anyways.
Overwhelming evil is what we see when we look at the majority of mankind. We do not have to look very far to see the world is lost, has become corrupt. None seem to be searching after God. But then what about those that are righteous like it says at the end? I would say that on our own when God looks down on the world it is evil. We know people on there own cannot be righteous
this is not the first time that God has dictated that mankind is corrupt. The point is that the only way to escape this corruption we need to go back to verse 7. The only hope in escaping the evil of the world around us is to turn to Jesus. When God looks at the world He sees evil, He sees the sin of man but when we ask Jesus to change us and we give our lives to Him then when God looks at the world what He sees is not the evil in us but rather He sees Jesus in us.
vs 4-6 - future perspective
From the Lord’s perspective we move to a future perspective on a portrait of the sinner.
4 Will evildoers never understand? They consume my people as they consume bread; they do not call on the Lord.
5 Then they will be filled with dread, for God is with those who are righteous.
6 You sinners frustrate the plans of the oppressed, but the Lord is his refuge.
Through it all, we need to remember the words of verse 6, the Lord is my refuge. When is it that we need a Refuge? or are there times when you needed to take refuge in something?
I remember once as a teenager we where loading a young bull to get checked at the vet. The bull kicked me in the shin and started to try and attack me, I had worked around cattle my whole life and never saw a switch flip like that before. I took refuge in the only thing I could, there was a tall pole in the ground about 2 feet from our chicken fence in a corner I could squeeze into but He couldn't. The thing went crazy attacking the pole I was hiding behind, but the pole took the damage and then the switch flipped again and He walked away.
The sinners, the evildoers do not care about the Lord looking down from Heaven on them.
WQill they never understand? Will we never understand that those who do not call on the name of the Lord will not find refuge in Him, will not be saved by Him? Will be under the watchful eyes of the Lord? They come against the people of God, and devour them, they did back then and they do now. They sate their appetites for the moment but that will not help them in the end. They expressed no request for mercy, they wanted no help from the Lord.
The consequences, and hear is the future portrait f the sinner, the judgement of God. God’s judgement will come on the wicked for what they have done. The Lord looks down on the earth, metaphorically, and sees all the sins of the world and those that refuse the mercy of the Lord. The wisdom of the world takes the Lord as their refuge.
The Lord will intervene on behalf of the righteous. It may seem unfair at the moment, that He is letting the world run it’s course, but He is not surprised by the wickedness of the people in the world. The Lord is with His own even when it doesn't seem like it, we need to remember that. God is still in control even when it does not seem like it.
So What?
So What?
Everyone likes a portrait, Thomas Blackshear II did a portrait of Jesus embracing and forgiving a fallen soul. It was a famous Christian painting and had a lot of meaning to me do to various reasons, and I decided to have it drawn on me permanently as a reminder. But what we have here is the portrait of what a sinner is like and the hopelessness of their plight. The first thing we need to remember in all of this is,
Is the Lord our Refuge?
Is the Lord our Refuge?
Are we taking refuge in the Lord God? When the storms assail us and the evil comes are way do we run to the Lord? a refuge is something that has become popular as of late, taking refuge from Armageddon, from the end of the world, safe rooms to hide us from people that want to hurt us, witness protection and so on.
But the refuge that we need to take comfort in, that we need to hide in is the salvation offered from the Lord God. When the Lord looks down on the earth will He see us taking refuge under His wings? Where is your refuge in times of trouble? is it in your work, in your toys, maybe in music? Your refuge needs to be in Jesus.
What does your portrait look like?
What does your portrait look like?
We have the portrait of a sinner and the righteous. when you look in the scriptures what do you see? Do you look to the Lord God and say that what He says has no consequences on your life? Have you looked to the world to seek what they see as wisdom but is foolishness. What we learn here is that it makes you a fool.
Or do we look to deliverance from the messiah who will one day come and establish His kingdom. Do we look with joy to the Lord one day coming and setting up His eternal kingdom.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 5: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs III. The Prophetic Perspective (14:4–6)
The wicked may for a time heap abuse on “the plans of the poor.” But even in their persecution, God is “the refuge” of his children.